Second Kenyan MP shot dead in Eldoret
Jan 31, 2008
NAIROBI - A police officer in Kenya shot dead another opposition legislator yesterday, the second killed in a week, triggering fresh protests and interrupting talks to try to end more than a month of violence.
NAIROBI - A police officer in Kenya shot dead another opposition legislator yesterday, the second killed in a week, triggering fresh protests and interrupting talks to try to end more than a month of violence.
Warning of a catastrophe, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he would travel to Nairobi today from the African Union summit in Ethiopia to help his predecessor Kofi Annan, who has been trying to mediate an end to the crisis.
“Violence continues, threatening to escalate to catastrophic levels,†Ban told the 53-nation AU summit.
African leaders also voiced alarm. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said Africa's image was at stake.
Stung by President Mwai Kibaki's presence at the summit, opposition leader Raila Odinga said the continent should not return to legitimising “dictatorsâ€.
Odinga, who disputes Kibaki’s re-election at last month’s vote, says he is the legitimately-elected president who should be representing Kenya at the summit.
“The African Union must respect its own charter. It should not replicate its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, which was tolerating dictators in the name of non-interference of sovereign states,†Odinga said.
Fresh protests erupted yesterday after David Kimutai Too, an MP of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), was killed in Eldoret.
Police commissioner Hussein Ali said his murder was a “crime of passion†and that the traffic police officer responsible, who had been arrested, had shot a fellow officer believed to be his girlfriend along with the MP. But ODM leader Odinga said it was a political act.
“I condemn this second execution of an ODM MP. The purpose of this killing is to reduce the ODM majority.â€
Earlier this week, another opposition MP, Melitus Were, was gunned down outside his Nairobi home, in a murder that stoked riots and ethnic killings. ODM said it was a “political assassinationâ€. Police said it was “murderâ€.
Kenya's political parties postponed their second day of talks brokered by Annan after the killing.
Shops shut down in Eldoret and some residents began to leave as protesters in the suburbs took to the streets, setting up barricades of burning tyres. Three people were shot and injured as the security forces fired into the air to disperse them.
Around 200 people gathered outside the police station demanding for the traffic officer responsible to be handed over.
“Let him be brought out so we can do our own justice,†one protester shouted. “This is a government plot to wipe out ODM.â€
On roads around Eldoret, youths with bows and arrows stopped vehicles. Plumes of smoke rose from burning homes.
Youths also burned tyres and blocked roads with stones in Kisumu. “They are saying Raila should withdraw from the talks and assemble his army because the government has declared war on ODM,†said a resident, David Onyango.
Warning of a catastrophe, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he would travel to Nairobi today from the African Union summit in Ethiopia to help his predecessor Kofi Annan, who has been trying to mediate an end to the crisis.
“Violence continues, threatening to escalate to catastrophic levels,†Ban told the 53-nation AU summit.
African leaders also voiced alarm. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said Africa's image was at stake.
Stung by President Mwai Kibaki's presence at the summit, opposition leader Raila Odinga said the continent should not return to legitimising “dictatorsâ€.
Odinga, who disputes Kibaki’s re-election at last month’s vote, says he is the legitimately-elected president who should be representing Kenya at the summit.
“The African Union must respect its own charter. It should not replicate its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, which was tolerating dictators in the name of non-interference of sovereign states,†Odinga said.
Fresh protests erupted yesterday after David Kimutai Too, an MP of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), was killed in Eldoret.
Police commissioner Hussein Ali said his murder was a “crime of passion†and that the traffic police officer responsible, who had been arrested, had shot a fellow officer believed to be his girlfriend along with the MP. But ODM leader Odinga said it was a political act.
“I condemn this second execution of an ODM MP. The purpose of this killing is to reduce the ODM majority.â€
Earlier this week, another opposition MP, Melitus Were, was gunned down outside his Nairobi home, in a murder that stoked riots and ethnic killings. ODM said it was a “political assassinationâ€. Police said it was “murderâ€.
Kenya's political parties postponed their second day of talks brokered by Annan after the killing.
Shops shut down in Eldoret and some residents began to leave as protesters in the suburbs took to the streets, setting up barricades of burning tyres. Three people were shot and injured as the security forces fired into the air to disperse them.
Around 200 people gathered outside the police station demanding for the traffic officer responsible to be handed over.
“Let him be brought out so we can do our own justice,†one protester shouted. “This is a government plot to wipe out ODM.â€
On roads around Eldoret, youths with bows and arrows stopped vehicles. Plumes of smoke rose from burning homes.
Youths also burned tyres and blocked roads with stones in Kisumu. “They are saying Raila should withdraw from the talks and assemble his army because the government has declared war on ODM,†said a resident, David Onyango.