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Tribal War Averted
Rivals make concessions in Kenya
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 6 minutes ago
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama phoned Kenya's opposition leader as diplomatic attempts to end Kenya's political crisis intensified Tuesday.
The death toll from a week of violence after President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election has reached nearly 500, according to the government, though the opposition claimed the death toll could be up to 1,000. On Monday, Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga made key concessions under U.S. pressure.
Obama — a Democratic Party candidate who is of Kenyan descent — called Odinga late Monday or early Tuesday, said Odinga's spokesman, Salim Lone.
"He called to express grave concern over the election outcome," Lone told The Associated Press. "He also said he was going to call Mr. Kibaki."
The top American envoy to Africa said Monday that the vote count at the heart of the dispute was tampered with but that both sides could have been involved. The Dec. 27 election returned Kibaki to power for another five-year term. Odinga came in a close second.
"Yes, there was rigging," the U.S. envoy, Jendayi Frazer, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday in Nairobi, where she had met with Kibaki and Odinga over the past three days.
"I mean there were problems with the vote counting process." She added: "Both the parties could have rigged." She said she did not want to blame either Kibaki or Odinga.
Kenya's electoral commission chairman Samuel Kivuiti has himself said he is not sure Kibaki won, though the chairman officially declared Kibaki the winner in the closest presidential election in Kenya's history.
Both sides softened their tones amid the U.S. intervention. Kenya is crucial to the war on terrorism, having turned over dozens of people to the U.S. and Ethiopia as suspected terrorists. It also allows American forces to operate from Kenyan bases and conducts joint exercises with U.S. troops in the region.
The U.S. also is a major donor to Kenya, long seen as a stable democracy in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan. Aid amounts to roughly $1 billion a year, said embassy spokesman T.J. Dowling.
Frazer said the violence "hasn't shaken our confidence in Kenya as a regional hub."
Three former African heads of state also arrived in Nairobi. Mozambique's Joachim Chissano said they would tour troubled slum areas Tuesday but would not say whether he, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania intended to try to mediate.
"It's like seeing a neighbor's house on fire," Chissano said. "We are shocked by the events."
The violence has marked some of the darkest times since Kenya's independence from Britain in 1963, with much of the fighting degenerating into riots pitting other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu, long dominant in politics and the economy.
An official in neighboring Uganda said 30 fleeing Kenyans were thrown into the border river by Kenyan attackers, and were presumed drowned. Two Ugandan truck drivers carrying the group said they were stopped Saturday at a roadblock mounted by vigilantes who identified the refugees as Kikuyus and threw them into the deep, swift-flowing Kipkaren River, said Himbaza Hashaka, a Ugandan border official. The drivers said none survived, Hashaka said.
A statement Monday from the Ministry of Special Programs put the death toll at 486 with some 255,000 people displaced from their homes. The toll, which did not include the drownings at the border, was compiled by a special committee of humanitarian services set up by the government which extensively toured areas most affected by riots.
But Odinga's party said nearly 1,000 people had died, saying its figure came from supporters who had called in from all over the country.
On Monday, Kibaki invited Odinga to his official residence for a meeting Friday to discuss how to end the political and ethnic turmoil, according to a statement from the president's press service. Just hours earlier, Odinga called off nationwide rallies amid fears they would spark new bloodshed.
Lone, Odinga's spokesman, said Odinga will meet with Kibaki, as long as the meeting is part of the mediation process with African Union chairman John Kufuor, the Ghanaian president. Kufuor's trip to Kenya had been delayed repeatedly as the government rejected outside mediation in the disputed vote, but was to begin talks in the capital as early as Wednesday.
Frazer had won an offer from Kibaki to form a unity government over the weekend. Odinga then said he was willing to drop demands that Kibaki resign and was willing to discuss sharing power, but only through a mediator empowered to negotiate an agreement that the international community would guarantee.
It would be nearly impossible for Kibaki to govern without opposition support. In parliamentary elections held the same day as the presidential vote, Odinga's party won 95 of 210 legislative seats, and half of Kibaki's Cabinet lost their seats. It was a sign of people's anger over pervasive corruption and nepotism that favored Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.
