Kenyan President holds talks with opposition

 

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have met for the first time since the December's disputed election.

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, centre, 
shakes hands with opposition leader Raila
Odinga as former U.N. secretary-general 
Kofi Annan, left, applauds outside the 
presidential office in Nairobi, Kenya, 
Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008. 
(AP Photo/Riccardo Gangale)

On Thursday, they were in the capital Nairobi along with former UN chief Kofi Annan.

This is the meeting observers believe is the first round, in efforts aimed at achieving political reconciliation in Kenya.

After their one-hour closed-door talks, Kibaki and Odinga met the public.

Both sides promise to seek an end to weeks of unrest through dialogue.

Raila Odinga, Leader of Orange Democratic Movement, said, "Today we have taken the first vital steps in resolving the electoral dispute and conflict that has ravaged this country for nearly a month now."

Kibaki has promised to personally lead Kenya to unity and peace.

Mwai Kibaki, Kenyan President, said, "As government we are determined to get to the underlying causes of these unprecedented events and to lead the nation in a process of healing reconciliation and lasting harmony."

The former UN chief Kofi Annan describes the meeting as encouraging.

Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General, said, "I think we begun to take fair steps towards a peaceful solution of the problem and as you can see the two leaders are here to underline their engagement to dialogue and to work together."

Kenya's Electoral Commission announced Kibaki won the country's presidential elections at the end of last month.

But the opposition party refused to accept the result, accusing the election as a fraud.

Widespread riots erupted afterwards in the East African country.

So far, about six hundred people have died and another two hundred thousand have been left homeless.

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Mediation Efforts

 

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, left, meets opposition leader Raila Odinga at his Harambee House office, in Nairobi, Kenya, 24 Jan 2008

Kenya’s main opposition party is criticizing President Mwai Kibaki for trying to undermine mediation efforts aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis. The Orange Democratic Movement, led by Raila Odinga, says it rejects Mr. Kibaki’s statement that he is the duly elected president of Kenya. He made the statement after what appeared to be a breakthrough meeting with Mr. Odinga and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Nairobi. Kenya has been mired in turmoil and violence since the election of December 27, in which the incumbent president was declared the winner. Mr. Odinga and his supporters accuse the government of rigging the polls to ensure a Kibaki victory. International observers also say the election was serious flawed.

Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan orchestrated the meeting between Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga

Earlier attempts at outside mediation failed, and many analysts are skeptical that Mr. Annan will ultimately be successful, according to Richard Cockett, Africa editor for The Economist magazine. Speaking with host Judith Latham of VOA News Now’s International Press Club, Mr. Cockett notes that previous attempts at mediation by several high-level dignitaries, including the head of the African Union and a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, proved disappointing.

But Kenyan journalist Tom Mshindi, managing editor of The Monitor, says that the outcome of Kofi Annan’s visit is extremely difficult to predict, and he points out that Mr. Annan is held in “very high regard” by both the Kenyan government and the opposition. Nonetheless, VOA Nairobi correspondent Alisha Ryu says she is skeptical about the chances for success. She observes that people on all sides are worried because having so much turmoil in Kenya is “very destabilizing” for the entire region. For example, Kenya is a major transit country for goods coming from the port of Mombassa into Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo.

Nearly 700 people died in turmoil and violence following Kenya's deeply flawed presidential election

Nearly 700 people in Kenya are now dead, 250,000 are displaced, and the economy is now imperiled in what had been East Africa’s fastest growing economy. There are reports of machete-wielding mobs hacking people to death and burning women and children alive. Much of the bloodshed, Alisha Ryu notes, has been between the Kikuyu and Luo tribes. Mr. Kibaki is Kikuyu, while Mr. Odinga is Luo. She says a lot of the ethnic problems going on in western Kenya today are the result of the land redistribution that Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, made after independence from Britain 45 years ago.

Tom Mshindi of The Monitor says that the United States and Britain find themselves in a particularly delicate situation. Both countries have much at stake in Kenya and have actively encouraged both sides to the negotiating table. He says the opposition would like to see the U.S. government “demand” that the Kenyan government either have a rerun or another tally of the vote, or agree to share power.

But Washington needs to have a good relationship with Kenya because of its strategic position in the region, and as Alisha Ryu notes, Mr. Kibaki’s government has been a “prominent partner” in the war against terror in the region, especially in neighboring Somalia. U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger says that, despite the rocky start of the Kibaki-Odinga talks, he remains “hopeful” that Kofi Annan can bring the two sides together. However, a new flare up of violence has killed more people as ethnic clashes broke out in central Kenya, just hours after Mr. Annan held the first direct talks between the two principals.

VOA News - President Kibaki Trying to Undermine Mediation Efforts, Says Kenya's Opposition Party

Kenyan Tribal Gangs Clash

NAIROBI, Kenya — The political bickering continued in Kenya on Friday, and so did the violence, with young men in gangs from opposing ethnic groups killing one another in the streets with machetes and bows and arrows.

 

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Walter Astrada/AFP--Getty Images

Ethnic clashes in the central Kenyan town of Nakuru.

 

Kenya’s Political Rivals Meet (January 25, 2008)

Nakuru, one of the biggest towns in the troubled Rift Valley, seems to be the new trouble zone. Witnesses said fighting erupted there late Thursday when mobs of Kikuyus, the ethnic group of Kenya’s president, mobilized to avenge attacks suffered at the hands of other ethnic groups.

