Four more people died during a second day of nationwide rioting in Kenya on Tuesday, bringing the overall toll to 19, in a crisis that presented the new coalition Cabinet with its first major challenge. Police said they had killed three members of the Mungiki gang and accused its members of having hacked a Nairobi watchman to death.
Newly appointed Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Monday urged the new government, comprising former rivals, to work together to enhance reconciliation in the deeply divided nation. ”The process of reconciliation has begun and the Cabinet must speak in one voice,” Odinga told reporters.
Kenya’s most feared criminal gang paralysed transport on Monday, posing an early challenge to a power-sharing Cabinet formed to end post-election deadlock. Up to seven people were killed when the Mungiki gang shut down roads in the capital, Nairobi, and the Rift Valley town of Naivasha in a gesture of anger after the beheading of its leader’s wife.
Kenya’s president unveiled a power-sharing government on Sunday, with opposition leader Raila Odinga as Prime Minister, aimed at ending a long-running political crisis sparked by contested elections. ”Let us put politics aside and get to work,” President Mwai Kibaki said in a televised speech announcing the Cabinet line-up.
Kenya President Mwai Kibaki and would-be prime minister Raila Odinga on Saturday reached a coalition government agreement and a new Cabinet will be announced on Sunday, political and diplomatic sources said. The agreement was struck after Kibaki and Odinga held closed-door talks in Sagana State Lodge in central Kenya.
Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai said on Friday she has pulled out of the Olympic torch relay this weekend in Tanzania to protest human rights abuses. The torch has been met by major demonstrations on its relay around the world to the Beijing Games, with thousands of protesters angry at China’s human rights record.
Pressure mounted on Thursday on Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and prime minister-designate Raila Odinga to resume coalition talks amid warnings that a delay was fomenting violence. The pair met last on Sunday and failed to agree on a unity government, a key step in implementing a power-sharing deal.
The quest for a permanent political settlement in Kenya ran into trouble again this week with the opposition Orange Democratic Movement announcing that it is pulling out of talks on the formation of a coalition government. Talks on the composition of a coalition cabinet have been dragging on for a month.
Kenyan leaders were on Wednesday under pressure to resume talks on forming a coalition government in a bid to end a devastating political crisis, a day after hundreds demonstrated to demand a new Cabinet. The much-delayed unveiling of a national-unity government is a key step in implementing a power-sharing deal aimed at quelling deadly violence.
Kenya’s environment watchdog has appealed for a public-private partnership to help clean the environment choked by thousands of tonnes of dumped waste. Health experts have blamed industrial, hospital and domestic waste for the spread of diseases, among other problems.
Two staff members of the United Nations refugee agency narrowly escaped an ambush on their vehicle by armed militiamen in Somalia’s northern breakaway region of Puntland, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday. The vehicle was carrying a foreign aid worker and a local driver.
Kenya’s opposition suspended talks with President Mwai Kibaki’s party on Tuesday and police fired tear gas to scatter opposition supporters protesting at deepening deadlock over a power-sharing Cabinet. Kibaki and rival Raila Odinga delayed naming the new Cabinet on Monday after disagreeing over how to share out ministries.
Up to 70 people were killed in late March when flash floods swept mining pits in northern Tanzania, charity group Oxfam-Ireland said on Monday. ”The rains caused flooding of eight mines in the region, killing up to 70 mineworkers caught below ground,” it said in a statement.
Kenya opposition leader Raila Odinga refused to meet President Mwai Kibaki for coalition government talks on Monday, deepening a stalemate on the naming of a new Cabinet. The coalition Cabinet is a key part of a February 28 deal that curbed weeks of deadly clashes set off by Kibaki’s disputed re-election in December.
They were the pride of Kenya, but the country’s athletics community could not escape the worst of the post-election tribal violence after disputed December polls. While two runners perished in the Rift Valley crucible of hate, there have also been allegations that stars past and present helped fund the New Year spree of inter-ethnic killings.
Kenya’s president and future prime minister said on Sunday they had made ”substantial progress” at talks to end an impasse over a power-sharing Cabinet and expected to clinch a deal on Monday. The two sides had planned to name the Cabinet on Sunday, but disagreement over the division of ministries scuttled that plan.
