In this issue:

Kenya Returns to Violence, as a Result of Rice's Visit

China to West: You Are Harboring Darfur Terrorists

Kenya Returns to Violence, as a Result of Rice's Visit

Feb. 20 (EIRNS)—All the progress that had been made to stabilize Kenya after the prolonged violence which followed the Dec. 27 election, was upended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her Feb. 18 visit there. She made it clear that the United States has withdrawn any support for the shaky government of Mwai Kibaki, and told Kibaki that Washington would support his government only if the President reaches a power-sharing deal with opposition leader Raila Odinga and his party.

Rice did exactly what Lyndon LaRouche had warned. The day before she went to Kenya, LaRouche recommended that Rice "keep her nose out of it; it's a bad enough situation, she will only make it worse by taking sides. The side she's taking," LaRouche added, "is the British side. This is their chaos policy, and has been throughout this crisis."

Kibaki had kept several cabinet positions open, as part of a power-sharing deal being negotiated by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. By 4:30 PM the day of her visit, after meeting with Odinga at the U.S. ambassador's residence, Odinga's position had changed from agreeing to share power, to demanding that Kenya be changed from a presidential system, to the British parliamentary model instead, in which the government is run by a prime minister. Odinga is now demanding that the Constitution be changed so that the prime minister position can be created, a position Odinga wants. If this change is not implemented, the opposition is warning that it will relaunch mass protests in a week.

Earlier in the day, according to Kenyan TV, Rice said the U.S. can be a friend of Kenya only if it is stable and has a legitimate government that meets the requirements of the "international community." Rice used the post-election violence as proof "that that election did not produce an outcome that led to the governance of Kenya."

A section of the pro-Kibaki Party of National Unity rejected what Rice is demanding as "interference in the internal affairs" of another country. So, after Rice destroyed the mediation that had taken place since the election, the situation is now primed for a rerun of the chaos that London set up with the election.

China to West: You Are Harboring Darfur Terrorists

Feb. 20 (EIRNS)—China's special envoy to Darfur, Liu Guijin, who is beginning a tour of Sudan and England this week, ripped some of the mask off the "genocide" charge which is being thrown against Sudan, and against China as well, in remarks to China Daily today.

It is the West that must do more to promote a peaceful settlement to the conflict in the African region, Liu said. "Major rebel groups still refuse negotiations and are offering no conditions. That's the major reason why the political progress lags behind the African Union-UN peacekeeping mission. Western powers can exert more positive influence on those rebel leaders because many of them live in Western capitals." As an example, he told China Daily that Abdel-Wahid al-Nur, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (one of the two main groups which led a 2003 uprising that initiated the violence), lives in exile in Paris.

Liu is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech on "Darfur and Sino-African Relations" on Feb. 22 at the London-based Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs.