Kenya: Opposition pledges strikes and boycotts

Kenya’s embattled opposition said today that it would turn to economic boycotts and strikes to keep up pressure on President Mwai Kibaki, whom it accuses of rigging the country’s recent election.

The pledge came after protests were weakened by a harsh police crackdown.

Opposition spokesman Salim Lone vowed a third and final day of rowdy rallies, in which at least 10 people have died, would continue nationwide today.

Next, he said, the opposition would urge consumers to “boycott companies owned by hard-liners who are around Mr Kibaki” and work with unions “to organise strikes in selected industries”. He declined to give details.

Kenya, one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous nations, exploded in violence after the December 27 election, the tightest race in the country’s history.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga insists Mr Kibaki stole the vote and international observers as well as the electoral chief have questioned the results.

Furious over the alleged vote-rigging, Mr Odinga’s supporters rose up, burning homes, clashing with police and exposing long-simmering ethnic tensions which have put hundreds of thousands of people on the run.

More than 600 people have been killed since then, the worst violence since a failed 1982 coup attempt.

Mr Lone also said Mr Odinga was prepared for dialogue.

“We are completely ready to negotiate in good faith. We want peace in the country,” Mr Lone said. “Our people are suffering.”

Mr Kibaki’s government has made similar statements, but envoys from the US and the African Union have failed to resolve the crisis or even bring Mr Odinga and Mr Kibaki together for talks.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had been expected on Tuesday, but he fell ill and postponed his trip. Two other members of his mediation team arrived late yesterday. They included former Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa and Graca Machel, wife of Nelson Mandela, said Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula.

Mr Odinga had called for three days of rallies against Mr Kibaki to start on Wednesday.

Yesterday, police cracked down fiercely as protests lost steam, firing tear gas at a hospital in the western town of Eldoret and bullets elsewhere at rock-throwing opposition supporters.

Five people were killed on Wednesday and another five yesterday, most from gunshot wounds.

Choking on the gas and fleeing rocks and bullets, many slum dwellers weary of the violence yearned for life to get back to normal.

“We are fighting and dying for Raila and Kibaki and they don’t even care for us,” said Mary Atieno, 27, as she waited for protesters to stop throwing rocks so she could collect her children from school. “Only the ordinary man is suffering.”

The US also blamed Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga for the unrest.

“There are clashes because of the political deadlock,” US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, adding it was beyond time for the two to reach a political accommodation.

In Kisumu, an opposition stronghold 185 miles (300km) from Nairobi, a morgue attendant said two bodies with bullet wounds were brought in yesterday, including a woman who witnesses said was shot by a bullet that pierced the corrugated iron wall of her home as she ate lunch. They showed a reporter the bullet hole.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said police shot and killed two “criminal” protesters elsewhere yesterday. He said one was in a group of about 50 young men who blocked a convoy of 42 petroleum tankers on the highway to neighbouring Uganda and tried to set them ablaze. The other killed was in “a group of criminals” who fired at police in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, Mr Kiraithe said.

Another man, shot through the neck, died in front of a reporter at Nairobi’s Masaba Hospital. No-one knew his name.

“When will this end?” asked Alfrank Okoth as he nursed a bullet wound to the chest at the hospital. The 28-year-old said he was shot by police at the gate of his house in Nairobi’s biggest slum, Kibera.

Three others with bullet wounds were admitted, including a pastor, Francis Ivayo. He said he was shielding a group of children near his church in Kibera when police fired from a train going through the slum, hitting him in the lower back.

Mr Odinga has accused the police of being “on a killing spree”. Mr Kiraithe denied that.

Mr Kiraithe also disparaged as “propaganda” some footage aired on local TV which showed police on Wednesday shooting an unarmed protester who was pulling faces at them, and then kicking his body.

In Mathare yesterday, a group of men chased police, hurling chunks of cement and brandishing machetes. The officers fired live rounds in the air and tear gas at a group of already choking and retching women and children trying to dip their faces in bowls of washing water. Medics reported four people shot and two injured in other attacks in the slum.

In western Eldoret city, police fired tear gas and clubbed 10 people eating lunch at the gate of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, said Tony Kirwa, a spokesman for the hospital. He said tear gas landed in the hospital’s accident and emergency section, an open area near the entrance.

At the European Parliament, legislators called for new elections in Kenya if a “credible and fair recount” of votes proves impossible and a “freezing of all further budgetary support” to the East African nation.