March 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United States Government has asked all parties to “avoid violence” after the incidents recorded during the latest anti-government protests in Kenya and has demanded that the security forces “contain” in their interventions against the protesters.
“The United States regrets the loss of life and damage to property in the recent protests in Kenya,” said the vice spokesman for the US State Department, Vedant Patel, who has called on “political leaders, protesters and all parties to avoid violence and rhetoric that may provoke violence”.
“We ask the security forces to act with restraint while protecting public safety and property,” he said at his daily press conference, before stressing that “the rights of expression and association and the right to peaceful assembly are central points of democracy”.
Washington has thus joined the chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, who on Tuesday called for calm and advocated a dialogue to “address all differences”, something he said would go ” in line with the supreme interest of national unity and reconciliation”.
During the day on Monday, a protester died due to the repression of the protests in Kisumu (west), while close to a hundred people broke into a farm owned by former president Uhuru Kenyatta in the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi.
Subsequently, a second group of people caused material damage at the headquarters of the East Africa Specter Limited company, linked to the Odinga family, with no arrests to date. The former prime minister once again asked his followers to demonstrate peacefully against the Government.
Odinga has called mobilizations every Monday and Thursday to protest the high cost of living and against the government, which he considers illegitimate for considering the August 2022 elections fraudulent, which he ran for with the support of Kenyatta and in the imposed by the current president, William Ruto.
