Kenya's Rift Valley burns despite talk of peace
(Adds reports of up to 20 dead, paragraph 2)
By David Lewis
KERICHO, Kenya, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Tribal gangs burned homes and tea plantations in Kenya's Rift Valley on Saturday, sending residents fleeing with all they could carry, despite an agreement between feuding politicians to end weeks of bloodshed.
Aid workers said they had unconfirmed reports that as many as 20 people had been killed in violence since Thursday around the Rift Valley towns of Kericho, Sotik and Kisii.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brokered a deal between Kenya's rival parties on Friday to take immediate steps to end post-election violence which has killed nearly 900 people and displaced more than a quarter of a million.
But the ethnic tensions in Kenya have taken on a momentum of their own, going beyond a standoff over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed Dec. 27 re-election.
Flames soared over slum dwellings belonging to members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe in the Rift Valley town of Kericho -- around 250 km (155 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi -- where at least four people have died in fighting in recent days.
Residents dragged out mattresses, cupboards, suitcases and pots and pans, piling them on to carts.
"Let Annan do his bit but there's going to be no resolution. The clashes will continue," said one youth who gave his name as Lefty. He was manning a roadblock near Kericho where police opened fire to disperse protesters on Friday.
Gangs with machetes, bows and arrows, spears and clubs took to the streets of the small town of Sotik, some 40 km (25 miles) south-west of Kericho. Plumes of smoke rose from homesteads and patches of burnt tea plantations around the town.
Despite Annan's efforts, Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga remain at loggerheads.
Kibaki told an African Union summit in Ethiopia on Friday that he had been elected by a majority of Kenyans and the electoral dispute must be settled by Kenya's courts. He also blamed Odinga for the hundreds of deaths over the past month.
Odinga says he would not get a fair hearing in a Kenyan court and accused Kibaki of undermining the international mediation attempts by suggesting that only a local tribunal could resolve the dispute.
"The world should not be misled by Kibaki's antics and theatrics to say that he won elections. He knows he did not win these elections," Odinga said.
International observers have said the count was so chaotic it was impossible to tell who won.
CHURCH BURNED
The conflict, which has often pitted Kibaki's Kikuyu against other tribes supporting Odinga, has tarnished the image of a nation long regarded as one of Africa's more stable and which has one of the continent's most promising economies.
The dispute has blown the lid off decades-old divisions between tribal groupings over land, wealth and power, dating from British colonial rule and stoked by Kenyan politicians during 44 years of independence.
Pressure on the two sides to reach a deal is intense, both from within Kenya and from the international community.
"Both parties now face a historic responsibility: choose dialogue or bear responsibility for a political and human catastrophe," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
Near the town of Eldoret, north of Kericho, a mob surrounded the Great Harvest Evangelical Church, where at least two people were sheltering, and burned it to the ground on Saturday. A witness said those inside managed to escape unharmed.
"I don't know who it was, but they broke the gate and came in. The pastor's a Kikuyu, the plot belongs to a Kikuyu. Maybe that has something to do with it," said Peter Kaguru, charred beams and bricks smouldering behind him.
Clashes broke out west of Kericho late on Friday between gangs from the Kisii and Kalenjin tribes after the shooting in Eldoret on Thursday of opposition legislator David Kimutai Too, a Kalenjin killed by a Kisii traffic policeman.
Police called it a crime of passion but the opposition said it was a political assassination. He was the second opposition deputy killed this week.
The killing also sparked protests in the pro-opposition western town of Kisumu, where a 12-year old orphan was shot in the head and killed on Friday while trying to flee clashes in a slum between youths and the security forces. (Additional reporting by Nick Tattersall and Tim Cocks in Nairobi, Barry Moody in Addis Ababa) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Robert Woodward)
By David Lewis
KERICHO, Kenya, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Tribal gangs burned homes and tea plantations in Kenya's Rift Valley on Saturday, sending residents fleeing with all they could carry, despite an agreement between feuding politicians to end weeks of bloodshed.
Aid workers said they had unconfirmed reports that as many as 20 people had been killed in violence since Thursday around the Rift Valley towns of Kericho, Sotik and Kisii.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brokered a deal between Kenya's rival parties on Friday to take immediate steps to end post-election violence which has killed nearly 900 people and displaced more than a quarter of a million.
But the ethnic tensions in Kenya have taken on a momentum of their own, going beyond a standoff over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed Dec. 27 re-election.
Flames soared over slum dwellings belonging to members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe in the Rift Valley town of Kericho -- around 250 km (155 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi -- where at least four people have died in fighting in recent days.
Residents dragged out mattresses, cupboards, suitcases and pots and pans, piling them on to carts.
"Let Annan do his bit but there's going to be no resolution. The clashes will continue," said one youth who gave his name as Lefty. He was manning a roadblock near Kericho where police opened fire to disperse protesters on Friday.
Gangs with machetes, bows and arrows, spears and clubs took to the streets of the small town of Sotik, some 40 km (25 miles) south-west of Kericho. Plumes of smoke rose from homesteads and patches of burnt tea plantations around the town.
Despite Annan's efforts, Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga remain at loggerheads.
Kibaki told an African Union summit in Ethiopia on Friday that he had been elected by a majority of Kenyans and the electoral dispute must be settled by Kenya's courts. He also blamed Odinga for the hundreds of deaths over the past month.
Odinga says he would not get a fair hearing in a Kenyan court and accused Kibaki of undermining the international mediation attempts by suggesting that only a local tribunal could resolve the dispute.
"The world should not be misled by Kibaki's antics and theatrics to say that he won elections. He knows he did not win these elections," Odinga said.
International observers have said the count was so chaotic it was impossible to tell who won.
CHURCH BURNED
The conflict, which has often pitted Kibaki's Kikuyu against other tribes supporting Odinga, has tarnished the image of a nation long regarded as one of Africa's more stable and which has one of the continent's most promising economies.
The dispute has blown the lid off decades-old divisions between tribal groupings over land, wealth and power, dating from British colonial rule and stoked by Kenyan politicians during 44 years of independence.
Pressure on the two sides to reach a deal is intense, both from within Kenya and from the international community.
"Both parties now face a historic responsibility: choose dialogue or bear responsibility for a political and human catastrophe," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
Near the town of Eldoret, north of Kericho, a mob surrounded the Great Harvest Evangelical Church, where at least two people were sheltering, and burned it to the ground on Saturday. A witness said those inside managed to escape unharmed.
"I don't know who it was, but they broke the gate and came in. The pastor's a Kikuyu, the plot belongs to a Kikuyu. Maybe that has something to do with it," said Peter Kaguru, charred beams and bricks smouldering behind him.
Clashes broke out west of Kericho late on Friday between gangs from the Kisii and Kalenjin tribes after the shooting in Eldoret on Thursday of opposition legislator David Kimutai Too, a Kalenjin killed by a Kisii traffic policeman.
Police called it a crime of passion but the opposition said it was a political assassination. He was the second opposition deputy killed this week.
The killing also sparked protests in the pro-opposition western town of Kisumu, where a 12-year old orphan was shot in the head and killed on Friday while trying to flee clashes in a slum between youths and the security forces. (Additional reporting by Nick Tattersall and Tim Cocks in Nairobi, Barry Moody in Addis Ababa) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Robert Woodward)
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