Shaming Kenyan Miscalculation
"The governor, the senator and other government officials are all scared of the politician, they cannot do anything to stop the playground from being taken."
Boniface Mwangi, Kenyan human rights activist
"This is brutality beyond words and greed beyond description. It is difficult to believe that police can actually deploy against primary school children and lob tear gas at them to defend a land grabber." "This image of a nation determined to steal forcefully from its own children cannot be what we aspire to. It cannot be the legacy we want to bequeath the children."
Opposition leader Raila Odinga.
"We will never allow officers to use force not only on any citizen more so on children whether in a demonstration or otherwise."
Samuel Arachi, Acting police chief, Nairobi, Kenya
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| Police in Kenya used tear-gas on school children protesting the removal of their playground |
A politician in Kenya who has other interests, one of which is a hotel, thought it would be advisable to co-opt a school playground so it could be transformed to a parking lot for the hotel. While the children were not at school, a 'developer' had been authorized to buy the property in question, and then fenced it off so when the children returned to school they discovered they no longer had a playground.
They and their parents decided to protest the situation, and they began to tear down the fence that kept the children from using the property that had been part of their school. The students from Langata Road Primary School (aged between six and 14 years) were in the front of people pulling down the wall which a private developer (politician) had grabbed.
The result was Kenyan police tear-gassing schoolchildren. Footage shown on television showed children in the process of being hauled off writhing in an agony of pain, screaming and choking from the tear-gas. Soon afterward, police brought dogs to the playground.
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| Kenyan police tear-gassed schoolchildren demonstrating against the removal of their school's playground, the land of which has been allegedly grabbed by a powerful politician. (Brian Inganga/Associated Press) |
Acting police chief Samuel Arachi said he had suspended the police officer who was in charge at the scene of the protest. He explained that when such incidents occur which are not violent, tear gas is not to be used. Five people were arrested, three of them charged with vandalism, the remaining two for incitement.
Contradicting the acting police chief, Elijah Mwangi, in charge of the police officers at the school, revealed that he had been following orders. For following orders he will now be the sacrificial lamb to the hugely embarrassing incident reported internationally, making Kenya look fairly police-state-like, quite unlike the reputation it had garnered when the famed Leakey family was in the news.
Now, the country is awash with allegations of Kenyan officials engaging in land seizures, a controversial issue with a public backlash. This incident, however, in its brutal absurdity, has brought Kenya the kind of mocking attention that does little to burnish its credentials as a civil society.
Labels: Corruption, Kenya, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, January 20, 2015
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