KENYA - AU SUMMIT

Annan suspends talks over slain opposition MP

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Kofi Annan on Thursday suspended crisis talks in Kenya after the fatal shooting of an opposition lawmaker. Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he would join his predecessor in Nairobi on Friday.

  
Kofi Annan on Thursday suspended crisis talks between representatives of Kenya's president and opposition leader, after the fatal shooting of an opposition lawmaker and further clashes.
  
"We have postponed this afternoon's session and we will work all day tomorrow so that the leaders can attend to urgent matters and call their constituents," the former UN chief told reporters in Nairobi, after the second killing of an opposition lawmaker in a week.
  
On Thursday afternoon, demonstrations sprung up again in western Kenya, and police teargassed protesters blocking roads and lighting fires in the towns of Eldoret, Kericho and Kisumu.
  
In neighbouring Ethiopia, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would meet with President Mwai Kibaki at an African Union summit there and then travel to Kenya on Friday to meet opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claims he was robbed of the presidency.
  
The Kenya crisis talks, which opened Thursday morning, were the first meeting between representatives of the two sides since Kibaki's widely-contested reelection on December 30.
  
"The talks were adjourned because the MP was killed," said an official on Kibaki's negotiating team.
  
The killing of David Kiumtai Too, shot dead by a policeman in western Kenya, followed the slaying of Melitus Mugabe Were in Nairobi on Tuesday, which sparked violent unrest in flashpoint western regions and Nairobi slums.
  
His female companion, a policewoman, was also shot and later died.
  
The new death of a politician sparked fears of a fresh surge in post-election violence, in which almost 1,000 have already died and up to 300,000 have been displaced.
  
Odinga said the killings were "part of a plot" to reduce his Orange Democratic Movement's (ODM) majority in parliament.
  
The ODM secured 99 seats in the legislative elections that coincided with the presidential poll, making it the largest single party but short of an overall majority. Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) won 43 seats.
  
A police commander said Too and his girlfriend were shot by a traffic policeman in a suburb of Eldoret in western Kenya, but added that the motive did not appear political.
  
"He was with a girl who is a police officer. He was shot by another policeman believed to be her boyfriend," the commander said.
  
Kenyan police were given shoot-to-kill orders Wednesday in a bid to stem weeks of unrest.
  
Odinga called for the shoot-to-kill orders to be cancelled immediately, calling them "a sign of a government that has run amok."
  
Ban earlier urged the feuding leaders to find a peaceful way out of the turmoil.
  
"Kenyan leader President Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga ... have a special responsibility to solve the crisis peacefully," Ban told an African Union summit in Ethiopia.
  
The ODM has protested that Kibaki's presence at the summit amounted to a recognition of his election, despite local and international concerns over flaws in the vote count of December 27 polls.
  
Protests against Kibaki's reelection quickly descended into ethnic violence as long-standing tribal and economic tensions flared up.
  
Members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe suffered heavily in the first wave of violence at the hands of Odinga's Luo tribe and other ethnic groups, but have since carried out numerous revenge attacks.
  
Odinga has refused to recognise the legitimacy of Kibaki's presidency and his party has pressed for an electoral re-run, but the government has instead insisted on dialogue.
  
The United States' top Africa envoy Jendayi Frazer said Wednesday that the violence in Kenya had involved acts of "ethnic cleansing" and the UN Security Council on Wednesday called for both sides to end the bloodshed.

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