Kenya’s Ruto government bloodbath against Gen Z protests

Kipchumba Ochieng

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets across Kenya Wednesday, with protests erupting in at least 27 of the country’s 47 counties, marking one year since the Gen Z uprising that culminated in the storming of Parliament on June 25, 2024.

President William Ruto once again resorted to mass violence, unleashing a brutal crackdown involving live ammunition, teargas, water cannons, and the deployment of state-funded thugs to attack demonstrators.

Protesters scatter as police fire teargas at them during a demonstration on the one-year anniversary of deadly Gen Z demonstrations in downtown Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, June 25, 2025. [AP Photo/Brian Inganga]

As of this writing, at least 16 people have been killed by gunshot wounds and over 400 injured acording to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Among the confirmed dead are a secondary school student. With injuries mounting and reports still coming in from across the country, the death toll is certain to rise.

As police unleashed brutal violence, Ruto fled Nairobi, retreating to the coast under the flimsy pretext of attending the funeral of the Kilifi Governor’s father, a politically irrelevant figure. Flanking Ruto at the event were Senate Speaker Amason Kingi and former Prime Minister and billionaire Raila Odinga.

Odinga, who once postured as an opposition leader, is a pillar of the “broad-based government,” supporting Ruto as he imposes International Monetary Fund austerity and police violence. Their presence at the funeral, far from the capital in flames, laid bare the regime’s fear of the working class and youth.

Organised largely through social media, with no backing among the main bourgeois parties and trade unions, the protests were mobilised via platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and X, using hashtags such as #OccupyStateHouse, #OccupyUntilVictory, #RutoMustGo and #SiriNiNumbers, which trended for days.

What unfolded was a nationwide political revolt. Entire swathes of the country ground to a halt, with major businesses, banks, and markets closed across urban centres. As with last year’s uprising, the protests transcended the tribal and regional divisions long exploited by the Kenyan ruling elite to maintain power. This was a movement united in a common struggle against police brutality, authoritarian rule, austerity, and the soaring cost of living.

In Nairobi’s central business district (CBD), thousands marched bearing flags and placards with the faces of those murdered in last year’s uprising, chanting “Ruto must go” as the military stationed itself at strategic locations like Nyayo Stadium. Government offices were barricaded with razor wire. The marches mostly started peacefully, until police lobbed teargas and fired batons and live ammunition.

Clashes erupted across the CBD, as protesters resisted attempts to disperse them. Meanwhile, the state moved to choke off access to the capital, setting up roadblocks along major roads while Kenya Railways suspended all commuter train services to prevent protesters entering the city centre. The determination of the protest forced lawmakers to flee the parliamentary buildings out of fear of a possible breach.

In the working-class neighbourhoods of Ngara and Pipeline, youth battled and, in some instances, overpowered the police.

In the port city of Mombasa, thousands began the day with peaceful vigils and were met with batons and teargas. Tensions escalated into running battles through the streets.

Similar scenes erupted in Nakuru, Nyeri, and Kisii. Even in smaller counties in rural areas such as Kajiado, Makueni, and Embu, protests erupted. In Ol Kalou, the police station was set on fire after police killed a man.

In Eldoret, a key stronghold for Ruto during the 2022 elections, youth marched waving Kenyan flags and chanting anti-Ruto slogans. Confrontations intensified after demonstrators spotted state-funded goons aiming to sow chaos. “We don’t want goons here. There are some armed groups among us. Please tell them not to attack us. We are not causing any harm, we are peaceful,” protestors shouted. Their chants were “We do not trust the government—not even the judiciary.”

In parts of Nairobi, a few bourgeois opposition figures made brief appearances at the protests early in the morning. Among them was former Chief Justice David Maraga, a conservative jurist now positioning himself for a 2027 presidential bid on a pro-business, law-and-order and anti-corruption platform. Also present was Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka, a veteran of Kenya’s political establishment and a former high-ranking official in the brutal, Western-backed Daniel arap Moi regime (1978-2002).

