Kenyan police battle protesters
Kenya's main opposition party postponed a "million-man" rally here yesterday after police used tear gas and water cannon to disrupt the planned protest against last week's presidential poll results.
The mass rally organised by the Orange Democratic Movement was put off until January 8, senior ODM leader William Ruto told a group of demonstrators in Nairobi.
Defeated presidential challenger Raila Odinga had wanted to use the event to present himself to Kenyans as "the people's president," amid growing evidence that the counting process in the December 27 polls was rigged.
The disputed poll triggered a wave of violence that has killed more than 340 people and displaced tens of thousands, mainly in western regions.
Huge paramilitary police contingents on Thursday fired tear gas and warning shots to foil attempts by ODM supporters, mainly from Nairobi's slums, to march to the rally at Uhuru (independence) Park.
Youths earlier set fire to barricades on one of the capital's main thoroughfares.
A senior police official said there were around 2,000 demonstrators and accused them of criminal intent.
"We have dispersed them because they were planning to loot Nakumatt (super)market and we will not allow them into the city centre," police commander Herbert Khaemba told AFP.
In the western city of Kisumu, another ODM stronghold, police said they had arrested two opposition lawmakers mobilising youths to stage a banned protest there.
In Nairobi, protestors wearing the ODM's orange colours poured out of Kibera -- Africa's largest slum -- looking for cracks in the tight security set-up.
"If they block the meeting today, there will be no peace. This is revolution", said Paul Onyango Sati, a 29-year-old unemployed Kibera resident.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed Thursday to call for a coalition government in violence-wracked Kenya, a Solana spokeswoman said.
Solana is "deeply concerned at the situation in Kenya" and the discussion with Rice was to take place on Thursday or Friday, spokeswoman Mary Brazier said.
"We will be speaking very soon with Rice, this evening or tomorrow, to discuss the situation there and raise... the possibility of sending a US-EU team there to look at the situation see how it can be improved," Brazier told AFP.
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