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Kenyan ethnic clashes kill 69 { January 28 2008 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hu1q9MI4JTHR_27gg8FtQ6zvvFSwD8UEAFCG0http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hu1q9MI4JTHR_27gg8FtQ6zvvFSwD8UEAFCG0
Latest Kenya Ethnic Clashes Kill 69
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY
January 28, 2008
NAIVASHA, Kenya (AP) — Gangs armed with machetes and bows and arrows burned and hacked to death members of a rival tribe in western Kenya Sunday, as the number of dead from the latest explosion of violence over disputed presidential elections rose to 69.
Houses were blazing in the tourist gateway town of Naivasha, torched by members of President Mwai Kibaki's tribe exacting revenge on their Luo rivals. Police, apparently overwhelmed, did not intervene.
Some 55 bodies were counted Sunday at the morgue in Nakuru, the provincial capital where ethnic clashes erupted Thursday night and continued until Saturday. Bodies continued arriving Sunday, said a morgue attendant who spoke on condition of anonmyity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The latest deaths raise the toll to nearly 800 killed in ethnic violence and clashes with police since Kibaki was declared winner of Dec. 27 balloting that international and local observers say had a rigged tally. Some 255,000 people have been forced from their homes.
In Naivasha, 55 miles northwest of Nairobi, at least nine people were killed, according to the count of an Associated Press reporter. Looters used iron bars to smash the windows of shops belonging to non-Kikuyus, and made off with television sets, groceries and clothing.
"We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and sisters who have been killed, and nothing will stop us," said Anthony Mwangi, hefting a club threateningly. "For every one Kikuyu killed, we shall avenge their killing with three."
One woman came screaming down the road from a blazing house. "They set it on fire, they are killing my brother and sister," said Alice Okoth.
Soldiers and police reinforcements arrived late Sunday afternoon, firing tear gas and live bullets. Downtown Naivasha quickly became deserted, but on the outskirts, gangs of youths armed with machetes and clubs fought running battles with police.
Elsewhere in the same region, a local newspaper reporter saw five bodies Sunday in two slums on the outskirts of Nakuru.
Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claims he won the election, remain far apart on how to resolve the crisis, the worst the country has suffered since its 1963 independence from Britain.
Kibaki has said he is open to direct talks with Odinga, but that his position as president is not negotiable. Odinga says Kibaki must step down and new elections are the only way to bring peace.
On Sunday, Odinga was meeting with former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the latest international mediator attempting to bring the two sides together.
Opposition spokesman Salim Lone said they were asked to name three negotiators for the talks, which he said he would hopefully start "within a week."
Annan toured trouble spots Saturday in the western Rift Valley, which includes Naivasha, and alluded to underlying causes of the conflict, including decades-old resentment of Kikuyus' domination of politics and the economy, and old grudges over land between different ethnic groups.
"We cannot accept the pattern every five years these sorts of incidents take place and no one is held to account," Annan said. "Let's not kid ourselves this is an electoral problem. This is much broader."
While ethnic clashes have accompanied past Kenyan elections, the scale of the violence this year has been far worse. It has mainly pitted other ethnic groups, which support the opposition because they feel marginalized, against Kibaki's Kikuyu people.
Kikuyus were the main victims in the initial eruption of violence, with hundreds killed and more than half of those driven from their homes belonging to Kibaki's tribe. Now it appears they are on the war path.
The crisis has destroyed the East African nation's image as a peaceful haven in a region rife with conflict.
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Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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