Githurai and Beyond: The Dark Side of William Ruto

Uncovering violence and intimidation at Kenya's Tax Protests

Mistaken Identity?

Macharia Gaitho was driving home from work when he noticed a white car trailing him. Worried for the safety of his children, he quickly drove to a nearby police station to report the issue. But on arrival police officers handed him over to the men in the white car. The veteran journalists’ children filmed him being forced into the vehicle and driven away. There was an outcry on social media. Eventually Macharia was returned to the police station. Bruised and worried for his family, he filed an abduction report with the police who had… abducted him.

‘I was handcuffed and I was assaulted.’ - Macharia Gaitho

Later that day Kenya Police’s official twitter account clarified what happened. Apparently, they had accidentally ‘arrested’ the wrong man. They were looking for a social media influencer called Francis Gaitho. They gave no reason why.

But many Kenyans doubted the ‘mistaken identity’ story. Weeks before his arrest the veteran journalist had written a long article attacking President William Ruto.  The ‘mistaken arrest’ smelt more like intimidation.

The story of the two Gaitho’s captures many of the problems faced by critics of the Kenyan government. In some ways Macharia Gaitho had been lucky. The same week another journalist was shot three times by police.

The truth is Kenya’s President, William Ruto, has a long history of using intimidation to silence critics. Before he became president, Ruto flirted with violence to grow his personal wealth and popularity. From Kiambaa Church, to Githurai 45, this is the story of the Dark Side of William Ruto.

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2007 Election Violence

In 2007 violence spread through Kenya in the wake of elections. 1300 people died, and thousands fled their homes. Kiambaa Church, filled with refugees, was set on fire by an angry mob who locked the doors. International lawyers argued William Ruto played a vital role in stoking the flames. Ruto had held meetings and given speeches to his ethnic group. He had helped to reactivate the ‘network’, a Kalenjin militia, and encouraged hostility to other groups. After refugees fled the area, he seized their land and properties.

Ruto was brought before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. But after five years the case collapsed. Witnesses changed their stories. Lawyers said they had been intimidated. Eventually there were not enough witnesses to make a case against Ruto. The judges ended the case. Ruto was not found innocent or guilty. He was simply untried.

He did not escape justice completely. The High Court in Kenya ordered he return a farm seized during the violence.

Police and Protestors

Ruto went on the build a successful political career and many people tried to forget the crazy days of 2007. But his dark side never went away. In 2024 it re-emerged during Kenya’s finance bill protests.

As people began to protest the new taxes, the president seemed unmoved. Perhaps he was out of touch. Or he just loved getting what he wanted. But he also believed he could use the police to silence angry Kenyan’s. Why compromise if you can frighten your opponents.

In some cases, police and protestors had friendly interactions. In other cases, the police tried to disperse peaceful crowds with tear gas. A few water cannons and riot vehicles proved inadequate to control the mass of people gathering in Nairobi.

And then protestors began to notice something quite disturbing. People were being shot with real bullets. But not all at once. Someone here, someone there.

Lone plainclothes officers were shooting during the chaos. They were disguised and hard to spot. But the deaths they caused were meant to frighten protesters. By July there were officially 50 dead and over 400 injured, many casualties of police bullets.

Coverups

Ruto’s government was treading a dangerous line. They wanted to terrify protestors to stay at home, but at the same time they wanted to distance themselves from accusations of brutality and oppression.

As plainclothes gunmen targeted innocent civilians, Ruto used 3 tactics to protect himself.

In interviews he simply denied the situation was that bad. When questioned about a 12-year-old shot in Rongai, he debated where the boy was alive or dead. Later Ruto clarified the boy had died from a bullet shot by a police weapon. But the gun had apparently been stolen and fired by a criminal in the chaos. This criminal has yet to be identified.

‘That boy is alive right?’ - William Ruto

Secondly Ruto looked for a scapegoat. Some ministers blamed Kenya’s equivalent of the FBI, the NIS. For a while it looked like its director would be scapegoated for the deaths of protesters. But in the end Ruto chose to put pressure on the Head of Police instead. Japhet Koome resigned as Ruto reformed his cabinet.

And thirdly, government employees muddied the waters. Unless an expensive postmortem is conducted, mortuary employees record cause of death on trust. So, police brought bodies of people they had shot to the mortuary, and then filed their death as ‘mob justice’. The official record of deaths was lowered by corrupt policemen.

Although these tactics helped protect Ruto, they seriously eroded trust in the government and police. The ‘truth’ was one of the casualties of the war. And this confusion and mistrust was most clear in a small working-class suburb on the outskirts of Nairobi.

What happened in Githurai 45?

On Tueday 25th June, after a day of heated protests in the city centre, residents began walking home along the Thika Highway. Suddenly the sound of gunfire cracked through the evening air. For over two minutes police fired live and blank bullets into the air, at buildings and people.

As Kenyan’s grabbed their phones to record the incident, they suddenly found they had no internet. Kenya’s service provider said there was an outage on a deep-sea cable. But this story was immediately questioned. Activists believed the government was responsible.

Without little direct footage, the story of the shootings in Githurai exploded on social media. People said 200 had died. Videos showed armed police moving through the suburbs with guns. Kenyan Lawyers demanded an international investigation.

The BBC quickly ‘factchecked’ the claims of a massacre. They claimed to find no evidence of widespread deaths in Githurai.

There were a couple of problems with their investigation. They partly relied on mortuary reports, which, as we know, are sometimes recorded inaccurately by police. They also didn’t try to understand what actually happened. They simply said there was no massacre.

But the events in Githurai fit well into Ruto’s playbook of intimidation and selective violence. The sustained gunfire and internet outage was a lot like Macharia Gaitho’s abduction. It was designed to frighten Kenyans from returning to protest by bringing chaos to their homes and neighbourhood. By targeting their mode of communication. The bark was worse than the bite. But there was definitely still a bite in Githurai that night.

However, the mistrust and intimidation created by Ruto’s government would backfire in the coming weeks. People didn’t stay indoors. They started searching for hidden evidence of the Githurai massacre.

Discovery of a ‘serial killer’

In an abandoned quarry on the outskirts of Nairobi they found the sacks. Inside were bodies, mutilated beyond recognition. Amongst the rubbish and filth lay the hidden victims of Githurai. Or so the rumour went. Thousands gathered to watch the bodies being pulled from the filth.

The police finally arrived to collect the sacks. 100 metres away was a local police station. The angry crowd escorted the evidence to the city mortuary. They wanted the truth and didn’t trust anyone to give it to them. In a few days another major demonstration was planned. Githurai had backfired on Ruto. He didn’t quench the flames. He disturbed a hornet’s nest.

2 days after the bodies were found, police claimed to have solved the case. It was an astonishingly fast investigation. They had a murder. The man had confessed to ending over 40 women. But shortly after the announcement, the accused murderer recanted his testimony. His lawyer claimed he only confessed whilst being strangled by police.

Abduction

Even if they are connected to the protests, the bodies in the quarry do not equal the number of activists still missing. At least 40 people have been abducted in the past month. Grabbed by masked men in unmarked cars, like Macharia Gaitho. Some have been tortured. Many have not returned.

One suspected victim of abduction was Denzel Omondi, a university student in Nairobi who took part in the protests in parliament. Two days later he went missing. His body was later found floating in another abandoned quarry. The police coroner said he drowned. His family rejected this.

Ruto’s Dark Side

Alone these issues are concerning. Together, they form a picture of a government which is happy to say one thing whilst doing another. To use force and intimidation to silence protest. And at its head is a man with a dark track record of political violence. The question remains, will he be held accountable for the incompetence and malevolence which has cost so many their lives?

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Sources:

https://eastleighvoice.co.ke/national/54870/knchr-dismisses-rutos-claim-of-fake-data-on-alleged-githurai-killings

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c25l14wpkryo

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/nairobi/article/2001498674/jkuat-denzel-omondi-student-drowned-autopsy-shows

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