Police crackdown stamps out Kenya protests

Demonstrations across Kenya appeared to be winding down tonight after two days of violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police.

At least three people were killed as machete-wielding youths fought skirmishes with officers who fired live ammunition and tear gas.

However, the hard-line police tactics appeared to be working as mobs dispersed when confronted.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who accuses President Mwai Kibaki winning last’s month’s presidential election by rigging the vote, called for three days of demonstrations.

But turnout has been low and there were few of the serious clashes, some pitting members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu people against other ethnic groups, that characterised protests immediately after election results were announced.

Mr Odinga maintained that seven people had been shot and killed today. A police spokesman said they killed two “criminal” protesters, one in western Kenya and one in Nairobi.

“The government has issued its police force with a shoot to kill order. And police officers all over the country have followed that order to the letter,” Mr Odinga said, adding the police were “on a killing spree.”

The unrest has marred Kenya’s international and damaged its tourist-dependent economy. It has also worsened ethnic tensions and conflicts over land.

At least 600 people have died in the last few weeks.

Police today dispersed mobs of dozens on the streets of the western towns of Kisumu and Eldoret, a region that is Mr Odinga’s stronghold. Police fired tear gas at the gate of Eldoret’s main hospital and attacked people, including a doctor, who had been standing outside. It was unclear why the hospital had been targeted.

In Nairobi’s Mathare slum, at least four people with gunshot wounds were taken away in ambulances.

In the western town of Kisumu, which bore the brunt of violence on the first day of protests yesterday, most people stayed at home and just few cars were seen on the streets as small groups of protesters burned tires and set up roadblocks that police quickly dismantled.

“Everyone is scampering away from the police,” said Collins Odhiambo a protester who carried a white handkerchief as a sign of peace. “They killed too many of us yesterday and now people are staying away because they don’t want to be shot.”

In Eldoret, gunfire echoed across town as police fired warning shots to break up several groups who tried to gather. Some protesters overturned kiosks and pushed them into roads to block them, and tires burned in the city centre.

A few dozen miles away, 12 empty trucks and buses blocked a main road. The drivers, milling nearby, said they had been stopped overnight by around 150 young men armed with machetes who robbed them, flattened their tires and stole fuel. One bus was filled with aid supplies from the UN World Food Program.

The government has banned the rallies, but the opposition and Kenyan human rights groups say it does not have the authority to do so.