UPDATED: Kenya's Election Saga continues...

[Mariam]

Kenya's president declared winner
Riots in pro-opposition slums after vote marred by allegations of rigging, deadly violence

Dec 30, 2007 10:43 AM
TOM MALITI Associated Press

NAIROBI – President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner Sunday of the closest presidential election in Kenya's history, a contest marked by allegations of rigging and two days of deadly violence.

Elections chief Samuel Kivuitu read the results on live television after other media were expelled from the main vote headquarters. Kibaki beat Raila Odinga by 231,728 votes.

"This means Honorable Mwai Kibaki is the winner," Kivuitu said.

Black smoke billowed from Nairobi's sprawling Kibera slum, where thousands of people have been on the streets for the past two days shouting "Kibaki must go!" and claiming the vote was rigged. Violence around the country has killed at least 15 people since Saturday, authorities said.

"These are our guns," said 24-year-old Cliff Owino, holding up a handful of rocks in Mathare, a Nairobi slum where young men were setting up roadblocks and building bonfires. "But a voting card is our atomic weapon."

Others were shouting "Kibaki must go!" and waving machetes in the air as buses and shops burned.

Odinga had called on Kibaki to concede and asked for a recount, saying the electoral commission "cannot possibly address the multiple levels of fraud administered by this administration."

But Kibaki's camp urged patience for the official results, and accused Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement of being behind the violence. "ODM is responsible for all the incitement that is taking place right now," said Danson Mungatana, an official with Kibaki's Party of National Unity.

The disputed campaign comes in one of the most developed countries in Africa, with a booming tourism industry and one of the continent's highest growth rates. Many observers saw the campaign as perhaps the greatest test yet of this young, multiparty democracy and raised grave concerns as the process descended into violence.

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, chief European Union election monitor, said the Electoral Commission of Kenya "has not succeeded in establishing the credibility of the tallying process to the satisfaction of all parties and candidates."

Kivuitu, the electoral commission chairman, acknowledged problems, including a constituency where voter turnout added up to 115 per cent and another where a candidate ran away with ballot papers.

Supporters of 76-year-old Kibaki say he has turned Kenya's moribund economy into an East African powerhouse, with an average growth rate of 5 per cent.

He won by a landslide in 2002, ending 24 years in power by the notoriously corrupt Daniel arap Moi, who was constitutionally barred from extending his term.

But Kibaki's anti-graft campaign has largely been seen as a failure, and the country still struggles with tribalism and poverty. After the opposition took most of the parliamentary seats, he may find it difficult to rule even if he wins.

Odinga, a fiery 62-year-old former political prisoner, promised change and help for the poor. His main constituency is Kibera, home to at least 700,000 people who live in extreme poverty and the scene of many of Saturday's riots.

In recent months he has made it a priority to reach out to the country's middle class and businessmen, many of whom belong to Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyu. Odinga belongs to the Luo tribe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Katharine Houreld, Malkhadir M. Muhumed and Tom Odula contributed to this report.

[Tutinga]

NOTICE:

Previous material posted by email address thief.

post edited by original email address owner, whose account was used to post in this forum.


To the thief :

Tough luck tosser ... don't bother trying again.

Password is changed on both accounts.

[subi]

I still hope for that day when we will 'overcome love of power with power of love '
Siasa si hasa bali visa na mikasa!
Love,
Subi

 

_________________
"Siasa si hasa, bali visa na mikasa"

[Jonny]

Evidence of rigging slowly trickles in ....

[Jonny]

and now even the EC chairman admits thats he was forced to declare kibaki the winner....

[tyk]

Another Rwanda unfolding! Kenyans at last paying a heavy price for choosing tribalism!

[Mariam]

Pressure mounts with 275 killed in Kenya
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/kenya_elections

By KATHARINE HOURELD, Associated Press Writer

International pressure mounted Wednesday on Kenya's leaders to bring an end to postelection violence that has shaken the country and killed more than 275 people, including dozens burned alive as they sought refuge in a church.

