AFRICA/KENYA -“Hopefully the attack was not fired by a desire to destabilise ”

Nairobi (Agenzia Fides)- “It is still too soon for an appraisal of the attack, the police are still investigating and we are waiting for the first official findings ” Fides was told by a local Catholic Church source in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, who for security reasons prefers not to be named. On Sunday 13 June, during a rally in central Nairobi to protest against plans for a draft Constitution, two explosions at short intervals caused a stampede in which 6 persons were killed and about a hundred wounded. The demonstration held at Uhuru Park was organised by Evangelical protestant churches to protest against a draft Constitution on which Kenyans are due to vote in a referendum on 4 August.
“ Hopefully the attack was not fired by a desire to destabilise, exploiting the different religious and ethnic components of Kenyan society” the source told Fides.
“The local Catholic Church anxious to keep out of any political strife, decided not to take part in the rally against the new Constitution. The Catholic authorities already expressed the local Church's position in a statement issued in May (see Fides 12/5/2010), because the draft Constitution includes an ambiguous clause which opens to way for abortion. If the clause were removed from the text to be voted with a referendum, the assessment of the country's Catholic Bishops would have been different” Fides' source recalled.
The President of Kenya Mwai Kibaki called an emergency meeting of the country's chiefs of security. Post-election violence, 2007-2008, left 1,500 dead and 300,000 homeless. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/6/2010)