Venezuela tensions high after congressional brawl

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Tens of thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets of the capital Wednesday in rival marches by the opposition and the government less than a day after a brawl on the floor of congress injured several opposition lawmakers.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles walked in a crowd of supporters through upscale neighborhoods in the east of Caracas during a march to celebrate International Workers' Day.

He called for an end to a government crackdown on his backers, and reiterated plans to challenge his narrow election loss in both Venezuela's court and eventually appeal to the international justice system.

He told reporters he planned to file a challenge in Venezuela's high court Thursday "in order to make use of all the institutions, all domestic remedies, because we don't have any doubt that this case will end up before the international community."

"Sooner rather than later, change will come," he said. "A better Venezuela for all will come."

In downtown Caracas, the government held its own march, featuring songs praising President Nicolas Maduro and his mentor, late president Hugo Chavez.

Both sides appeared to be trying to avoid confrontation by choosing separate locations and calling for peaceful demonstrations, although tensions were running high.

Outside the Justice Ministry, organizers set up a 30-foot-tall inflatable Chavez balloon with its fist raised in the air. Many wore red T-shirts with pro-government slogans.

"This government is defending workers' rights, increasing salaries like it should," said Juan Ramirez, a 49-year-old employee of the state telecommunications company. "Of course, there will have to be more raises to make up for inflation."

Capriles backer Claudia Sanchez, a 27-year-old office administrator, said she was marching on behalf of her brother, a government worker who she said was being pressured to participate in a pro-Maduro march.

"If they don't see him there he can fall into disgrace, he can lose his job," she said.

Many state workers have complained of intense pressure to support the government, part of what the opposition describes a broad campaign to quash dissent after Maduro's slim victory.

Tuesday night's clash erupted when members of the opposition coalition unfurled a banner in the National Assembly denouncing a ruling that strips them of most legislative powers unless they recognize Maduro's April 14 victory.

Assembly member Julio Borges appeared on an independent television station soon after Tuesday night's brawl with blood running down one side of his swollen face. The opposition said at least 17 of its allies and five pro-government deputies were injured.

Opposition lawmaker Ismael Garcia said government loyalists threw the first punches. Pro-government legislators appeared on state TV accusing opposition members of attacking them. Video showed groups of legislators shoving and pushing each other on the floor.

The opposition has refused to accept Maduro's narrow victory, saying the government's 1.49 percent margin resulted from fraud, including votes cast in the names of the thousands of dead people found on current voting rolls.

In retaliation, the government-dominated assembly has barred opposition lawmakers from public speaking and sitting on legislative committees.

Capriles is boycotting an official audit of the election and plans to file a challenge seeking to overturn it in court.

Maduro accused the opposition of provoking Tuesday's violence, which he condemned, and called on the country to work out its disputes peacefully.

National Assembly chief Diosdado Cabello has repeatedly defended barring opposition lawmakers from speaking. He said that if they don't recognize the legitimacy of the presidential election, they are casting doubt on the very system that elected them, thus losing their own legitimacy.

Opposition lawmakers have also lost their seats on legislative commissions.

Angel Alvarez, a political science professor at the Central University of Venezuela, said the brawl revealed "an escalation of the conflict between political forces" and little possibility of reconciliation in the near future.

He told The Associated Press that the political uncertainty and tension is likely to hurt Venezuela's economy, which is struggling with high inflation and frequent shortages linked to the socialist government's strict foreign exchange restrictions, price controls and nationalization of industries, including many farming and ranching businesses.

"In turbulent scenarios, barely anyone will risk investing," Alvarez said.

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Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez and Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

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Venezuela lawmakers brawl amid election tensions

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan lawmakers punched, kicked and shoved one another as a postelection conflict between President Hugo Chavez's heirs and rivals blew up into a brawl on the floor of congress.

Tuesday night's clash erupted when members of the opposition coalition unfurled a banner in the National Assembly denouncing a ruling that strips them of most legislative powers unless they recognize the April 14 election victory of President Nicolas Maduro.

Assembly member Julio Borges appeared on an independent television station soon after Tuesday night's brawl with blood running down one side of his swollen face. The opposition said at least 17 of its allies and five pro-government deputies were injured.

