NAIROBI: Kenyan police said they have arrested more than 270 people masquerading as protesters who are suspected of going on a criminal rampage during anti-government rallies on Tuesday.
Widespread looting and property damage was reported during the youth-led demonstrations in various cities across the country, which some protesters said had been infiltrated by “goons.”
“Security forces across the country singled out suspects found engaging in criminal activities in the guise of protesting, and took them to custody,” the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, late Tuesday.
It said a total of 204 suspects were arrested in the capital Nairobi and another 68 in various other areas of the country.
“The DCI has further deployed scrupulous investigators across the affected regions to pursue suspects captured on CCTV cameras and mobile phone recordings violently robbing, stealing and destroying properties and businesses of innocent citizens,” the statement added.
Tuesday’s demonstrations began in an atmosphere of calm but later degenerated into violence, with police firing tear gas at rock-throwing crowds in Nairobi and scenes of looting and property damage in the capital and other cities.
“Goons have infiltrated,” prominent Gen-Z protester Hanifa Adan posted on X on Tuesday.
Young Gen-Z Kenyans launched protests last month against a deeply unpopular finance bill that contained a raft of new taxes, adding to the hardship of people already suffering a cost of living crisis.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) said on Monday that 39 people had been killed and 361 injured during two weeks of rallies — with the worst violence occurring in Nairobi on Tuesday last week — and condemned the use of force against demonstrators as “excessive and disproportionate.”
Although President William Ruto later abandoned the finance bill, the protesters are now calling for him to resign in a wider campaign against his rule under the hashtag “RutoMustGo.”
More demonstrations have been called for Thursday and Sunday.
It is the most serious crisis to confront Ruto since he took office in September 2022 in a nation often considered a beacon of stability in a turbulent region.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki denounced what he described as an “orgy of violence,” warning that the government would take action against anyone engaging in “anarchic chaos and cruel plunder.”
“This reign of terror against the people of Kenya and the impunity of dangerous criminal gangs must end at whatever cost,” he said.
In a television interview on Sunday, Ruto denied he had “blood on my hands” after the protester deaths but his calls for dialogue with Kenyan youth about their grievances have not appeased the demonstrators.
Ruto also warned that following the scrapping of the finance bill, the cash-strapped government would now have to borrow more.
The government had said previously that the tax increases were necessary to fill its coffers and service a huge public debt of some 10 trillion shillings ($78 billion), or about 70 percent of GDP.
Kenya police say over 270 arrested for criminal acts during Tuesday protests
https://arab.news/4a6p8
Kenya police say over 270 arrested for criminal acts during Tuesday protests
- Widespread looting and property damage was reported during the youth-led demonstrations in various cities across the country
- Demonstrations began in an atmosphere of calm but later degenerated into violence, with police firing tear gas at rock-throwing crowds in Nairobi
Bolivia and Israel to restore ties severed over the war in Gaza
- Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month
- The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties
LA PAZ, Bolivia: Bolivia's new right-wing government said Tuesday that it would restore diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest sign of the dramatic geopolitical realignment underway in the South American country that was once among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties, which Bolivia's previous left-wing government severed two years ago over Israel's devastating campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Bolivia said the effort came as part of a new foreign policy strategy under conservative President Rodrigo Paz aimed at “rebuilding Bolivia's international prestige, opening new economic opportunities and strengthening alliances that directly benefit the country and our citizens abroad."
Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo is in the midst of a whirlwind trip to Washington for meetings with American officials as his government works to warm long-chilly relations with the United States and unravel nearly two decades of hard-line, anti-Western policies under the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party that left Bolivia economically isolated and diplomatically allied with China, Russia and Venezuela.
Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month.
In announcing his expected meeting with Aramayo on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Bolivia for scrapping Israeli visa controls and said he spoke to Paz after the center-right senator's Oct. 19 election victory to express “Israel’s desire to open a new chapter” in relations with Bolivia.
Paz entered office last month, ending the dominance of the MAS party founded by Evo Morales, the charismatic former coca-growing union leader who became Bolivia's first Indigenous president in 2006. Not long after taking power, Morales sent Israel's ambassador packing and cozied up to Iran over their shared enmity toward the U.S. and Israel.
When protests over Morales' disputed 2019 reelection prompted him to resign under pressure from the military, a right-wing interim government took over and restored full diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Israel as it sought to undo many of Morales’ popular policies.
But 2020 elections brought the MAS party back to power with the presidency of Luis Arce, who in 2023 once again cut ties with Israel in protest over its military actions in Gaza.
Other left-wing Latin American countries, like Chile and Colombia, soon made similar moves, recalling their ambassadors and joining South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the United Nations’ highest judicial body.