The killing of up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus Tuesday as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret fueled fears that ethnic conflicts were deepening in what has been one of Africa's most stable democracies.

The U.N. cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced in five days of violence. Around 5,400 people also have fled to neighboring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people also have fled to Tanzania, officials there said.

Much of Nairobi was quiet and deserted Wednesday, though clashes continued in the city's giant Mathare slum.

Livingstone Wesonga said his wife lost their fifth child on Tuesday night after complications during the delivery. Vigilante groups roaming the streets kept the family penned in their home and no ambulance or doctor was willing or able to come.

Asked why he had not fled with his family, Wesonga said: "Where can I take them? Every place is not safe because this thing is spreading."

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua downplayed the violence, saying it had only affected about 3 percent of the country's 34 million people. "Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," he said.

Mutua said the security forces had arrested 500 people since skirmishes began.

President Mwai Kibaki was inaugurated for a second term Sunday, but his rival Raila Odinga says the poll was rigged.

The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly — and perhaps wrongly. The country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, on Wednesday quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."

In a joint statement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband also said there were "independent reports of serious irregularities in the counting process."

The pair welcomed news the African Union would send its chief, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, to mediate the conflict. The AU's spokeswoman Habiba Mejri-Cheikh said Kufuor was expected in Kenya Wednesday, but Kufuor's press office said the leader had canceled the visit. They gave no explanation.

Rice and Miliband called "on all political leaders to engage in a spirit of compromise that puts the democratic interests of Kenya first."

"The immediate priority is to combine a sustained call from Kenya's political leaders for the cessation of violence by their followers with an intensive political and legal process that can build a united and peaceful future for Kenya," the statement said.

On Tuesday, Kibaki called for a meeting with his political opponents — a significant softening of tone for a man who vowed to crack down on rioters.

But opposition candidate Raila Odinga refused, saying he would meet Kibaki only "if he announces that he was not elected." Odinga accused the government of stoking the chaos, telling The Associated Press in an interview that Kibaki's administration "is guilty, directly, of genocide."

In Nairobi's slums, which are often divided along tribal lines, rival groups have been fighting each other with machetes and sticks as police use tear gas and bullets to keep them from pouring into the city center. The capital has been a ghost town for days, with residents stocking up on food and water and staying in their homes.

In Mathare, mothers clutching wide-eyed infants and suitcases were evacuated by riot police while angry youths armed with machetes and axes heaped abuse on the police as the slum burned.

"All you do here is come to pick up bodies," shouted Boniface Shikami.

Several threw rocks toward the police vehicle, and officers fired in the air before a patrol truck skidded around a corner to try to separate battling supporters of Odinga and Kibaki.

As shopkeepers battled with flames leaping through their corrugated iron roofs, a dazed woman clutching a kitten wandered through the smoke.

"They have burned down my house and all I have now is my cat," wailed Hannah Warigui.

John Okello, a doctor, said clinics around the city were running short of basic materials like gauze because so many people have been arriving with machete wounds. He said the city's main Nairobi Hospital was trying to ferry supplies to the clinics.

The people killed in Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, were members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

The Kikuyus in Eldoret had fled to the Assemblies of God Church on Monday night, seeking refuge after mobs torched homes. Video from a helicopter chartered by the Red Cross showed many homes in flames and the horizon obscured by smoke. Groups of people were seen seeking sanctuary at schools and the airport, while others moved into the forest.

On Tuesday morning, a mob of about 2,000 arrived at the church, said George Karanja, whose family had sought refuge there.

"They started burning the church," Karanja said, his voice catching with emotion as he described the scene. "The mattresses that people were sleeping on caught fire. There was a stampede, and people fell on one another."

Karanja, 37, helped pull out at least 10 people, but added, "I could not manage to pull out my sister's son. He was screaming 'Uncle, uncle!' ... He died." The boy was 11.

