By Daniel Wallis and Andrew Cawthorne
Friday, February 15, 2008
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NAIROBI, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Kenya's feuding parties moved closer at talks this week but are yet to agree terms for power-sharing to end a post-election crisis that has killed more than 1,000 people, mediator Kofi Annan said on Friday.
"We are at the water's edge and the last difficult and frightening step ... will be taken," he told reporters, even though negotiators missed his target of a final deal this week.
"The momentum is with us."
The former U.N. chief is trying to end turmoil over the disputed Dec. 27 election that has also uprooted 300,000 people and given Kenya its darkest episode since independence in 1963.
He said considerable progress was made this week, including agreement for an independent review of the polls, after he whisked officials from both sides to a secluded safari lodge.
Annan said it was essential they also form a "broad coalition" to push through constitutional and electoral reforms seen as crucial to preventing future chaos.
He will meet President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga on Monday -- when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also due in Kenya to support his mediation -- before negotiations resume on Tuesday.
Elation a week ago when it became clear the rivals had agreed in principle to some form of power-sharing has dampened in the absence of any concrete progress on the details.
Desperate to see their country get back to normal, Kenyans are showing increasing impatience with their leaders.
But Annan put a brave face on the delays. "It's not unusual for negotiations not to move at the speed you would want. There are very vital interests involved for all concerned," he said.
"The caravan moves at the speed of the slowest coach."
"NOWHERE TO GO"
Odinga, 63, accuses Kibaki, 76, of stealing the vote. But Kibaki says he won fairly and accuses the opposition of stoking violence instead of challenging his victory in Kenya's courts.
Annan said an independent committee would now review "all aspects" of the contested election, starting its work within a month, and then reporting its findings in 3-6 months.
The opposition wants to draft a new constitution, share power in the government and hold a new election within two years. The government wants constitutional and electoral law changes, but only applicable to the next election, due in 2012.
The violence in Kenya has laid bare disputes over power, wealth and land. Ethnic bloodshed, violent protests and images of forlorn refugees have dented its reputation as one of the continent's most stable, prosperous democracies.
It has also badly dented its booming economy, and triggered a humanitarian crisis in a country more used to hosting refugees from the region's troublespots like Somalia and Sudan.
"We have nowhere to go," Pastor John Njoroge Khiara, 38, said at a police station near the Rift Valley town of Nakuru, the site of some of the worst ethnic violence.
"It is up to the government to solve the problem."
Due to start a five-nation Africa tour on Saturday, U.S. President George W. Bush will not visit Kenya himself but has dispatched Rice to push the mediation process.
Annan said he would stay until the process was at an "irreversible point", but Nigeria's former foreign minister, Oluyemi Adeniji, was on standby to mediate in his absence. (Additional reporting by Bryson Hull and Jack Kimball in Nairobi, and Michael Georgy in Nakuru) (For special coverage from Reuters on Kenya's crisis see: http://africa.reuters.com/elections/kenya/)
Source: Reuters, Feb 15, 2008