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Coup in Kenya – Part I
Will Ugandans be firing on protestors in Kenia this week?
by b real
Probably the hottest topic right now for Kenyans, be they in Kenya or as part of the diaspora, is whether the reports of increased Ugandan military activities are true and just what that implies for the planned 3-day mass opposition protests across the country scheduled to begin on Wednesday this week.
Rumors have persisted, since the outbreak of spontaneous protests immediately following the civilian coup allowing Mwai Kibaki to retain that nation’s executive power, of Ugandan operatives being involved in the crackdown on protestors in Kenya’s western regions.
As Onyango Oloo wrote recently in a blog essay, PNU’s Coup: How Can Kenyans Fight Back?, at JUKWAA:
Credible reports indicate that Ugandan troops – some of them dressed in Kenyan police uniforms, some of them in civvies – have been implicated in the extra-judicial state ordered executions of unarmed civilians in Kisumu, including many infants and minors, with some shot at close range while cowering in their own homes.
It is widely recognized that a substantial portion of the deaths ensuing in the often violent response to the blatant election theft are directly attributable to Kenyan security forces after shoot-to-kill orders were backed up with live ammunition. Even before the recent events, the Kenyan police have long held a notorious record. For instance, in a recent profile of Kenya in a report by the Center for Defense Information, the authors wrote:
"Security forces, particularly the police, commit serious human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture and rape, and prison conditions can be life threatening for detainees."
The police are understood as a corrupt institution and have continued to operate with impunity, so it has not been surprising to hear the reports that are coming out of Kenya following the coup.
Maina Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, told the audience at an event at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars last Thursday that he has 50 photos in his office of corpses shot execution style by the Kenyan police. Stories abound throughout the country of government forces firing on unarmed protestors.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the organization Human Rights Watch demanded that the Kenyan government end its use of excessive force against civilians.
Since the disputed December 27, 2007 presidential elections, Kenyan police in several cities have used live ammunition to disperse protesters and disperse looters, killing and wounding dozens. Some observers and even police have described the police response as an unofficial “shoot to kill” policy. For example, Human Rights Watch received credible reports that in Kisumu dozens of people were shot dead by police while demonstrating against the election result announced on December 31.
Even people who did not attend rallies have been affected. Human Rights Watch spoke to eyewitnesses in Nairobi who saw unarmed individuals hit by police gunfire on the fringes of protests in the Kibera and Mathare slums. One woman was hit by stray bullets that penetrated the wall of her home. Another unarmed man was shot in the leg. A boy watching a protest from the door of his house was shot in the chest. Kenyan human rights organizations reported deaths and injuries involving police in the cities of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Eldoret.
A source within the police, who was unwilling to be identified, told Human Rights Watch that “many of us are unhappy with what we are being asked to do. This ‘shoot to kill’ policy is illegal, and it is not right. We have brothers and sisters, sons and daughters out there.”
In fact, many contend that it is exactly these concerns about the loyalty of the government forces to follow though on orders to severely repress any protestors which explains the involvement of Ugandan mercenaries. As one article in Uganda’s New Vision reported on January 10:
“The rumour goes that Ugandan gunmen were brought in to shoot at demonstrators after local policemen refused to fire at their own people,” says the manager.
Kisumu MP and former mayor of the town, Shabir Shakeel, confirms the rumour but says he does not believe they were Ugandan soldiers.
“A rapid deployment unit was brought in, taking orders directly from Nairobi”, he tells The New Vision team at Imperial Hotel in Kisumu.
“They followed a shoot-to-kill policy. People say among them were mamuluki (mercenaries) from Uganda because they were differently dressed.”
…
While most of the casualties were caused by the General Service Unit and the Administration Police, the mamuluki fired the first shots, people in Kisumu believe.
Whether these were Ugandans or just forces transfered in from other regions less familiar with the locale, the article goes on to describe how "Hundreds of people, mainly from Raila’s Luo tribe, were shot by security forces in ten days of post-election violence in Kisumu," the majority of which were unarmed and not necessarily even participating in any protest demonstrations.
