Kenya has been very visible in the world press in the past few weeks. Two facts have stood out. One is the new wave of mobilizations against the government of William Ruto and the other is the sending of soldiers to repress in Haiti. In this article, we week to explain Kenya’s intricate game of submission to imperialist countries, especially, at present, the United States.
By César Neto and J. G. Hata
Kenya: colonial heritage and Bonapartism
The Bonapartist government of William Ruto officially recognized the existence of more than twenty deaths in the last two weeks of June. The videos and photographs that have reached us make us think the actual number is much higher. There are several ways to explain all of this violence. One is the country’s recent history.
In the partition of Africa by European imperialism, England invaded and occupied, among other countries, Kenya. Kenyan lands were ideal for tea cultivation. This is the same tea that many people insist on saying is English, while in fact it is Kenyan. The lands were gradually invaded and the local population was left with small spaces to survive on the basis of a subsistence culture. The Kikuyo, Meru and Embu peoples organized important resistance processes against the invader. The best known were the Nandi Resistance (1895-1905), then the Giriama Revolt (1913-1914); the Muranga Women’s Revolt against forced labor (1947), and the Kolloa Revolt (1950)[1].
During the period of British colonialism, in order to move within their own country, Kenyans needed the Kipande, a kind of passport issued by the British authorities. But this was not the only violence. The English settlers received military training from the British army to defend themselves against Black Kenyans. The violence was so great that Winston Churchill advised that killings on such a large scale should be avoided. In other words, Churchill said: “kill, but don’t kill so many people”.
In the early 1950s, two processes combined. On the one hand, the Kikuyo people began a long process of revolt, combined with the rise of the militaristic Mau Mau movement. Soldiers and officers returning from World War II, who had served in Burma under British orders, concluded that the struggle for independence would be armed. Two movements came together. One of proletarian and popular character of the Kikuyo peoples and the other militarist.
To suppress the Kikuyos, the 7th Armored Division of the British Army was sent, which from 1943 to 1944 was one of the main battalions in World War II. In addition, British occupation troops were stationed in Uganda, Tanganyika, Mauritius and Egypt. There were more than 25,000 men who implemented terror through concentration camps, similar to how the Nazis had done in Germany. In these places, women and children were raped and men were castrated. In addition there was the forced migration of entire populations.
The 1950s were an era full of imperial violence against the native peoples in the dispute for land. The best lands of the country were occupied by the British for the production of tea leaves and much of it was industrialized by the multinational Unilever.
In the early sixties, England, faced with the radicalization and extension of the movement, proposed a negotiated solution that included the release of political prisoners, among them Jomo Kenyatta.
Kenyatta studied economics in Moscow through the direct intervention of George Padmore. When the latter broke with the Communist International, Kenyatta returned to England and together with Kwame Nkrumah founded the Pan-African Federation.
Jomo Kenyatta’s trajectory, therefore, was built on Pan-Africanist militancy together with Padmore, Nkrumah, C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, among others. Kenyatta was appointed prime minister on June 1, 1963 and subsequently president from December 12, 1964. He remained in office until his death on August 22, 1978. In his government, the white British preserved their privileges and land stolen from the settlers.
To control the movement that had been going on since 1950, Jomo built a Bonapartist regime that was extremely authoritarian and repressive.
After Kenyatta’s death, the Bonapartist regime continued its course with the government of Daniel Arap Moi (1978 to 2002); Mwai Kibaki (2002 to 2013); Uhuru Kenyatta (2013 to 2022) and William Ruto (from 2022). In other words, from 1963 to 2022 the country had only four presidents.
Kenya: a semi-colonial country immersed in the capitalist crisis
Like most semi-colonial countries, Kenya exports unprocessed commodities and imports industrialized products, a situation which has been aggravated by three decades of deindustrialization[2].
Kenya exports tea ($1.2 billion), flowers ($766 million), coffee ($262 million), refined petroleum ($247 million) and titanium ore ($194 million). On the other hand, it imports: refined petroleum (US$3.53 billion), palm oil (US$1.26 billion), packaged medicines (US$554 million), automobiles (US$549 million) and hot-rolled iron (US$508 million). Of these exports, 30% are destined for African countries that are also in crisis. As for imports, 70% come from China and India, which explains part of the indebtedness with these countries.
The export-import ratio determines the trade imbalance and, in 2021, Kenya was the 59th largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, 109th in total exports, 81st in total imports and 142nd largest economy in terms of GDP per capita. The country’s HDI, as measured by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is ranked low, ranking 152nd out of 191 countries.
Public debt is further suffocating the country. In 2021, the debt was around US$71 billion. Eight years earlier it was $16 billion. 30% of its income is used to pay debt service, i.e. interest only. 69.1% of GDP corresponds to debt. Among the 50 economies with the highest risk of inability to pay their debts, Kenya ranks sixth, according to the investment agency Bloomberg.
