Where Elections Are Threatened, Violence Follows

That's what happens across most of the rest of the world as election fraud and delayed elections threaten to rip apart Kenya and Pakistan.

Pakistan's government has an excuse - the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to fall back on. Musharraf is in a no-win situation because if he goes forward with elections January 8, his party is sure to lose and election fraud is quite possible given the rioting that ensued after Bhutto's assassination that included torching election offices that contained voter rolls. By pushing the election back to February 18, the voter rolls might be restored, but the opposition parties (PPP and Nawaz Sharif's party - and Sharif isn't allowed to run as a convicted felon) aren't happy about the move since they hoped to capitalize on the assassination and have their party leadership become Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the situation in Kenya is dire as the claims of election fraud have resulted in widespread chaos and violence, with more than 300 dead, including one gruesome scene where more than 50 were killed when a church was torched with more than 50 people seeking refuge inside. International pressure is mounting to end the violence, but public statements do little to quell the violence when so many people feel aggrieved and that the election results were fraudulent.

The killing of up to 50 people from the Kikuyu tribe Tuesday as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret fuelled fears of deepening ethnic conflict in what has been one of Africa's most stable democracies.

The United Nations cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced in five days of violence.

Around 5,400 people have fled to neighbouring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people have fled to Tanzania, officials there said.

Much of Nairobi was quiet and deserted Wednesday, though clashes continued in the city's giant Mathare slum.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua downplayed the violence, saying it had only affected about three per cent of the country's 34 million people. "Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," he said.

The Kenyan government is playing down the violence, as though it's a mere blip on the radar. How much of the country has to burn before the Kenyan government will realize that they're condoning mass slaughter, displacement, and ethnic cleansing?

UPDATE:
The Pakistani government is calling on Scotland Yard for assistance in investigating the Bhutto assassination.

The decision to request outside help with the inquiry into Ms. Bhutto’s death appeared to be an attempt to deflect some of the withering criticism that has been building inside and outside Pakistan about the competence and objectivity of the investigation, and the government’s explanation about how Ms. Bhutto died.

In the address, Mr. Musharraf also defended a decision announced earlier Wednesday by Pakistan’s election commission to postpone parliamentary elections until Feb. 18, six weeks later than originally scheduled, saying the delay was unavoidable because of the destruction caused by the post-assassination riots in Sindh Province, the political base of Ms. Bhutto.

Senior Bush administration officials and American lawmakers from both parties have privately been urging Mr. Musharraf to allow international involvement in the inquiry into Ms. Bhutto’s death to help tamp down civil unrest and to give the inquiry credibility with Ms. Bhutto’s family and supporters.

“We have decided to request a team from Scotland Yard,” Mr. Musharraf said. “This team will work on the case and solve all the issues.”

Outrage continues in Pakistan over the Musharraf government’s assertion that Ms. Bhutto was not killed from gunfire or from shrapnel caused by a suicide bomber’s explosion, but from striking her head as she tried to duck into her car during the attack at a campaign rally last week.

UPDATE:
The Pakistani government has also apologized for putting forth the notion that Bhutto was killed not by gunfire or the suicide bomber, but when she struck her head on a latch in the SUV.

In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has "apologised" for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.

Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to "forgive and ignore" comments made by his ministry's spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People's Party as "lies" and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani newspaper editors on Monday. Punjab province on Tuesday issued a front-page advertisement in newspapers that offered a reward of Rs 1 crore for information about a gunman and a suspected suicide bomber seen in the photos and video footage of the assassination.

The government's apparent damage control exercise on Cheema's comments made at a news conference a day after Bhutto was assassinated at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, came after TV channels aired privately shot photos and video footage which showed a gunman shooting at Bhutto.