Since the coup, an opinion frequently made by experts in the region is that Kibaki will only be able to hang on to power through the use of military repression. An article from January 2nd in the Financial Times informed its readers that:
If, as many analysts in Kenya are predicting, the only way for Mr Kibaki to enforce his authority in the absence of a legitimate mandate is to crush dissent, the loyalty of the security forces would become crucial.
Maina Kiai, chairman of the Kenyan National commission on Human rights, said: "If Kibaki insists on staying, I don’t see how else he’ll govern this country other than with a heavy hand."
…
The Kalenjins, among other tribes that bear grievances, make up a significant proportion of the army.
For now, Mr Kibaki is relying on paramilitary units of the police who, according to security sources, have been freshly armed. But if the situation continues to deteriorate and he was forced to press the army on to the streets, the consequences could be grave, with the possibility that the troops become factionalised.
On that very same day the FT ran their story, reports broke that Kibaki started to employ the army in select regions. It would be risky deploying the Kalenjin troops, who families and friends reside primarily in the western regions, into those areas. Rather, and as reports seem to bear out, the PNU government has relied on other components of its security apparatus; the General Service Unit (GSU), the regular police, quite possibly the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), and organized militias to carry out the repression throughout these provinces. And perhaps with some assistance from Uganda, in the form of sanctioned soldiers or, for the sake of official denial, proxy mercenaries.
The stories of an Ugandan presence in Kenya began within days following the coup. For the first two weeks, the accounts coming out of Nyanza and the Rift Valley were hard to substantiate – not only on the reports of Ugandan activities, but also on the situation in general.
Since the Kibaki goverment has issued an immediate ban on political broadcasting — including the seemingly ubiquitous technology of text messaging — communications from region to region have been limited and decentralized, with many unfounded rumours and disinformation plants contributing to the already chaotic context and making it more difficult to find out what really was happening on the ground.
Now that more media institutions have began ignoring the ban, along with the perspectives that have evolved from the elapsed time since the immediate shock occurred, corrobative accounts are coming forth to help connect some of the dots surrounding Ugandan complicity.
It didn’t help that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni followed in the footsteps of the United States and offered official recognition of Kibaki’s "re-election" victory. Just as the U.S. was the only western power to rush to congratulate Kibaki, Museveni so far has been the only African leader to formally do the same. However, while the U.S. State Department has second toughts regarding their image and then retracted their initial congratulations, Museveni has yet to apologize for it.
This behavior certainly raised the eyebrows of most, Kenyans especially, and has led to much speculation — see, for instance, Why Museveni was quick to back Kibaki — contributing to the impression that Uganda is backing Kibaki’s coup.
Starting last week, the attention paid to the stories of an Ugandan presence in western Kenyan magnified, in large part due to the questions and concerns that ODM members have raised about foreign involvement in the killing of their supporters. Last Tuesday, opposition candidate Raila Odinga drew headlines as he made public accusations against Museveni during an interview program:
Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Tuesday that he had called President Yoweri Museveni to protest what he called the presence of Ugandan gunmen in the lakeside city of Kisumu, where riots erupted in the aftermath of a disputed presidential election.
The gunmen "have killed quite a number of civilians in Kisumu", Mr Odinga said during an interview on KFM’s Hot Seat show on Tuesday evening.
The opposition leader, who claims to have won the disputed December 27 presidential election, said Kisumu residents had variously reported seeing armed men driven in vehicles with Ugandan registration numbers. But the men were dressed in civilian attire, the Orange Democratic Movement party leader said.
Mr Odinga revealed that President Museveni had denied knowledge of the Ugandan military’s presence in post-election Kenya.
"What happened is that there were vehicles with Ugandan registration numbers. They were seen in Kisumu and the occupants were wearing civilian clothes. They have been shooting and they have killed quite a number of civilians in Kisumu…" Mr Odinga said.
