Kenyan police crackdown is setback for Western strategy in Africa

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The timing was awkward. Less than 24 hours after the United States officially designated Kenya as its closest African ally, the East African country erupted into a brutal display of deadly police repression, casting doubt on the democratic credentials that the West has repeatedly praised.

At least five protesters were killed on Tuesday as police opened fire on Kenyans who marched to the country’s parliament to oppose a tax-raising finance bill. The death toll among the protesters may have been as high as 10, according to some reports, while dozens more were injured.

As bullets and tear gas filled the streets of the capital, Nairobi, some protesters broke into a section of the parliamentary buildings and set it on fire.

Kenyan President William Ruto, in a late-night speech after the deaths, praised the police for their “defence of Kenya and its people.” He blamed the violence entirely on “organized criminals” who had allegedly hijacked the protests. His government later announced that it is deploying Kenyan military forces to support the police.

In addition to shooting protesters, Kenya’s security forces have also reportedly abducted people who are suspected of organizing the protests. At least 12 have been abducted in the past five days, according to a coalition of Kenyan human-rights groups, which called it an illegal form of enforced disappearance.

The Ruto government’s heavy-handed crackdown is an embarrassing setback for Western countries – including Canada – that have anointed Kenya as one of their closest partners in Africa.

Even as the police were shooting at protesters on Tuesday, another group of about 400 Kenyan police was landing in Haiti in a long-delayed Western-funded attempt to bring stability to the gang-plagued Caribbean country.

Haitian human-rights activists have voiced alarm at the Kenyan police actions against protesters over the past week, expressing concern that the police could be equally brutal in their Haitian deployment.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that Canada will provide $80.5-million to help finance the Kenyan-led multinational security force in Haiti. The force is expected to have a total of 2,500 members, including 1,000 from Kenya, at an estimated cost of US$600-million.

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In a clear signal of Kenya’s status as the preferred African partner for Western governments, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a declaration on Monday to designate Kenya as a “major non-NATO ally.” Kenya is the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain this status from the U.S.

Last month, Kenya won another coveted reward from Washington when Mr. Ruto was hosted by the White House in an official state visit – making him the first African leader to receive such an honour since 2008.

In his meetings with the Kenyan leader, Mr. Biden praised the “democratic values that bind our nations together.” But after the police crackdown in Nairobi, those values now seem in question.

In a joint statement on Tuesday after the deaths of the protesters, the embassies of more than a dozen Western countries – including Canada and the United States – said they were shocked by the violence outside the Kenyan parliament. They said they welcomed the “civic engagement” of the protesters, and they noted that the right to peaceful protest is guaranteed in Kenya’s constitution.

“All sectors have the responsibility to respect, uphold, promote and fulfill the principles of democracy and the rule of law, particularly by ensuring a proportionate security response,” the embassies said, in an implicit criticism of the police gunfire.

Kenya has emerged as a favoured Western ally at a time when many other African countries are becoming authoritarian or pro-Russian, narrowing the list of potential allies for Western governments.

A wave of military coups has swept across West Africa in the past two years, including countries such as Mali and Niger that were previously pro-Western. Several of these countries have ordered the withdrawal of American or French troops, replacing them with Russian troops and adopting an overtly pro-Moscow stance.

In an attempt to regain African support, the U.S. military is co-hosting a conference of army commanders this week in Botswana with the defence chiefs of 35 African countries. The conference, which opened on Tuesday in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, is the first such event to be held by the Pentagon in Africa.

Western countries have expressed gratitude to Kenya for its willingness to send police officers to Haiti. Video images from Haiti on Tuesday showed the first contingent of Kenyan police dancing exuberantly on the tarmac of an airport in Port-au-Prince after their plane landed.

“We commend Kenya for leading this mission,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday.

But a Haitian human-rights group, Inoubliable Mouvement Jean-Jacques Dessalines, said it was concerned by the Kenyan police tactics. “Given the recent examples of police brutality in Kenya, we fear that similar oppressive tactics could be employed against the Haitian people,” it said in a statement last week.