Kenya

Kenya has been the anchor of political stability in East Africa. But in recent days, 300 people have been killed and 100,000 have been displaced in political unrest after the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki amid widely reported voting irregularities. As America's key ally in the region, Kenya cannot be allowed to collapse. Mr. Kibaki has acquiesced to a judicial investigation of the elections, but its impartiality is open to doubt. The U.S. must warn Mr. Kibaki that unless he agrees either to a conciliatory accommodation satisfactory to the opposition or to new, legitimate elections, economic sanctions will be in the offing.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- At the edge of a Nairobi neighborhood called the Ghetto, there is a bridge across a gray, stinking creek, on a street called Mother Teresa Road. The creek has become a frontier between two worlds, and the bridge the border crossing. Yesterday, under the protection of paramilitary police, people shuttled from one side to another, carrying furniture, bedding, bags and pots as they steadily divided themselves by tribe. On one side of the bridge, in the Ghetto, no Luos can live.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Up to 100,000 Kenyans face starvation in western Kenya because of election-related tribal violence, the World Food Program warned yesterday, as rivals in last week's disputed presidential vote showed no willingness to talk. President Mwai Kibaki and opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who had led through much of the vote-counting, continued to put up uncompromising positions: The opposition called for a new election and Kibaki agreed - if the courts ordered it. Odinga already has described the courts as packed with Kibaki's cronies.

One talks on the phone with relatives, who describe hiding in their homes while watching mobs attack neighbors and loot houses. Another speaks of a young niece, sick with malaria, who has been unable to pass through dangerous streets to see a doctor. For native Kenyans living in Baltimore, the past few days have been filled with anxiety as they try to maintain contact with family members in their home country, where a disputed election has plunged the usually peaceful African nation into chaos.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Postelection chaos swirled like a hurricane over this African capital yesterday, with a strange eye of calm reigning over an abandoned downtown while a storm of tear gas, hurled rocks and arsonists' smoke swept across the city's ring of slums. Heavily armed police blocked tens of thousands of angry marchers from attending an opposition rally in a central park, while the two leaders locked in the bitterest presidential election in Kenyan history showed no intention of negotiating their way out of a deepening political crisis that has killed at least 300 people.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Post-election riots in Kenya descended into savage tribal killings yesterday as a mob burned a church where families had taken shelter from the violence, killing at least 35 people, witnesses reported. Many of the victims were children. The burning of the church in Eldoret followed the killings overnight of 18 people in the town about 150 miles northwest of Nairobi. Some of the victims reportedly had their heads hacked off. A police officer also was killed. Witnesses reported revenge killings and pitched battles between mobs from rival tribes armed with machetes called pangas or with bows and arrows.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Police opened fire yesterday on rampaging opposition supporters who were burning houses and cars, looting businesses and attacking people, as the death toll in Kenya's post-election violence climbed to at least 125. In Kibera, a sprawling slum area of Nairobi, youths armed with machetes, wooden posts and iron bars tore down shacks and looted whatever was left to take, in a scene played out across the country, on the third day of opposition...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner yesterday of Kenya's presidential election and hastily sworn in, defying widespread concern over vote irregularities and sparking riots and tribal violence. As smoke rose over parts of Nairobi, Kenya's emerging democracy also appeared to be smoldering. Before the chaotic election count - which saw some returns officers disappear and European Union observers turned away without access to tallies - analysts and diplomats had viewed Kenya as one of the most promising democracies in Africa.

KIBERA, Kenya -- Machete-wielding youths rioted in Kenya yesterday as each party vying for the presidency declared its candidate the winner, threatening an election that was initially praised by international observers. In early results, challenger Raila Odinga had led President Mwai Kibaki by several hundred thousand votes, but by late yesterday, Odinga's lead had dwindled. Amid opposition accusations of fraud, ethnic riots exploded in several cities. In Odinga's strongholds, supporters from his Luo tribe looted businesses and set fire to shops and houses belonging to Kikuyus, the tribe associated with Kibaki.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Citizens here might soon do something rarely done in Africa: vote out a president. As the Dec. 27 Kenyan election race nears, Raila Odinga is enjoying a narrow lead over President Mwai Kibaki, several opinion polls show. That's uncommon in sub-Saharan Africa, land of the Big Man, where leaders seldom suffer defeat - even if it means using their power to pull strings. Nigeria's presidential vote this year was marred by allegations of widespread rigging. Post-election riots in Ethiopia killed nearly 200 people in 2005.