New Riots Erupt As Second Kenyan Legislator Murdered

Crime of passion or an assassination. The version differs depending on whether you're a member of the opposition or not. The outcome, however, will not change - more rioting and death and despair.

The lawmaker, David Kimutai Too, a teacher turned politician from the volatile Rift Valley, was gunned down by a policeman in Eldoret. Kenyan government officials were quick to say the killing was a “crime of passion” connected to a love triangle. Opposition leaders called it an assassination.

“How can police call this an ordinary murder before any investigations?” said William Ruto, an opposition leader. “There is nothing ordinary about having two members of Parliament killed like this.”

Political negotiations being brokered by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, were halted on Thursday because of the shooting, and the current secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he would travel to Nairobi on Friday to address the crisis

Mr. Too was the second member of the Orange Democratic Movement, Kenya’s main opposition party, to be killed in the past two days, and it seems that the bloodletting that began after deeply flawed elections in December and has claimed more than 800 lives is pushing Kenya ever closer to the brink of disaster.

A shock wave of outrage and panic shot across the country as the news of his death spread. In Kisumu, an opposition stronghold in the far west of the country, mobs of young men tore through the streets, burning tires, throwing rocks and blockading roads. Some carried gasoline bombs and vowed to burn down the police station.