Taoiseach warns on Kenya crisis

Kenya's political crisis could get dramatically worse very quickly because of the refusal of its president to concede any ground to political opponents, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has warned.

In Dar es Salaam last night, Mr Ahern said he was now "far more worried" about the issue, following talks this week in both South Africa and the Tanzanian capital.

"Listening to people here and to president [Thabo] Mbeki, there is great concern here because they really do not believe that the president [Mwai Kibaki] will back down.

"They believe that his tribe have always been the rulers, so this isn't a question about ego. His tribe have always been in power, they have always had power. They do not think that he will back off and they are fast coming to the view that the opposition will not back off. It is doing huge damage."

The United Nations has told Tanzania's president Jakaya Kikwete that Kenya has lost 3 per cent of its total domestic product in the first 15 days of the year.

"So you can see how bad the situation is," said Mr Ahern. "There is a spillover into Tanzania - 95 per cent of the tourists who come to Tanzania come via Kenya, and that has stopped.

"The debate here is that while it will cause problems for Tan- zania, it is already causing problems for the other countries around the Great Lakes [such as Uganda and Rwanda]."

The former secretary general of the UN, Kofi Annan, arrived in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, last night in an attempt to defuse the crisis caused by the contested election result. Mr Ahern added that the Kenyan president's tribe, the Kikuyu, had never been out of power since independence "and don't intend being now".

Tanzania's prime minister Edward Lowassa said his country was worried by the crisis.

"What is happening is affecting our economy, our social life. It is a worry. We are praying that they will come to the negotiating table and that they will agree on something. People cannot be allowed to continue dying in this manner.

"So many are dying; so far they have said in the press that 690 people have died. It cannot be allowed to continue. The world should not allow it to continue," he told The Irish Times.