By IWU-FI
Last June marked the one-year anniversary of the social outcry against the budget and tax reform with which William Ruto’s government had intended to pay off the foreign debt to the IMF. Popular anger over unresolved demands, brutal repression, the murder of the young blogger and teacher Albert Ojwan in police custody, and the massacre during the anniversary of “Saba Saba Day” (In Swahili, “saba saba” means “seven seven”, i.e. the seventh day of the seventh month of the year. It celebrates several historical holidays in East Africa and, in Kenya, it is remembered as the day when nationwide protests took place in 1990 against the then dictator Daniel arap Moi, who ruled from 1978 to 2002, to demand free elections) have reignited the fuse in a country strangled by the IMF and government austerity measures. The government brutally repressed the protests and killed 31 people, leaving hundreds of others injured and arrested, showing that, since independence, the capitalists and their pro-imperialist governments have been drowning the working people in misery and repression.
Following independence from the United Kingdom, on the 12th of December 1963, the eastern african Republic of Kenya was founded in 1964. The first government was in the hands of Jomo Kenyatta until his death, in August 1978. Under his rule, he imposed a one-party regime in which there was heavy foreign investment and land was bought up by the new Kenyan bourgeoisie, naturally linked to British capital. All the subsequent governments, including the 24 years of Daniel Arap Moi’s government until 2002, and those that followed into the 21st century, were subservient to the orders of the IMF and US imperialism, and ruled for the imperialist bourgeoisie in order to make the working and popular majorities pay for the capitalist crisis as post-colonial agents of the present-day distribution and semi-colonisation of Africa.
The current political and social crisis in Kenya, home to more than 55 million ethnically diverse people, is a structural part of the global capitalist crisis and the policies pursued by governments. Structurally, inequality is extreme, despite the fact that Kenya has the fastest growing GDP economy in East Africa. According to Oxfam, less than 0.1% of the population (8,300 people) own more wealth than the poorest 99.9% (over 44 million). Kenya’s richest 10% earn, on average, 23 times more than the poorest 10%. Nearly one million primary school-age children are still out of school, the 9th highest figure in the world. Although 96% of rural Kenyan women work in the countryside, only 6% of women in Kenya hold land titles.
The social impact of the crisis has meant that, by the end of 2023, 15.3 million Kenyans, 80% of those employed, live on wages below the poverty line. This situation is strongly felt by the youth, in a country where 80% of the population is under 35 years old, where unemployment is almost 49%, and where the 800,000 young people who enter the labour force each year cannot find work.
These appalling social conditions and the extraordinary inequality are the trigger for discontent and large mobilisations, that continue unabated. During 2024, massive protests took place against the fiscal austerity plan that sought to impose an increase in taxes on housing, fuel, bread and food, with the aim of raising an additional 2.7 billion dollars and thus pay the external debt that amounts to some 3.5 billion dollars, 68% of Kenya’s GDP. The protests partially succeeded, after being huge in size and incredibly disruptive, with them even occupying parliament, and won the government’s withholding of the signing of the fiscal auisterity bill; in return however, Ruto’s government cut spending on social rights and continued its attack on the working class and unemployed youth, who were an essential part of the large protests.
Unresolved demands and the murder of Albert Ojwan trigger a new wave of protests
The new wave of mobilisations that began in June are a continuation of the major protests of 2024, when the youth took to the streets and faced brutal repression that left over 60 people dead. Living conditions have not improved since, government pressures continue, and so protests have erupted once again.
The new wave of mobilisations that began in June are a continuation of the major protests of 2024, when the youth took to the streets and faced brutal repression that left over 60 people dead. Living conditions have not improved since, government pressures continue, and so protests have erupted once again.
Days before commemorating the anniversary of the 2024 mobilisations, the murder of the young teacher and blogger Albert Ojwan had shaken Kenya. Albert Ojwan had been arrested on Saturday evening, June 7th, whilst he was having dinner with his partner. The police detained him at the central police station on charges of insulting a police chief on social media. On Sunday morning, when his father arrived from a distant city with the title deed of his house to pay a possible bail, his son was handed over to him dead, with blunt injuries and signs of police torture and ill-treatment. “He was bleeding from the nose and had a bruised torso and face. He was also shirtless, but this is not how I handed him over to the police on Saturday. My son died like an animal” said Albert’s father. In the face of such a scandal, parliament summoned the Chief of Police and questioned him publicly and on television for two consecutive days. The autopsy proved that Albert had not committed suicide. Two policemen were arrested, six people are under investigation for murder and the deputy director of police resigned.