Up to 50 people were killed in the attack, said a Red Cross official who spoke on condition of anonymity because her name would identify her tribe, and she feared reprisal. Even first aid workers were stopped by vigilantes who demanded their identity.

Karanja said his two children raised their hands as they left the church and they were beaten with a cane, but not killed. His 90-year-old father was attacked with a machete, but survived, he said.

"The worst part is that they were hacking people and then setting them on fire," he added.

The attackers saw Karanja saving people and began stoning him, he said. Karanja said he ran and hid — submerging himself in a pit latrine outside the church property. He stayed there about 30 minutes until he heard people speaking Kikuyu, he added.

The Kikuyu, Kenya's largest ethnic group, are accused of using their dominance of politics and business to the detriment of others. Odinga is from the Luo tribe, a smaller but still major tribe that says it has been marginalized.

There are more than 40 tribes in Kenya, and political leaders have often used unemployed and uneducated young men to intimidate opponents. While Kibaki and Odinga have support from across the tribal spectrum, the youth responsible for the violence tend to see politics in strictly ethnic terms.

The prospect of even more violence is ahead. Odinga insisted he would go ahead with plans to lead a protest march in the capital Thursday. The government banned the demonstration, but Odinga said: "It doesn't matter what they say."

Kibaki, 76, won by a landslide in 2002, ending 24 years of rule by Daniel arap Moi. Kibaki is praised for turning the country into an east African economic powerhouse with an average growth rate of 5 percent, but his anti-graft campaign has been seen as a failure, and the country still struggles with tribalism and poverty.

Odinga, 62, cast himself as a champion of the poor. His main constituency is the Kibera slum, where some 700,000 people live in poverty, but he has been accused of failing to do enough to help them in 15 years as a member of parliament.

___

Associated Press writers Tom Maliti and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi and Godfrey Oluka in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this report.

[fillar munuo]

It looks like now the color of tribal war real stated to come out.Most of the people killed are Kikuyu"Kibaki's followers"That sends a clear picture of how the leaders were ellected not because of what they do to people but what tribe they are.Kibaki is now 76 for heaven sake he has served his first term already.If people do not like you then go rest at home and enjoy the few years God is going to give you peacefully.Now with all that violence the economy is going back to where it was during Moi.Big shame!

[Mkakati]

this was the morning before the Eldoret church massacre

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenag...80101Odinga.ram

 

_________________
"A brain is a terrible thing to waste."

[Mkakati]

I have also posted some info. about protests that are going to take place in London this coming Saturday on January 5th 2008.

http://www.kforumonline.com/viewtopic.php?t=1171

 

_________________
"A brain is a terrible thing to waste."

[Mariam]

Thanks Mkakati, will you please copy and paste the info? That link requires someone to log in...

For those who ever doubted him, I bet this is the great time to appreciate TZ's Baba wa Taifa, Mwalimu Nyerere whose vision and philosophy helped the country to avoid this tribalism scum...this hatred to another human being is beyond imagination, God have mercy!

Diplomatic push to end ethnic strife in Kenya
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080102/ts_afp/kenyavoteunrest
by Bogonko Bosire

Kenya's political leaders traded charges of inciting ethnic violence Wednesday as diplomatic efforts intensified to end post-election unrest that has left some 342 people dead.

The dispute over last week's presidential election, focused on discrepancies in the counting process, has triggered Kenya's worst urban clashes in 25 years and displaced tens of thousands of people in the process.

The head of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, was expected in Nairobi on Thursday to lead a joint mediation effort with the head of the Commonwealth observer mission in Kenya, Sierra Leonean former president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.

The outgoing head of the Commonwealth Don McKinnon said Kenya will not be suspended from the 53-nation grouping of mainly former British colonies despite the post-election violence.

"A suspension means that you cut off all contact and that is premature at this stage. It's like capital punishment for someone running a red light," McKinnon told BBC radio.

Kenyan Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, in an emotional televised message, pleaded for talks as more clashes were reported in the country.

