Nairobi, KENYA: University Academic Staff Union ( UASU) and Kenya University Workers union KUSU, have condemned police brutality witnessed on Monday at Kenyatta University.
The unions are said to be outraged by the acts of brutal police repression currently being committed in the campuses of a number of public universities.
In a press briefing in Nairobi on Monday, UASU secretary general Constantine Wesonga, lamented that there are members of the police force in the grounds of Masinde Muliro University, Maasai Mara University, Pwani University and Kenyatta Universty who have been brought in by universities to try force employees on strike back to work and brutalize those who refuse to do so.
“Yesterday, as UASU and KUSU were holding talks with the leadership of Ministry of Education in jogoo House, to find an amicable solution to the current crisis in the higher education sector; at the moment in Kenyatta University, a contingent of police officers violently dispersed a peaceful assembly of university workers participating in the strike.” Said Wesonga.
The union tends to believe that the act was orchestrated by school managers using some goons in the name of students to stir up hostility and conflict in the universities warning that any attempt to separate students and their lecturers will not succeed.
“We have been aware of an evil plot hatched by university management to incite a section of students against lecturers. Yesterday, we witnessed such an attempt fail terribly at Kenyatta University.” He said.
The leaders are of the idea that if the government and the IUPUCCF offer a credible counter offer, they are more than willing to complete the negotiations and end the current education crisis.
They vehemently maintain that the strike can only be called off by the secretary general of the union in broad daylight, urging parents and students to disregard any communication from university management purportedly calling off the strike as the powers belong to the union only.
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