Opposition lawmaker Ismael Garcia said government loyalists threw the first punches. Pro-government legislators appeared on state TV accusing opposition members of attacking them. Video showed groups of legislators shoving and pushing each other on the floor.

The opposition has refused to accept Maduro's narrow victory, saying the government's 1.49 percent margin resulted from fraud, including votes cast in the names of the thousands of dead people found on current voting rolls.

In retaliation, the government-dominated assembly has barred opposition lawmakers from public speaking and sitting on legislative committees.

Both sides planned to take to the streets of Caracas on Wednesday for marches celebrating International Workers' Day. Each appeared to be trying to avoid confrontation by choosing separate locations and calling for peaceful demonstrations, although fears of violence were running high.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles is boycotting an official audit of the election and plans to file a challenge seeking to overturn it in court.

On Tuesday, legislator Pedro Carreno, head of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela in the National Assembly, asked for an extension of the ban on public speaking by the opposition, whose members unfurled a banner reading "coup against the parliament."

"Without a word, like cowards, they came at us from behind," said Garcia, the opposition lawmaker.

Maduro accused the opposition of provoking the violence, which he condemned and called on the country to work out its disputes peacefully.

National Assembly chief Diosdado Cabello, considered one of the most powerful men in the country for his ties to the business community and army, has repeatedly defended barring opposition lawmakers from speaking. He said that if they don't recognize the legitimacy of the presidential election, they are casting doubt on the national electoral system that elected them, thus losing their own legitimacy.

The opposition lawmakers have also lost their seats on legislative commissions.

Carreno described government backers' action in the fight as self-defense.

"If I'm standing here and you come to attack me, it's likely that I'll react, but it's the aggressor who went out with a black eye," he said.

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Associated Press writer Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

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Tensions up in Venezuela after polls close

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Voters chose Sunday between the hand-picked successor who campaigned to carry on Hugo Chavez's self-styled socialist revolution and an emboldened second-time challenger who warned that the late president's regime has Venezuela on the road to ruin. Tensions rose soon after polls closed as both sides hinted at victory and suggested the other was plotting fraud.

Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the campaign for acting President Nicolas Maduro, said he couldn't reveal the results before electoral authorities did but strongly suggested Maduro had won by smiling and summoning supporters to the presidential palace, where Chavez's supporters gathered to celebrate the late president's past victories. And he warned that Maduro's camp would not allow the will of the people to be subverted.

Opposition challenger Henrique Capriles and his campaign aides immediately lashed out at Rodriguez's comments.

Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, a Capriles campaign coordinator, suggested the government was trying to steal the election.

"They know perfectly well what happened and so do we," he said at a hastily called news conference. "They are misleading their people and are trying to mislead the people of this country."

Capriles also suggested fraud was in the works in a Twitter message: "We alert the country and the world of the intent to change the will of the people!"

In an earlier tweet, Capriles urged his supporters not to be "desperate and defeated."

Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor and longtime U.S. ambassador-at-large who came to witness the election, told The Associated Press that both candidates had assured him they would respect the outcome of the vote.

"I'm not here as an election observer, but I met with both candidates — Maduro, yesterday, and Capriles today. And I'm hopeful because both told me they would respect the rule of law and the will of the people," Richardson said.

Maduro, the 50-year-old longtime foreign minister to Chavez, pinned his hopes on the immense loyalty for his boss among millions of poor beneficiaries of government largesse and the powerful state apparatus that Chavez skillfully consolidated.

Maduro's campaign was mostly a near-religious homage to the man he called "the redeemer of the Americas," who succumbed to cancer March 5. He blamed Venezuela's myriad woes on vague plots by alleged saboteurs that the government never identified.

Capriles' main campaign weapon was to simply emphasize "the incompetence of the state," as he put it to reporters Saturday night.

Maduro's big lead in opinion polls was cut in half over the past two weeks in a country struggling with the legacy of Chavez's management of the world's largest oil reserves.

Millions of Venezuelans were lifted out of poverty under Chavez, but many also believe his government not only squandered, but plundered, much of the $1 trillion in oil revenues during his tenure.

Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power outages, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages, and rampant crime. Venezuela has one of the world's highest homicide and kidnapping rates.

"We can't continue to believe in messiahs," said Jose Romero, a 48-year-old industrial engineer who voted for Capriles in the central city of Valencia. "This country has learned a lot and today we know that one person can't fix everything."

Voting lines seemed considerably lighter than in the October election that Chavez won, when more than 80 percent of the electorate turned out, although government officials said it was due to the improved efficiency of the system.

After polls closed there were moments of tension at some voting centers.

At Andres Bello high school in central Caracas a band of about 100 Chavistas on motorcycles, many with faces covered with bandanas, harassed opposition activists who wanted to witness the vote count to ensure there was no fraud.

Some of the Chavistas tried to steal phones and cameras from people recording video of the event. The digital audio recorder of an Associated Press reporter was grabbed out of her hand.

Motorcycle-riding Chavistas have on several occasions during the campaign beaten Capriles supporters in the capital, though none apparently seriously enough to require hospitalization.

In the Chavista stronghold of Petare outside Caracas, the Maduro vote was strong. Maria Velasquez, 48, who works in a government soup kitchen that feeds 200 people, said she was voting for Chavez's man "because that is what my comandante ordered."

Reynaldo Ramos, a 60-year-old construction worker, said he "voted for Chavez" before correcting himself and saying he chose Maduro. But he could not seem to get his beloved leader out of his mind.

"We must always vote for Chavez because he always does what's best for the people and we're going to continue on this path," Ramos said. He said the government had helped him get work on the subway system and helps pay his grandchildren's school costs.

The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela deployed a well-worn get-out-the-vote machine spearheaded by loyal state employees. It also enjoyed the backing of state media as part of its near-monopoly on institutional power.

Capriles' camp said Chavista loyalists in the judiciary put them at glaring disadvantage by slapping the campaign and broadcast media with fines and prosecutions that they called unwarranted.

Capriles is a 40-year-old state governor who lost to Chavez in October's presidential election by a nearly 11-point margin, the best showing ever by a challenger to the longtime president.

At his campaign rallies, Capriles would read out a list of unfinished road, bridge and rail projects. Then he asked people what goods were scarce on store shelves.

Capriles showed Maduro none of the respect he earlier accorded Chavez. Maduro hit back hard, at one point calling Capriles' backers "heirs of Hitler." It was an odd accusation considering that Capriles is the grandson of Holocaust survivors from Poland.

The opposition contended Chavez looted the treasury last year to buy his re-election with government handouts. It also complained about the steady flow of cut-rate oil to Cuba, which Capriles said would end if he won.

Venezuela's $30 billion fiscal deficit is equal to about 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Maduro, a former union activist and bus driver with close ties to Cuba's leaders, constantly alleged that Capriles was conspiring with U.S. putschists to destabilize Venezuela and even suggested Washington had infected Chavez with the cancer that killed him.

He focused his campaign message on his mentor: "I am Chavez. We are all Chavez." And he promised to expand anti-poverty programs.

The victor of Sunday's balloting will face no end of hard choices.

Many factories operate at half capacity because strict currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies verge on bankruptcy because they cannot extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers.

Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses. Now, dollars sell on the black market at three times the official exchange rate and Maduro has had to devalue Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, twice this year.

Meanwhile, consumers grumble that stores are short of milk, butter, corn flour and other staples. The government blames hoarding, while the opposition points at the price controls imposed by Chavez in an attempt to bring down double-digit inflation.

A 37-year-old government employee leaving a polling station in central Caracas with her 4-month-old son and her sister said she was fed up with what she described as political intimidation at her office and was voting for Capriles.

"We have to keep quiet at work or else they fire you or make your life impossible," said the woman, who asked that she only be identified by her first name, Laurena.

She said she had been told to attend pro-government marches. "You go for a little so they see your face and then you leave. It's not fair that you have to stop doing your job to go to a march. "

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Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez, Jorge Rueda, E. Eduardo Castillo and Christopher Toothaker in Caracas and Vivian Sequera in Valencia contributed to this report.

