Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's government accused rival Raila Odinga's party of unleashing "genocide" in Kenya yesterday as the death toll from tribal violence over a disputed election passed 300.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts accelerated to seek a solution to the crisis that has displaced tens of thousands of people.
"It is becoming clear that these well-organized acts of genocide and ethnic-cleansing were well-planned, financed and rehearsed by Orange Democratic Movement leaders prior to the general elections," a statement read by Lands Minister Kivutha Kibwana on behalf of his colleagues said.
Odinga's supporters, drawn mainly from his Luo tribe, have made similar charges against Kibaki, whose Kikuyu have dominated political and business life in East Africa's biggest economy.
As young men armed with machetes manned roadblocks in rural areas, a trickle of office workers in the capital Nairobi made it through police cordons to begin the new working year.
"They call this democracy," said a central bank worker, delayed by police as he tried to get to work.
A local and an international rights group accused Kenyan security forces of having "bloodily repressed" protests by opposition supporters.
"As a reaction, some protesters are responsible for the assassination of Kikuyus," the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the International Federation for Human Rights said.
And in an apparent chain reaction, there were growing examples yesterday of revenge killings by Kikuyu militants, including the notorious Mungiki gang, on pro-opposition tribes.
On Tuesday, about 30 Kikuyus died when a mob set fire to a church where they were hiding from the violence in the western town of Eldoret.
The head of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, was expected in Nairobi yesterday to lead a joint mediation effort with the Commonwealth, represented by the head of its observer mission, former Sierra Leonean president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.
Commonwealth spokesman Julius Mucunguzi said Kabbah had met with the rival leaders and they had "agreed to his mediation."
In a statement issued in London yesterday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in pressing for a resolution to the crisis.
"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.
Kibaki, 76, has called for talks with party leaders, but Odinga has insisted he will only negotiate if the president acknowledges that he cheated.
On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he had spoken to Kufuor and Kabbah and discussed a joint AU-Commonwealth mission to oversee the process of reconciliation.
"What I want to see is them coming together," he said.
Also See: Turmoil can kill Kenya boom: analysts
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS