State response to Protests is Excessive

Boniface Mwangi may well be one of the bravest (or craziest) young Kenyan activists ever. According to his own admission, he has spent the last 5 years being an activist for social justice and the last two years organizing and leading protests on various issues with the government of the day. It’s strange then, that Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia and his cohorts have only just realized that this young father and husband is working to “topple the Jubilee government” through protest.

The assertion by the National Security Advisory Committee that the USA through USAID is “working to destabilize Kenya through activists” is just laughable, because if USAID is interested in destabilizing Kenya all they have to do is stop funding this ungrateful government.

It is certainly no secret that not only is the Kenya government funded heavily by the US and aid organizations such as USAID, but in addition several sectors receive direct support in order to remain functioning. This includes the very same government hospitals where those brutal policemen wanted to put Boniface Mwangi and his fellow protestors.

Come to think of it, one of the key issues being protested was that the Jubilee government promised to provide “free maternity care to women” which of course is yet to materialize in the greater part of marginalized and rural Kenya because there are no hospitals to begin with.

The number of projects this government undertakes in co-operation and with the support of western nations and aid organizations is staggering. From medical services, to agriculture, provision of water, sanitation, child health, education, vaccination, food aid, military and financial support Kenya is one country that has and continues to remain unable to fully fund its own activities, functions and services.

If you are living simply because someone else is pumping air into your body, the last thing you want to do is hold up your middle finger. Let’s agree on one thing; we cannot sustain this bloated ineffective and inefficient government filled with ghost workers in the civil service and vampires in the political arena all squabbling over the miserable taxes that the Kenyan population ekes out. According to the Commission on Revenue Allocation, the amount spent on development by this government is meager compared to their recurrent expenditure.

It’s not a secret that we have several funds missing – sorry, “unaccounted for” going up to a cool 300 billion ksh that the Auditor General highlighted last year.  A true patriot would hunt tooth and nail for the treacherous villains who siphoned such a staggering amount out of Kenya’s meager coffers.

Instead, we have this government sitting at the doors of envoys with begging bowls and then turning around and making politically divisive, needlessly acrimonious statements to the public while they blatantly attack unarmed peaceful citizens who were exercising their constitutional rights.

If we really have no need for the West as has been the cry of Jubilee politicians for the past 1 year, then why are we taking their money? Let’s feed our own people! Let’s educate our own children and build enough schools so that the laptops that Jubilee government promised have desks to be put on.

As for the ridiculous claims that we are now looking East and towards China, if the Standard Gauge Railway and its highly publicized and scandalous dealings are anything to go by, somewhere in China there are some people who have Kenyan names but Chinese citizenship. When someone decides to triple the cost of an entire railway line and pass on that cost to a third world developing nation where people are so poor that Americans have to pay for their food, those people have the clear intention to economically destabilize the entire country.

I am sure that the registered owners of “China Road and Bridge Construction Company” are very well known to the National Security Advisory Committee seeing as they were pitching for a project that would cut across Kenyan territory. I strongly suggest they look into the intentions behind this latest scandal, perhaps they may find that these are individuals who have been planning to destabilize the nation through tendering.

The kind of noise made over mere human rights activists, whose protest was so humble that it was dispersed in a matter of moments shows us just how heavy handed and immoral this government can be. If anything, one would expect that a “destabilizing” group would be large enough to give the police a running battle for a few hours, not just minutes. As for the weapons of choice, the heavily armed anti-riot police barely broke a sweat kicking foam babies and demonstration placards.

If that display of crudity was meant to show the brawn and control of the government and those who sent the police, all it did is ingrain into the psyche of the ordinary Kenyan just how barbaric and oppressive this nation has become, and what little respect is given to Article 37 of the constitution and human rights.