Police Blame Death On Love Triangle; Opposition Objects
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 1, 2008
ELDORET, Kenya, Jan. 31 -- A second opposition lawmaker was shot dead Thursday in Kenya, this time in the western city of Eldoret, sparking a brief blaze of demonstrations across the volatile Rift Valley and sinking the edgy nation even deeper into a violent, post-election crisis.
Police officials quickly characterized the killing of David Kimutai Too as a "crime of passion," saying he was shot by a traffic officer whose girlfriend was having an affair with Too. The woman, who was riding in a car with Too, also was shot and killed.
But opposition leader Raila Odinga just as quickly cast Too's killing as the second political assassination in three days, saying that Too and opposition lawmaker Mugabe Were, who was gunned down in his driveway Tuesday in Nairobi, were killed to erase the opposition's slender majority in parliament.
Odinga has accused President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the country's Dec. 27 presidential election, a charge bolstered by international observers who have said the tally was so flawed that it is impossible to know who won.
"The death of the second member of parliament is part of the plot to reduce the Orange Democratic Movement's majority," Odinga said, referring to his party in a statement issued within an hour of Too's death.
After the shooting, Odinga's supporters poured into the streets in the western towns of Kisumu, Kapsabet and Eldoret, waving machetes, yelling about justice and revenge, and blocking roads with roaring bonfires. Then truckloads of police arrived and dispersed them with baton beatings and bullets.
Meanwhile, thousands of civilians fled their homes anticipating the sort of ethnically driven reprisals that have already displaced more than 300,000 people across the country since the election.
Here in Eldoret, the day's wounded were rolled on white-sheeted gurneys into the hospital, where a spokeswoman scribbled down their names and injuries: 14 shot by police, three cut with machetes and one battered with stones.
"We are ready for anything," said Alice Lumumba, the spokeswoman, as doctors and nurses rushed by.
After Too's killing, former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan temporarily suspended the mediation he is leading between Kibaki and Odinga in Nairobi, the capital.
At a summit of African leaders in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the current U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, urged Kenyans to stop the violence "before it's too late."
Ban was to meet with Kibaki on Thursday afternoon in Addis Ababa and said he would meet with Odinga in Nairobi on Friday.
By early evening in Eldoret, the atmosphere was calm but nervous as soldiers -- called into action in several western cities -- patrolled the streets in trucks. People talked in groups along the roadsides. Later, in the deserted downtown, a dozen or so men watched the local news in a brightly lighted diner that seemed to be the only place open.
"Right now, people are very worried what will happen tonight," said Ernest Cheruiyot, a shopkeeper.
The farming villages around this city have come under heavy attack in recent weeks from apparently well-organized local tribal militias who support Odinga. At the same time, the militias are pursuing old land disputes with people from Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyu, who settled on former colonial farms with the support of the Kikuyu-dominated government in the 1960s.
The militias have burned down houses and entire villages in an effort to displace tens of thousands of people, mostly Kikuyus, and reclaim land.
A young man lying in a hospital bed here said the next few days will bring a similar wave of destruction, this time a deliberate targeting of the Kisii, the tribe of the traffic officer who allegedly killed Too.
"We are going to burn the Kisiis' homes," said Aaron Kipkiruri, 20, who said he was shot by police as he was setting up a roadblock Thursday. "We have to say that openly, because that's what we feel. Now we don't want those guys around us."
Like others here, Kipkiruri said he did not believe that Too was embroiled in a love triangle. He was certain the killing was part of a government plot, along with Were's killing.
Authorities have not ruled out a political motive in Were's death, but they detailed a deadly lovers' tangle in Too's case.
Police said that Too, a new member of parliament, and the woman were riding in a red sedan when the traffic officer, described as her other boyfriend, pulled up to the car and began shooting. Too was hit in the head; the woman, also a police officer, was shot in the stomach, police said.
Soon after the incident, police arrested the shooter, who confessed, said Eldoret's commanding officer, Muinde Kioko, adding that the man did not even know that Too was a member of parliament.
Odinga's spokesman, Salim Lone, said that if Too's killing was a crime of passion, the government should immediately present evidence. Otherwise, he said, Kenyans will believe it was a crime of politics.
"Some major actions need to be taken to protect people from the mayhem that is destroying their lives," Lone said.
Special correspondents Alan Okombo in Kisumu and Kassahun Addis in Addis Ababa contributed to this report.
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