NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 27 – Kenya Defence Forces(KDF) personnel were seen patrolling City streets on Thursday hours before the high court delivered a ruling on whether to suspend the deployment of the military as part of reinforcement plans to neutralize chaotic scenes during the anti-Finance bill demonstrations.
The KDF personnel could be seen snaking through protestors but they stayed short of engaging them.
The deployment of the military to quell protests has been deemed unconstitutional by a section of leaders and Kenyans.
However, police on the other hand lobbed teargas of pockets of protestors around the City as they attempted to access the CBD.
Unlike Tuesday’s protests when the City was full of thousands of protestors by 2 pm, on Thursday police managed to keep the protestors out of the city as the numbers of protestors were visibly low as compared to past protests that turned deadly.
Police were also seen arresting some protestors who were participating in the demos.
Highcourt Judge Lawrence Mugambi will make the ruling after hearing the parties in the case filed by Law Society of Kenya (LSK) seeking to block the deployment of the military to assist the police.
LSK, through its president Faith Odhiambo argued that the deployment of KDF in town is unconstitutional insisting the procedure undertaken for approval was merely cosmetic.
The LSK President told the court the gazette notice should have been given 24 hours after parliament approval.
“What we are seeing is parliament and the executive treating us to a circus to cover up.We have never seen a scenario such as this since the 1982 coup,”she said.
On Tuesday night, Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale issued a Gazette Notice authorizing the deployment of the military, as police appeared overwhelmed in many parts of the country, particularly in Nairobi. Protesters had stormed Parliament following the bill’s passage.
“The Kenya Defence Forces is deployed on June 25, 2024, in support of the National Police Service in response to the security emergency caused by ongoing violent protests in various parts of the country, resulting in the destruction and breaching of critical infrastructure,” Duale stated.
Odhiambo poked holes on the gazette notice issued by CS Duale saying no state emergency had been declared or parameters indicated on the notice in regards to timelines of KDF operations in the protests.
Source: capitalfm