Kenya’s president and opposition leader met to break an impasse over the naming of a power-sharing Cabinet and the government said the ministerial line-up would be unveiled later on Sunday. The Cabinet is a critical part of a deal brokered in February to end the East African nation’s bloodiest political crisis.
The announcement of Kenya’s new coalition Cabinet has been delayed indefinitely over disagreements on its composition, both sides said on Saturday. "The widely expected announcement tomorrow [Sunday] of a new Cabinet that all Kenyans were so keenly awaiting has been delayed," Orange Democratic Movement spokesperson Salim Lone said.
Kenyan papers and political watchdogs on Friday criticised the size of a coalition Cabinet announced a day earlier, saying 40 ministers were a colossal waste of money in a country with widespread misery. Newspapers said the cost was unreasonable for Kenya, a nation where about 60% of the population lives on less than a day.
A widening rift around the size and structure of a coalition government in which powers and responsibilities will be shared between President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity and Prime Minister designate Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement may be edging the country close to a renewed outbreak of political violence.
Kenya’s feuding political factions on Thursday announced the deadlock over a coalition government had been broken and that the new line-up would be announced on Sunday. The breakthrough came after a meeting between President Mwai Kibaki and prime minister-designate Raila Odinga amid weeks of bitter wrangling.
Kenya’s opposition on Wednesday accused the government of trying to spoil a power-sharing deal by seeking to vet new Cabinet ministers. President Mwai Kibaki and opposition chief Raila Odinga are at odds over the shape and size of a coalition Cabinet created under a pact to solve a post-election crisis that degenerated into ethnic violence.
Somalia’s top exiled Islamist leader on Wednesday pledged his camp’s commitment to a new peace drive but warned the movement would keep up its struggle against what it calls Ethiopian occupation. "Members of the international community are trying to help Somalis overcome their differences and we will do all we can," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said.
Kenyan police on Tuesday fired tear gas at demonstrators protesting against the proposed size of a coalition government, as pressure mounted on the president and prime minister-designate to name a Cabinet. President Mwai Kibaki and future prime minister Raila Odinga signed a power-sharing deal last month but have been wrangling over who will get key ministries.
Hopes faded on Sunday for 65 miners feared drowned in Tanzania after floods swept through a remote gemstone mine near Mount Kilimanjaro. Manyara regional commissioner Henry Shekifu said six bodies had been recovered and that 59 workers were missing after the disaster near the northern town of Mererani.
Kenya’s political rivals traded accusations on Thursday over who is to blame for the deadlock in plans to create a unity government and end the country’s post-election crisis. The share flotation of top cellphone operator Safaricom — the largest IPO ever in East Africa — has also become an issue in the wrangling, officials and analysts say.
The independent review committee constituted to investigate alleged fraud during Kenya’s December presidential polls has had to delay its investigations until Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and prime minister designate Raila Odinga agree on the composition of a coalition government.
Top international aid agencies warned on Wednesday that war-scarred Somalia has become too dangerous for its workers to help more than one million civilians living rough, as fresh fighting erupted. Four Somali soldiers and two civilians were killed when Islamist fighters raided the town of Jowhar, near Mogadishu, officials said.
Nearly three months after the worst massacre of Kenya’s post-election violence, children’s shoes and charred clothes remain in the ashes of a rural church where about 30 people were burned to death. Wreaths of dried-out flowers lie where a mob set fire to the Assemblies of God building with 100 or so terrified villagers cowering inside.
Church leader Wycliffe Masibo describes seeing an elderly member of his flock whipped to death during a Kenyan army search for militiamen in his remote mountain village. Having made all the men lie on the floor, soldiers kicked and hit them, demanding they tell them where guns were kept.
Seventeen people were killed in Kenya’s Rift Valley region over the past 36 hours, where cattle theft has fanned tribal animosity, bringing the toll to 25 in three days, police said on Thursday. Cattle raiders killed 12 villagers and police retaliated, killing five of the attackers in the Baringo district.
Kenyans on Wednesday hailed the passing of laws needed for a power-sharing deal to end a deadly post-election crisis but worried about bitter debates ahead as discussion turned to sharing out posts. The rare conciliatory mood among the country’s lawmakers elated many Kenyans. But there were few illusions about the difficult days ahead.