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Post-Election Violence Jolts Kenya

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By KATY POWNALL, The Associated Press

Published: February 4, 2008

BONDO, Kenya - Kenya's opposition leader Sunday called for international peacekeepers to help restore calm in a country once considered one of the most stable on the continent, as weeks of violence linked to the disputed presidential election gathered frightening momentum.

In western Kenya, the epicenter of some of the worst bloodshed since the Dec. 27 vote, gangs with machetes and bows and arrows faced off and black smoke billowed from torched homes. More than 800 people have died and 300,000 have been forced from their homes since the election, which foreign and local observers say was rigged.

"The African Union should bring in peacekeepers because the violence in Kenya is appalling," Raila Odinga told The Associated Press during an interview at his home in this western Kenya village.

AU and government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The election returned President Mwai Kibaki to power for a second five-year term after Odinga's early lead evaporated overnight. The ensuing violence has degenerated into ethnic clashes over decades-old grudges about land and resources, with much of the anger aimed at Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, long resented for their domination of politics and the economy.

On Sunday, gangs faced off in the western town of Sotik, where several houses had been torched, according to a local reporter. A day earlier, young men from rival ethnic groups hunted each other through the streets of another western town, Eldoret, burning houses and blocking roads.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brokered a deal between Kibaki and Odinga on Friday, laying out a plan to end the violence before moving on to the tougher political issues at the root of the fighting. Annan said it should take two weeks to deal with the immediate crisis.

But both sides were still talking tough. Kibaki accused his opponents of orchestrating the violence, and Odinga said Kenyans will not allow their votes to be stolen.

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