By Daniel Wallis

MOLO, Kenya, Dec 22 (Reuters) - It's voting time again in Kenya. And that means a cycle of bloodshed and dislocation that elderly Peter Kaburu has been through too many times before.

He was uprooted by violence that accompanied elections in 1992, 1997 and 2002. Then three weeks ago, armed raiders came to his small home in Kuresoi -- a volatile part of central Rift Valley province and told him to get out.

"They want that area to be for Kalenjin only," the white-haired Kaburu told Reuters outside a church distributing food aid in Molo town.

"They say they don't want any other member of a tribe, whether he's an elder or even a member of parliament."

East Africa's biggest economy goes to the polls on Thursday for presidential and parliamentary elections.

But for Kaburu and up to 10,000 others from Kuresoi seeking shelter in Molo, the vote has brought another wave of unrest to their ethnically-mixed homeland. Several dozen have died so far.

Locals blame politicians for stirring up trouble to evict supporters of their rivals to stack voting numbers in their favour.

The European Union's chief observer for the polls, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, said his meetings with some of the refugees on Friday had been "heart-rending", and that it was a shock to see such scenes, which were "beneath" Kenya.

Nearby, villagers in ragged clothes talked in hushed tones about this week's latest murder -- a 65-year-old farmer who was hacked to death as he tended his maize field. The attackers then torched all the homes in the area.

"What about our future after the elections?" asked another former resident, Peter Nganga. "Our houses have been burned, everything has been looted. The food we get here is not the food we eat at our farms. Our children are getting sick."

`FAMILIES TRAPPED'

Others said they had lost their documents, including their voters' cards, when they were uprooted. Local officials said replacements would arrive on Wednesday, the day before voting.

"They should postpone the election here," said Bernard Mwangi, a leader of the displaced. "These thugs in Kuresoi are playing hide-and-seek, a kind of guerrilla war, to try to scare these people into not going back."

Each time Kenyans have gone to the polls, violence has flared in the fertile region -- mostly pitting the more numerous Kalenjin against several smaller tribes.

Election monitors and police were investigating reports from aid workers that some non-Kalenjin families were holed up and too afraid to leave their homes, never mind vote.

Kalenjin victims of reprisal attacks were also said to have headed deeper into the area's thick woods.

Local authorities have said all displaced voters will be able to cast their ballots at any of seven designated Kuresoi polling stations. And Molo District Commissioner Mohammed Salim said police patrols would be boosted to secure access routes.

He said it was not clear who behind the bloodshed.

"The problematic areas are deep in the farms," Salim said at his office. "There are lots of reasons people might cause problems, whether political, economic or criminal. It's like hit-and-run or an ambush. The hostilities are not in the open." (editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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