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NKoreans mark key holiday, oblivious to tensions

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Oblivious to international tensions over a possible North Korean missile launch, Pyongyang residents spilled into the streets Monday to celebrate a major national holiday, the birthday of their first leader, Kim Il Sung.

Girls in red and pink jackets skipped along streets festooned with celebratory banners and flags and parents pushed strollers with babies bundled up against the spring chill as residents of the isolated, impoverished nation began observing a three-day holiday.

There was no sense of panic in the North Korean capital, where very few locals have access to international broadcasts and foreign newspaper headlines speculating about an imminent missile launch and detailing the international diplomacy under way to try to rein Pyongyang in, including a swing through the region by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to try to tamp down emotions and coordinate Washington's response with Beijing, North Korea's most important ally.

Foreign governments have been struggling to assess how seriously to take North Korea's recent torrent of rhetoric — including warnings of possible nuclear war — as it expresses its anger over continuing U.S.-South Korea military maneuvers just across the border. Officials in South Korea, the United States and Japan say intelligence indicates that North Korean officials, fresh off an underground nuclear test in February, are ready to launch a medium-range missile.

North Korea's own media gave little indication Monday of how high the tensions are.

The Rodong Sinmun, the Workers' Party newspaper, featured photos and coverage of current leader Kim Jong Un's overnight visit to the Kumsusan mausoleum to pay respects to his grandfather. There was only one line at the end of the article vowing to bring down the "robber-like U.S. imperalists."

Kim Jong Un's renovation of the memorial palace that once served as his grandfather's presidential offices was opened to the public on Monday, the vast cement plaza replaced by fountains, park benches, trellises and tulips. Stretches of green lawn were marked by small signs indicating which businesses — including the Foreign Trade Bank recently added to a U.S. Treasury blacklist — and government agencies donated funds to help pay for the landscaping.

Braving the cold, gray weather, people lined up in droves to lay bouquets of fake flowers at the bronze statues of Kim and his son, late leader Kim Jong Il, in downtown Pyongyang, as they do for every major holiday in the highly militarized country, where loyalty to the Kims and to the state are drummed in citizens from an early age. They queued at roadside snack stands for rations of peanuts, a holiday tradition. Cheers and screams from a soccer match filled the air.

"Although the situation is tense, people have got bright faces and are very happy," said Han Kyong Sim, a drink stand worker.

Monday marked the official start of the new year according to North Korea's "juche" calendar, which begins with the day of Kim Il Sung's birth in 1912. But unlike last year, the centennial of his birthday, there are no big parades in store this week, and North Koreans were planning to use it as a day to catch up with friends and family.

But while there has almost no sense of crisis in Pyongyang, North Korea's official posture toward the outside appears to be as hardline as ever.

On Sunday, it rejected South Korea's proposal to resolve tensions through dialogue. North Korea said it has no intention of talking with Seoul unless it abandons what it called the rival South's confrontational posture. South Korea's unification minister, Kim Hung-suk, called that response "very regrettable" on Monday, though other South Korean officials made it clear that the South still remains open to dialogue.

A top North Korean leader, Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, also told a gathering of high officials Sunday that the North must bolster its nuclear arsenal further and "wage a stronger all-out action with the U.S. to cope with the prevailing wartime situation," according to footage from the North's state TV.

South Korea's defense minister, Kim Kwan-jin, told a parliamentary committee in Seoul on Monday that North Korea remains ready to launch a missile from its east coast, though he declined to disclose how he got the information. He said that if the North fires the missile, it would time the launch to maximize the political and diplomatic effects. But he said he could not pinpoint a date.

He also said there's been no indication that the North would launch attacks against South Korea. But he said that based the rhetoric out of Pyongyang the North could still stage limited attacks depending on the political situation on the peninsula. He said South Korea will strongly deal with any provocations, but he urged the North to engage in dialogue.

Kerry, during his trip, has warned North Korea not to conduct a missile test, saying it will be an act of provocation that "will raise people's temperatures" and further isolate the country and its people. In Tokyo Sunday after talks in Beijing the day before, Kerry met with Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, and opened the door to direct talks with North Korea if certain conditions are met. Kerry said the U.S. was "prepared to reach out" to North Korea, but that Pyongyang must first lower tensions and honor previous agreements.

