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Obama Contacts Kenyan Leaders
By NEDRA PICKLER (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated PressJanuary 08, 2008 1:43 PM EST

HANOVER, N.H. - Between campaign stops in his bid for the White House, Democratic front-runner Barack Obama has been making calls regarding the presidential election and resulting violence in his father's homeland of Kenya.
More than 500 people have been killed in disputes over last week's election in which President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected. His rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, accused Kibaki of stealing the vote and ethnic clashes ensued.

Obama has been working the phones for the past week to urge an end to the bloodletting. He spoke to Odinga for about five minutes Monday before going into a rally in Lebanon, N.H., and was trying to reach Kibaki Tuesday as New Hampshire voters went to the polls.

"What I urged was that all the leaders there, regardless of their position on the election (to) tell their supporters to stand down, to desist with the violence and resolve in a peaceful way in accordance with Kenyan law," Obama said. He said Odinga " gave me some encouraging signs that he would be willing to have such a meeting."

Odinga rejected Kibaki's offer for talks on Tuesday, saying it was a public relations gimmick that would undermine attempts to end the fighting.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, asked about Obama's call to Odinga, said he did not want to get involved in the presidential campaign.

"Any time you have a person of stature ... who is pushing for a peaceful, political resolution, that's a positive thing," McCormack said.

Obama was coordinating his efforts with the State Department, his advisers said. He discussed the situation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Jan 1. The following day Obama recorded a statement with Voice of America after a canvass kickoff in Davenport, Iowa.

On Jan. 3, the date of the Iowa caucuses, Obama spoke with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Nairobi between satellite interviews with local Iowa stations. Tutu has been in Nairobi trying to secure an end to the violence. Obama spoke Saturday with the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, while in a hold room after a rally in Nashua, N.H.

Obama last visited Kenya in 2006 and was met by large and adoring crowds throughout the visit. Obama's father was an economist studying in Hawaii when he met Obama's mother, but he returned to his homeland when Obama was a toddler and was not around for his son's upbringing. He died in a car crash in 1982.

Odinga told the British Broadcasting Company Tuesday that Obama's late father is his maternal uncle, making them cousins. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Odinga and Obama's father are from the same Luo tribe, but he isn't aware that they are related.

Obama's Kenyan relatives followed the news from New Hampshire via radio reports from Kogelo, his father's home village in western Kenya. Following his win in Iowa Jan. 3, Obama was ahead of rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in polls of New Hampshire voters going into the primary.

Obama said it's important for him to get involved in the situation because of his family connections and because he thinks it's an important relationship for the United States.

"Kenya has been a stable, democratic government in a region that could end up being a base for terrorist activity, for ethnic violence that results in refugees," Obama said. "It could be very destabilizing if the violence there is not contained. And it is, I think, absolutely vital to our long-term national interests to make sure that we continue to see a stable Kenya that can be a partner with us in a whole host of issues, including our national security."