"But I had occasion to speak to President Yoweri Museveni who assured me that there are no Ugandan forces in the country, and I have reason to believe what he was saying."
It is possible that the suspected Ugandan gunmen could have been Kenyan police officers using vehicles from Uganda, he said without citing a possible motive.
That same article, in Uganda’s Daily Monitor, also reported:
It was not possible to independently verify claims of the Ugandan military’s participation in post-election violence in Kenya. But a reliable source who was among the security personnel deployed in Nyanza Province, which takes in Kisumu, said a curious Kenyan army officer identified two Ugandans clad in the Kenya Police uniform.
The duo communicated in Luganda, the source claimed, a language not used in Kenya’s armed forces. After a brief interrogation, one of the two gunmen allegedly admitted that he was a Ugandan, before being whisked away by security.
As pointed out earlier, many of the accounts from residents in Nyanza refer to mysterious army personnel speaking a strange language.
After attempts last week at international mediation in the standoff between Kibaki, entrenched in institutional inertia surrounded by his "Mt Kenya Mafia", and Odinga, adamant that the people of Kenya’s majority voice be recognized, failed to make much headway, Odinga’s party, ODM – the Orange Democratic Movement, announced that it was taking its position back out in the streets in three days of orchestrated mass protests. Scheduled to begin this Wednesday, the rallies are to take place in some 16 cities throughout the country. Already, Kibaki’s government has declared the rallies illegal, having banned all public assembly.
As the Human Rights Watch statement cited earlier makes clear, "Kenyan and international law prohibits a general ban on demonstrations" and recommends that "[t]he government … defuse tension by immediately lifting the ban on public assembly … allowing the planned demonstrations to go ahead"
If Kibaki is indeed intent on using repression to protect his power — and every indication is that this is the case given the extra-judicial executions of civilian protestors by his state security appartus and, as Kiai and CSIS’s Joel Barkan stated at the Wilson Center panel, that it is their impression that Kibaki cynically sacrificed his own Kikuyu people in the western regions by his actions — any attempts to mobilize mass demonstrations will be met with mass murder.
Given the path he has taken, Kibaki leaves himself few alternative options. Right now he is betting that he can dissolve his opposition through tactics of divide-and-rule and the use of extreme violence to hurry and reach that point where the people decide they cannot suffer any more, and still maintain the support of his western backers.
ODM, on the other hand, is trying to leverage their popular support and keep Kibaki on the defensive and bring about regime change through a combination of mass, non-violent demonstrations and economic means so that eventually Kenya’s international investors will decide that they cannot suffer any more and that Kibaki has to go. This is also a risky venture, with high potential costs.
It could be shaping up to be a very bloody week in Kenya.
From Monday’s East African Standard: ODM: Govt importing troops
MPs-elect from Western and Nyanza provinces have accused the Government of importing Ugandan soldiers to cause mayhem during their peaceful mass rallies this week.
The MPs claimed they had evidence that the Ugandan troops are in Kenya with the consent of Kibaki’s Government.
The ODM leaders have demanded that all Ugandan troops in Kenya be withdrawn immediately to protect the sovereignty of the country.
"These troops have been seen landing by boat along the shores of Lake Victoria at various points from Sori to Port Victoria," stated the MPs in a statement read by Mr Chris Okemo, the Nambale MP-elect at a news conference at Orange House, Nairobi on Sunday.
They have made crossings at Malaba and Busia border posts," they added.
They cited the case in Usenge where the Ugandan troops were allegedly met on one of the beaches and escorted by local police vehicles on Saturday.
"In the last one week there has been a heavy build-up of Ugandan troops along the border. In the absence of a similar build-up of Kenyan troops our people have justification to worry," the MPs stated.
The MPs further claimed that they had filmed three busloads of Ugandan troops crossing into Kenya through the Malaba border.
