On June 25, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, one year after the protest movement against tax increases that shook the country for several months, forcing the government to back down. Once again, young people are at the forefront of this mobilization, facing violent repression by the government.

Although the demonstrations began peacefully, clashes quickly broke out between young people, who threw stones at the police, and the latter, who deployed tear gas, stun grenades, and at least three water cannons. They eventually fired live ammunition, a sign that the government is nervous that last year’s movement, which had seriously shaken it, is resuring.

The communications authority banned the media from broadcasting images of the violent clashes, but this censorship was not respected. The final toll was around ten dead and 400 injured among the demonstrators; the Daily Nation, the country’s most widely read newspaper, called it “Black Wednesday.”

In June 2024, President William Ruto’s budget plan, imposed by the IMF, sparked a huge wave of protests, mainly among the youth. The country has been in a state of crisis since the Covid pandemic: inflation reached five percent in 2024, mainly affecting basic necessities, while a third of Kenyans live on less than $1.90 a day. The bill aimed to raise $2 billion in additional tax revenue in order to reduce the public deficit from 5.7 percent in 2023 to 3.3 percent in 2024. It included the introduction of a 16 percent VAT on bread.

But faced with the scale of the protests, which continued to grow, even sparking youth protests in Uganda and Nigeria against their own governments, Ruto was forced to back down under pressure from the UK and the US. This retreat followed intense repression that left 60 people dead, hundreds injured, and dozens kidnapped.

One year later, memories of the immense repression remain fresh in everyone’s minds. These were rekindled on June 8, when blogger Albert Ojwang, who was kidnapped from his home and taken into custody for denouncing the regime on social media, was “found dead” in his cell by the police. 

This latest police crime once again led young people to take to the streets en masse, even bringing down the second-highest ranking officer in the Kenyan police force. On June 25, the anniversary of the 2024 riots gave further impetus to the mobilization. One protester told France 24: “We’re coming back and we don’t want promises this time, we want to finish what we started last year.” In fact, the slogan “Ruto must go” is on everyone’s lips.

For a year now, the economic crisis has continued to worsen in one of the most indebted countries on the African continent, arrests and kidnappings have continued, and the winds of revolt have not died down. In addition to opposing the current regime, the 2024 mobilization paved the way for broader politicization among young people who reject ethnic divisions and oppose the growing influence of the church.

But while the government is trying to nip any resurgence of protest in the bud, the 2024 revolts show the way forward. In the face of austerity policies that go hand in hand with imperialist plunder, we must raise offensive demands such as the cancellation of the external public debt of oppressed countries to the imperialist states and the dissolution of the IMF and all global financial institutions that serve the interests of international finance capital. 

Solidarity and support for these young people who are rising up against the miserable future that the imperialist states and their lackey governments have in store for them!

Originally published in French on June 27 in Révolution Permanente.