INTERVIEW-Kenyan opposition leader demands dialogue after spate of attacks.
Thomson Reuters Foundation - 2 hours ago.
BY EDMUND BLAIR
NAIROBI Tue Jun 24, 2014 4:19pm BST
Kenya's former prime minister Raila Odinga, addresses a news
conference at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi June 18, 2014.
CREDIT: REUTERS/NOOR KHAMIS
(Reuters) - Kenya's veteran opposition leader demanded on Tuesday a
national dialogue by July 7 and sought a timetable to pull Kenyan
troops out of Somalia, hours after a fresh attack on the coast killed
five people.
Raila Odinga, who was President Uhuru Kenyatta's main challenger in
last year's election, has called for nationwide rallies next month
over what he said were public worries that include security failings,
corruption and rising living costs.
His comments have set him on a collision course with the government,
which has dismissed the deadline as a bid by the 69-year-old former
prime minister to create a crisis that will haul him back to the
centre of politics in the east African nation.
Both sides may be playing with fire, say diplomats and analysts, in a
nation where political loyalties tend to follow ethnic lines and
rivalries have flared before, notably after the contested 2007
election when tribal violence left about 1,200 dead.
Diplomats, worried about a nation that is the West's ally in the fight
against militant Islam, have called for cooler heads.
"We have given them a deadline by which time we must have dialogue and
this is July 7," Odinga told Reuters in an interview at his Nairobi
office. The date is symbolic: "Saba Saba" in Swahili, or 7/7, is when
opponents of former autocrat Daniel Arap Moi launched a bid in 1990 to
open up politics.
Odinga did not spell out consequences if his demand was not met, but
said he would continue rallies across the country that began on May
31, when he returned from three months abroad.
Attacks around Mpeketoni on the coast last week that killed about 65
people have further stoked tensions.
Somali Islamists said they were responsible, but Kenyatta dismissed
the claim and blamed local politicians - fingering Odinga in all but
name. On Monday night, five more people were killed in an attack in
the same region.
The presidency says there is no basis for national talks as there is
no breakdown in institutions or constitutional order.
"He is trying to become relevant by manufacturing a crisis," said
Munyori Buku, senior communications director at the presidency, adding
the government had planned a conference on national unity for July but
scrapped it when it was politicised.
Buku also repeated the assertion that last week's back-to-back attacks
on Mpeketoni were "local terrorism" not al Shabaab, a Somalia-based
Islamist militant group, although many Kenyans still question who was
to blame.
TIMETABLE ON SOMALIA
The government says it has intelligence to prove its claim, but has
not revealed evidence. The security forces killed five suspected
attackers last week, but police say they have not traced their
identities and no one has come for their bodies.
Odinga said the government had wrongly ruled out al Shabaab and said a
spate of other militant attacks - which the government has blamed on
Somali Islamists - should encourage the government to think again
about keeping troops in Somalia.
"There must be a clear timetable of how and when we are going to
remove our troops from Somalia," Odinga said, given the repeated
attacks on Kenyan soil blamed on al Shabaab. He supported the
deployment in 2011 when he was prime minister.
That debate, analysts say, may play into the hands of al Shabaab, a
group that has vowed more attacks on Kenya and said it wants to drive
out Kenyan troops, which fight alongside forces from other African
Union nations.
Experts note that the attacks on the poor Mpeketoni town differed in
tactics from other assaults, such as al Shabaab's September raid on
Nairobi's upscale Westgate shopping mall that killed 67 people, but
said this did not rule out al Shabaab.
Where Westgate united many Kenyans, including Kenyatta and Odinga, the
attacks on Mpeketoni hit an area where ethnic-fuelled rivalries over
land and other issues have festered, which in turn has widened
divisions.
"I really appeal to the Kenyan leaders to de-escalate their political
rhetoric," European Union envoy to Kenya, Lodewijk Briet, told Reuters
last week, adding that political rallies on the street could slip out
of control.
Odinga said the rallies he had held since May 31 had been peaceful and
said he would not call for civil disobedience if the demand for
dialogue was not met. But he said the government had to ensure all
communities benefited under its rule.
"We are not inciting," said Odinga, a Luo, one among the dozens of
ethnic groups in Kenya. "We are talking on behalf of all Kenyans, not
particular communities."
The aide to Kenyatta, 52, an ethnic Kikuyu and son of the nation's
founding president, said Odinga's call for inclusive government was a
brazen bid for power. "That is what talks are about," said Buku.
Odinga denied any such goal but did not dismiss the idea of making a
fourth bid for the presidency in 2017. "I have not ruled it out, but I
have not considered it," he said.
(Editing by Susan Fenton)
http://www.google.ca/gwt/x?gl=CA&hl=en-CA&u=http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/uk-kenya-attacks-politics-idUKKBN0EZ1U020140624&source=s&q=INTERVIEW-Kenyan+opposition+leader+demands+dialogue+after+spate+of+attacks&sa=X&ei=PripU9KCF8KkyASpvYGgCA&ved=0CBwQFjAA
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