Kenya’s opposition leaders demanded on Monday the country withdraw troops from Somalia after a spate of bloody attacks by militants at home, but dropped a demand for talks with the government.
Before the opposition rally began, police fired tear gas at protesters who chanted slogans against President Uhuru Kenyatta and clambered over statues in Nairobi’s streets.
They also shot gas canisters at youths who hurled stones at them at the park venue of the gathering.
But the rally passed off calmly, after many Kenyans had feared it would stoke tensions in a nation battling an upsurge in political violence. In the latest assaults on Saturday, gunmen killed at least 29 people at two locations on the coast.
Somali Islamist group al Shabaab said it carried out those and other attacks, vowing to drive Kenyan and other African Union forces out of Somalia. The government has blamed local politicians instead, drawing angry denials from the opposition.
“Time for talks is over,” opposition leader and veteran politician Raila Odinga told his supporters, speaking on the day he had said was the deadline for dialogue.
Fellow opposition politician, Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, told the crowd: “We cannot speak with deaf people.”
Odinga had promised mass rallies to drive home his message. Several thousand turned up at the rally but that was fewer than had gathered at the same park on May 31 to welcome the veteran politician home from three months abroad.
Religious leaders had called for calm and some told their congregations to stay away, fearing the event could fuel the kind of political violence that has haunted Kenya in recent years.
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