Pro-Kibaki MPs Urge Charges Against Opposition

Kenyan legislators blame opposition leaders for post-election ethnic slaughter.

Kenyan legislators backing President Mwai Kibaki urged the International Criminal Court on Thursday to bring genocide charges against opposition leaders it blames for post-election ethnic slaughter.

"We are calling for ... the indicting of Orange Democratic Movement leaders by the International Criminal Court on charges of ethnic cleansing and genocide,"legislator Mohammed Yusuf Haji said, reading a statement signed by 104 pro-Kibaki MPs.

"We are appalled that supporters of the opposition have been organised in a calculated manner to engage in ethnic cleansing."

The burning of 30 members of Kibaki's Kikuyu community in a church near the Rift Valley city of Eldoret has horrified Kenyans, and underscored ethnic violence targeting his tribe since the results of a disputed presidential poll on Sunday.

The targeting of Kikuyus in the first days of the unrest has in turn prompted revenge attacks, and the opposition has responded that a police response to rioting by its supporters was "bordering on genocide."