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Kenyan join in prayers at International Christian Church in Nairobi, Kenya, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008. to pray for the country after bloody violence after the Dec. 27, 2007 elections. President Mwai Kibaki told the top U.S. diplomat for Africa that he was willing to share power and the opposition backed off demands for his resignation, offering hope for an end to Kenya's deadly electoral crisis. As Kibaki and Raila Odinga faced growing pressure to compromise, the violence that has killed more than 300 people across the country appeared to ease in the capital for the first time since the disputed vote that gave the president a second term and awakened dormant ethnic rivalries. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)

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Kenya's Opposition Calls Off Rallies
By MICHELLE FAUL – 14 hours ago

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya's opposition leader on Monday canceled nationwide protests, saying he wanted to avoid new violence and give mediation a chance to resolve the election dispute that has killed nearly 500 people in political and ethnic bloodletting.

Raila Odinga made the announcement at a news conference after meeting with the top U.S. envoy to Africa. The government of President Mwai Kibaki, accused by Odinga of stealing an election last month, had said the proposed Tuesday demonstrations were illegal and could provoke violence.

Odinga noted Ghana's President John Kufuor, the current chairman of the African Union, was expected to arrive by Tuesday on a mediation mission. Kufuor's trip had been repeatedly delayed as the government rejected outside mediation.

"We are now sure that mediation will start. We have consulted and decided that the public rallies we called for are canceled," Odinga said. "We want the mediation to take place in a peaceful environment, that is why the rallies have been canceled."

Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki both say they are open to some form of power sharing. Kibaki was declared winner of Dec. 27 elections after a vote tally that Odinga and international observers charged was flawed. In some areas, protests have degenerated into rioting pitting other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu, long dominant in Kenya's politics and economy.
A statement Monday from the Ministry of Special Programs put the toll at 486 dead with some 255,000 people displaced. The toll was compiled by a committee of humanitarian services set up by the government that toured areas most affected by riots and protests.

Opposition rallies last week were blocked by police who fired tear gas, water cannons and live bullets over people's heads. Human rights groups accused police of excessive force and unjustified killings, but police Commissioner Hussein Ali insisted Sunday that "We have not shot anyone."

Tens of thousands of people are cut off from food and other supplies as shops and transport have shut down. What food is available has tripled in price.

On Monday, Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, embarked on a final round of talks. In her three-day mission, she won an offer from Kibaki to form a coalition government and a concession from Odinga that he would negotiate without insisting that Kibaki first resign.

Odinga said Sunday he was willing to drop demands that Kibaki resign and was willing to discuss sharing power, but only through a mediator empowered to negotiate an agreement that the international community would guarantee.

The opposition also has proposed an interim government be set up to hold new presidential elections. But Kibaki has said only a court could order fresh elections — an unlikely event since he has packed the judiciary with his allies.

It would be nearly impossible for Kibaki to govern without opposition support. In parliamentary elections held the same day as the presidential vote, Odinga's party won 95 of 210 legislative seats, and half of Kibaki's Cabinet lost their seats, apparently because of anger over pervasive corruption and nepotism that favored Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have appealed for Kibaki and Odinga to hold talks to end the deadlock over only the country's second free election since independence in 1963. The country is seen as an ally in the fight against terrorism, and the explosion of violence has damaged its image as a stable democracy and attraction for investors and tourists in a region rent by wars, uprisings and civil unrest.

Thousands of tourists have canceled vacations at the beginning of the high season.
"Hotels have been projecting an occupancy of 80-90 percent of capacity. But today, as we speak, that has dropped down to less than 40 percent. That's a huge loss for the economy," Mohammed Hersi, general manager of Whitesands Hotel in the coastal city of Mombasa, told The Associated Press.

The level of violence eased over the weekend, though ethnic attacks continued.
Nearly 1,000 members of Odinga's Luo tribe were chased from their homes Sunday in one small town, Limuru, 30 miles west of Nairobi, the capital. Some with furniture and bundles of clothing, others with nothing, huddled around a police station compound.

George Otieno, a 30-year-old who works in a car body shop, said about 100 men armed with machetes, hammers and sticks attacked his home and smashed his head with a hammer.
"They said, 'You have to go back to your place,'" meaning the Luo's native lands in western Kenya, said Otieno, whose head was bandaged and shirt marked with dried blood.

Francis Waweru said he had arrived in the Nairobi area three days ago with his wife and four children, fleeing a mob of hundreds who torched his shop and home in the west. He showed a leg wound where he said he was shot with an arrow. "They said, 'No Raila, no peace,'" Waweru said.

Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Katharine Houreld, Tom Odula and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi, Todd Pitman in Eldoret and Tom Maliti in Mombasa contributed to this report.