Witnesses said Kikuyu gangs built roadblocks to stop police officers from entering certain neighborhoods and then burned homes and businesses belonging to two other groups, Luos and Kalenjins. Those groups sent out their young men to confront the attackers, resulting in a citywide riot with hundreds of homes burned, dozens of shops destroyed and at least 10 people killed. Some witnesses said dozens of bloody corpses filled the town’s morgues.

The situation had gotten so out of hand by Friday evening that the authorities had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

“It’s totally unsafe here,” said Peter Geche, a taxi driver in Nakuru, on Friday afternoon. “So many people have been killed by arrows.”

More than 650 people have been killed in Kenya since a disputed presidential election in December, and the latest clashes show how the violence has taken on a momentum of its own, which the authorities appear unable to stop.

Police officials have sent reinforcements to Nakuru, which is about 100 miles northwest of Nairobi, the capital. Officers have dismantled some of the roadblocks and fired tear gas to disperse the mobs, but witnesses said any calm that might have been achieved would be short-lived.

In Nairobi, politicians continued to hurl accusations about who was at fault for spoiling what could have been a breakthrough moment the day before.

Mwai Kibaki, Kenya’s president, who won re-election by a thin margin, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, who says the election was rigged and that he in fact won, met Thursday for the first time since the vote. The two have been under enormous pressure to negotiate. Many Kenyans were hoping that they would strike a compromise and end the turmoil, which has battered the economy and threatened to reverse decades of stability.

But immediately after the meeting, Mr. Kibaki gave a short speech in which he referred to himself as Kenya’s “duly elected president,” and opposition leaders then held a news conference denouncing what he said.

On Friday, government officials accused the opposition of trying to torpedo the peace effort.

“It’s very sad,” said Alfred Mutua, a government spokesman. “We were giving them the benefit of the doubt. And for them to issue a condemning statement after the two leaders had just talked about reconciliation, that’s hypocritical.”

Salim Lone, a spokesman for the opposition, fired back that “the whole world knows who ruined the event yesterday.”

“The president’s words certainly eliminated what we thought would be a feel-good atmosphere,” Mr. Lone said.

The two sides spent Friday holding separate meetings and preparing for more negotiations, which are being brokered by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general. No doubt, there is a lot of thorny ground to cover.

Mr. Odinga is insisting on a new election and to be an equal partner in a transitional government. Mr. Kibaki has scoffed at those demands and moved ahead with appointing the most powerful ministers in his government. Western diplomats have said there was such widespread cheating on both sides that it is impossible to tell who really won the vote in December.

The next step in the talks will be for the two sides to agree on a framework for substantial discussions. But even that will be difficult. The government is saying that it will not entertain the creation of a special post for Mr. Odinga, or the idea of a new election, unless ordered by a court. The opposition says the flawed election must be addressed if there are to be any negotiations at all.

Kenyan Gangs Clash in New Trouble Spot - New York Times By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN Published: January 26, 2008

New Kenya clashes amidst negotiations

President Mwai Kibaki (centre) shook hands with opposition leader Raila Odinga after a meeting organised by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan (left). Photograph: Karel Pinsloo/AP

At least seven people have been killed in clashes in Nakuru, a town in Kenya's volatile Rift Valley, witnesses said today. The killings come despite a meeting between government and opposition leaders.

In the latest violence prompted by last month's disputed presidential election, ethnic Kikuyu supporters of the president, Mwai Kibaki, fought with ethnic Luo and Kalenjin groups, who back the opposition leader, Raila Odinga.

"We can no longer stand back and watch as our brothers are killed in Eldoret while the Luos and Kalenjins have fun in Nakuru," bus conductor Dennis Kariuki told Reuters, referring to past killings of Kikuyus around Eldoret town, also in the Rift Valley.

"We have vowed that for every Kikuyu killed in Eldoret, we shall kill two Kalenjins who are living in Nakuru town."

At least 700 people have died and 250,000 displaced in the violence following the contentious re-election of Kibaki amid opposition charges that the vote was rigged.

According to independent observers, extensive tampering in the ballot made it impossible to determine who won the vote.

The government and opposition have blamed each other for the ensuing violence but Human Rights Watch, based in New York, has accused opposition party officials and local elders of organising violence in the Rift Valley.

The rights group warned that the attacks, which have been targeting mostly Kikuyu and Kisii people in and around Eldoret, would continue until the government and opposition act to stop the violence.

"Opposition leaders are right to challenge Kenya's rigged presidential poll, but they can't use it as an excuse for targeting ethnic groups," said Georgette Gagnon, acting Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"We have evidence that [the opposition Orange Democratic Movement] politicians and local leaders actively fomented some post-election violence, and the authorities should investigate and make sure it stops now."

Odinga, meanwhile, has ruled out taking the new post of prime minister in Kibaki's government as a solution to the crisis.

"I never said I was considering taking up a position of prime minister under Kibaki," Odinga told Reuters.

Odinga said the only three acceptable options would be Kibaki's resignation, a re-run of the vote, or power sharing leading to constitutional reform then a new election.

The 63-year-old leader of the ODM met Kibaki for the first time in the crisis - thanks to the mediation of the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, yesterday.

But Odinga said he was offended by Kibaki's comments afterwards that he was Kenya's "duly-elected" president.

"Those remarks were unfortunate, calling himself duly-elected and sworn-in president. That is the bone of contention. We want negotiations with integrity," he said.

Asked if he would, however, meet Kibaki again, Odinga replied: "Yes, sure. But I would ask him to desist from making those kind of embarrassing remarks, which will definitely undermine the process of mediation."

Seven killed in new Kenya clashes | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited