A HUGE uproar has followed the tear-gassing of schoolchildren as they protested the grabbing of their playground in Nairobi yesterday.
Five schoolchildren and two journalists were injured and several activists were arrested as area MP Ken Okoth led parents, teachers, activists and the pupils in demolishing a perimeter wall that was erected on the school's playing field.
The Officer Commanding Police Division, Elijah Mwangi, who led the operation against the protest on Lang’ata Road, was sent home in the afternoon by the acting Inspector General of Police, Samuel Arachi.
The pupils had just reported for class after the public schools re-opened yesterday when the police, who had been deployed there before dawn, moved to disperse them as they dashed to occupy the playground immediately the wall was demolished.
Police lobbed teargas canisters at the children, some of them as young as 6, as they baton-charged the activists who were demolishing the perimeter wall.
The police had attack dogs with them and the beasts barked and snarled as they strained against their leashes just yards away from the terrified children.
The incident caused a heavy traffic jam along the busy Lang’ata Road. The wall has generated controversy after claims that the fenced-off land belongs to the school and not a private developer. Lands Minister Charity Ngilu has said the land belonged to the school.
The National Land Commission has also ruled that the school owns the land. Speaking in Mombasa on Monday, Ngilu said the land must be given back to the school after the NLC verified documents proving ownership of the playground.
“My take is that if this is public land and it belongs to the school, it must be given back to the school,” said Ngilu. “We also need to find out who are these people who wanted to take this public land,” she said.
She was speaking on the sidelines of a workshop for land administration officers from the ministry headquarters at the Whitesands Hotel, Mombasa. Speaking at the same function, NLC chair Muhammad Swazuri reiterated that the land belongs to the school.
He said they have documents that prove the owner of the land is the Lang’ata Road Primary School. The OCPD's suspension followed a storm of condemnation from a cross-section of Kenyans who accused the police of using excessive force and being insensitive to the children.
Reports of the gas attack on the schoolchildren were relayed around the world on a breaking-news basis by global broadcasters such as the BBC World Service, CNN, Al Jazeera and France 24, complete with dramatic video and still photographs. Speaking from New Delhi, India, where he is on an official tour, Cord leader Raila Odinga said the police action was unacceptable. “This is brutality beyond words and greed beyond description.
It is difficult to believe that police can actually deploy against primary schoolchildren and lob teargas at them to defend a land grabber. "This image of a nation determined to steal forcibly from its own children cannot be what we aspire to. It cannot be the legacy we want to bequeath the children. However greedy, acquisitive and heartless we may be, we surely can stand up for the children. After all, they are the people we are guarding the nation for.
"Somebody must be held accountable for this primitive and shameful action." Energised pupils, boys and girls, wearing green sweaters, confronted police and held up large red placards with yellow lettering. They read: "Uhuru Fight CORRUPTION and Secure Your Legacy", "Grabbing is Terrorism Against Children", "Kenya: The Land of Shameless Grabbers." And black on white: "Shame! Shame! Shame!" held in front of riot police holding back a police dog ready to charge the pupils. As we went to press, the Law Society of Kenya constituted a team of 11 lawyers to prosecute the police officers who tear-gassed the pupils.
LSK President Eric Mutua said that the lawyers will be led by LSK Council member and Kituo cha Sheria executive director Gertrude Angote. “The country has witnessed with horror and shock the brutality visited upon defenseless children at Lang’ata Primary School in Nairobi,” Mutua said after chairing a full LSK Council meeting at the LSK Secretariat in Lavington, Nairobi.