"The buses had Kenyan registration numbers. The registration numbers of one of the vehicles is KAZ 803D. We are fortunate that this particular crossing was recorded on film and can be made available to the media at an appropriate time," they said.
The statement further claimed that in Nyatike, Rangwe, Mbita, Busia, Bungoma, Kakamega, Siaya, Bondo and Kisumu districts, the Ugandan troops went into villages and markets, harassed residents and caused mayhem.
"They have caused deaths in Nyatike, Mbita, Gem, Bondo and Ugenya," Okemo said.
The MPs further accused the Government of plotting to punish residents in ODM strongholds.
———
The next installment will explore the roles of both Uganda and the United States in this story and offer suggestions on how the international community can play a positive role.
[Part II is now available here]
great example of biased reporting from reuters
Kenyan opposition protests flop in capital
NAIROBI, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Just a few hundred tired-looking demonstrators marched in Kenya’s capital on Wednesday before being chased back into their slums by police firing teargas.
It was a far cry from the millions of supporters on the streets demanded by opposition challenger Raila Odinga, who says President Mwai Kibaki stole victory at the Dec. 27 election.
More than two weeks after Kibaki was sworn in, many of Odinga’s supporters did demonstrate on Wednesday, especially in the western towns of Eldoret and Kisumu.
Some set up road blocks, burnt tyres and chanted slogans. Police shot dead two men in Kisumu, adding to a post-poll death toll of 600 people — mostly victims of mobs supporting Odinga.
But apart from a few small rallies that were quickly quelled by police firing shots and teargas canisters, Nairobi did not see the mass action Odinga had wanted.
Even the tin-roof slum of Kibera, east Africa’s biggest shanty-town and an Odinga stronghold, could only muster a few hundred, some throwing stones at police.
…
Odinga says most supporters were scared off the streets.
But the thousands walking home late on Wednesday into Kibera belied a simpler reason why so many did not join the rally: they had to go to work. Protesters heckled some as they returned.
simpler? right-o.
the article ends,
Perhaps reflecting embarrassment at media attention, police baton charged and tear gassed a pack of journalists in Nairobi.
“Do you want to lose your life?” one officer told Reuters, when asked why they were targeting the press.
no mention in that article of the heavy rains earlier in the morning, the shoot-to-kill orders, that the protests are scheduled to continue for two more days, or that it’s not just odinga “who says President Mwai Kibaki stole” the elections.
gettleman in the NYT, at least, is somewhat more objective
Protesters and police clash in Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya: Kenya sunk further into violence on Wednesday as police battled with protesters across the country, shooting several, according to witnesses, while opposition leaders vowed to press ahead with the protests.
The worst violence was in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and an opposition stronghold, where mobs of furious young men hurled stones at police officers, who responded by charging into the crowds and firing their guns.
“There’s been war since the morning,” said Eric Otieno, a mechanic in Kisumu. “The police are whipping women, children, everyone.”
At least three people have been shot by the police, according to witnesses in Nairobi, the capital, and in Kisumu. In several areas, the tension seems to be growing, with crowds of young men building roadblocks in the street and lighting enormous bonfires.
Many protesters said they were responding to opposition leaders’ call for “mass action” and that they would continue to wreak havoc until Mwai Kibaki, Kenya’s president, stepped down. Police officials have said they will take whatever action is necessary to restore law and order.
…
On Wednesday, the day started out relatively calmly with the country in partial lock-down mode.
In early clashes, protesters fought with police in the streets of Mombasa, Kenya’s biggest port and a main artery to the rest of East Africa. Witnesses said that hundreds of demonstrators, many of them Muslims, tried to block roundabouts in the city center but that police officers in riot gear chased them away with tear gas.
…
In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, the streets were quiet early Wednesday morning. A heavy rain that fell overnight and continued into the morning seemed at first to dampen spirits and diminish the energy for another round of street clashes.
