NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said Thursday that he will call for strikes and boycotts of businesses owned by President Mwai Kibaki’s inner circle to pressure him to address a post-election crisis that has undermined one of East Africa’s strongest democracies.
Opposition leaders also accused police of killing seven protesters Thursday in Nairobi, but the figure could not be independently verified. More than 600 people have died across the country in violence since the Dec. 27 vote.
Odinga said government security forces are acting on “shoot to kill” orders to crush the demonstrations. He has accused Kibaki and his allies of rigging the election, which international observers have said were so flawed that it is impossible to know who won.
On Thursday, Odinga said Kibaki’s government had become “a fanatical and crazed group of people who, in their lust for power, have taken leave of their senses.”
The opposition says at least 1,000 people have been killed in the violence, about half by police. The Kenyan Red Cross puts the death toll at 612. A Red Cross spokesman, Anthony Mwangi, said that figure is based on documentation from mortuaries and hospitals, as well as the organization’s own calculations.
The deaths have occurred across the country, including in areas of western Kenya, where machete-wielding opposition supporters have gone on house-burning rampages and chased off tens of thousands of people mostly from Kibaki’s tribe, the Kikuyu.
Opposition leaders have denied any responsibility for the violence, casting it as spontaneous outrage over a stolen election.
Thursday was the second of three planned days of nationwide opposition protests. As was the case Wednesday, however, massive crowds did not materialize.
In an interview, Odinga blamed the relatively low turnout on the legions of police who have broken up gatherings with tear gas and live bullets. Asked why he had not taken to the streets himself, he replied, “I’m the general, and generals don’t go to the field.”
