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Police clash with demonstrators in Kenyan capital

Kenyan police clashed in Nairobi with hundreds of demonstrators trying to defy a ban on a public rally called to push for a speedy conclusion to a much-delayed constitutional review process.

Riot police armed with batons, some on horseback, used teargas and water cannon to disperse about 500 demonstrators, including lawmakers, who tried to force their way to the rally's venue in Uhuru ("Freedom") Park on the edge of the city, AFP journalists reported Saturday.

There were numerous confrontations in various parts of the city.

Police helicopters overflew the city while main arteries were closed to traffic.

In one incident, university students, who are frequently at the forefront of such unrest, threw volleys of rocks at police, who responded with teargas and bursts from their water cannon.

Some protesters carried placards calling for the resignation of President Mwai Kibaki, who was swept to power at the head of a fractious opposition coalition in December 2002, unseating a party that had ruled with increasing unpopularity since independence in 1963.

Some chanted in Swahili: "We did not elect a police government. All is possible without Kibaki and (First Lady) Lucy."

Others adapted Kibaki's own slogan in a national campaign aimed at generating solidarity against HIV/AIDS, singing "Together we can destroy Kibaki."

Many also declared: "It is our right to have a new constitution. We elected him (Kibaki) and he should give us one."

The process of delivering a new, devolutionary basic law has been dogged by incessant wrangles between rival factions of Kibaki's coalition government.

During a lull early in the afternoon, many Nairobi streets were littered with the detritus of urban unrest: broken glass, rocks, overturned and sometimes scorched kiosks.

Most shops were closed. Groups of police, some in full riot gear, were deployed at key junctions, while a large group of civilians loitered on the main highway running through the city.

TV news bulletins reported several arrests and injuries, although this could not be confirmed by the police.

On Friday, Katiba (the Swahili word for "constitution") Watch, a lobby group made up of former delegates to a national constitutional conference, which organised the rally, vowed to defy the police ban.

Another rally organised by the National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), a coalition partner led by Kibaki was called off late on Friday after Police Commissioner Brigadier Hussein Ali announced the ban because of the threat of violence.

Shortly before the confrontations, when the city was crawling with police, Katiba Watch Chairman Leslie Mwachiro sounded defiant as ever.

"We are going to have our rally, we are strategising on how to enter Uhuru Park. If we have done anything wrong, the police should arrest us and not beat us," he told AFP.

Simmering political tension increased several notches on Wednesday when Kibaki reshuffled his cabinet, a move that most analysts said only served to deepen the coalition's rifts rather than heal them.

Several legislators from the Liberal Democratic Party, NAK's most disgruntled coalition partner, were seen on television footage at the demonstrations arguing with police.

In March, a national conference completed a draft constitution which reduced the powers of the presidency in favour of an executive prime minister, but wrangling among ministers and subsequent court orders have delayed the draft document being debated in parliament.

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