Stop Kenya burning, says AU head

African leaders at their summit in Ethiopia have been told they must get involved with the crisis in Kenya.
AU commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare told them they could not just sit by. "If Kenya burns, there will be nothing for tomorrow," he said.

More than 850 people have died in political and ethnic clashes since last month's elections, which the opposition says were rigged.

In Nairobi, talks between government and opposition have begun.

Mr Konare - the AU's top executive - said it was the AU's duty to support the mediation process which is led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

'Special responsibility'

The current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Kenyan leaders to find a peaceful way out.

"President [Mwai] Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga... have a special responsibility to solve the crisis peacefully," he told the summit.

In Kenya itself, just as substantive peace talks began in Nairobi, tension rose in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret when a traffic policeman shot dead an opposition MP - the second to be killed this week.

Kenyan police say the killing was an act of revenge by a jealous boyfriend.

But shops closed as angry protestors marched through the town. Opposition leaders say the shooting was political.

Violence first broke out after the 27 December presidential elections, which the opposition Orange Democratic Movement says Mr Kibaki's government rigged.

Mr Kibaki is among more than 40 leaders present at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, even though the ODM called on the AU not to recognise him.

Mr Odinga, by contrast, has not been invited.

All eyes

The BBC's Will Ross, reporting from the conference, says all eyes will be on Mr Kibaki.

He says Mr Kibaki is likely to brief at least some of the African leaders on events in Kenya, especially the talks between government and opposition.

The Kenyan crisis may then be pushed away, which could be convenient for an organisation which often struggles to tackle the continent's problems with any great urgency, he says.

Despite Mr Konare's plea, the official theme of the AU summit is industrialisation.

But other subjects are likely to include


Sudan, where the AU and the UN have promised to create the world's largest peacekeeping force in Darfur
Somalia, where members are keen to strengthen the small Ugandan and Burundian forces in the country, and
the AU's own internal organisation
Our correspondent says many Africans hope other urgent issues such as Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo will also be tackled.