Kenya's president 'had no option but to climb down' following violent crackdown on mass protests

Hello everyone, I'm Francois Picca. I concede Kenya's president's words withdrawing of Finance Bill that would have raised taxes. Instead, he said it will be a spending cuts. The bill sparked fury, so did the crackdown on protesters. At least 22 killed Tuesday in the country's bloodiest day in years. Parliament approving the measure before demonstrators overran the chamber. But now the president says he won't sign. Having reflected on the continuing conversation around the content of the Finance Bill 2024 and listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with his Finance Bill 2024, I concede and therefore I will not sign the 2024 Finance Bill. Rudo acknowledging Tuesday's casualties, calling it an unfortunate situation, offering condolences. That's a far cry from Tuesday evening's address to the nation where the Kenyan President called the protesters actions, quote, treasonous. Well, for more, let's cross to Nairobi. Otieno Namuaya is associate director for Human Rights Watch. Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24. Your reaction to this reversal by the Kenyan president. We seem to be having an issue. Apologies for that. With the sound, we're going to try to cross back to Otiena Namuaya and see if we can correct it. All right. We still don't have the sound on. Is it back? We're going to try to cross back to to OT Sano Namoi. Apologies for those difficulties. Your reaction to this reversal on the part of William Ruto? First of all, the the issue should not have reached here. The government had about three or four opportunities to to listen to the people. One was the the public participation process where people, more than 90% of the people who presented views to the to the parliamentary committee say they did not like the bill and the investors threatened that if the bill is passed, they leave the country. But the president pushed parliament and insisted the bill be passed and it was adopted in the first reading and second reading and people went to the streets last week. So last week was another opportunity for the president to to climb down and avoid what happened yesterday. But the president said that even though people are protesting, the decisions have to be made by institutions, including the presidency. They are not made on the streets. And until now, we go to yesterday, and what happened yesterday happened. And still yesterday he could have actually averted the situation but still issued a statement that called the protesters treasoners, hired criminals and all that. So what happened overnight? Well, people are threatening to go back to the streets tomorrow. And I, I do, I do think there have been a lot of other behind the scenes consultations with several other people, including diplomatic, the diplomatic community, which has expressed concerns about what has happened. And I think the president had no option but to climb down. No option but to climb down. It's not over on Thursday. There's going to be a, a a March of organizers are saying that it's going to be in honor of the casualties from Tuesday. Your thoughts on what's ahead now? Actually, the the president saying that he has sent the bill back to Parliament is not is not really a done deal because the IT can go to Parliament according to the law and Parliament might still say that they they will adopt the previous law as was and reject the president's recommendations. So we don't know how it's going to go and, and for for your information, Parliament, Parliament went on recess today. So we don't know how it's going to play out. I think there are also some timelines within this has to be done and if if the parliament goes for recess for too long, we don't know what's going to happen. So it might end up just remaining the same bill. What has Human Rights Watch found regarding Tuesday regarding the the use of violence? Was it 1 sided? Yeah, largely yes, because there were there were things that slightly surprised us because we have not seen this in Kenya before. There were snipers deployed at Parliament and most of the shootings that happened at Parliament yesterday were being done by snipers and the general service unit, which is a unit of an anti riot police unit in in Kenya. And then there were other killings in other parts of the country which we have not finished looking at and and researching fully to understand what happened around them. But there are also other killings in the outskirts of Nairobi because the, the, the, the triads were not just within Nairobi, they were also in the outside the, the satellite cities of, of Nairobi and in Gidrai. We understand the killings were done by the military, which was deployed from Kahawa Barracks. We don't know the numbers yet, but we do understand it is a fairly large number. We can't tell exactly how many. And the, the, the issue of the military was also illegal. I think the president needed, needed parliamentary approval, approval before deploying the military. But they did deploy the military yesterday and went to parliament today to to seek parliamentary approval. Yeah, because the Supreme Court is, is going to hear a challenge against that decision to deploy the military. What are you expecting? Because the, the way the, the, the wording of what the president and his team took to parliament was, was, does not fulfill or does not meet the constitutional threshold. It needs to state for how long the military is being deployed and in which parts of the country. It cannot be a blanket this, this, this one that went to parliament today. It just says