Kenya: more protest rallies to come

Nairobi/Berlin: Kenya's opposition party, bloodied by protests in which more than 20 people have died, called on Saturday for another day of rallies as well as economic boycotts and strikes in a bid to make the East African nation ungovernable because of the disputed presidential election.

"We will use each and every means to bring down Kibaki's government," party chairman Henry Kosgey told reporters.

He called for "peaceful rallies" across the country on Thursday.

Two more people were killed overnight, both in ethnic clashes.

The US ambassador, citing "many factors and underlying grievances", compared Kenya's violence to the 1968 race riots in the United States.

At a town hall meeting on Friday for Americans in Nairobi, Ambassador Michael Ranneberger said there was "a lot of cheating on both sides" in the December 27 elections that pitted President Mwai Kibaki against opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Without the rigging, Odinga would have won by 120,000 votes or just 1.5 per cent, Ranneberger said in a conference call with the Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But Kibaki's power becomes more entrenched each day. The opposition's best hope may rest in wrangling a power-sharing agreement that might make Odinga prime minister or vice-president.

International mediation continued. A group of former African presidents - Tanzania's Benjamin Mkapa, Mozambique's Joachim Chissano and Botswana's Ketumile Masire - met with both Odinga and Kibaki, Odinga told reporters after the meeting on Friday.

Foreigners freed

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected on Tuesday to head mediation efforts, his office in Geneva said.

Meanwhile, two Germans and a Dutch national arrested on suspicion of "terrorist activities" in Kenya were released yesterday, the wife of one of them said in Berlin.

Andrej Hermlin-Leder, a Berlin-based jazz musician, was released a day after Kenyan authorities confirmed his arrest, said his Kenyan wife, Joyce.

A second German, photographer Gerd-Uwe Hauth, and Dutch documentary filmmaker Fleur van Dissel were also free again, Joyce Hermlin-Leder said. The Dutch Foreign Ministry also confirmed that van Dissel had been released without charge. No further details were available. Later yesterday, Andrej Hermlin-Leder, contacted in Kenya, said they had been treated well.

"We were treated in a very friendly manner by all police officers, very friendly, very correct and I thank the Kenyan authorities for their very professional behaviour," Hermlin-Leder said. "I must also thank the German Embassy." On Friday, Kenyan police said they had arrested two Germans and a Dutch national suspected of "terrorist activities". At least two had ties to opposition leader Raila Odinga. Violence swept Kenya after the disputed December 27 election, and hundreds of people have been killed in violent protests over the last weeks.

After the arrest, opposition spokesman Salim Lone said Hermlin-Leder was a supporter of Odinga and spends a lot of time in Kenya.