Hours after Kenya’s Catholic Bishops “demand truce”, Opposition Calls Off Planned Protests

The opposition leader’s address came hours after members of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) had demanded a truce in a collective statement that their Chairman, Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde of Mombasa Archdiocese highlighted.

In the statement, KCCB members described the events of the last two weeks since the opposition-led demonstrations started as “a glimpse of what our country can degenerate into”.

Since March 20, the first day of the opposition-led protests, Kenyans have witnessed “mayhem and lawlessness”, the Catholic Bishops lamented, adding, “Anyone who loves this country has shed tears.”

They reiterated their March 18 caution against the “slippery road to anarchy” and highlighted some of the utterances and activities on the part of Kenyan politicians that have demonstrated what they referred to as political leaders’ refusal “to face the reality, giving lame excuses for their grave wrong actions” and playing “victims to the Kenyans to win sympathy.”

“Instead of seeking solutions, our political leaders have chosen to escalate hate, revenge and anarchy without care for our country,” KCCB members said in reference to politicians’ “irresponsible threats and inciting of Kenyans … reckless actions by leaders and citizens and gross negligence and mistreatment by the law enforcement agents.”

“Kenya cannot be allowed to follow this path … we cannot and must not allow our country to descend into chaos of disorder of a lawless society,” they said, and faulted the political class for demonstrating a lack of “ideas to offer to their political parties and groupings”.

In their four-page statement titled, “I have heard my people cry”, that cited Exodus 3:7, the Catholic Bishops further faulted political leaders in Kenya for showing the tendency to be “more interested in their personal gains” and appealed that the Holy Week “be a week of Redemption from selfish plans.”

“Our political leaders are fighting for themselves not for our citizens,” they decried, and explained, “Many people have been hurt, others have lost their lives. People’s property has been destroyed and goods looted. Goons seem to roam freely. People have lost their livelihoods.”

In their latest statement, a follow up of March 22 in which they cautioned the Government and Opposition against a “stand-off and defiance”, KCCB members made reference to the events that surrounded the March 27 and March 30 opposition-led protests, the former having resulted in a “night of chaos”, with a church and mosque in Nairobi’s Kibera slum torched in retaliatory arson attacks.

The Catholic Church leaders recalled the agony of innocent children who have borne the brunt of a conflict they can hardly comprehend amid clouds of teargas. In the statement Archbishop Kivuva read out on Palm Sunday in Mombasa, KCCB members recalled, “Innocent children have found themselves in the middle of the mayhem and suffered injuries.”

“This fratricidal conflict will have no winner because it can only lead to all of us losing what we truly hold dear,” he further said, and added, “It seems for our leaders, popularity must come at the cost of bloodshed and acrimony, as a competition of who is stronger.”

The Catholic Church leaders reached out to President Ruto “in all humility to bend his knee and feel for our country”, and urged the opposition leader “to hear the cry of many Kenyans including his own supporters who desperately want a peaceful path!”

In the statement dated April 2 and addressed to “Kenyans, our leaders in Government and in Opposition”, KCCB members made seven pleas. 

They called upon all God-fearing Kenyans “including our policemen, on their own personal decision, not to participate in demonstrations this week, and to refrain from all acts of violence or aggression.”

“Let us not mock Christ’s sufferings and his death by our actions,” the Catholic Bishops said in their first plea, in which they called on Kenyans to show respect for Christians who are “entering a most sacred time of Holy Week” and Muslims who “are also in the Holy Month of Ramadhan.”

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“If the reasons moving us to whichever actions are truly Godly, the Week of Christ’s death, the Holy Month of Ramadan would touch our leaders’ hearts,” they said.

The Church leaders in Kenya urged political leaders “to stop for a moment, from pushing the conflict any further”, and that they “must not shout at each other but talk; not hate but love and forgive; not fight but listen and find peaceful paths.”

KCCB members “now demand a truce and suspension of all political demonstrations from the opposition,” they said.

The Catholic Bishops went on to caution against “celebrative gatherings and prayer meetings organized by Government and political leaders”, explaining that “with the political nuances witnessed in such gatherings and prayer meetings, we question the intention behind them. Indeed, there will be no good will in pursuing a violent path or a path of revenge by using such gatherings.”

The Catholic Church “demand an end of all provocative utterances, personal attacks, political agitation and verbal exchange between leaders in Government and Opposition”, they said, terming the behaviors as “totally unacceptable by all standards”. 

“This Holy time calls for recovery of ethical behavior, respect, good manners and true statesmanship,” they said.

There is need for “investigation and arrest” of persons behind the stealing and destruction of property witnessed on the days of opposition-led protests, KCCB members demanded, and added, “It is totally unacceptable that we give reign to unruly and unlawful acts of thuggery and celebrate them.”

They also demanded “a public apology” from law enforcement agents guilty of “grave negligence”, which they termed “truly inexcusable”. 

The Catholic Church leaders “request” the people of God in Kenya to take the opportunity of the Holy Week to have “special prayers” in places of worship, local communities, and families, “for a lasting solution to the disintegration of the country’s hard-earned democracy that we are witnessing,” they said.

“As we witness the suffering of Christ, let us examine how we as citizens and especially our leaders are betraying the very truth that he dies for, that is, mercy and forgiveness,” KCCB members said.

In the process of carrying out their duty of protecting citizens, the Catholic Bishops called upon the police to act “without favor … There should be no discriminative protection or apparent discriminative negligence.” 

The Catholic Church leaders challenged citizens of the East African nation to take control of the way out of the current political crisis, saying, “Dear Kenyans, we cannot always be lamenting and passing the buck to someone else to solve our problems. We must decide that no leader, whatever his rank or power, will drive us into the pit of hatred and violence.”

“Dear Kenyans, we must decide now or face the consequences of selfish political interests!” they said in their April 2 statement, in which they denounced the use of violence, and challenged other sectors in Kenya to “weigh in their views and also make demands for a better management of disagreements and differences.”

They underscored the need to be guided by the rule of law, the Kenyan Constitution, and the setting of priorities.

“At a time when more than 4.1million Kenyans cannot put a meal on the table, we must have our priorities right,” the Catholic Church leaders said, adding, “Today we should seek to direct all funds to assist our suffering brothers and sisters even if it means just a bit!”