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President William Ruto has thrown his weight behind the police in the ongoing crackdown on protesters amid uproar over horrendous killings and torture of civilians by the security agencies.
The opposition has described the operation as “State-sanctioned genocide” in three Luo Nyanza counties as individuals with gunshot wounds overwhelm hospitals.
But speaking in Taita-Taveta County on Sunday, a tough-talking Ruto praised the police for being “firm and professional,”
“I want to thank the police, they have been firm and professional,” the President said, just a day after the Independent Policing Oversight Authority announced it had opened investigations on police brutality,” he said.
Ruto said the demos were bankrolled by some leaders and alleged that some protesters were armed with all manner of crude weapons, including guns.
“It’s not possible that anybody can attack the police. You cannot. The police are the symbol of security in Kenya…that will put you in trouble,” Ruto said, adding that many police officers are admitted to hospitals, some hit by bullets.
But in a statement to the newsroom on Sunday, National Assembly Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi said the genocide-like operation in Kisumu, Homa Bay and Migori counties is coordinated and premeditated by the State.
“It is being coordinated by political and government leaders both from the community and outside. It is unfortunate and indeed depressing that our own sons and daughters in government are working with outsiders to allow the extermination of the Luo,” Wandayi said.
“Under the watch of our own sons and daughters in high positions in government and those who claim to be working with the government, our people are butchered.
“What is being done to our people here, under the watch and supervision of our own sons is only similar to what was done to the Jews in Europe by Hitler.”
From Thursday to Friday last week, there were reports of people being flushed from their houses in Kisumu by the police and brutalised.
Many civilians have been admitted to hospital, some with multiple gunshot wounds.
The atrocities have also been reported in Kibra and Mathare Estates in Nairobi.
Thirty civil society organisations had also raised the red flag on police killings and alleged the security agencies could be working with private militia.
“We are witnessing a disturbing pattern of police operation that exposes the country to civil strife and informal repression. Police are now working together with what appears to be private militia to attack and butcher people in Dandora and Kibera in Nairobi, Mlolongo in Machakos and some areas in Kisumu and Migori,” the civil society groups said.
“These strikes are taking place in the cover of darkness with the hope of shielding perpetrators from accountability.”
At the church function on Sunday, the President made no reference to the outcry of excessive force by the police on civilians.
He, however, cautioned the youth against being used by leaders to cause mayhem.
“Kenya is the mother to all of us. There is nobody with an extra place to go, maybe a few people, but the majority of us, this is the only home we have…Am pleading with the youth of Kenya don’t accept some little money so that you break the law,” he said.
Coming days after a public spat with his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta, Ruto said leaders cannot be part of what he described as a “violent culture.”
“Whatever our differences, whatever complaints we have we cannot be part of a violent culture,” he said, challenging leaders to stop using other people’s children while protecting their own.
If you feel that people should go to the streets with stones, the President said, give it first to your child and wife.
Describing the lawlessness as nonsense, Ruto said Kenya must stop embarrassing herself in the international community.
He said Chinese President Xi Jinping had asked him about the vandalism of the Expressway — a multi-billion infrastructure they had helped to build.
“Were you asking that we build or destroy? Ruto said, quoting the Chinese leader following his earlier negotiations with Beijing on Infrastructure. Because last week, he saw us destroying the Expressway that they helped us to build,” he said.
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi chided some unnamed leaders whom he accused of using their communities as a shield to push for what he termed as “evil desires and greed.”
Mining Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvurya said the protests have a selfish agenda because some of its architects are pushing for a share of government.
“Where we are headed, our country is getting shame because in the international community, they look at the protest as internal strife. Investors are fleeing,”Mvurya warned. BY THE STAR