North Korea's statements are commonly marked by alarming hyperbole and it has not ordered the small number of foreigners who are here to leave. Embassies in Pyongyang refused to comment on the suggestion they consider evacuating, referring questions back to their home countries. But there were no reports that any diplomatic missions had actually left.

North Korea has also taken the unusual move of pulling workers from the Kaesong factory complex on its side of the Demilitarized Zone, the last remaining symbols of inter-Korean rapprochement. The complex also was a key earner of foreign currency for cash-strapped North Korea, where — according to the World Food Program — two thirds of the population struggles with food shortages.

North Korea has issued no specific warnings to ships and aircraft that a missile test is imminent, and is also continuing efforts to increase tourism.

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Associated Press writer Eric Talmadge in Pyongyang and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report. Follow Lee, AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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Despite threats, risks temper Korea war tensions

TOKYO (AP) — As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people.

North Korea's leaders know that war would be suicidal. In the long run, they cannot expect to defeat the United States and successfully overrun South Korea. War would be horrific for the other side as well. South Korea could suffer staggering casualties. The U.S. would face a destabilized major ally, possible but unlikely nuclear or chemical weapons attacks on its forward-positioned bases, and dramatically increased tensions with North Korea's neighbor and Korean War ally, China.

Here's a look at the precarious balance of power that has kept the Korean Peninsula so close to conflict since the three-year war ended in 1953, and some of the strategic calculus behind why, despite the shrill rhetoric and seemingly reckless saber-rattling, leaders on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone have carefully avoided going back over the brink.

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THE SEA OF FIRE

Even without nuclear weapons, North Korea has an ace in the hole. Most experts believe its claims to have enough conventional firepower from its artillery units to devastate the greater Seoul area, South Korea's bustling capital of 24 million. Such an attack would cause severe casualties — often estimated in the hundreds of thousands — in a very short period of time.

Many of these artillery batteries are already in place, dug in and very effectively camouflaged, which means that U.S. and South Korean forces cannot count on being able to take them out before they strike. Experts believe about 60 percent of North Korea's military assets are positioned relatively close to the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries.

North Korea's most threatening weapons are its 170 mm Koksan artillery guns, which are 14 meters long and can shoot conventional mortar ammunition 40 kilometers (25 miles). That's not quite enough to reach Seoul, which is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the DMZ. But if they use rocket-assisted projectiles, the range increases to about 60 kilometers (37 miles). Chemical weapons fired from these guns could cause even greater mayhem.

North Korea experts Victor Cha and David Kang posted on the website of Foreign Policy magazine late last month that the North can fire 500,000 rounds of artillery on Seoul in the first hour of a conflict.

Even so, not everyone believes North Korea could make good on its "sea of fire" threats. Security expert Roger Cavazos, a former U.S. Army officer, wrote in a report for the Nautilus Institute last year that, among other things, North Korea's big guns have a high rate of firing duds, pose more of a threat to Seoul's less populated outer suburbs, and would be vulnerable to counterattack as soon as they start firing and reveal their location.

"North Korea occasionally threatens to "turn Seoul into a Sea of Fire," he wrote. "But can North Korea really do this? ... The short answer is they can't; but they can kill many tens of thousands of people, start a larger war and cause a tremendous amount of damage before ultimately losing their regime."

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FIRST STRIKES, PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES

This is what both sides say concerns them the most.

North Korea says it is developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles as a deterrent to keep the United States or South Korea from attacking it first. The reasoning is that Washington will not launch a pre-emptive strike if North Korea has a good chance of getting off an immediate — and devastating — response of its own.

Along with its artillery aimed at Seoul and other targets in South Korea, North Korea is developing the capacity to deploy missiles that are mobile, thus easier to move or hide. North Korea already has Rodong missiles that have — on paper at least — a range of about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles), enough to reach several U.S. military bases in Japan. Along with 28,000 troops in South Korea, the U.S. has 50,000 troops based in Japan.

