Accountability Gone Missing In Kenya
go through Michelle Gavin
President Ruto’s government has feigned ignorance amid a series of kidnappings and disappearances in Kenya.
Kenyan President William Ruto has two options after last year’s Gen Z protests. He could embrace young people’s rejection of business as usual and get serious about cleaning up government corruption, aiming to ride the wave of enthusiasm for change and usher in a new political paradigm based on serving voters rather than weaving alliances of self. ——Service elite. Or he might return to a dark period in Kenya’s history, using political violence to suppress dissent and intimidate the public. He chose the latter path.
Dozens of Kenyans kidnapped No regard for law or due process. But in Orwellian fashion, Ruto and his security officials say Kenyan citizens and partners should pretend they don’t know about the option. They repeatedly promised to conduct “investigations” into kidnappings and disappearances, as if they had nothing to do with their mandate. However, when Kenya’s Attorney General Justin Muturi’s son was swept up in the crime, Muturi went directly to President Ruto, who reportedly ordered his son’s immediate release. for public speaking He has been repeatedly condemned by Ruto’s powerful allies over the incident.
Who is this puzzle for? The people of Kenya are well aware of the state’s role in these kidnappings. Perhaps this is a sign that the president intends to live in a fantasy world in which he remains highly respected abroad, at least publicly. While he shares goals with authoritarian leaders in Türkiye, Uganda and Rwanda, deportations Dissidents live in In Kenya, or allowing their security services to mow down opponents on Kenyan soil, he continues to invoke democratic ideals in his public rhetoric as he trades favors to build a coalition that could secure another—may be extended–term of office. Perhaps years of experience with international partners have made Ruto and his inner circle realize that anything can happen when national security is invoked. Perhaps, for domestic audiences, he was primarily reasserting his power to shape the broader political narrative, silence dissenting voices, and instill fear. These forces are easier to exert than the forces required to respond effectively to popular demands for reform.
The result is an attempt to make everyone complicit in a “culture of lies,” as the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops puts it. In a statement released last November, The group lamented“Basically it appears that the truth does not exist, and if it does exist, it is only what the government says.” This is a political scene that deserves close attention. How does a society that has lost faith in its political class but not necessarily in its own ability to effect change respond to apparent lies, threats and violence from official sources and attempts to distort notions of truth? How can Kenyans continue to focus the ideas that drive the national movement for change while combating past attempts to divide them and recent attempts at a deliberate abdication of responsibility at the top? These answers are critical to Kenya’s future and the prospects for democracies far beyond Kenya’s borders.
source: case fatality rate
