Nairobi Police Rout Demonstrators : Kenya: Guns and tear gas are used when violence erupts after a rally supporting multi-party democracy.

Police fired guns and tear gas here Saturday to disperse a large crowd that turned violent after gathering for a downtown rally in favor of multi-party democracy.

There were no reports of casualties, but many witnesses saw police and paramilitary troops chasing demonstrators and beating people on the streets. Crowds surged through part of Nairobi’s business district, smashing windows and looting several shops.

By late Saturday the city appeared calm, with detachments of troops stationed on many street corners. Glass and rocks littered the streets near the site of the disturbance.

The eruption came after a week in which authorities here had arrested 40 people, including five prominent opposition spokesmen, on sedition and other charges relating to their support for a change in Kenya’s one-party system. The only legal political party in Kenya is the ruling Kenya African National Union, or KANU, which is led by President Daniel Arap Moi.

Moi argues that a multi-party system would lead to ethnic strife among the many groups in this East African nation. The last major opposition party was banned in 1969, and Kenya was officially declared a one-party state in 1982. A rebellion later that year by air force members was crushed, and the ensuing years have brought crackdowns on dissidents and strengthening of central authority.

Last week’s arrests were made as the government showed increasing nervousness over the Saturday rally, which had been planned originally by two dissident former Cabinet ministers, Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia.

When authorities denied them a license to meet, Matiba and Rubia announced that they were abandoning the plan. The two politicians are among those currently being held in detention.

But there were signs during the week that many people might attend anyway to show their support for a change, despite official warnings that they could face arrest and that police would control the crowds with force if necessary.

The warnings and a light rainfall apparently succeeded in trimming enthusiasm for the meeting early Saturday. At 10 a.m., there was practically no one at the site, a field known as Kamukunji that was the setting of many anti-colonial rallies held by Kenya’s founder, Jomo Kenyatta, before Kenya attained independence from Britain in 1963.

But shortly after noon a crowd of several thousand people gathered on its fringes, and a few hundred among them began chanting anti-government slogans. Witnesses said these included “Free Matiba!” and “Free Rubia!”

Some of the crowd attacked what they took to be an unmarked police car with two security men inside. Eventually the crowd began pelting passing buses with rocks and looting a neighboring bus station. Several passenger cars were attacked and burned. Police then moved in with tear gas and fired guns, evidently over the heads of the crowd. As the crowd dispersed, police and paramilitary troops of the government’s General Services Unit patrolled downtown streets, firing their guns into the air to break up gatherings.