Four killed in violent Kenya protests

The final day of organised protests across Kenya saw violence erupt near the country’s Masai Mara game reserve for the first time.

At least four people were killed in clashes between Masai tribesmen and Kikuyus from President Mwai Kibaki’s clan.

Both groups were armed with arrows, clubs and knifes, police chief Patrick Wambani said, adding that homes and shops were burned.

Elsewhere, police opened fire on protesters in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, and a man and a woman were killed. Skirmishes also broke out between police and thousands of demonstrators in the coastal tourist town of Mombasa, leaving one dead. And a man died of gunshot wounds at a Nairobi hospital that admitted 10 wounded in half an hour this afternoon.

A blood-smeared pickup truck carried the bodies of a 15-year-old girl and a young man to the hospital along with wailing relatives.

“They killed my daughter. Kibaki must die,” a woman screamed in anguish. She said her daughter was washing utensils on her doorstep when police opened fire and she was hit.

The deaths raised the toll to at least 22 people shot dead in the last two days.

Demonstrators in the western town of Kisumu set fire to a truck, then marched in the hundreds, pulling down telephone kiosks and bus shelters and burning tires. In Nairobi, police fired tear gas at a dozen protesters outside a downtown mosque.

Kenya exploded in violence after the election last month of Mr Kibaki in what pposition leader Raila Odinga insists was a rigged vote. International observers and the electoral chief have also questioned the results.

Mr Odinga called for three days of organised protests this week, starting on Wednesday, but each day has seen even fewer demonstrators on the streets in the face of hard-line police crackdowns.

As protests diminish and the days pass, Mr Kibaki has become and more entrenched and looks unlikely to agree to demands he step down.

The opposition’s best hope may rest in arguing for a power-sharing agreement, which could possibly result in Mr Odinga becoming prime minister or vice president.

Despite the flawed poll, international pressure is likely to focus on a power-sharing arrangement that leaves Mr Kibaki as president. Western allies consider Kenya a vital partner in the war on terrorism and a regional economic and military powerhouse whose stability has stood in stark contrast to war-ravaged neighbors like Sudan and Somalia, where Islamic extremism is rife.

More than 600 people have been killed in Kenya’s election violence in the worst turmoil since a failed 1982 coup attempt.

Kenyan police released their own figures today saying they had killed 82 of the victims.

The US-based rights group Human Rights Watch has said that police were behind dozens of killings and that they opened fire on both looters and opposition protesters under an unofficial “shoot-to-kill” policy.

The police statement today said officers were dealing with “deception and manipulation of jobless people by their leaders. Some have been coached into committing crimes without the benefit of the bigger picture.” It said the unnamed leaders were “exploiting ethnicity, religion and subjective politics.”

With the protests petering out, an opposition spokesman said Mr Odinga would shift tactics and call for a “boycott of companies owned by hard-liners who are around Mr Kibaki,” including one of Kenya’s biggest banks, a prominent bus company and a major dairy producer.

He also said they would work with unions “to organize strikes in selected industries”.

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