One year on from the deadliest protests in a generation, Kenyan families today laid flowers on the barbed wire barricades that still line the streets of Nairobi. The gesture, sombre and defiant, marks the anniversary of clashes that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded. But this is not just a story of mourning. It is a story of money.
Britain’s aid programme to Kenya, worth over £140 million annually, is now under renewed scrutiny. The question being asked in Westminster and in the dusty villages of the Rift Valley is simple: did UK tax pounds end up propping up a government that gunned down its own people?
The Foreign Office insists that none of its aid goes to the Kenyan police or military. But critics point out that budget support provided to the Treasury in Nairobi frees up government cash for other purposes, including security. The line between development and complicity can blur fast.
On the streets, the economy is at the heart of the anger. The cost of maize flour has risen 40 per cent in a year. Petrol prices have jumped. The shilling is in freefall. Many of those who died in the protests were young, jobless, and hungry. They were not just fighting for political change. They were fighting for a meal.
Today, among the flowers, there are also leaflets from trade unions. Kenya’s workers are organising. They see the link between austerity at home and the strings attached to foreign aid. They ask why British taxpayers should subsidise a government that cuts public sector wages while raising MPs’ salaries.
The UK’s aid strategy says it supports “stability and prosperity”. But on this anniversary, the only stability visible is the heavy presence of riot police. The prosperity has yet to arrive. Families place their flowers, and they wait. The West is watching. Whether it learns anything is another matter.