Police officers were clumped at strategic intersections across the city but few demonstrators had gathered before noon. Many businesses were closed, though streets were open and public buses were operating normally.
al jazeera: Kenyan police shoot dead [living] protesters
Two people have been shot dead by police in Kenya as officers opened fire as hundreds of demonstrators protested the re-election of president Mwai Kibaki.
The violence on Wednesday came at the start of three days of protests, called by Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, over disputed presidential election.
…
The two men were killed when police in Kisumu began firing and using teargas and batons to disperse a 1,000-strong crowd.
A Reuters cameraman saw a corpse in the street, with bullet wounds in his back and side.
“We are receiving more gunshot victims,” a doctor at a Kisumu hospital told the newsagency.
In Nairobi, the capital, a few hundred people staged protests.
Police chased demonstrators through the central business district, firing teargas and live rounds.
Three youths were shot in the back of the leg as they tried to run from officers in the city’s sprawling Kibera slum, one of Africa’s biggest, a hospital administrator said.
guardian: Protester killed in Kenyan police clash
Plans for similar rallies earlier this month were cancelled after protesters were beaten back by water canon, teargas and bullets.
In the coastal city of Mombasa, police hurled tear gas and used batons to beat back several groups of protesters, several-hundred strong, on the outskirts of the city.
The western city of Eldoret was reported to be quiet, though protesters there erected several makeshift roadblocks on the outskirts of town.
Protesters were again prevented from leaving Nairobi’s Kibera and Mathare slums. Elsewhere the capital was reported to be mostly calm with a heavy police presence on the streets, particularly around Uhuru Park where a rally was planned.
Some anti-government anger may have calmed after the election yesterday of an opposition candidate as parliamentary speaker, the third most powerful post in Kenya.
But Salim Lone, from Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement, said protests were planned for the next three days.
“We are going to keep up the pressure from every legal angle and through all peaceful means until the government agrees to acknowledge that the election results were false and that a solution must found to the political crisis,” he said.
afp: Two dead, several wounded in Kenya opposition demos
The worst violence took place in the western opposition stronghold of Kisumu, the country’s third city, when riot police clashed with supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga.
“One man was shot in the back as police were trying to disperse about 1,000 youths who were trying to to gather here,” a police commander told AFP, adding that several others had been wounded, one seriously.
He later said another man had died of gunshot wounds in hospital.
…
“Yesterday we celebrated because we got our speaker elected, but today they come back and fire at us for just wanting to march on the streets,” said Frederick Okoth, a local resident.
“The struggle goes on, we will not sleep,” protestors sang in Swahili, taunting gangs of armed riot police drawn up some 300 metres (yards) away on the other side of a grassy hill.
But police vehicles cleared the central business district, shouting orders through loudspeakers for everybody to leave town, beating suspects and dispersing groups with tear gas.
“The police are using strong-arm tactics, but the people are coming out. This is not an event, it is a process and the struggle continues,” ODM secretary general Anyang Nyongo told reporters.
…
In the western city of Eldoret, which saw the worst violence following Kibaki’s December 30 re-election, two demonstrators were slightly wounded when the 2,000-strong crowd clashed with police.
…
Police also fired tear gas at protestors in the towns of Nakuru and Mombasa but the nationwide protests were eventually thwarted or wound down.
With a question mark hanging over similar protests planned for Thursday, most of the country’s cities were deserted again, threatening to deepen the economic crisis that has crippled Kenya over the past three weeks.
Kenya-Open Fire
KISUMU, Kenya (AP) – The provincial police chief in this opposition stronghold said she ordered her officers to fire on a rioting crowd, saying she was forced to because her force was overwhelmed during nationwide protests over disputed elections.
The comments from Grace Kaindi, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, were the first to acknowledge police fired on crowds. Previously, police had denied shooting anyone in the turmoil.
“It was an extreme situation and there was no other way to control them”, Kaindi said of the Dec. 29 clash in Kisumu. “I gave the order to open fire myself when I heard that my officers were being overwhelmed. If we had not killed them, things would have got very bad.”