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By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 6 minutes ago
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama phoned Kenya's opposition leader as diplomatic attempts to end Kenya's political crisis intensified Tuesday.
The death toll from a week of violence after President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election has reached nearly 500, according to the government, though the opposition claimed the death toll could be up to 1,000. On Monday, Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga made key concessions under U.S. pressure.
Obama — a Democratic Party candidate who is of Kenyan descent — called Odinga late Monday or early Tuesday, said Odinga's spokesman, Salim Lone.
"He called to express grave concern over the election outcome," Lone told The Associated Press. "He also said he was going to call Mr. Kibaki."
The top American envoy to Africa said Monday that the vote count at the heart of the dispute was tampered with but that both sides could have been involved. The Dec. 27 election returned Kibaki to power for another five-year term. Odinga came in a close second.
"Yes, there was rigging," the U.S. envoy, Jendayi Frazer, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday in Nairobi, where she had met with Kibaki and Odinga over the past three days.
"I mean there were problems with the vote counting process." She added: "Both the parties could have rigged." She said she did not want to blame either Kibaki or Odinga.
Kenya's electoral commission chairman Samuel Kivuiti has himself said he is not sure Kibaki won, though the chairman officially declared Kibaki the winner in the closest presidential election in Kenya's history.
Both sides softened their tones amid the U.S. intervention. Kenya is crucial to the war on terrorism, having turned over dozens of people to the U.S. and Ethiopia as suspected terrorists. It also allows American forces to operate from Kenyan bases and conducts joint exercises with U.S. troops in the region.
The U.S. also is a major donor to Kenya, long seen as a stable democracy in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan. Aid amounts to roughly $1 billion a year, said embassy spokesman T.J. Dowling.
Frazer said the violence "hasn't shaken our confidence in Kenya as a regional hub."
Three former African heads of state also arrived in Nairobi. Mozambique's Joachim Chissano said they would tour troubled slum areas Tuesday but would not say whether he, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania intended to try to mediate.
"It's like seeing a neighbor's house on fire," Chissano said. "We are shocked by the events."
The violence has marked some of the darkest times since Kenya's independence from Britain in 1963, with much of the fighting degenerating into riots pitting other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu, long dominant in politics and the economy.
An official in neighboring Uganda said 30 fleeing Kenyans were thrown into the border river by Kenyan attackers, and were presumed drowned. Two Ugandan truck drivers carrying the group said they were stopped Saturday at a roadblock mounted by vigilantes who identified the refugees as Kikuyus and threw them into the deep, swift-flowing Kipkaren River, said Himbaza Hashaka, a Ugandan border official. The drivers said none survived, Hashaka said.
A statement Monday from the Ministry of Special Programs put the death toll at 486 with some 255,000 people displaced from their homes. The toll, which did not include the drownings at the border, was compiled by a special committee of humanitarian services set up by the government which extensively toured areas most affected by riots.
But Odinga's party said nearly 1,000 people had died, saying its figure came from supporters who had called in from all over the country.
On Monday, Kibaki invited Odinga to his official residence for a meeting Friday to discuss how to end the political and ethnic turmoil, according to a statement from the president's press service. Just hours earlier, Odinga called off nationwide rallies amid fears they would spark new bloodshed.
Lone, Odinga's spokesman, said Odinga will meet with Kibaki, as long as the meeting is part of the mediation process with African Union chairman John Kufuor, the Ghanaian president. Kufuor's trip to Kenya had been delayed repeatedly as the government rejected outside mediation in the disputed vote, but was to begin talks in the capital as early as Wednesday.
Frazer had won an offer from Kibaki to form a unity government over the weekend. Odinga then said he was willing to drop demands that Kibaki resign and was willing to discuss sharing power, but only through a mediator empowered to negotiate an agreement that the international community would guarantee.
It would be nearly impossible for Kibaki to govern without opposition support. In parliamentary elections held the same day as the presidential vote, Odinga's party won 95 of 210 legislative seats, and half of Kibaki's Cabinet lost their seats. It was a sign of people's anger over pervasive corruption and nepotism that favored Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.
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