We meet here under very sad and traumatizing circumstances. A state-sanctioned genocide is underway in Luoland, particularly in Kisumu, Migori, and Homa Bay. A similar atrocity is also underway in parts of Nairobi, including Kibra and Mathare. In Kisumu, people are being pulled out of their houses and shot or clobbered to death by police officers. In Migori and parts of Homa Bay, police are going into villages away from towns and shooting or clobbering people to death. All the elements of the making of a genocide are present in the developments in Luoland.
Victims are being dehumanized. There is organization, and the attacks taking place are clearly planned. The perpetrators are clearly trained, whether they are police officers or goons. They are under a command structure and are well-resourced with the arms they need. There is stigmatization and polarization accompanied by propaganda that the community is behind the nationwide protests. There is preparation, with perpetrators knowing when to attack which area, and they are using what appears to be the adopted slogan of “dealing with the Luo once and for all,” very similar to Hitler’s so-called Final Solution. The attackers are working hard to create fear in the community by parading armies, equipment, and weapons. Victims are identified because of their ethnicity. They are segregated into ghettos. They are being starved, and their property is being destroyed or skirted away. Murders are taking place in ways that are a deliberate and systematic campaign of violence. This crackdown has been concentrated in slums and other low-income areas of the county where the so-called hustlers, in whose name and interests the Kenya Kwanza regime claims to govern. We condemn the unacceptable and illegal massacre of the Luo community, whose only crime is to participate, alongside other Kenyans, in protest against Kenya Kwanza policies. We condemn and demand an immediate end to the traumatization and profiling of the Luo community, particularly the children who are being made to pay a price they do not understand. The genocide underway in Luoland is not accidental. It is coordinated and premeditated. It is being coordinated by political and government leaders both from the community and outside. But it is not just in Nyanza. In Mathare and Kibra in Nairobi, citizens were brutalized, and tear gas canisters lobbed into their houses. A father who confronted police for hurling tear gas into his house, causing his child to faint, was manhandled and bundled into the police lorry like a criminal. His whereabouts remain unknown. Several people were shot dead at close range by nonuniformed and uniformed police in Nairobi, Nakuru Mlolongo, and Makueni. Police, mainly in plain clothes, shot and killed citizens, a majority of whom were going about their daily business, and others right at their places of work. Similar executions have occurred in Kisii, Busia, Kericho, and elsewhere in Kenya, all in the name of stopping citizens’ exercise of their constitutional right to hold peaceful demonstrations. Much as Ruto tries to depict Azimio demonstrations as violent, it is evidently clear that our demonstrations are peaceful, and it is the police who import violence and use of excessive force into them. We remind all that whenever Azimio holds rallies and demonstrations without police interference, they end peacefully without violence or distraction. The decision by Police command to force access to homes is sharply and unnecessarily escalating tensions and costing lives. Inspector General of Police Mr. Japhet Koome and CS Interior Prof Kithure Kindiki must immediately withdraw police officers from people’s homes and residential areas, especially now that there are no demonstrations. The developments in Nyanza take place against other equally worrying actions by the State. Both police and hired goons are trailing, arresting, and shooting people from vehicles with foreign number plates. In the three-day demonstrations that ended last Friday, South Sudan and Tanzania number plates were visibly deployed. This creates unnecessary tension and conflict between our country and these friendly countries and our people against the people of Tanzania and South Sudan. As police battle our people on the streets, they have also taken over the corridors of justice in our courts. We saw police attacking families of people seeking Justice in court. We saw Hon. Babu Owino being abducted and ferried away from court corridors after being released on bail. We saw the media being attacked and chased from court corridors as they did their job of informing the world of developments in the country. Azimio leaders are being put under house arrest, constant surveillance, and persistent threat of being arrested. We demand the unconditional release of all the Azimio leaders and supporters who are still being held incommunicado. These developments also happen against the backdrop of constant verbal unwarranted diatribe against Uhuru Kenyatta, the fourth president of Kenya, and Ruto’s boss for ten years 2013-2022 August. The withdrawal of security of his mother Mama Ngina Kenyatta, the attack on his son Jomo by ununiformed people claiming to be police, and the attack and vandalization of the Kenyatta family Northlands farm. These are all acts of grave provocation not only to Uhuru Kenyatta and his family but also to all right-thinking Kenyans. Clearly, Ruto has, for all intents and purposes, suspended the constitution of Kenya and is following his whims. We shall not watch helplessly as Ruto and his cronies completely dismantle the Republic of Kenya as set up by our constitution. We shall not surrender our rights, including the right to life, dignity, and the right to peaceful protest. We shall not surrender our voices or agency. We shall fight for our rights as we have fought for them before and as our fathers fought for them before us. We call on all right-thinking members of society to rise up and be heard. Let us all say enough is enough. William Ruto and his illegitimate regime must listen to Kenyans. All these actions by police undermine the rule of law and the constitution. These actions point to the emergence of a police State in Kenya. However, these actions, that have left scores of Kenyans dead, have earned police praise from Mr. William Ruto. We wish to make it clear that our people will not surrender or be cowed. We further make it clear that we will pursue no engagements with Kenya Kwanza whatsoever until these hostilities and their perpetrators are apprehended. We remain determined to right the wrongs being inflicted on our people, including the state-induced high cost of living. Our peaceful countrywide demonstrations continue next Wednesday. We are serving notice to all the OCSs across the country for the Wednesday peaceful demonstrations. In the meantime, the signature collection, which now stands at 8 million, continues.