The toll, according to hospital records: 44 shot dead, 143 wounded. Kaindi said one police officer was hurt by a rock hurled from the crowd.
…
Kaindi’s comments came Tuesday, a day before the start of a new round of protests called by Odinga, who has ignored pleas from church leaders and others to cancel the demonstrations that have fueled much of the violence.
Kaindi had promised no more bullets. “We’re better prepared,” she said.
But Wednesday, police let loose volleys of rifle fire into the air over rock-throwing protesters. One of them, Dickson Oruk, said he saw the body of one man, apparently shot in the head, laying on the ground near three wounded men who had been shot in the chest.
Kaindi said she had no regrets about her Dec. 29 order to fire, charging all those shot were “looters and thieves”.
On that day, Robert Owino, a 21-year-old mechanic, said he was walking home from work when he was shot in the chest.
“I’m very angry about what has happened because I am innocent,” he said from his hospital bed. “So many people were shot and, like me, they were doing nothing wrong.”
Hospital records seen by the AP show 44 of 53 bodies taken to its morgue in the aftermath of the riots had bullet wounds. Another 59 people were admitted with gunshot wounds and 84 people with bullet wounds and grazes were treated as outpatients.
…
The Rev. Charles Oloo K’Ochiel, a Catholic priest who collated an independent tally of those shot from visits to the hospital and its morgue told the AP he counted 68 dead and 56 injured.
“When you go into a hospital ward and see that 95 percent of the patients are victims of bullet wounds, you have to wonder if the police were brought here to bring peace or to shoot every human being that comes their way,” he said.
All those with bullet wounds were from Odinga’s Luo tribe, he said.
Posted by: b real | Jan 16 2008 20:03 utc | 23
great example of biased reporting from reuters
Kenyan opposition protests flop in capital
NAIROBI, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Just a few hundred tired-looking demonstrators marched in Kenya’s capital on Wednesday before being chased back into their slums by police firing teargas.
It was a far cry from the millions of supporters on the streets demanded by opposition challenger Raila Odinga, who says President Mwai Kibaki stole victory at the Dec. 27 election.
More than two weeks after Kibaki was sworn in, many of Odinga’s supporters did demonstrate on Wednesday, especially in the western towns of Eldoret and Kisumu.
Some set up road blocks, burnt tyres and chanted slogans. Police shot dead two men in Kisumu, adding to a post-poll death toll of 600 people — mostly victims of mobs supporting Odinga.
But apart from a few small rallies that were quickly quelled by police firing shots and teargas canisters, Nairobi did not see the mass action Odinga had wanted.
Even the tin-roof slum of Kibera, east Africa’s biggest shanty-town and an Odinga stronghold, could only muster a few hundred, some throwing stones at police.
…
Odinga says most supporters were scared off the streets.
But the thousands walking home late on Wednesday into Kibera belied a simpler reason why so many did not join the rally: they had to go to work. Protesters heckled some as they returned.
simpler? right-o.
the article ends,
Perhaps reflecting embarrassment at media attention, police baton charged and tear gassed a pack of journalists in Nairobi.
“Do you want to lose your life?” one officer told Reuters, when asked why they were targeting the press.
no mention in that article of the heavy rains earlier in the morning, the shoot-to-kill orders, that the protests are scheduled to continue for two more days, or that it’s not just odinga “who says President Mwai Kibaki stole” the elections.
gettleman in the NYT, at least, is somewhat more objective
Protesters and police clash in Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya: Kenya sunk further into violence on Wednesday as police battled with protesters across the country, shooting several, according to witnesses, while opposition leaders vowed to press ahead with the protests.
The worst violence was in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and an opposition stronghold, where mobs of furious young men hurled stones at police officers, who responded by charging into the crowds and firing their guns.
