INTERVIEW-Kenyan opposition leader demands dialogue after spate of attacks
Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:14pm GMT
* Government says no crisis to warrant opening talks
* Veteran politician lost 2013 presidential race
* Odinga wants timetable to pull out troops from Somalia
* Tensions re-open deep rifts that worry some in West
By Edmund Blair
NAIROBI, June 24 (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)