Kenyan Leaders in plea for amicable solution

By Saturday Standard Team

Leaders have urged Kenyans to ensure peace prevails.

Prof Ali Mazrui called for reconciliation and proposed solutions Kenya could embrace to ensure peace.

He decried the violence that has marked the post presidential elections describing them as the most damaging episode to national unity since the assassination of Tom Mboya in 1969.

"It is imperative that President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga enter into urgent negotiations to find a solution to this painful impasse, and to help the process of national healing," he said.

In a press statement, Mazrui proposed a power sharing formula as one alternative to the problem. He suggested that MPs should be called into session and sworn-in to consider a constitutional amendment to allow for the creation of a prime minister’s post.

Knut appealed to the Government and other political leaders to ensure peace prevails.

Knut, which has 240,000 members countrywide, made the impassioned plea yesterday through its chairman, Mr Francis Ng’ang’a.

Speaking to The Saturday Standard in his office, he said that since schools would be opening soon, all necessary steps ought to be taken to see to it that learning resumed.

At the same time, the National Council of Non-Governmental Organisations has appealed to its members to provide humanitarian support to the displaced.

The Council through its chairman, Dr Simeon Kanani, also asked its members to encourage peaceful co-existence among communities.

Two women international peace organisations have also condemned the violence.

The International Peace Initiative (IPI) and Peace X Peace appealed to Kibaki and opposition leader, Mr Raila Odinga, to lead in the pursuit of peace.

Rift Valley church leaders have urged ODM leaders and Kibaki to use international mediators to resolve the impasse.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Nairobi, the church leaders led by Bishop Silas Yego said any delay in finding a solution to the crisis could be dangerous.

Bishop Joseph Rono of the Africa Gospel Church, Bishop William Tuimising (Deliverance Church), and the Reverend Thomas Kogo of ACK Eldoret, accompanied him.

At the same time, nineteen Evangelical pastors in Malindi District have called on Kibaki and ODM leaders to initiate dialogue to end killings and wanton destruction of property.

The pastors also condemned some church leaders who they said had openly taken sides in the conflict that arose from last Thursday’s presidential elections and asked them to be neutral.

source: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143979961&cid=159