By C. Bryson Hull

NAIROBI, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Kenyan riot police patrolled the capital on Saturday and rival tribes faced off in a southwest town, after 23 people were killed in three days of protests called by the opposition over a disputed election.

Tension stayed high despite opposition leader Raila Odinga's statement on Friday that his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) would take its fight off the streets and use other channels, including talks with African leaders and economic boycotts.

About 650 people have been killed since President Mwai Kibaki won a disputed Dec. 27 election, mostly in police action against banned protests and attacks on tribes seen as backing him.

Odinga says Kibaki stole the closest-ever election in the east African nation from him. International observers say the count was so chaotic it was impossible to tell who won, and the government says the ODM also rigged votes.

In Narok town, paramilitaries guarded empty streets while hundreds of members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe armed with machetes faced pro-opposition Maasais with bows and arrows, a Reuters reporter said.

A total of six people died on Friday as the two sides fought, and homes were torched in the town, gateway to the Maasai Mara game park. Police had to retreat late on Friday when they ran out of tear gas.

Reinforcements arrived early on Saturday.

Kenya's paroxysm of violence, captured in TV images showing police shooting, teargassing and beating protesters, has seriously damaged its democratic reputation, prompted threats of aid cuts and harmed one of Africa's strongest economies.

Roughly 250,000 have been forced from their homes in ethnic attacks, the bulk of them in the pro-opposition Rift Valley. A policeman was killed there on Friday by an arrow, police said.

MONEY RUNNING OUT

In Nairobi, paramilitaries in riot gear marched through the central business district, where for the past three days business closed early as police fired teargas and chased protesters through the streets.

Nairobi's Mathare and Kibera slums were quiet, and in Kisumu, scene of some of the worst police action and earlier rioting, was coming back to life.

"Shops are open, people have flocked into the streets but there is no money," vendor Silwa Opido, 42, said as she balanced a basket of bananas on her head. "People have nothing in their pockets because no one has worked since Kibaki stole the votes."

The opposition and human rights groups blame Kenyan police for most of the killing during the protests, including the deaths of schoolchildren in Nairobi and the western city of Kisumu, heart of the opposition.

In Kibera, scene of the worst violence on Friday, police killed a 15-year-old girl who looked out her door as they fired outside. Her father told Reuters the officer aimed at her.

Both of Kenya's main newspapers in editorials on Saturday blasted police conduct. "The full magnitude of their misdeeds will take long to come out, but it is simply horrific," the Saturday Nation wrote.

Police maintain they have followed Kenyan law, only shooting rioters and looters, and deny shooting indiscriminately.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told reporters 510 people had been killed since violence erupted around election day, and of those 87 died at police hands. He said 70 percent of deaths were in the Rift Valley.

The government, in a statement on Friday, said it planned to form a truth and reconciliation commission and ask the government's human rights commission to carry out independent investigations into the violence.

Several African leaders are shuttling between Kibaki and Odinga's camps, and former U.N. head Kofi Annan is due to arrive on Tuesday to begin talks. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Kisumu; editing by Andrew Roche)

AlertNet news is provided by