By Spy Uganda
Following the recent visit to United States by Kenyan President H.E William Ruto, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, a Kenyan author and East Africa’s leading novelist has expressed deep concern regarding Ruto’s decisions that appear to be compromising Kenya’s sovereignty and dignity.
According to an open letter to Ruto, the famous author highlights deep concerns about Kenya’s direction and future under Ruto’s leadership, and goes a head to question his (Ruto’s) choice to engage so intimately with the United States, a country whose policies and actions have often been described as reminiscent of apartheid.
During his visit to United States, Ruto secured over 16 U.S manufactured helicopters to boost the country’s security operations and peacekeeping missions from President Joe Biden’s administration.
According to a statement released by the White House on Thursday last week, the 16 helicopters include eight Hueys to bolster regional peace and security as well as eight MD-500s for enhancing Kenya’s participation in peacekeeping missions.
Kenya will also receive approximately 150 M1117 Armoured Security Vehicles from the U.S. Excess Defense Article stocks which are projected to arrive in Kenya in September 2024.
Meanwhile, Biden also said that he would designate Kenya as the first major non-NATO U.S. ally in sub-Saharan Africa, as he welcomed Ruto for the first state visit to the U.S. by an African leader in nearly 16 years.
The significant strategic move signals the shifting of U.S. security cooperation to East Africa just as U.S. troops prepare to depart Niger, leaving a vacuum that Russian forces have begun to fill.
With all the above among other agreements, the author expresses strong disapproval of Ruto’s policies regarding relations with the United States.
Here Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s open Letter to William Ruto
”Dear William Ruto,
The images of your recent State visit to the USA were very disturbing to me and to every patriotic Kenyan.
I saw you seated on a chair, grinning, while Biden stood behind you, his face beaming with satisfaction. Why not? He had just announced that you had signed off our beloved Kenya to make it a non-member ally of NATO. In other words you had agreed to become Nato’s errand boy in America’s struggle with Russia and China for access to resources of the continent.
Ruto, do you know that Nato, murdered Muammar Gaddafi, so that Libyan oil-fields which Gaddafi had nationalized, would revert to the West? Gaddafi was once the chairman of the African Union of which Kenya was a founding member.
But this other picture was no less disturbing. While you were inside the White House, Haitians were in the streets demonstrating, calling you a slave. Do you know the history of Haiti? Please read The Black Jacobins, a book written by a once Jomo Kenyatta Pan African ally, CLR James.
Haiti, now a Black people’s State, used to be a slave colony of France. But led by Toussaint Louverture, Haiti, the richest colony of its time, fought French slavery and in 1804 it seized its independence. In USA slavery was then in full bloom. America did not want its African slaves to emulate Haiti, and it has never forgiven Haiti for that, and thus begun the story of America’s destabilization of Haiti.
Ruto, do you see the irony of your actions? The USA, was originally a settler colony taking over the land that belonged to Native Americans. In 1776 The White settlers declared their independence from their English King. But the colonized Native Americans remained colonized. Kenya was equally a British settler colony. The white settlers wanted to have a similar kind of Independence. But the Mau Mau led by Dedan Kĩmathi stopped them. Years later, Algeria, Rhodesia and South Africa would follow the example of Kenya. Thus the country you now lead, was the first to stop the historical trend of white settlers claiming themselves independent as in America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Ruto, you have chosen to betray that history of Pride.
Ruto, you have chosen to become an agent of the West?
Ruto, you have chosen to sell your country cheap.
Why, oh, Why?
Atlanta, Georgia
May 28, 2024” End