The mass demonstration across the country emerged in defiance of an open declaration of war by the entire ruling class the days before. On Monday, Government Spokesperson Isaac Mwaura declared, “There will be no demonstrations”, as The Standard revealed how the government was mobilising goons to suppress the protests.

The following day the Kenyan government gave carte blanche to the police to unleash mass violence. Ruto made a speech addressed “To the men and women who wear the uniform … I give you my full assurance: the Government of Kenya will stand with you,” as security forces “protect our country and keep our people and property safe.”

On the day, the Communications Authority of Kenya ordered a halt to all live television and radio coverage of the demonstrations. Free-to-air signals for KTN and NTV were disabled, while internet services slowed dramatically. The Telegram app was restricted.

The embassies of the US, UK, Germany, and Canada issued a statement urging Ruto to respect Kenyans’ “right to peaceful assembly and to express themselves.” They condemned the use of plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles, claiming it “erodes public trust,” and expressed concern over the deployment of hired goons to sabotage protests.

Their statements were political theatre. These are the very governments that fund, arm, and train Kenya’s security forces. They have embraced Ruto on the world stage, lauding him as a “partner in stability,” even as his regime jails, abducts, and kills its own citizens in the streets. They are also the principal backers of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

At home, their contempt for democratic rights is no less brutal. In the US, Trump is deploying ICE agents to kidnap migrants and the army to confront protestors. In Britain, peaceful pro-Palestinian organisations like Palestine Action are being outlawed under the Labor government of Keir Starmer. In France and Germany, mass demonstrations have been banned and met with police crackdowns.

The underlying geostrategic reasons behind the US-Israeli war against Iran

Gabriel Black

Firefighters inspect the site struck by an Iranian missile strike in Israel, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. [AP Photo/Leo Correa]

On June 21 the United States bombed three nuclear sites in Iran—dramatically escalating the illegal war that began on June 12, when Israeli warplanes launched a broad assault on the country.

The total killed from the US-Israeli war against Iran now stands at 610 people, including 13 children, the vast majority of them civilians.

For now, the bombing of Iran has stopped. A fragile ceasefire remains in effect. But as Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israeli military, threatened Tuesday, “We have concluded a significant chapter, but the campaign against Iran is not over.”

Zamir’s remarks reflect the fact that whatever the outcome of this specific “chapter,” the United States and Israel remain committed to achieving their long-standing strategic aim in the region: to cripple the Iranian regime and reassert control over the Gulf’s vast oil and gas reserves.

In October 2024, Israel launched what was, at the time, the largest single strike ever conducted against Iranian territory. Yet a broader war was postponed until after the US presidential election. That same month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his intentions clear: “When Iran is finally free—and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think—everything will be different.”

Now, after almost two years of an escalating genocide against the Palestinian people, Israel found its moment to attack. The war against Iran marks the culmination of a years-long buildup—a shared desire, by both the Israeli and American establishments, to assault their most enduring adversary in the region. It also serves as a distraction from mounting internal crises and contradictions in both societies.

China, Iran’s largest trade partner, is the ultimate target behind this war. The Trump administration, focused on preparing for war against China, sees the kowtowing or removal of the Iranian regime as a critical strategic step towards war with China. It clears the path to reclaim vast energy reserves and to reassert US dominance over two of the world’s most critical geopolitical chokepoints: the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.

US and British imperialism in Iran

Iran, home to over 90 million people, is the second-most populous country in the Middle East. It is also twice the size of Iraq, which the United States invaded and devastated in 2003.

For over a century, Iran’s oil wealth has placed it squarely in the crosshairs of US and British imperialism.

In 1908, British geologists discovered massive oil deposits in Iran—among the largest in the world. The British state quickly moved to establish the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), the forerunner of today’s BP. Iran’s oil delivered enormous profits to Britain, while the Iranian people received virtually none.

By the late 1940s, a powerful popular movement of strikes and protests emerged, seeking to reclaim this wealth. Led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the National Front, the movement pushed to nationalize the oil industry, redistribute land and limit the monarchy’s power. Mossadegh, a moderate bourgeois nationalist, tried to strike a balance—reaching out to the US and deploying the army against parts of the mass movement—but even his half-measures were considered too much for Britain and the United States.

