Brown calls on AU and Commonwealth to help Kenya
Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on the African Union and the Commonwealth on Tuesday to help reconcile political rivals in Kenya, to stop rioting which has killed 150 people.
Posted: Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 8:47 (GMT)
LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on the African Union and the Commonwealth on Tuesday to help reconcile political rivals in Kenya, to stop rioting which has killed 150 people.
A spokeswoman for Brown's office said he had spoken to Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who chairs the African Union, and to former Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, head of the Commonwealth observer mission to Kenya, to urge them to step in.
"They agreed on the urgent need to establish a process of reconciliation in Kenya facilitated by the Commonwealth and the African Union," the spokeswoman said.
"As the European Union observer mission has said, the Kenyan electoral process has fallen short of international standards."
Brown, whose country was Kenya's former colonial power, spoke on Monday to Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, whose disputed re-election in a poll on December 27 has triggered days of rioting, and to opposition leader Raila Odinga, and urged them to talk.
"What I want to see is them coming together, I want to see talks and I want to see reconciliation and unity," Brown said. "I want to see the possibility explored where they can come together in government.
"But the first priority is that the violence is brought to an end. It is unacceptable that lives are being lost," he said.
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Added: Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 19:27 (GMT)
Really what should be top priority is to restore calm in Kenya. If Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki want to show us that they are qualified to lead the nation of Kenya,they should prove so by putting their selfish desires aside and consider the welfare and security of the people they purport to care for as they tried to convince us during the election campaigns.
If Odinga wants to show the world that he is a better democtatic leader who will not violate the Knyan consititution, he should desist from leading people into violence, a thing that is claiming helpless and inocent lives.
You can not claim to be uphold the constitution while you lead the people into violating the same.Kibaki and Odinga should display maturity by agreeing to sit together and iron out the differences amicably without inciting mob justice or any form of violence. Kibaki should accept his faults and Odinga should do the same.
I feel it is the right of every Kenyan to campaign and vote for the person of his or her own choice. No one should be intimidated or punished for publically supportig Kibaki or Odinga. People who fanning violence and loss of innocent lives in Kenya; should stop acting like novices in politics.
Politics is a type of game like football. There are winners and loosers. The referee's word is final until the issue is commended otherwise by the higher organising body. When a team takes the power into its own hands on the field and tries to settle the issue by violance, such a teams is sometimes suspended or disqualified even if the other team were in the wrong. Disputes are not settled on the field. They are resolved peacefully away from the field.
People in Kenya, take the issue from the field of the election game.Take it aside, to the courts and other peaceful avenues.
Baliraine Daniel, Iganga - Uganda
