The Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) has condemned unreservedly the use of brute force including live ammunition, rubber bullets and water cannons to repress peaceful demonstrators, in Kenya.
The protestors were demanding an end to the imposition of measures which have led to high taxes, worsening of the unemployment situation and a substantial reduction in access to social services.
“The Ruto government needs to note that it cannot impose inimical policies and programmes on the people whose mandate it exercises and quickly abandon the reckless path to suppression of the will of the people through brute force,” SMG stated in a statement dated 25 June, 2024, signed by its General Secretary, Kwesi Pratt, Jnr.
Read below the unedited statement from SGM:
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF KENYA STRUGGLING AGAINST THE IMPOSITION OF THE INTERNATIONA MONETARY FUND’S (IMF) DRACONIAN ECONOMIC MEASURES
The Socialist Movement of Ghana expresses its full solidarity with the working people of Kenya and their organisations engaged in protests against draconian economic measures dictated by the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and being enforced by the neo-colonial regime of William Ruto.
We note that at the last count, seven demonstrators had been killed by the security forces and the number of those who have received various degrees of injury had risen to seventy. Even members of the Kenyan Medical Association (KMA) who are providing care for the injured have been attacked by armed personnel under the control of government.
The SMG unreservedly condemns the use of brute force including live ammunition, rubber bullets and water cannons to repress peaceful demonstrators, demanding an end to the imposition of neo-liberal measures which have led to high taxes, worsening of the unemployment situation and a substantial reduction in access to social services.
The Ruto government needs to note that it cannot impose inimical policies and programmes on the people whose mandate it exercises and quickly abandon the reckless path to suppression of the will of the people through brute force.
The SMG notes that what is being imposed on the Kenyan people has been tried in Ghana with disastrous consequences. Indeed, since independence some 67 years ago, Ghana has gone to the IMF for bailouts 17 times and that has not resolved the concrete economic problems facing the country.
As a fact Ghana now spends 128 per cent of her total national revenue on debt servicing, debt repayment and public sector emoluments. The industrialization project initiated by the Nkrumah government has collapsed with the privatization of more than 400 state enterprises and over a period of 40 years the Ghanaian currency- the cedi- has been devalued by more than 30,000 per cent.
We join the people of Kenya in demanding the immediate withdrawal of the Finance Bill currently awaiting Presidential assent, an end to the violence of the security forces and a shift in the paradigm of development to one which emphasizes the ownership of the resources of Kenya and their exploitation for the benefit of the people.
We call on Trade Unions, Youth and Students Movement, Women’s organisations as well as human right advocates in Africa and beyond to express their solidarity with the people of Kenya engaged in this heroic struggle against manifestations of neo-colonialism.
Comradely Regards
Kwesi Pratt, Jnr.
General Secretary.
