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Meanwhile, President Mwai Kibaki said he was encouraged by progress in talks to end the violence that erupted after the Dec. 27 presidential election and said he was "committed" to the negotiations.
Opposition leaders say Kibaki stole the vote from rival candidate Raila Odinga. Kibaki insists he was fairly re-elected.
More than 1,000 people have been killed and 300,000 driven from their homes in fighting that has often pitted many of the East African country's myriad ethnic groups against one another.
Last week, an opposition legislator was killed in what the opposition described as a political assassination, but which police said was a crime of passion by a traffic policeman who believed his girlfriend was involved with the politician.
The killing had sparked attacks on the policeman's ethnic group, the Kisii. Many fear that Saturday's funeral for the politician may be another flash point in the volatile west.
In the western town of Kericho, the main street was stacked with families hastily piling furniture onto government lorries provided to take them to areas where their ethnic group was predominant.
Around 5,000 people fled a makeshift camp for those displaced by the violence in a single day, leaving only about 1,000 behind, said Red Cross official Susan Onyango.
International and domestic observers have heavily criticized the vote tallying process and the head of the electoral commission has publicly said he does not know who won the election. Opposition leaders have said Kibaki should step down, but Odinga expressed flexibility on that point Thursday following a meeting with EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel.
"We are saying that we are willing to give and take. Initially our stand was that we won the elections, and Mr. Kibaki lost the elections, he should resign, and we should be sworn in, but we have said that we are not static on that point," he told reporters.
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 Also Thursday, the U.S. added to the international pressure by threatening to bar Kenyan politicians and businessmen alleged to have played a role in weeks of postelection bloodshed from visiting the United States, a move that "hit a nerve," the U.S. ambassador said.
Politicians and businessmen are among those accused of financing or backing the violence.
"People are paying 4,000 shillings ($60) to burn down a house," U.S. Ambassador Michael Ranneberger told reporters.
Washington sent letters to 10 politicians and businessmen suspected of supporting or inciting violence, Ranneberger said. U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the letters were sent to eight people. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained. Both declined to name the targets but Ranneberger said the review also would affect the immediate families of those affected.
Casey said the visa reviews probably would take place over the next few days and were directed at "more regional figures" than top officials from both major political movements. Rannenberger said the U.S. could target top officials if the violence that has devastated the economy and undermined Kenya's democratic credentials continued.
Both Kibaki's government and the opposition welcomed the U.S. decision
-- and insisted they had nothing to do with the violence. But Kenyan human rights groups, foreign observers and diplomats say there is ample evidence that both parties helped incite and orchestrate attacks.
[Associated
Press; By TOM ODULA]
Associated Press writers Katy Pownall in Kericho, and Matthew Rosenberg and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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