Kenya's Rift Valley burns despite talk of peace

By David Lewis

KERICHO, Kenya (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 December 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.