the president wants to deploy and it could be for the next five years. The military will be deployed all over Kenya for the next five years, which would in effect turn Kenya into a military state. And people went to court to challenge that It needs to stayed for how long? Where that has not been done, it's not been done. Otieno Namoia, stay with us. We're going to cross over to France 24 correspondent Olivia Bizo. Olivia, we've been talking about, we've heard the reaction of Otieno there to William Ruto's reversal. What else? What other reactions have you heard? Yeah, So people's opinions here seem to be quite split. On the one hand, people are relieved that President Ruto has finally dropped this Finance Bill. When I was in this Nairobi central business district this morning, people did not expect that that would happen. There was still a huge amount of anger from the speech that he gave last night, which was incredibly different to the one that he gave today. So people are relieved that he's finally dropped that bill, but they're also very skeptical of his announcement. Many people don't believe that the bill is actually going to be dropped. And people on social media are also incredibly angry about the amount of violence that was used at the the protests yesterday by the police. And they're also confused about why President William Ruto still hasn't acknowledged the full extent of the violence. He said that six people were killed, while the Human Rights Commission has said that at least 23 people were killed in the protests yesterday and that that number could quickly rise to up to 50 people. So people have been mobilizing a lot on social media. It is expected that the protest will still take place tomorrow. The protest tomorrow has been organized for a while. And there was confusion right after his speech about whether that protest would still be held. But it does look like protesters are going to be taking to the streets. It will probably be less violent than if he hadn't dropped that Finance Bill, but the anger is still definitely there. Can we characterize this movement, Olivia, as something that's straightforward from the opposition? Or is this a, a, a new different kind of movement for Kenya? Well, I think that's what's incredibly interesting about the protests this year. There were similar protests that were held last year after the announcement of the 2023 Finance Bill. But that protest movement was mainly led by the main opposition figure, Raila Odinga. And this year, there hasn't been a particular political figure behind these protests. It's been led by the masses. It's mostly been led by the country's youth on social media, especially on platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, on Instagram, on WhatsApp. And so I think that's what's really different about these protests this year. And it also makes it difficult for or more difficult for the president to manage them and to quell the anger because he's used to being able to negotiate with a politician to end or to quell the the violence in the protest. But this year it's it's very different. And I think the fact that his speech yesterday was so different and that he called all of the protesters criminals, definitely got a lot of people angry. And he's sort of given rise to an anger across the country that he won't be able to just switch off with the speech that he gave that he gave today. One final question for you, Olivia. Did. Did he talked about opening a dialogue with the country's youth? Was he did he give any specifics about that? Yeah, yes, Made similar promises on Sunday when he gave a speech in a church, he said, and promised that he would talk to the country. They used to try and build a dialogue together. But after the speech he gave on Sunday, people just didn't believe him. That's why they took to the streets in huge numbers on Tuesday. So it is positive that he said that he's going to talk and have that dialogue. But the problem is, is that he's lost a lot of people's trust. And that can be seen from a lot of the posts that are spreading and circulating on social media. People just don't really believe what he's saying anymore. And I think also the fact that he's changed tacks so quickly also reinforces that lack of trust for the government. So yes, it's it's good that he's saying that and that young people, he's going to be able to talk with them. But the the next real question is, will it actually happen and are they just words and is he going to transform those words into tangible action? Olivia Bizo, Many thanks for joining us live. I want to cross back for for a second to CNN, MY associate director at Human Rights Watch. Your thoughts now listening to all of this. Where do you want to see this go in terms of mediation and talks if it's not a straightforward the president speaking to the leader of the Opposition? Well, well, there there have been human rights violations. The first thing that we we hope should have will, will happen is first an acknowledgement of what what really happened and proper and thorough investigations to, to, to, to at least reveal the extent of the violations. Because as we speak today, even those who say 20 people, 50 people, we really don't know what happened because some of the killings were happening at night by the military, by the police, by snipers. And what happened. What we have seen when where the the military is involved is that families never really get to get justice or ever get to know how their loved ones are killed. And in some cases, them, they never get to get the bodies. Otieno Namuaya, Many thanks for joining us from Nairobi. Thank you.