Above photo: Mwaivu Kaluka.
Kenyan government offers Red carpet for colonizers.
And a bloody nose for Anti-Imperialists.
The Kenyan state has demonstrated a consistent and brutal willingness to deploy state terror against organized political dissent, targeting revolutionary leaders, working-class organizers, and anti-colonial voices with impunity. Past cases have laid bare the state’s methods: the violent abduction, torture, and illegal detention of Comrade Booker Ngesa Omole, Secretary General of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya, followed by the grotesque inversion of reality in which the victim of state torture was framed with fabricated assault charges. Today, as French President Emmanuel Macron co-hosts the France Africa Summit, rebranded as “Africa Forward 2026” in Nairobi with President William Ruto—announcing €23 billion in “investments” while seeking a permanent French military presence—the Ruto regime has exposed its true character as a neocolonial and comprador administration acting in defence of imperialist interests against the democratic rights of the people.
The regime has chosen to criminalise anti-imperialist solidarity while rolling out the red carpet for foreign exploiters and agents of monopoly capital. Among those arrested in the ongoing crackdown are distinguished anti-imperialist and revolutionary activists, intellectuals, and organisers from across the globe. Their only crime is standing with the oppressed. Their only crime is rejecting imperialist domination. Their only crime is declaring that Africa is not for sale.
In Kenya, we marched toward the statue of Dedan Kĩmathi Waciũri, but on the way, the police stopped us, attacked us with tear gas and arrested thirteen of our comrades. This was a peaceful march that was interested in raising our opposition to the imperialist capture of African… pic.twitter.com/z2D4d2Lv8N
— Vijay Prashad (@vijayprashad) May 12, 2026
The arrest of international delegates, who were in Kenya for the Pan-African Summit Against Imperialism, a parallel counter summit, further demonstrates the growing panic and hypocrisy within imperialist and comprador circles who on one hand claim a “Pan-African Mandate” to send its police forces as the Black faces of white supremacy in the U.S.-led occupation of Haiti and in another, physically attack international Pan-African delegates on its own soil. The source of this contradiction? They fear the unity of revolutionary and progressive forces across continents, international solidarity against imperialism, they fear a politically conscious people. But repression has never defeated the people’s struggle. Colonial detention camps did not defeat the liberation movement. Moi’s anti-communist repression did not defeat the struggle for democratic rights. Fascist laws and police terror will not silence the masses today.
The independence of Africa is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of the continent from imperialism and neocolonialism. The Communist Party Marxist Kenya and the Black Alliance for Peace therefore demand:
1) The immediate and unconditional release of all arrested comrades
2) An end to police harassment, abductions, and repression against activists, organisers, and progressive movements
3) The immediate halt to all imperialist military, political, and economic agreements being imposed upon Kenya and Africa
4) Respect for the democratic rights of all participants attending anti-imperialist and Pan-African gatherings.
In line with the Black Alliance for Peace’s “U.S. and NATO Out of Africa” campaign, we further demand the closure of all foreign military bases on the continent, an end to AFRICOM and its proxy operations, and the full withdrawal of U.S., French, and NATO forces from African soil—from Kenya to Haiti, no more occupations under any banner. The struggle against imperialism is international, and no amount of repression shall defeat the organised masses of the people.