The government welcomed dialogue, but said mediation was premature.

"Kenya is not at war and does not need mediators or peacekeepers," government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.

Ex-Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi said the unrest had sown irreversable animosity among 42-plus ethnic groups.

"Violent disorder witnessed has engendered a disturbing level of ethnic distrust and murderous hatred ... difficult to reverse," Moi's spokesman said in a statement.

President Mwai Kibaki's narrow re-election victory and his swearing in on Sunday sparked violence across the country -- much of it along tribal lines, with tit-for-tat killings and targetted arson attacks.

Kibaki belongs to Kenya's largest tribe, the Kikuyu, and his defeated opposition challenger, Raila Odinga, to the second largest, the Luo.

Kibaki's land minister, Kivutha Kibwana, accused Odinga of orchestrating "well organised acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing" -- a charge Odinga threw back at the government.

"What is happening is genocide at a grand scale. What we are seeing are the security of President Kibaki shooting innocent civilians who are expressing their right of protest," Odinga told reporters.

Odinga plans to hold a mass rally in Nairobi on Thursday declaring himself the "people's president," despite police warnings that he would face arrest.

The government has banned the protest, sparking fears of clashes between police and Odinga supporters.

The worrying echoes of previous ethnic conflicts in the region were highlighted by the Kenyan press, while the UN, which has its third-largest base in Nairobi, warned of regional fallout for aid programmes.

"Transport corridors from the Port of Mombasa through Kenya are restricted, causing supply chain disruption to our humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in the region," a UN statement said.

On Tuesday, at least 35 children and adults sheltering in a church near the western town of Eldoret were burnt alive by an angry mob in one of the worst incidents since the December 27 election.

An AFP photographer on Wednesday saw displaced people in the area scavenging for charred food and belongings in the wreckage.

Wednesday's overnight toll of 36 killed was much lower than previous nights, but missionaries and hospital officials in western Kenya voiced fears over unreported killings in rural areas.

The overall death toll since election day stood at 342, according to a tally compiled by AFP from medical workers, police officials and mortuary attendants across the country.

In a statement issued in London on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in pressing for a resolution.

"We call on all political leaders to engage in a spirit of compromise that puts the democratic interests of Kenya first," the joint statement said. UN chief Ban Ki-moon pressed for protection of civilians amid a surge of rape incidents.

Odinga's charges of electoral fraud were lent extra weight when the chairman of Kenya's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, who has already said he was pressured by the ruling party into quickly declaring Kibaki the winner on Sunday, acknowledged the election result may have been inaccurate.

"I do not know whether Kibaki won the election," Kivuitu told The Standard, one of Kenya's leading dailies.

Kibaki, 76, has publicly called for consultations with party leaders, but Odinga has insisted he will only negotiate if the president acknowledges election fraud.

The president met all MPs-elect Wednesday but Odinga's party -- by far the largest in the new parliament -- boycotted the session.

Meanwhile, the government delayed re-opening of schools by a week to January 14, while hundreds of Kikuyus have fled to Uganda, officials said.

The level of ethnic violence is unusual in Kenya, a country generally considered a beacon of democracy and stability in the restive region.

[Jonny]

This insanity is now totally out of control and Kibaki is no where to be seen at Mr. Odinga is visiting the injurded and he record on many occasions asking Kenyans to stop the violence.
I don't think politics can now stop this now, maybe the army should just take over now and stop this madness!

Anyway here are a series of pictures posted from various sources ...

http://www.kforumonline.com/album_cat.php?cat_id=8

 

_________________
Opportunities are never lost, someone will take the ones you miss.

[Tutinga]

NOTICE:

Previous material posted by email address thief.

post edited by original email address owner, whose account was used to post in this forum.


To the thief :

Tough luck tosser ... don't bother trying again.

Password is changed on both accounts.

