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brave like Kenyans we are NOT
Posted Jan 18, 2008 2:51 AM
In contrast to the story below, can you imagine us organising ANYTHING against the corrupt Somare government who, by all indications, bought and stole the election with the K40 million bribe to 40 "loyal" MPs, plus the odd election results?
Our brave ancestors would weep at our newfound paralysis.
Riot police move in as Kenya unrest grows
· Opposition says peaceful protests will continue
Xan Rice in Kisumu
Thursday January 17, 2008
The Guardian
Kenya's simmering political stand-off erupted into street violence yesterday as police used teargas and live rounds to snuff out opposition plans to stage three days of protests against the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.
Raila Odinga, leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), who maintains Kibaki rigged the December 27 poll, vowed that the peaceful mass action would continue, despite the strong police presence. "This is now a continuous programme rather than an event, and will continue until Kibaki relents," said Salim Lone, spokesman for Odinga.
International mediation and action through parliament, where the ODM has a majority that enabled it to defeat the ruling party in a vote for the new house speaker on Tuesday night, would also be used to pressure Kibaki into forming a power-sharing government, Lone said.
But in Kisumu, Kenya's third largest city and the gateway to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, party officials said the use of civil disobedience to hurt the economy was also being seriously considered.
"By organising periodic sit-ins on main roads and using our cars to further block the way we can paralyse the transport sector," said Joshua Nyamori, a senior official at the ODM branch in Kisumu. "We will also urge the local business community to stop paying taxes to central government, and encourage a consumer boycott against those who refuse."
Yesterday the normally bustling town centre was deserted, with shops boarded up in anticipation of more unrest. In the poor Kondele estate, hundreds gathered in an open lot in the morning. Tyres were set alight and an effigy of Kibaki was placed inside a coffin and burned. When police fired teargas, people rinsed their eyes in pools of muddy water.
By midday the crowd had swelled to about 1,000 people, who were singing and holding placards such as Kibaki Rest in Peace and Work Starts With Raila, behind a cordon of policemen who blocked the road leading to the town centre, where a rally was to have been held.
Paul Achayo, the ODM councillor for the ward, who carried with him a list of 56 people allegedly shot dead in Kisumu by police since December 30, said people were expressing their anger and initially commended the police for not firing live rounds.
But soon he was running for cover as gunshots rang out. A few small stones had been lobbed at the police, but it was not clear whether that had triggered their violent reaction. As protesters scattered, police moved in after them, firing repeatedly into the air.
Half an hour later, two badly injured men were carried to a police van and taken to the New Nyanza provincial hospital a mile up the road. Policemen on the scene denied the men had been shot.
But the hospital superintendent later confirmed that one of the men had died of a gunshot wound to the chest. The other was in a critical condition.
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