In one shameful week, Kenya has made the journey from prospering democracy to tribal battleground. At least 316 people have been murdered, among them dozens of women and children burnt alive in a church. In the western Rift Valley hardly a village has been spared arson and death. The lorry parks of East Africa's economic hub are graveyards of charred vehicles. Foreign investors are recalculating the risks of doing business in Nairobi. The foreign tourists who contribute 14 per cent of Kenya's GDP are staying indoors, or away. As the world contemplates the prospect of this country of staggering diversity and beauty going the way of so many of its benighted neighbours, a local newspaper gives bleak warning of “complete meltdown”.

There is no serious argument about what triggered Kenya's lurch toward oblivion. The Government of President Kibaki saw from his party's parliamentary losses on December 27 that it was about to lose the presidency as well, and stole the election by manufacturing huge margins in Mr Kibaki's Kikuyu tribal homeland. Most of the violence since then has been an expression of pent-up anger at the Kikuyus' longstanding monopoly on power, and dashed hopes that Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement would break that monopoly at the ballot box. Mr Odinga has the moral high ground, but has hardly been statesmanlike: as long as he refuses to negotiate unless Mr Kibaki resigns, talks are effectively ruled out. Meanwhile, his plan for a mass rally in Nairobi today in defiance of police warnings is a recipe for a bloodbath.

Both figures have been carelessly incendiary. Mr Odinga has invoked the spectre of Ivory Coast, plunged into civil war by a rigged election six years ago. Each has accused the other of genocide. Each use of the word serves as a reminder of Rwanda to which the standard Western response is: “Never again.” But for this to be more than hollow rhetoric, three things must happen.

Mr Kibaki must acknowledge, first, that he has forfeited any claim to democratic legitimacy. The head of the Kenyan Electoral Commission has withdrawn his endorsement of last Sunday's count. No major foreign government has recognised the “result”, and two reports have described serious irregularities at polling stations, including the apparent fabrication of 42,000 pro-Kibaki votes in two constituencies alone. Secondly, Mr Odinga must recognise that whatever he is leading is no peaceful revolution: those who attacked the church in Eldoret on Tuesday were his supporters. Thirdly, therefore, both men must accept that they and their country have more to gain through talking than intransigence, and Europe must be ready to provide determined mediation should the African Union prove feeble in practice. The EU provided the observers who first declared this election a fraud. It is also by far Kenya's largest trading partner. Britain in particular should not be inhibited by its imperial past from doing its utmost to strengthen Kenya's democratic future.

Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga profess to want to save Kenya, but continue to let the country bleed. The world is looking to these two men to put aside their ambition and show statesmanship. For Mr Kibaki, this means acknowledging that this election will not give him a mandate to continue as President. For Mr Odinga, this means accepting that he will have to come to the negotiating table. If the violence escalates, yet more blood will be on both men's hands.