[Jonny]

Now the Kenyan property is being torched, about 1000 people are dead, the goverment can't function, the economy is wobbling, ethnic tension continue to mount but Kibaki still holds on even though numerous international organizations and foreign governments have bluntly said the election was a fraud!
At this point i think government institutionS such as the Army, police and judiciary need to take a hard look at what is happening to their country and fellow Kenyans and ask themselves, IS IT WORTH RISKING YOUR COUNTRY AND LIVES FOR A SINGLE PERSON? Let alone that he obviously stole the elections but at this point this situation is bigger than both Kibaki and Odinga and if they don't resolve this NOW, I think the Kenyan security forces should do what they were sworn to do and what the Kenyan constitution instructs them to do....PROTECT THE KENYAN PEOPLE!

--------------------



Kenya protesters burn government offices

By KATY POWNALL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago

NAIROBI, Kenya - Dozens of protesters set fire to a government office building Wednesday in a melee following a memorial service organized by the opposition for victims of Kenya's election violence. Workers crawled to safety from a window in the smoking building, just as former U.N. chief Kofi Annan was due to start a mediation mission here.

Annan is the latest international figure to try to intervene in the standoff between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who claims Kibaki won re-election Dec. 27 through fraud. Foreign observers say the vote tally was deeply flawed, and the government says 685 people have been killed in an explosion of postelection riots and ethnic fighting.

The violence has pitted protesters against police, but there also have been clashes between members of Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group and other tribes. During Wednesday's memorial service, Odinga said Kenya's 40-plus tribes should not be at war with one another.

"This is a war between the people of Kenya and a very small bloodthirsty clique clinging to power," he told about 800 people in the capital, Nairobi.

Young people outside threw rocks and taunted police, and police fired tear gas as the crowd left the service. Protesters then set fire to a government-owned telecommunications company's office building. Several workers inside the building crawled out of a ground-floor window as about 50 people threw rocks at the building. Plumes of black smoke drifted from the building.

"We don't know what happened," Mary Bwire, a secretary at the office, told The Associated Press. "Suddenly there were stones everywhere. We all hid under tables."

Beatrice Michael Achieng, 35, was at a mortuary Wednesday that was the starting point of the opposition's memorial procession. She was collecting the body of her 13-year-old daughter, who was shot outside their home in a Nairobi slum.

"I think the protests should stop. I don't want to hear about Raila. I don't want to hear about Kibaki. My daughter is gone and we need peace," Achieng said. "I am feeling very bitter and angry at the police. I haven't eaten since the day my daughter died. She was my first born and I've even thought of hanging myself."

Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement has called for another "peaceful protest" on Thursday, in defiance of a ban and despite the deaths of at least 24 people in three days of protests last week — most blamed on police.

But Odinga's spokesman, Salim Lone, said Wednesday that ODM would be willing to reconsider.

"If Mr. Kofi Annan asks ODM to cancel the rally, we will of course consider it very seriously," he said.

Police in Kenya's western Rift Valley Province reported a mob burned a man to death in his car because he could not speak his attackers' language. The attack happened Tuesday in Molo town, 170 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Nairobi, just after the man dropped his children at school, said Everette Wasike, the Rift Valley Province police chief.

Both sides in the dispute have traded accusations of who is behind the violence, with the government and the opposition each saying they will take the other to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, has also called for an impartial investigation into violations. "The killings have to be investigated expeditiously and impartially, and anyone found responsible for human rights abuses must be brought to justice," she said in a statement.
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Source - AP

 

_________________
Opportunities are never lost, someone will take the ones you miss.

[fillar munuo]

I do not think the army will help.I recall reading in one of the articles that in one of Odinga rallies some of the injured people were left bleeding to death by the police because they were Luo. Kibaki coming from a big tribe and at the sametime supported by Moi etc.It makes it hard to believe justice will be served in such a situation.Remember luo feel like they have always been marginalised and most of educated leaders,army,police and most of big businesses are owned by Kikuyu and others not luo.So it might take international pressure to make Kibaki understand he is not only hurting the economy but also the people who he thinks they elected him.