The rejection was expressed from below, in the mobilisations of June 26th, where one of the main slogans was “Justice for Albert Ojwan“. The protest again encountered the police brutality characteristic of the Ruto government when, with the use of bullets, batons, tear gas and armoured water cannon trucks, they prevented the demonstrators from reaching the seat of government. The day ended in a bloodbath. According to Amnesty International, 16 people were killed in the repression and 400 more were injured on that day alone.
The Saba Saba massacre and the declaration of war on those who fight back
The “Saba Saba Day” celebrations is an annual commemoration in which Kenya remembers the mobilisations that took place on July 7th, 1990, when it demanded, along with US imperialism, multiparty participation in the elections. This was achieved, although the president in question, Daniel Arap Moi, won the following two elections in 1992 and 1997. In 2013 Uhuru Kenyatta, son of the first president, won the elections, with Wiliam Ruto as his vice president. Ruto would win the presidential elections in 2022 with popular promises that he never fulfilled, demonstrating, 35 years after the “Saba Saba“ mobilisations, that the Kenyan capitalists and imperialism have ruled against the working people, and that Ruto, using systematic repression in the same way as all the governments of the past, has been using repression against the working people.
Against this backdrop, the annual celebration became the scene of a massive national day of protests to repudiate the repression and policies of the current Ruto government. The mobilisation again heroically sought to reach government headquarters in Nairobi and other cities across the country. But militarisation of the streets and repression throughout the day prevented them from doing so. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) had documented at least 31 deaths, 29 injuries, 2 cases of abduction and 37 arrests in 17 of the country’s 47 counties.
The repression, orchestrated by the police, counted on the complicity of parapolice gangs and plainclothes officers armed with weapons of war in the areas of mobilisations. On Wednesday, July 9th, Ruto declared war on the demonstrators and authorised the forces to shoot at the legs of those demonstrating: “Anyone who goes to burn other people’s property, someone like that should be shot in the leg, and go to the hospital on his way to court. They shouldn’t kill the person but they should hit the legs to break them“, the president said. He also disassociated himself from the unemployment and social crisis in the country, blaming previous governments.
The repression, orchestrated by the police, counted on the complicity of parapolice gangs and plainclothes officers armed with weapons of war in the areas of mobilisations. On Wednesday, July 9th, Ruto declared war on the demonstrators and authorised the forces to shoot at the legs of those demonstrating: “Anyone who goes to burn other people’s property, someone like that should be shot in the leg, and go to the hospital on his way to court. They shouldn’t kill the person but they should hit the legs to break them“, the president said. He also disassociated himself from the unemployment and social crisis in the country, blaming previous governments.
If the people of Kenya triumph, so do the people of the world
The protracted struggles of the poor people of Kenya can triumph. While the bosses’ opposition calls for a false ‘cross-cutting’ dialogue from the parliament, the mobilisations in the streets seek to get rid of the government’s austerity measures and repression. The democratic, human rights, social, political and youth organisations, must support the just mobilisation of the Kenyan people against the criminal government.
William Ruto is the enemy of all the exploited and oppressed peoples of the world. For months, he has been postulating himself as the best pupil of Donald Trump’s US imperialism in the region. He has sent police troops to Haiti, under the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti (MMS), with funding from the French government of Macron, to repress the people and support an imposed government, and started to execute deportations on thousands of refugees living in Kenya.
The protracted struggles of the poor people of Kenya can triumph. While the bosses’ opposition calls for a false ‘cross-cutting’ dialogue from the parliament, the mobilisations in the streets seek to get rid of the government’s austerity measures and repression. The democratic, human rights, social, political and youth organisations, must support the just mobilisation of the Kenyan people against the criminal government.
William Ruto is the enemy of all the exploited and oppressed peoples of the world. For months, he has been postulating himself as the best pupil of Donald Trump’s US imperialism in the region. He has sent police troops to Haiti, under the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti (MMS), with funding from the French government of Macron, to repress the people and support an imposed government, and started to execute deportations on thousands of refugees living in Kenya.
From the International Workers’ Unity – Fourth International (IWU-FI), we repudiate the repression, assassination and imprisonment of those who are mobilising, and we support the struggle of the working people and youth of Kenya and their demands. We demand justice for Albert Ojwan, the 31 people killed and the hundreds injured. We demand the immediate release of the imprisoned social activists and the immediate return of those disappeared alive.
Long live the struggle of the working people and the youth of Kenya! Enough hunger! Ditch the IMF now! Enough repression! Justice for the fallen and punishment for the culprits! Pay wages, decent work, health and education to end poverty! Out with the murderer William Ruto and his accomplices! Let the workers rule!
Long live the struggle of the working people and the youth of Kenya! Enough hunger! Ditch the IMF now! Enough repression! Justice for the fallen and punishment for the culprits! Pay wages, decent work, health and education to end poverty! Out with the murderer William Ruto and his accomplices! Let the workers rule!