“There’s been war since the morning,” said Eric Otieno, a mechanic in Kisumu. “The police are whipping women, children, everyone.”
At least three people have been shot by the police, according to witnesses in Nairobi, the capital, and in Kisumu. In several areas, the tension seems to be growing, with crowds of young men building roadblocks in the street and lighting enormous bonfires.
Many protesters said they were responding to opposition leaders’ call for “mass action” and that they would continue to wreak havoc until Mwai Kibaki, Kenya’s president, stepped down. Police officials have said they will take whatever action is necessary to restore law and order.
…
On Wednesday, the day started out relatively calmly with the country in partial lock-down mode.
In early clashes, protesters fought with police in the streets of Mombasa, Kenya’s biggest port and a main artery to the rest of East Africa. Witnesses said that hundreds of demonstrators, many of them Muslims, tried to block roundabouts in the city center but that police officers in riot gear chased them away with tear gas.
…
In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, the streets were quiet early Wednesday morning. A heavy rain that fell overnight and continued into the morning seemed at first to dampen spirits and diminish the energy for another round of street clashes.
Police officers were clumped at strategic intersections across the city but few demonstrators had gathered before noon. Many businesses were closed, though streets were open and public buses were operating normally.
al jazeera: Kenyan police shoot dead [living] protesters
Two people have been shot dead by police in Kenya as officers opened fire as hundreds of demonstrators protested the re-election of president Mwai Kibaki.
The violence on Wednesday came at the start of three days of protests, called by Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, over disputed presidential election.
…
The two men were killed when police in Kisumu began firing and using teargas and batons to disperse a 1,000-strong crowd.
A Reuters cameraman saw a corpse in the street, with bullet wounds in his back and side.
“We are receiving more gunshot victims,” a doctor at a Kisumu hospital told the newsagency.
In Nairobi, the capital, a few hundred people staged protests.
Police chased demonstrators through the central business district, firing teargas and live rounds.
Three youths were shot in the back of the leg as they tried to run from officers in the city’s sprawling Kibera slum, one of Africa’s biggest, a hospital administrator said.
guardian: Protester killed in Kenyan police clash
Plans for similar rallies earlier this month were cancelled after protesters were beaten back by water canon, teargas and bullets.
In the coastal city of Mombasa, police hurled tear gas and used batons to beat back several groups of protesters, several-hundred strong, on the outskirts of the city.
The western city of Eldoret was reported to be quiet, though protesters there erected several makeshift roadblocks on the outskirts of town.
Protesters were again prevented from leaving Nairobi’s Kibera and Mathare slums. Elsewhere the capital was reported to be mostly calm with a heavy police presence on the streets, particularly around Uhuru Park where a rally was planned.
Some anti-government anger may have calmed after the election yesterday of an opposition candidate as parliamentary speaker, the third most powerful post in Kenya.
But Salim Lone, from Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement, said protests were planned for the next three days.
“We are going to keep up the pressure from every legal angle and through all peaceful means until the government agrees to acknowledge that the election results were false and that a solution must found to the political crisis,” he said.
Posted by: b real | Jan 16 2008 20:06 utc | 24
some of the coverage out of kenya’s 2nd day of protests
east african standard: Officers tear-gas hospitals
Thick smoke billowed from wards and offices at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, choking patients and staff, after police lobbed teargas canisters.
And at Homa Bay District Hospital, business was interrupted after police lobbed teargas at protesters.
General Service Unit (GSU) officers also opened fire in Eldoret, sparking panic among more than 500 patients and hospital staff.
“I’m too angry to say anything. I have talked to police headquarters in Nairobi and they have referred us to the Provincial Police Officer,” said the hospital director, Prof Harun Mengich.
Among the injured were security officers, Mr Samuel Biwott Moiben, Mr Julius Chelimo, and a nurse, Mrs Joyce Akwanalo.
The officers could have mistaken the staff for rioting youths, who had blocked the road to the hospital.
