Nairobi, Aug 4 (DPA) US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Kenya Tuesday on the first leg of her Africa tour.

Clinton's visit demonstrates the continent is a foreign policy priority for the administration of President Barack Obama, say US officials.

The top US diplomat made no comment as she arrived at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, but she is expected to have plenty to say over the next 11 days as she visits seven nations.

Clinton's tour comes just three weeks after Obama visited Ghana, his first trip to Africa as president.

According to Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, Clinton will reinforce Obama's themes, which include supporting democratic governments, promoting economic development and resolving conflicts.

She is due to open the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Nairobi Wednesday. AGOA provides sub-Saharan African nations liberalised access to US markets.

She is then expected to address more thorny issues.

The secretary will visit several countries with major human rights problems, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, and she is under pressure to bring the governments to task.

'The US rightly wants to promote Africa as a place of great opportunity, but Africans will be unable to realise their potential if their human rights are denied,' said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at New York-based Human Rights Watch. 'Secretary Clinton should make this connection clear.'

Clinton's first delicate task is expected to come when she presses Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to create a new constitution.

Obama's decision to ignore Kenya, the birthplace of his father, on his first trip to Africa was seen as a coded message to the Kenyan government to bring to justice those responsible for early 2008's bloody post-election violence.

Around 1,500 people died in tribal clashes that followed Odinga's claims that Kibaki stole the December 2007 presidential elections, yet Kenya has failed to create a special tribunal to try those responsible for orchestrating the violence.

Just hours before Clinton touched down, the US embassy in Kenya issued a statement condemning the government for deciding to rely on the existing judiciary system, which is struggling under the weight of a huge backlog, to try suspects.