Kenyan police fired teargas to disperse dozens of Masai tribesmen marching to Britain's embassy to demand the return of land they say is due to them after a colonial-era treaty expired this month.
Undercover and uniformed police intercepted about 100 Masai in traditional dress as they headed toward the British High Commission after gathering in a Nairobi park.
The Masai had planned to present a petition to the top British envoy in Kenya, High Commissioner Edward Clay. It was their second unsuccessful attempt to meet him at the embassy, the first having been on August 13.
Since the August 15th expiry of a 1904 colonial treaty that gave ancestral Masai land to British settlers they have held increasing protests around Kenya to demand the land's return.
The government has rejected the appeals and sent paramilitary police to keep Masai and their livestock off private ranches on some of the areas in question.
On Saturday, Kenyan police shot and killed a 70-year-old Masai man and wounded four other herdsmen grazing cattle on private land outside the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki. Police arrested at least 50 Masai for illegally entering and damaging private property in the area at the weekend.
In Nairobi today, police arrested 10 protesters carrying knives.
"This meeting was illegal and we could not accept it going ahead," Nairobi police chief Julius Ndegwa told reporters.
In the park, the Masai read a statement demanding the government return the land handed to British settlers under the Anglo- Masai Land treaty, signed by the colonial authority and the top Masai leader at the time.
The Masai said their lawyers would take their fight to the Kenyan High Court and the International Court of Justice.