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Rage grips Kenya

The country's image of stability is shattered by vote.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya's opposition leader vowed to go ahead with a "million man" protest rally today that many fear could worsen a wave of political and ethnic violence that humanitarian groups say already has killed 300 people and displaced 100,000.

Though much of Nairobi was quiet Wednesday, shots rang out in the city's sprawling Mathare slum, where police escorted terrified families to safety as fire raged through shacks.

"All you do here is come to pick up bodies," shouted Boniface Shikami.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga says President Mwai Kibaki's re-election Dec. 27 was a sham, and his massive rally in Nairobi could bring hundreds of thousands of supporters and their rivals onto the capital's street.

The government has banned the march, setting the stage for clashes between security forces and Odinga's supporters.

Odinga said Wednesday that his peaceful rally was meant "to communicate to our people, to inform them where we are coming from, where we are and where we want to go."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by telephone Wednesday with Odinga and had a call scheduled with Kibaki to ask the pair to resolve their differences peacefully, the U.S. State Department said.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to say whether the United States recognized Kibaki's victory as legitimate, but he said Washington had "concerns" about accusations of electoral malfeasance that must be addressed within the country's legal system.

Though both sides say they are prepared to talk, the Odinga and Kibaki camps have mostly traded accusations that the other is fueling ethnic violence.

Odinga says he will not meet with Kibaki unless Kibaki concedes that he has lost the presidency, something Kibaki is unlikely to do.

The independent Kenya Human Rights Commission urged Kibaki to agree to an independent review of the disputed ballot count, saying in a statement: "Kenya will not survive this moment unless our leaders act like statesmen."

Confusion has surrounded the disputed vote count. The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he was pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly. The Nairobi newspaper, the Standard, quoted Kivuitu on Wednesday as saying: "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said clashes had affected only about 3 percent of the country's 34-million people. "Kenya is not burning and not (in) the throes of any division," he said, adding that security forces had arrested 500 people since the skirmishes began.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission and the International Federation for Human Rights said in a joint statement that more than 300 people had been killed nationwide since the Dec. 27 vote.

The Norwegian Refugee Council estimates more than 100,000 people have been displaced.

Around 5,400 have also fled to neighboring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people have fled to Tanzania, officials there said.

The bitter dispute has shattered Kenya's image as a tourist-friendly oasis of stability in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan.

It also has revealed ethnic rivalries under the surface of this regional economic powerhouse. Members of Kibaki's powerful Kikuyu tribe, influential in politics and business, were clashing with Odinga's Luos and others.

In one of the worst attacks, a mob set fire to a church Tuesday in a town about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi where Kikuyus had taken refuge.

There were conflicting accounts about how many people died. The Kenya Red Cross said in a statement it retrieved 17 bodies from the church, but other witnesses put the toll at up to 50.

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 01:36:22]