Food inflation after the start of the Ukrainian occupation is being felt directly by Kenyan workers. Inflation in 2023 was 10%, but this percentage does not accurately express the increase in prices on the table of Kenyan families. Food prices skyrocketed. Sugar, for example, rose 58% in one year.
In addition to the structural problems typical of a semi-colonial economy, the country has had to face successive years of balance of trade deficits, recession and rising interest rates, which has caused the foreign debt to soar. There is no way out for this country unless it suspends debt payments, nationalizes the land, and has a strong public works plan to generate employment. In this case, neither William Rutto, the current president, nor the defeated candidate in the last elections, Raila Odinga, are willing to confront the IMF, the World Bank and the transnational corporations. On the contrary, William Ruto and the Kenyan bourgeoisie have chosen to ally themselves with the enemy in order to continue to survive, as we shall see below.
William Ruto: disputed elections, economic crisis and mobilizations
Ruto was elected in August 2022. He defeated his former government partner Raila Odinga by a narrow margin of less than 1.6% (50.49% vs. 48.85%). Odinga never accepted the result and so Ruto began to rule with half the country against him.
Odinga and Ruto were allies for many years, especially after the police violence against protesters in 2007, which killed more than a thousand people. Then-President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto were indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The cases were subsequently shelved, and former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said a relentless campaign of intimidation of victims and witnesses made a trial impossible [3].
Ruto’s government has faced large demonstrations. When the government was six months old, in 2023, there were the first major demonstrations, which took place in March. In July, there were three days of demonstrations and violent repression. During this wave of mobilizations in July, the Ruto government already relied on the military counterinsurgency agreements signed between the U.S.,Israel, the police, and the Kenyan Armed Forces. The result of this partnership between the U.S., Israel and the repressive apparatus was the death of at least nine people.
June 2024: the government repeats the attacks of 2023 and the masses repeat their struggle
In July 2023, the government tried to impose an increase from 8 to 16% in taxes on oil derivatives and to increase income taxes by another 1.5%. The mobilizations, as we said before, were violent.
This year, a new wave of mobilizations began in the third week of June and lasted until the end of the fourth week. The motive was a new package of economic measures that would increase taxes on several products of popular consumption, such as food, fuel, etc.
On the first day of demonstrations, 200 people were arrested. The demonstrations forced Ruto to give his first retreat, but still the mobilizations continued after the vote in Congress and the anger increased. Part of the Congress building was invaded, set on fire and the parliamentarians had to flee. After this event, the main political banner became: Ruto out. At the end of two weeks of mobilizations, 25 people were seen dead in the streets. Hundreds of wounded were taken to hospitals, many of them seriously, and there is a possibility that the death toll will increase.
William Ruto: the new colonial administrator of U.S. imperialism
Foreign relations in the political and economic sphere in recent years have been mainly with China. Faced with the political instability of William Ruto’s Bonapartist regime, he has sought new allies and found the support he needed in the United States.
Ambassador Meg Whitman, former CEO of Hewllet-Packard and eBay, who last year accompanied Ruto on a visit to Silicon Valley that included visits to Google, Apple and Intel, played a key role in bringing the Kenyan government closer to the U.S. government. Whitman has become a strong advocate for U.S. startups in Kenya, a thriving hub and tech and innovation startups, sometimes called the Silicon Savannah of Africa. Microsoft and an Emirati artificial intelligence company, G42, reported that they will invest $1 billion in a green data center in Kenya, the largest digital investment ever made in the country.
This move has also been extended to the military. In February, Kenya hosted the largest-ever U.S. East Africa Command military exercise. This is a significant development since in other countries the U.S. military was ousted, as in Niger, in favor of Russian mercenary groups.
The day before the June 2024 demonstrations began, Joe Biden formally named Kenya as a major non-NATO ally, and Ruto sent the first 400 military personnel out of a group of 1,000 to Haiti.
Sending the military to Haiti
All of the above history is intended to describe the violence inherited from the colonial period and which continued after independence with the Bonapartist regime that has been in place ever since. Combined with Bonapartism there is a gigantic economic crisis and a proportional response of the mass movement. To this situation has been added an internal crisis since the last elections, where the pro-Ruto result was questioned in parliament, in the Judiciary and mainly in the streets. Thus, the sending of troops for the repression in Haiti is part of the policy of support for the Kenyan Bonapartist regime by U.S. imperialism.
Kenya has a long history of participation in so-called peacekeeping forces. It acted in East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone and Namibia. It is currently participating in the military intervention in Somalia and in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
William Ruto, pressured by the demonstrations of 2023, took the initiative of proposing to send troops to Haiti, in order to gain the sympathy of U.S. imperialism and reduce internal pressure. The Biden Administration supported the decision and pressured the UN Security Council to not only approve the deployment of Kenyan and other troops, but also to designate Kenya to assume the leadership of this multinational force. The resolution passed in September last year “was in part the work of the United States, which drafted it together with Ecuador.”[4] The 1,000 Kenyans who were deployed to Kenya in September of last year “were the first Kenyans to be deployed to Haiti.”