In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence staged “Operation Ajax,” a coup that overthrew Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah. Money was flown into Iran to buy off generals and mobilize violent mobs. Tanks rolled into Tehran. What followed was two decades of dictatorship under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, enforced through brutal repression. Tens of thousands of workers and socialists were imprisoned, tortured or killed. Iran’s oil once again flowed to Western corporations, with BP at the center.

Under the Shah, Iran was not only a key oil producer but also a forward operating base for US power projection across the broader Eurasian rim. Following the 1953 coup, the US helped modernize Iran’s military and intelligence services and gained access to a network of surveillance facilities—including a critical signals intelligence station near the Soviet border, used to monitor missile tests and military communications. These outposts allowed the United States to peer deep into Soviet territory and helped position Iran as a bulwark against communist influence across the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which deposed the Shah and brought the Ayatollahs to power, Iraq invaded Iran with tacit US approval. From 1982 onward, the Reagan administration provided Saddam Hussein with weapons, intelligence and political support during the brutal eight-year war.

Since the 1990s, the US has spent billions to fund exiled monarchists and opposition groups, while imposing crippling sanctions that have devastated Iran’s economy and caused mass immiseration. These policies have failed to bring down the regime—but they have succeeded in generating enormous suffering.

Major protests broke out in 2017, spreading to 85 cities. These demonstrations were not controlled by the US but reflected widespread hatred of both the bourgeois nationalist Islamic Republic and the imperialist chokehold placed on the country.

Iran’s oil and its role in China’s development

Iran holds more than 150 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—making it the fourth-largest reserve holder globally. It also possesses the second-largest natural gas reserves after Russia. Yet its oil production—around 3 million barrels per day about 3 percent of the world’s production—is well below potential. Sanctions have deprived Iran of capital, technical expertise and foreign partnerships that could lead to a significant increase in its oil production.

Despite sanctions and other obstacles, Iran’s oil exports have found a critical buyer: China.

Today, China purchases as much as 90 percent of Iran’s oil, largely through informal or semi-clandestine channels, often at a discount. These flows bypass Western oversight and sanctions, fueling both nations’ strategic partnership and hampering US efforts to strangle Iran’s economy.

For China, this relationship is vital. It imports over 11 million barrels of oil per day, more than any country in the world. While Beijing is rapidly expanding renewables, its industrial base and petrochemical sector still depend heavily on crude. Iran now accounts for roughly 15 percent of China’s oil imports.

The Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz

But Iran’s importance goes beyond the sheer production of oil. Iran has virtual control over the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil chokepoint. More than 20 percent of all seaborne oil passes through this narrow passage. While Iran has threatened to close the strait in retaliation for the US attacks, at the time of writing, oil markets are down by several percentage points as traders bet that Iran will not shut down the strait.

Part of the reason Iran has been reluctant to use the so-called “oil weapon” is that the majority of oil flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz now heads east—to China. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE are all major suppliers to China. If Iran were to close the Strait, it would strain its relations with these Gulf states and, more critically, harm China—its largest trading partner.

US strategic planners understand this dynamic well. The rise of American hydraulic fracturing—the largest oil boom in history—has temporarily granted the United States breathing room to shatter the Middle East with relatively fewer consequences at home. While oil markets remain global and a price spike would still affect the US, it is China that would be most directly and immediately impacted by any disruption to traffic through the Strait.

While China dominates the global refining of critical minerals, the United States and its allies still exert far greater control over global oil and gas flows. In any future confrontation with China, access to oil and gas will serve as a critical pressure point. Every day, one out of every nine barrels of oil produced worldwide is shipped to China. If that flow were cut off, the impact on China’s economy would be immediate and potentially devastating.

It is for this reason that the Trump administration, in particular, appears to relish the prospect of removing Iran from the equation—cutting off one of China’s key suppliers and tightening US imperialism’s grip over the global energy system.