North Korea is not believed to be capable of making a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on a long-range missile capable of hitting the United States. But physicist David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, believes it may be capable of mounting nuclear warheads on Rodongs. In any case, Pyongyang is continuing to pursue advancements, apparently out of the belief that it needs nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S. to have a credible deterrent.

The United States rejects the North's claim that such a deterrent is necessary, saying it does not intend to launch pre-emptive strikes against North Korea. At the same time, Washington has made it clear that it could.

During ongoing Foal Eagle military maneuvers in South Korea, two U.S. B-2 strategic stealth bombers, flying from their base in Missouri, conducted a mock bombing run on a South Korean range. The B-2 is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, precision bombs that could take out specific targets such as North Korean government buildings, and massive conventional bombs designed to penetrate deep into the ground to destroy North Korean tunnels and dug-in military positions. One big problem, however, is determining where the targets are.

Amid heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program in 1994, President Bill Clinton reportedly considered a pre-emptive strike, but decided the risks were too high.

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CHINA'S DILEMMA

Without China, North Korea wouldn't exist. The Chinese fought alongside the North Koreans in the Korean War and have propped up Pyongyang with economic aid ever since.

Beijing has grown frustrated with Pyongyang, especially over its nuclear program. China and the U.S. worked together in drafting a U.N. resolution punishing the North for its Feb. 12 nuclear test.

But China still has valid reasons not to want the regime to suddenly collapse.

War in Korea would likely spark a massive exodus of North Korean civilians along its porous 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border, which in turn could lead to a humanitarian crisis or unrest that the Chinese government would have to deal with. The fall of North Korea could pave the way for the United States to establish military bases closer to Chinese territory, or the creation of a unified Korea over which Beijing might have less influence.

China, the world's second-largest economy, also has significant trade with South Korea and the United States. Turmoil on the Korean Peninsula would harm the economies of all three countries.

Patrick Cronin, an Asia expert at the Center for a New American Security and a senior State Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said Beijing is helping set up back-channel negotiations with North Korea to ease the tensions. But he warned that the U.S. isn't likely to win China over as a reliable partner against North Korea beyond the current flare-up.

"There are limits to how far China and the U.S. have coincidental interests with regard to North Korea," he said.

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Political tensions rise in Kenya ahead of election

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Dozens of shack homes have been burned to the ground in recent weeks in Mathare, Nairobi's most dangerous slum. Families are moving into zones controlled by their own clans, fearful of attacks between the tribes of Kenya's top two presidential candidates.

Kenya on Monday holds its first presidential election since the 2007 vote devolved into months of tribal violence that killed more than 1,000 people and displaced 600,000 from their homes. In a hopeful sign, this year's presidential candidates pledged at a weekend prayer rally to accept the outcome of the election and ensure violence doesn't again break out.

But the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights on Wednesday released a long list of physical attacks, hate speech and cases of ethnic intimidation Kenya has seen in recent weeks, exposing an undercurrent of tribal tension.

Those strains are on high display in Mathare, where at least seven people have died and 100 shacks burned in the last two months. Officially Mathare suffered 112 deaths during the 2007-08 election violence, though one policeman, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, says Mathare really suffered over 370 killings.

Lewis Kamau is a Kikuyu but wears the bright orange hat of the Luo candidate, Raila Odinga. Kamau is not crossing party lines; he says the hat protects him from Luo attacks. He says he expects Luos to react negatively if Odinga loses.

"Violence will erupt because of results they don't like," he said. "I know these people. They won't accept the results."

Kamau — who backs the Kikuyu candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta — is standing 20 feet from a dirt lot scorched by fire, one of the shacks burned in Luo-on-Kikuyu attacks that began in late December and carried over into January.

"Just the other day they burned here and we didn't retaliate," he said, motioning to the charred lot. "We kept quiet. On Monday after the (election results) announcement, we will be ready for it."

Odinga or Kenyatta must win at least 50 percent of the vote in Monday's election, or the two will go to a second-round runoff, where attention will be even more focused on the two, heightening tensions further.