But Mr Tonny Kirwa, the public relations officer, said nurses and security officers wore uniforms and identification badges.
In Homa Bay, patients were abandoned as doctors and nurses scampered for safety following the midday incident.
The officers were pursuing protesters who had taken refuge in the hospital.
from another article in the same paper
Police shoot dead more protesters in day two of demos
In Homa Bay, police chasing protesters threw teargas canisters into the district hospital while in Eldoret, a similar police attack was mounted against Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
Thick teargas smoke wafted through wards and offices at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, choking patients.
A contingent of the GSU also opened fire from G3 rifles, sending over 500 patients, nurses, doctors and members of staff into panic.
Nurses and security staff also said the invading force was in GSU uniform but they did not communicate in Kiswahili and were also asking staff to identify their tribes.
elsewhere, from the same article
The toll of those whose lives were brutally brought to an end by police rose to more than 10, on another day of mass protests coupled with a drastic international response to the post-election crisis.
For the second day running, members of the ODM Pentagon protesting against the December 27 presidential election they say was rigged were dispersed with teargas and gunfire in Nairobi as police again resorted to force to subdue demonstrators.
Scenes of vicious police action were enacted in Kibera and Mathare slums in Nairobi, Kisumu, Narok, Homa Bay and Eldoret towns.
Other places rocked by demonstrations included Voi, Mwatate, Taveta, Nakuru, Molo, Keringet and Litein, while Mombasa and Kakamega were relatively calm.
…
Police barred journalists from entering Kibera where more than 100 GSU officers descended into the slum’s alleys, firing bullets and teargas.
Journalists saw police officers beating up protesters with gun butts, kicking down doors and hurling teargas into houses.
Witnesses said they saw four bodies lying in the slum’s alleys.
In Mathare slums, two more people were shot dead.
The bodies were collected by police moments after the shooting, amid shouting from locals who accused them of extra-judicial killings.
Police shot dead another youth in Kisumu in a fresh flare-up, bringing the death toll in the battered lakeside town to six in under 24 hours.
Master Bernard Ochieng was shot dead next to the Kisumu Molasses Plant, where protesters used tyres and electricity poles to light bonfires barricading the Kisumu–Busia Highway.
Kiraithe also confirmed that two more people had been shot in Kisumu as they reportedly tried to set ablaze oil tankers.
at the kisumu-busia highway barricades, another article reports that
Police officers used private vehicles to disguise themselves. They lobbed tear gas canisters and shot in the air as protesters scampered for safety.
reuters: Kenya’s slum residents angered by police brutality
NAIROBI, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Pastor Isaac Mujete was talking with women and children from his church in Kenya’s biggest slum on Thursday when police opened fire, spraying bullets as residents ran for cover among the tin-roofed shacks.
One round grazed his arm, tearing his shirtsleeve before ripping into the lower back of another pastor, Francis Ivayo, as the two churchmen tried to protect children in Nairobi’s Kibera shanty town, home to up to a million people.
“When they came they just started shooting any old how. They could not reason with anyone. They told us we can do anything to you, even shoot you, we don’t care,” Mujete said from Ivayo’s bedside after bringing him to the nearby Masaba Hospital.
“Young kids were there, we could not just run away. These were members of our church. We were trying to safeguard young children,” he said.
As he spoke, one of two other young men brought in with Ivayo died in the next room from a gunshot wound to the neck.
“He was shot at close range. He was shot through the front of the neck. He was facing whoever shot him,” said resident surgeon Dr Eric Ataya.
…
Pastor Mujete said there was no political protest going on in the immediate area of Kibera where he and his colleague were shot and said that the police had opened fire unannounced.
Whatever the political outcome of Kenya’s unrest, the brutality seen in its slums is likely to leave long-lasting resentment.
“When you speak to the international community, tell them we do not need food, we need guns,” said Thomas Kepha, 26, an unemployed Kibera resident.
Posted by: b real | Jan 18 2008 4:55 utc | 41
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