“The 1,000 Kenyans expected to intervene in Haiti will be selected from specialized police forces, such as the Rapid Deployment Unit (Unité de Deploiement Rapide), the Border Patrol Unit (Unité de Patrouille Frontalière) and the General Services Unit (Unité de Service Général), a paramilitary wing generally called upon to suppress various internal conflicts.”[5] The Haitian masses are in for a rough ride.
A bleak future awaits the Haitian masses. The New York Times defined the Kenyan police as follows: “Excessive force. Extrajudicial executions. A long history of brutality and impunity“[6].
In addition to the Kenyan forces, “according to the UN Security Council, the Kenyan forces will be joined by forces from countries such as the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica, for a total of 2,500 police to be deployed in phases, at an annual cost of about $600 million.”[7] The bourgeois opposition to William R. Rousseff’s deployment of the Kenyan police is not only a matter of the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeois opposition to William Ruto showed all its hypocrisy before the sending of troops to Haiti and the assassination of activists in the last wave of mobilizations. The main opposition coalition, Azimio, headed by veteran Raila Odinga, accused the government of “unleashing brute force” against the demonstrators and urged the police to “stop shooting innocent, peaceful and unarmed children“[8].
Denouncing this violation of the sovereignty of the Haitian people
The United Nations Security Council approved the sending of troops to Haiti without it being discussed with the population. At the same time, the agencies of the bourgeois state do not have a legitimate government that could authorize it. Since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse, the country has been ruled by a puppet Prime Minister, with the mandates of the parliamentarians expired and a completely corrupt judiciary. The Prime Minister governs by decree, there is no Parliament, there are no elected rulers in the Republic of Haiti; therefore, the sending of troops is an affront to the sovereignty of the country.
Denounce the Ruto government for killing its people and exporting violence
The Ruto government is responsible for a police force that uses extermination methods in mobilizations. Last year nine people were killed in the July demonstrations and this year another 25, not counting extrajudicial killings. The liberator Simon Bolivar said: “Cursed is the soldier who points his weapon against his people.” In the case of the Kenyan government, in addition to killing its people, it is trying to be servile to imperialism and intervene in a country that has never asked for this type of help, much less to Kenya, which does not even have an embassy in the Caribbean country.
Supporting the struggle of Haitians in the Diaspora
Thousands of Haitians are in the diaspora in Latin America, especially in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. In addition to those who migrated to the United States and Europe. In all these countries, Haitians suffer from racism and xenophobia. Working class and youth organizations in these host countries must be at the forefront of supporting the struggle of Haitians in the diaspora and against their governments.
Support and encourage the building of independent Haitian organizations in the struggle against imperialism and its agents
It is necessary to help Haitians build an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist program. And, from this program, to build an organization with this profile, uniting workers and students towards the construction of an independent organization, towards socialism. Enough of capitalism. Capitalism kills. Death to capitalism.
All support and solidarity to the Kenyan people against the Ruto government.
Out with William Ruto, agent of the IMF, the World Bank and the UN Security Council.
Active militancy against the occupation of Haiti by foreign troops at the service of U.S. imperialism.
For a government of the Haitian workers.
Notes:
[1] Kenya: anti-colonial rebellion of the Mau Mau, genocide and first reparations – https://litci.org/es/kenia-rebelion-anticolonial-los-mau-mau-genocidio-primeras-reparaciones/
[2][2][2] Kenya: three weeks of mobilizations against the newly elected government – https://litci.org/es/kenia-tres-semanas-de-movilizaciones-contra-el-gobierno-recien-elegido/
[3] Ruto and Sang case: ICC Trial Chamber V(A) terminates the case without prejudice to re-prosecution in future – https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/ruto-and-sang-case-icc-trial-chamber-va-terminates-case-without-prejudice-re-prosecution
[4] Deployment of Kenyan policemen in Haiti: “a poorly prepared adventure” ? https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1491787/politique/deploiement-de-policiers-kenyans-en-haiti-une-aventure-mal-preparee/
[5] Idem.
[6] Kenyan Police, a Force With a Bloody History, Confront Protesters at Home and Gangs in Haiti – The New York Times, June 25, 2024.
[7] Haitians react to expected arrival of police force from Kenya – https://www.africanews.com/2024/06/25/haitians-react-to-expected-arrival-of-police-force-from-kenya/
[8] Kenya: William Ruto retire le projet de budget conteste – https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1581773/politique/kenya-william-ruto-retire-le-projet-de-budget-conteste/
