Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who mediated an end to Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence, arrived in the country on Wednesday to assess reforms agreed on to avert a repeat of the deadly unrest.
Annan will first chair meetings of his Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa movement on Thursday and Friday and meet President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga from Sunday to Monday.
A power-sharing deal ended weeks of bloodshed triggered by then-opposition chief Odinga’s charge that Kibaki rigged the December 2007 presidential election.
In addition to making Odinga the prime minister, the deal also called for wide-ranging legal and institutional reforms aimed at resolving the cause of the country’s worst violence since independence in 1963.
During his last visit in October, Annan warned that lack of speedy reform risked plunging the country in fresh violence.
About 1 500 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced by the post-election chaos. — Sapa-AFP