Many in Mathare, and across town in Nairobi's biggest slum, Kibera, say that Kenyans have learned from the 2007-08 violence, and won't repeat it. But many of those pronouncements come from people who assume their candidate will win.

"I think given the 2007 experience we will accept the results, even if, God forbid, we Luos lose. But I don't see us losing," said Daniel Omondo, an information technology specialist in Mathare.

The Kikuyu-Luo rift goes back decades, to when Odinga's father was asked by British colonialist to be Kenya's prime minister. The elder Odinga declined, saying that Jomo Kenyatta — Uhuru's father — was the rightful leader. Kenyatta eventually became president, with Odinga as his vice president. But a few years later Kenyatta forced Odinga out of the government, and the tribes' relations began a long slide downward.

In a small tin shack in Kibera where illegal, home-made whisky is served, one Odinga backer who gave his name as Christian Nyambega said the country needs its political leaders to accept the results and for the voters to remain calm. Then one of his drinking colleagues became agitated at the memory of the disputed 2007 election win of current President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu.

"They're going to steal the vote the way they did for Kibaki. The Kikuyus are not the only tribe in Kenya. We have 42 tribes in Kenya," said the man, who gave his name only as Patrick, saying her feared government retribution.

Of the dozens of worrying cases of political tensions described by the human rights commission on Wednesday was one in which Kikuyu landlords in a low-income area of Nairobi ejected Luo tenants from their rental houses. It also said a member of Kenyatta's party has been linked to the use of gangs to threaten opponents. The report also documented cases of residents voluntarily moving to areas controlled by their own tribe.

One Western embassy official watching election developments closely said he expects less violence this election season than in 2007. But he said if 200 people die in violence, it might have to be considered progress compared with the more than 1,000 deaths in 2007-08.

There are other areas of concern in addition to the Luo-Kikuyu rift in Nairobi. A United Nations official who is watching election developments said that Kenya's Rift Valley has seen an influx of imported guns that didn't exist five years ago, and the Tana River area — a region that has seen serious tribal fighting over the last year — is likely to see more deaths.

The official said that violence in Mathare will be the worst in Nairobi, and that members of Amnesty International and Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission have been receiving serious threats. The official said he could not be identified because he was not authorized to share election data.

Since Kenya's last election, the country now has a new constitution, a new judicial system that is lauded as less corrupted, and the police force is being overhauled. Many residents hold out hope that those changes will help ensure that government systems — instead of massive street violence — will be used to settle election disputes.

"The violence (in 2007-08) came because of the stealing of votes. The Odinga supporters thought it was rigged, so there was an outcry. This time we have a credible judicial commission and we have seen many changes in police," said Bernard Titus, a Kibera resident.

In addition, four prominent Kenyans — including Kenyatta and his vice presidential candidate — face charges at the International Criminal Court over allegations that they orchestrated the 2007 election violence. Some Kenyans believe those charges have reduced the chances that power brokers will hire thugs — mostly young men and boys from the slums hired for $5 to $10 a day — and send them into the street.

Grace Kalibo runs a small shop selling basic food goods in Kibera. She attended Sunday's massive peace rally where Odinga and Kenyatta shook hands and pledged peace. She believes Kenya will avoid the massive violence of five years ago. So does her neighbor, Lucas Awol, a 39-year-old bar owner where poor Kibera men gather on Sunday afternoons.

"This time they won't react at all. They are tired of war," said Awol. "This time it will be peaceful. People say so."

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Political tensions rise ahead of Kenyan election

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Political tensions are rising in Kenya, ahead of the election Monday, the first presidential vote since 2007 when the country devolved into months of tribal violence that killed more than 1,000 people.

Dozens of shacks have been burned to the ground in recent weeks in Mathare, Nairobi's most dangerous slum. Families are moving into zones controlled by their own clans, fearful of attacks between the rival tribes of Kenya's top two presidential candidates.

This year's presidential candidates pledged at a weekend prayer rally to accept the outcome of the election and ensure violence doesn't break out again.

But the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Wednesday released a long list of attacks, hate speech and ethnic intimidation in recent weeks, exposing an undercurrent of tribal tensions before the election.

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