Odinga Calls Off Rallies, Will Try Negotiating

Kenyan opposition leader Rail Odinga called off his protest rallies today, trying to calm the nation as busloads of ethnic Kikuyu fled the western part of the country. So far at least 255,000 have been displaced, and 600 have been killed in ethnic-cleansing-style violence. Odinga today agreed to try quelling the bloodshed by negotiating a power-sharing deal with President Kibaki, the Guardian reports.

Odinga backed off calls for Kibaki to admit cheating, and agreed to African Union-moderated talks. In Nairobi, where ethnic differences are less bitter, things are returning to normal, the New York Times reports, but outside the capital, Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe is being driven out by machete-wielding opposition supporters, creating a mass exodus to the Kikuyu’s traditional homeland in central Kenya. (More Kenya stories.)