Kenya: Ramaphosa denies bias in Kenyan crisis

(SomaliNet) After resumption of peace talks amid concerns of renewed violence and unsubstantiated allegations of bias on the South African\'s part, Cyril Ramaphosa was due to leave Kenya on Monday.

Friday\'s agreement for both sides to work on a four-point framework, which would put a halt to the violence and pave the way for a lasting solution to the post-December 27 poll conflict, was put to the test at the weekend as dozens were killed in fresh clashes.

Within hours of the \"breakthrough\", 10 people were killed in western Kenya, more than 100 houses razed to the ground, businesses looted and maize plantations destroyed. The fighting continued throughout the weekend, with the two-day death toll believed to have risen to 25 by on Sunday.
Ramaphosa, who joined the African Union-mandated talks headed by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, does not underestimate the challenges that lie ahead.

\"Although the ingredients to finding a solution are now in place,\" Kenya\'s five-week-old conflict \"is very serious\", he told Independent Newspapers in Nairobi during the weekend.

\"It would appear to me that this conflict has acquired enormous proportions. So many people dying, in such a short space of time, for me just raises the stakes, which are now extremely high,\" he said.

Although the conflict was politically motivated, Ramaphosa admits that the ethnic tensions are \"spiralling\", although he is reluctant to talk of it in terms of genocide.

Yet he still harbours hope and a fair share of measured optimism that Kenya will find a solution to the crisis \"in the not too distant future\".

Ramaphosa\'s brief is to facilitate that solution as a skilful negotiator providing strategic support to the three-person negotiating team, comprising Annan, Gracia Machel and former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa.

He brings with him the successful experiences of the 1990s Codesa talks that brought an end to apartheid, and the Northern Ireland peace talks later that decade.

However, his arrival in Kenya was met with scepticism on Friday by President Mwai Kibaki\'s government, which raised concerns about his alleged links with opposition leader Raila Odinga, arguing that the South African\'s contribution was biased to begin with.

\"Raila Odinga visited me, and many other business leaders, last year,\" Ramaphosa explains.

The Shanduka chief welcomed him, \"as I would any African into my offices\". But there was no financial support given or any other support forthcoming, he states.

\"If I had any special interest in either side of the situation, I would not be here today.\"

His words were confirmed by Odinga on Friday on public television.

In the words of Maina Kiai, chairperson of the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission: \"This is just another attempt on the part of the government to stall the peace talks. Ramaphosa is probably the most skilful negotiator Kenya could have hoped for.

\"He\'s a man who can listen to both sides. That they would bring someone of his calibre to the table shows us, as Kenyans, just how seriously they are taking this situation.\"

However, such bias, if true, would put the country on the fast road to failure, commentator Kwamphetsi Makokha argues. \"This is about perceptions at a moment when the talks are very sensitive.\"

Ramaphosa was due to return to Joburg this afternoon. But he will stay close to the talks and intends to return to Nairobi in the near future.-The Star