Latest Update from CrisisWatch (January 2008)

Credible reports of 27 December presidential election rigging led to violence in several parts of country. Incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, declared winner 30 December amid protests and international concern about credibility of polls. Violence by youth gangs, vigilante groups followed, while police commissioner implemented shoot to kill policy against protesters, particularly in opposition strongholds in west, coastal and Nairobi slum areas; over 300 killed and 70,000 displaced in post-poll violence. Defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga (from Luo tribe) and Kibaki (Kikuyu) called for end to killing; accused each other’s supporters of ethnic cleansing. 30, mostly Kikuyu, died in western town of Eldoret after church sanctuary set on fire by mob, 1 January. Scores of opposition sympathisers killed indiscriminately by police in Kisumu and Nairobi. Kibaki reportedly called for meeting, rejected by Odinga 1 January. AU head, Ghanaian president John Kufuor, former President of Sierra Leone and head of Commonwealth delegation Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Archbishop Desmond Tutu called in to mediate dispute.

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