Annan berates Kenya's rights abuses

NAIROBI: Kofi Annan said he had witnessed "gross and systematic human rights abuses" on a visit to western Kenya, where some 81 people were killed in the flashpoint Rift Valley province.
Kenya

Police said yesterday 45 died in ethnic clashes in the provincial capital of Nakuru, bringing the death toll since Thursday to 81.

Other bodies had been recovered on the outskirts of the nearby town of Molo.

The former UN chief slammed the abuses after a visit to the chaotic west of the country, on the fifth day of his trip to mediate the crisis sparked by disputed presidential polls one month ago.

"Impunity cannot be allowed to stand," Mr Annan said.

Former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa and Graca Machel, wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela accompanied Mr Annan.

They are part of the latest international effort to mediate the crisis sparked by the widely contested re-election of President Mwai Kibaki, who opposition leader Raila Odinga claims robbed him of rightful victory.

About 800 people have been killed and 260,000 others displaced across the country since the disputed poll on December 27 touched off a wave of deadly rioting and ethnic killings.

Yesterday, Kenyan newspapers pleaded with the feuding leaders to resolve the crisis.

"For the umpteenth time we again ask President Kibaki and Orange Democratic Movement (party) leader Mr Raila Odinga to work for peace, truth and justice. They owe it to themselves, this generation and posterity," the Sunday Standard newspaper said in an editorial.

The mass circulation Sunday Nation also lamented a surge in sexual violence inside and outside camps for internally displaced people, where culprits walk away unpunished.

"The cases of sexual abuse recorded by aid workers occur at various levels. On one, women and girls are raped during the actual violence. For instance, in the first two days of the violence, 56 cases of rape were recorded in Nairobi alone," the Nation said.

Gunshots rang out from Nakuru's southern slums yesterday, and police fired bullets into the air and teargas to disperse hundreds of machete-wielding youths who had erected barriers along highways into the town.

Mobs of Kikuyus, the ethnic group of Kibaki, gathered in Nakuru at the weekend to avenge attacks by other tribes, including the Kalenjin and the Luo group of Odinga, provoking authorities to impose an overnight curfew.

"Some houses are being burnt and fresh violence (has erupted) in some sections of Nakuru," said Kenya Red Cross spokesman Anthony Mwangi.

The general hospital said 162 victims of violence had been treated since the start of the clashes on Thursday.

"Our hospital staff and amenities are now overstretched as our surgical ward only has a capacity of 36 patients, but we are currently attending to over 90," said the medical superintendent, George Mugenya.

Mr Annan, Mr Mkapa and Ms Machel toured camps of displaced people in western Kenya who had fled fighting between supporters of Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga in an area tense with land and ethnic disputes.

"What we saw was tragic," Mr Annan said. He called for a national compensation fund for victims of the violence.