While oil is central to understanding Iran’s importance, it has broader strategic value. Iran sits at the nexus of multiple geopolitical fault lines—bridging the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. Its territory offers not only access to the Persian Gulf but also proximity to the Caspian Sea and Russia’s southern flank.

For over a century, imperial powers have viewed control over Iran as key to securing influence across the Eurasian landmass. Today, US planners see Iran not only as a critical node in China’s energy security but as a potential lever to disrupt regional integration between China, Russia and their neighbors. From the US perspective, crippling Iran weakens an entire axis of connectivity that threatens to undercut American dominance across both East and West Asia.

Iran’s regional alliances further reinforce its strategic weight. Through Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi movement in Yemen, Iran has demonstrated its capacity to disrupt global oil flows. In September 2019, for example, Houthi drones struck Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais facilities, temporarily knocking out 5 percent of the world’s oil supply and sending prices surging 20 percent overnight.

This is the geostrategic backdrop to today’s war: a plan to not only control Iran’s oil but to lock down the Gulf as a whole, in preparation, ultimately, for conflict with China.

Iran, a stepping stone towards war against China

Early last week, Donald Trump threatened to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. “We know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding,” he said, adding that he was an “easy target.”

Trump, posturing as restrained, clarified: “We are not going to take him out—at least not for now,” but warned, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated last Friday that the war’s aim was to “destabilize the regime” by attacking “the foundations of its powers.”

While Iran has retaliated, firing several rockets at US bases on Monday, these strikes seem largely symbolic and perfunctory. They suggest Iran is choosing to avoid a genuine retaliation that could lead to full-blown war.

Since at least 2015, the World Socialist Web Site has warned that the United States is preparing for a major confrontation with China—a strategic move to offset its long-term economic decline and to prevent the emergence of a rival power capable of challenging US global dominance.

In 2023, one of the country’s top generals predicted that the United States would be at war with China by 2025.

Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Asia to meet with Washington’s key Pacific allies—Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines—urging them to prepare for “imminent” conflict. Each of these four countries has ramped up military spending to historic levels. In Australia, Chief of Defense Admiral David Johnston explicitly called on the nation to prepare for war.

It is essential to place the war against Iran in this larger context. For the Trump administration, Iran is a key geostrategic steppingstone—part of a broader plan to weaken China’s position in the Middle East and offset declining US hegemony. Even if the war, for now, stops short of regime change, its aim is to significantly maim Iran’s ability to function as an independent power—and by extension, to undercut China’s energy security and regional influence.

As Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, explained to the German news agency DW, “With a weakened Iran, one that’s perhaps militarily bordering on either full-on conventional war or civil war as a result of US military intervention, it’s going to make Iran a lot less effective partner for China’s outreach in the Middle East.” This, ultimately, is the goal of US imperialism in this war.

China continues to seek move away from US dollar

Nick Beams

China is continuing to chip away at dollar dominance of the global financial system and is seeking to enhance the role of its currency, the renminbi (yuan), by easing restrictions on its movement and by touting a major expansion of its internal market that will prove attractive to foreign investors.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang speaks during the opening session of the National People's Congress in Beijing, March 5, 2025 [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

These were the central themes of an address by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) summer meeting—sometimes referred to as the “summer Davos”—held in the north China city of Tianjin this week.

While not directly referencing the US and the actions of the Trump administration, Li said China would “open its doors still wider to the world,” and warned of the “fragmentation” of global supply chains, casting China as a stabilizing force in the global economy.

He said policymakers were growing the nation “into a mega-sized consumer powerhouse on top of its solid foundation as a manufacturing power,” and this would bring “vast markets to enterprises from all countries.”

While there were a host of trade frictions, China would “move forward steadily and continue to inject more stability and certainty into the world economy” as he called on “all parties to avoid the politicization of economic and trade issues.”

“Economic globalization will not be reversed; it will only carve out a new path. We will further integrate and connect with the global market,” he said. “We will not and shall not return to closed off and isolated islands.”

One of the aspects of this closer integration is the push by China for greater use of the renminbi, rather than the US dollar, in its international trade and financial transactions. The increased use of the Chinese currency has long been an objective of Beijing.

