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Kenya Violence Toll Rises

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By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, The Associated Press

Published: January 2, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - A mob torched a church sheltering hundreds of people fleeing election violence Tuesday, killing up to 50 people, including many children, as four days of rioting and ethnic clashes marked one of the darkest times in Kenya's history.

President Mwai Kibaki, sworn in Sunday after a vote opponents said was rigged, said political parties should meet immediately and publicly call for calm. The violence has killed at least 270 people in what had been east Africa's most stable and prosperous democracy. The opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, said he would refuse to meet.

"If he announces that he was not elected, then I will talk to him," Odinga told The Associated Press. He accused the government of stoking the violence. He also said Kibaki's administration "is guilty, directly, of genocide."

The election commission chairman said Tuesday that he had been under intense pressure from both sides to announce the vote results quickly.

Violence erupted throughout Kenya, from the shantytowns of Nairobi to resort towns on the sweltering coast, exposing festering tribal resentments. Kibaki's Kikuyu people, 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. In the slums, often divided along tribal lines, rival groups have battled one another with machetes and sticks, as police fired tear gas and live rounds to keep them from pouring into the city center.

The church fire in Eldoret, about 185 miles from the capital, killed at least 50 people, said a Red Cross volunteer who counted the bodies and helped the wounded. But she asked that her name - which would identify her tribe - not be published. She said gangs were even checking on tribal affiliations of aid workers.

Anne Njoki, 28, a Kikuyu, said she fled her home in the slums after she saw Kikuyus being attacked and their homes looted. She was camped out near a military base with her sister, 3-year-old nephew and 7-year-old niece.

"They have taken our beds, blankets, even spoons," she said of the looters. The children had not eaten for days.

The European Union and the United States have refused to congratulate Kibaki. The EU and four top Kenyan elections officials have called for an independent inquiry.

In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged Kibaki and Odinga to hold talks.

"The violence must be brought to an end," Brown said Tuesday in London.

Also Tuesday, Odinga insisted he would go on with plans to lead 1 million people in a protest march in the capital Thursday against Kibaki, who had been trailing Odinga in early election results and opinion polls before pulling ahead.

The government banned the demonstration, but Odinga said: "It doesn't matter what they say."

Election commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu said he had been pressed by both an opposition party and Kibaki's Party of National Unity to make election results public.

"I was being pushed by PNU and ODM-Kenya a minor opposition party to announce the results immediately," Kivuitu said, while Western ambassadors "wanted me to delay announcing the results, even if it is for a week," to allow the commission to go through allegations of irregularities.

Kivuitu said he even contemplated resigning, but stayed on because "people would think I am afraid of what is happening," according to comments broadcast by private TV channel KTN.

The widespread violence and gathering international pressure could lead Kibaki to seek a compromise with the opposition.

Riots also have been raging in opposition strongholds in western Kenya, the tourism-dependent coast and the Rift Valley.

In Nairobi's Mathare slum, Odinga backers torched a bus and attacked Kikuyu travelers, witnesses said Tuesday.

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