Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Minister summons UK envoy
Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetang’ula has summoned British high commissioner Adam Wood over his country’s stand on the disputed presidential election results. The minister held a two-hour closed-door meeting with Mr Wood in his office following a statement in the House of Commons attributed to a deputy minister for State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Ms Meg Munn, saying the British Government did not recognise President Kibaki as the winner of the December 27 presidential race.
Give Annan a chance
Mr Kofi Annan is expected in Nairobi today to take up the role of chief mediator in the dangerous standoff that followed the disputed presidential election results. One of the early priorities of the former UN secretary-general might be to arrange a direct meeting between the main protagonists, President Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Rival groups’ terms for talks
The Government and ODM have given hints on what they would put on the table when talks aimed at ending the current political stalemate start in Nairobi. The Government will first ask ODM to name its negotiating team to promote national reconciliation and also push to have any disputes arbitrated in court, according to a statement from the Vice President’s Press Service. ODM leaders, on the other hand, said they would seek President Kibaki’s resignation and a rerun of the presidential vote.
14 more killed in latest round of post-poll attacks
Fourteen people were killed in various parts of the country in fighting linked to the disputed presidential election result. The killings occurred in Nairobi, Kipkelion, Molo and Trans Nzoia. Five people were shot dead when armed raiders struck at a village in Trans Nzoia East District yesterday. The raiders, believed to members of the Sabaot Land Defence Forces, struck at Salama Village in Endebess Division, killed the five and set ablaze 10 houses. Local people told the Nation that the attackers were dressed in police jungle and Ugandan military uniform.
MoreRefugee link to wildlife decline
Conservation groups say they have found an unusual threat to East Africa’s wildlife - hunting by hungry refugees. A report from the wildlife trade monitoring body Traffic says wild meat is covertly traded, cooked and consumed in Tanzanian refugee camps. Traffic suspects species affected may include chimpanzee, buffalo and zebra.
Kenya crisis to hurt insurers
The persistence of post-election violence in Kenya will cause losses to the insurance industry in Uganda, experts have warned. “Although we have not yet seen direct losses coming through, we believe if the situation does not change in the long run, the industry will be affected,” Deepak Pandey, the general manager of Jubilee Insurance Company, explained.
Kenyan violence blocks Uganda cargo trains
Trains from Mombasa in Kenya are not coming to Uganda because a kilometre-long section of the rails was uprooted in Kibera, a Nairobi suburb, on Friday during the post-election demonstrations. Two wagons were also looted. The spokesperson of the Rift Valley Railways, the company managing the route, Elizabeth Zalwango, said some of their Kampala staff had gone to their head office in Nairobi for meetings about the matter. “It is expected that the line will be fixed by Tuesday (today). Trains can’t do the journey when the line is still down,” Zalwango said yesterday.
Kenyan Police divided over crackdown
The police commander poured gasoline down the walls of three slum shacks and set them alight. At each home, his officers waited until his back was turned, then doused the flames. The small rebellion is symptomatic of rifts within Kenya’s police force over harsh tactics ordered to suppress opposition protests, some officers say - a new fracture in ethnic and political conflicts tearing at the country since a disputed presidential election Several police officers sought out The Associated Press to express concern over the tough measures they have been ordered to use against opposition supporters protesting what they say was President Mwai Kibaki’s theft of the Dec. 27 ballot.
Annan prepares to mediate in Kenya
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan was due to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday to try to mediate in a post-poll crisis that has torn the country in two and triggered weeks of violence that has killed at least 650 people. A hotly disputed election returned President Mwai Kibaki to power last month amid cries from opposition leader Raila Odinga that he rigged it. Electoral observers complained of “serious irregularities” in the tallying process.
MoreKibaki, an Imposition of the West, Says Rawlings
Former Ghanaian President, Jerry Rawlings, has said that the violence that erupted in Kenya over alleged rigging of the election by the incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, is a protest against neo-colonialism and the imposition of leadership by the West. According to him, Kenyans do not want to go through the same kind of experience again hence their insistence on change.
Former Ghanaian President, Jerry Rawlings, has said that the violence that erupted in Kenya over alleged rigging of the election by the incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, is a protest against neo-colonialism and the imposition of leadership by the West. According to him, Kenyans do not want to go through the same kind of experience again hence their insistence on change.Speaking to journalists yesterday at the Murtala Mohammed Airport Lagos, Rawlings said: “Kenyans are demonstrating that enough is enough in neo-colonialism. If we have done away with coup d’etat, then let us preserve the integrity of the electoral process. And if we cannot count on the integrity of the electoral process, where do we go? This is happening in many countries in Africa, including my own country.”
The former Ghanaian president said that the electoral process in many African countries is so weak, which in turn weakens the relationship between the African governments elected in such doubtful electoral process.