Lynch mob hacks Kenyan policeman to death

Joseph Borawski, Friday February 1^st, 2008, 2:26 PM, Global Social Protests Current Event

The next story I bring to the table returns us to Kenya, where this week a 3,000 strong mob, armed with spears, clubs, machetes, and bows and arrows lynched a police officer near Aniamoi because the officer had been accused of wounding a civilian yesterday during protests. The protests which have spread all over the country have continued since December when the oppositional leader, Raila Odinga, accused the re-elected President Kibaki of rigging the election on the 27^th of that month.
Police commander Peter Aliwa, said this has been the first killing of a policemen reported during the violence that has torn through the African nation. He is quoted as saying “The police officer injured three attackers before he was overpowered and lynched on the spot”.
It is important to keep in mind that since the violence has broken out in December almost 900 people have been killed, either due to ethnic cleansing, mobs of armed protestors, especially in the western part of the country, and causalities from police shooting scores of people in riots and protests since December.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the previous head of the UN Kofi Annan, have arrived in Nairobi to help foster peace talks between the two political groups, their leaders, and community leaders. Though relatively positive that a peaceful closure to this issue could be brought to hand they’re warning both sides that a good amount of damage has already been done to the country, especially in the eyes of tourists and the rest of the world. So much so that Mr. Annan expressed a worry that it was soon going to be impossible for aid agencies to operate in Kenya because of the violence.

Read more here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3290356.ece