But as Bloomberg noted in a recent article, “what sets the latest push apart is timing: Chinese policymakers see erratic US decision-making and geopolitical tensions as the most favorable backdrop in years to promote the yuan.”

The address by Li came a week after a speech by the governor of China’s central bank, Pan Gongsheng, at a major economic forum at which he called for a “multi-polar” currency system in which “sovereign currencies coexist and compete with checks and balances.”

His remarks were made a day after European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde had advanced the perspective for a “global euro” moment in an op-ed piece in the Financial Times—another expression of the push to move away from dollar dominance.

One of the barriers to an increased international role for the renminbi has been Chinese restrictions on capital flows. But steps are being taken to ease some of them. While they are far from turning the Chinese financial system into what would be required for the renminbi to function at the level of the dollar or even the euro, they do represent important moves.

These include easing capital controls, expansion of cross-border payment systems, and the development of new financial products that can attract foreign investors.

As Lynn Song, the chief Greater China economist at UNG Bank, told Bloomberg: “The measures to further integrate China with the global financial system feel like steps in the right direction, as China wants to make sure that the yuan is in the conversation of important global currencies.”

But there is much further to go as Morgan Stanley economists pointed out in a recent note. “On the fundamental level, wider international use of the yuan rests on a robust economy and further progress in capital account convertibility.”

Here the government faces two issues—boosting the domestic economy and the fear that if financial controls are loosened too much, there will be a shift of money out of the country causing destabilization.

Nevertheless, there is a palpable shift towards increased use of the renminbi and away from the dollar.

China’s Cross Border International Payments System (CIPS), launched by the central bank ten years ago to facilitate cross-border payments with China outside the dollar framework, is steadily expanding to include more foreign banks, and extending to the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Singapore.

The CIPS system is becoming more attractive because of the decisions of the US to use its control of the dominant SWIFT international payments system to impose sanctions—the most graphic example being the sanctions imposed on Russia at the start of the Ukraine war.

Another source of tension is the push by the US to coerce countries through the use of tariff measures to start cutting their economic ties with China, to which Li referred in his speech.

“Some countries and regions,” he said without directly naming the US and to some extent the European Union, “have interfered in market activity in the name of de-risking.”

Bans on the use of technology are another aspect of the US-led push against China, and Li emphasized that “China’s innovation is open and open-source.” Noting that DeepSeek and Alibaba had made their large language models for artificial intelligence available around the world, he said, “We are willing to share indigenous technologies.”

Remarks by other participants at the WEF summer meeting pointed to the enormous disruption resulting from the actions of the Trump administration, particularly regarding investment decisions.

Speaking during a panel section, Victor Lap-lik Chu, CEO of a Hong Kong-based investment firm, said: “If you were to build an additional plant today, you can’t price your investment because you don’t know what the actual pricing will be three or four years down the road. And there are feelings that if you invest in certain countries, you’ll get pressure from other governments.”

Even before the Trump economic war, global investment was declining, with a UN agency reporting that foreign direct investment fell by 11.5 percent in 2024 after dropping the previous year.

The Italian deputy minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, Valentino Valentini, said the trade conflict raised geopolitical risks. He claimed the US was using tariffs as “a source of income in order to compensate for very heavy debt.”

“In a geopolitical situation, that’s really bad. A very famous French economist from the last century said, ‘Where goods do not cross the border, armies do cross borders.’ Given the current situation, we can’t accept that.”

On the other side of the world, the mounting US debt, which is one of the chief factors undermining confidence in the dollar and the efforts to shift away from it, are very much at the center of the conflict over Trump’s “big, beautiful budget.”

The Congressional Budget Office has said the version of the bill by the House would lift US debt by $2.4 trillion by 2034. The White House Council of Economic Advisers has claimed there would be a reduction of debt because of the growth stimulated by tax cuts.

Opponents of the budget from the Republican side want deeper cuts in spending on entitlements than those already provided for.

Their views were summed up by Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson last week: “What we’re concerned about is an acute debt crisis. What we’re trying to avoid is global creditors looking at the United States and saying you’re a credit risk.”