Kenya clashes spill over to Busia, Malaba
Protests erupted in western Kenya as machete-wielding mobs faced off in the Rift Valley yesterday after scores of people were killed in ethnic violence, complicating mediation by former U.N. boss Kofi Annan. The flare-up in Kenyan violence also spilled over close to the Ugandan border points of Busia and Malaba. In Busia, a mob of youth attacked and dispersed people in a market early Monday morning -sending most of them fleeing to the Uganda side in fear of a possible escalation of violence. In Malaba, protests broke out in the afternoon, with rioters pulling down a bill-board with President Mwai Kibaki’s portrait. Some chanted; “This is not the Presiden, Raila is the President.¨
“Thugs came here attacking people and bringing down posters with pictures of President Kibaki but security forces managed to scatter them,” said Mr Crescendo Ipala, a Kenyan Mbala councillor.
Uganda’s Army Spokesman, Capt. Paddy Ankunda, said the border areas were threatened yesterday but that security forces had deployed adequately. “There were threats on the borders but police managed to deploy and deter the riots from spilling over,” Capt. Ankunda said yesterday.
The Minister of State for Internal Affairs, Mr Matiya Kasaija, told Daily Monitor yesterday that both border points of Malaba and Busia were temporarily closed yesterday. “When the rioters attempted to cross, we blocked them, the borders were temporality closed but normal business resumed later,” Mr Kasaija said yesterday.
In the normally peaceful Rift Valley town of Nakuru, a mortuary worker said on Monday that 64 bodies were lying in the morgue, all victims of the past four days of ethnic fighting.
Gangs from rival communities have been fighting each other with machetes, clubs, and bows and arrows in Nakuru and nearby Naivasha, both famous for their lakes teeming with wildlife. In the worst incident of the latest flare-up, 19 people were burned to death l inside a house in Naivasha on Sunday, police officer Grace Kakai told Reuters. The total death toll is now more than 800.
The violence since Kenya’s December 27 election now has a momentum of its own, with cycles of killing and revenge linked to land and wealth disputes tied to British colonial policy that politicians have revived during most of Kenya’s elections.
“What is alarming about the last few days is that there are evidently hidden hands organising it now. Militias are appearing ... the targeting is very specific,” Britain’s Africa minister Mark Malloch Brown said on a visit to Kenya.
The government has for weeks accused the opposition of planning ethnic killings in the Rift Valley, and last week, watchdog Human Rights Watch made the same accusation after it was said police used excessive force in quelling protests.
In the pro-opposition western town of Kisumu on Monday, police fired teargas and bullets in the air as several thousand people took to the streets to complain about the deaths of members of their Luo community in the Rift Valley.
Residents said angry Luos burned two Kikuyus in their homes in a Kisumu slum, and police shot two people dead.
Kisumu on fire
“Almost the whole of Kisumu is up in smoke,” said Eric Odhiambo, a motorcycle taxi driver. “People are mad at the killings of Luo in Naivasha yesterday.”
The dispute over President Mwai Kibaki’s re-election - which the opposition says was rigged - has plunged Kenya into a spiral of violence, battering its image as an East African trade and tourism hub and one of the continent’s more stable nations.
In Naivasha, a 1,000-strong group of mainly Kikuyus brandishing axes, sticks, machetes and hammers confronted several hundred Luos - some of whom were also armed - asking them to leave the town, a Reuters witness said.
Reuters verified 19 deaths in Naivasha on Sunday.
Dozens of riot police kept the groups apart as they threw rocks at each other outside the Lake Naivasha Country Club.
At one point, police fired in the air as a military helicopter kept watch from above.
Anti-Luo sentiments
“We want these Luos to go back home. They chased and killed our people. Now we want the same thing to happen to them,” said Joseph Maina, a Kikuyu protester holding a plank of wood.
Internal Security Minister George Saitoti arrived later and was booed loudly when he urged people to drop their weapons: “We shall not tolerate any kind of disorder in the country ... we will treat Kenyans as Kenyans, not as tribes.”
Police said 254 arrests were made overnight. Post-election violence has taken two distinct forms. One involves police action against protesters over the tally of the vote, which observers said was flawed.
The second is the revival by politicians of ethnic rivalries over land, business and power dating from before independence, a tactic that has caused bloodshed at most of Kenya’s elections since multi-party democracy returned in 1992.
Attacks in the immediate aftermath of Kibaki’s win were mainly against his Kikuyu tribe - the largest and richest in Kenya - but members of that group, including the outlawed Mungiki gang, have begun fighting back.
Negotiators led by Mr Annan have told the rival camps of Mr Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to select four representatives each and study a blueprint for further talks in the next 24 hours, an official involved in the mediation said.
Daily Monitor
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