Kenyan negotiators resume talks to end crisis
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's feuding parties resume talks onTuesday after a calls from home and abroad to solve apost-election crisis that has killed 1,000 people andjeopardised the east African nation's reputation.
Foreign powers and the majority of Kenya's 36 millionpeople are impatient for President Mwai Kibaki and oppositionleader Raila Odinga to find a political solution to theircountry's darkest moment since independence in 1963.
Their dispute over who won the December 27 electionunleashed protests and ethnic attacks that have traumatised thepopulation, displaced 300,000 people, and hurt Kenya'sreputation as a stable democracy and peacemaker in the region.
"The time for a political settlement was yesterday," U.S.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the end of alightening trip to Kenya on Monday to push for a power-sharingaccord as the best way out of the impasse.
Apart from hardliners on either side, a similar message isreverberating around Kenya from businessmen, clerics, civilsociety groups and ordinary citizens, who are increasinglyangry with the political class.
"Where are the leaders who will put selfish gains aside andaccede to the higher commitment to serve and honour a country'scraving for peace?" said Daily Nation columnist Mildred Ngesa.
KENYA "TRAUMATISED"
Officials of Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) andOdinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) have agreed onprinciples to end violence and help refugees.
They also agree in principle the opposition must be broughtinto government somehow -- but are stuck on the details ofthat.
A deadline set by mediator and former U.N. boss Kofi Annanfor a mid-February political deal has passed.
But the veteran Ghanaian diplomat has promised not todepart until the mediation has reached an "irreversible point".
He again urged negotiators to hurry up on Monday.
"The people are tired. They've been traumatised. Some livein fear and they want to see this issue resolved," he said.
The negotiating teams have been meeting throughoutFebruary, but broke up for a long weekend on Thursday after atrip to a secluded safari lodge failed to bring a breakthrough.
While the government is prepared to give ODM somerepresentation in cabinet, the opposition wants a virtual 50:50arrangement with a strong position like a new prime minister'spost for Odinga. It also wants a new vote within two years.
On the ground, the crisis has produced unprecedentedpopulation flows among communities terrified of more violence.
Thousands of members of Kibaki's Kikuyu group, Kenya'slargest, have been trooping back to their heartland in thecentral highlands. Many Luos of Odinga's community, and peoplefrom other tribes deemed pro-opposition, have been heading inthe opposite direction back to their ancestral homelands too.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)