Second Kenya MP shot dead as crisis deepens

Kenyan opposition legislator David Kimutai Too was shot dead yesterday in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, the second member of Parliament for the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) killed this week, the party said.

An unidentified woman was shot with him.

"He has been shot dead by a traffic policeman in Eldoret, we think. The circumstances are very unclear. This crisis is just getting deeper every day," said ODM spokesman Tony Gachoka.

Police had no immediate comment.

Earlier this week, another opposition legislator ­Melitus Were was gunned down outside the gate of his Nairobi home, in a murder that triggered rioting and ethnic killings.

ODM said Mr Were's killing was a "political assassination", although police said they were treating it as "murder".

African leaders voiced a chorus of alarm yesterdayday about Kenya's rapid decline from regional peacemaker to the continent's biggest concern, and called for urgent action to stop the killing.

"If Kenya burns, what is left?" the African Union's top diplomat, Alpha Oumar Konare, said in his opening speech to a three-day summit, expressing widespread shock at the once stable country's rapid decline.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the leaders meeting in neighbouring Ethiopia that violence which has killed 850 people was "threatening to escalate to catastrophic levels".

Mr Ban, who met President Mwai Kibaki at the summit, said he would fly to Kenya today to help mediation by his UN predecessor Kofi Annan.

Mr Konare told the 53-nation organisation Africa could not "sit with our hands folded" and Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade struck a similar theme, saying before the summit that Kenya must top discussions.

"It is Africa's image which is at stake in this Kenya affair," he added in comments to Radio France ­International.

Kenya's crisis, which erupted after the disputed ­ of Mr Kibaki on December 27, is expected to sideline the summit's official theme of industrial development.

Diplomats said the talks led by Mr Annan were seen as the only way out and the international community was trying to press Mr Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to negotiate.

Outgoing AU chairman John Kufuor, the Ghanaian President, told Reuters, "the most important thing is that they keep talking".

Mr Ban said in his speech the two men must do everything possible to end the crisis. Mr Kibaki will fly back to Nairobi today and Mr Ban plans to meet Mr Odinga there.

The opposition leader says he is rightful President and the election was rigged. Mr Kibaki insists he has been duly elected.

The AU followed its traditional policy by inviting only Mr Kibaki to Addis Ababa as the head of a sitting ­government but Mr Odinga yesterday said he should be representing Kenya and Mr Wade also said Mr Odinga should be invited.

Mr Odinga told Reuters the AU must not echo the policies of its discredited predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, in "tolerating dictators in the name of non-interference".

The second round of negotiations led by Mr Annan was postponed for 24 hours yesterday after the ­opposition ­legislator was killed by a policeman in the Rift Valley.