The Young Communist League of Britain condemns the abduction of comrade Booker Ngesa Omole, General Secretary of the Communist Party Marxist – Kenya, and stands in solidarity with our sister party. Reports that comrade Omole has been tortured in his detention at Mlolongo Police Station are disturbing but unfortunately unsurprising given his prior targeting for assassination last year, as well as an ongoing campaign of detention of comrades of the CPM-K.
The Ruto regime responsible for these attacks on the CPM-K and the Kenyan working class represents the worst of the global neoliberal order, engaging in widespread privatisations, backing the Rapid Support Forces and thus contributing to the chaos in Sudan, and violating the secular nature of the Kenyan constitution with frivolous spending on a new church at the president’s official residence.
A staunch proletarian internationalist, comrade Omole has called out a plan to rehash the colonial-era Uganda Scheme with a new project to lease land in Nakuru to the Israeli state, putting Kenyan land in Zionist hands. We have had the privilege of comrade Omole speaking at the 2025 Marx Oration, and appreciate and admire his work.
Britain’s own role in Kenya is a bloody and sordid affair, with atrocities during the Mau Mau uprising from 1952 to 1960 being a particularly gruesome episode of British imperialism in Kenya. However, the British people’s solidarity with the people of Kenya can also be traced back with an illustrious history. Our mother Party’s 1929 general election manifesto, Class Against Class, called for “the abolition of war, the freedom of small nationalities and the liberation of the colonial masses”, and during the Mau Mau uprising brought the British government’s campaign of murder and torture to light. Our Party was also active in the establishment of the Movement for Colonial Freedom (now Liberation), which similarly called for a rapid transfer of power to the Kenyan people in the late-1950s and publicised the atrocities enacted by British forces during the uprising.
Across the world, the fight against imperialism is intrinsically linked to the fight against capitalism. The YCL backs the CPM-K’s just calls for the freedom of comrade Omole and its fight against the neoliberal Rute regime’s repression.
Free Comrade Booker Omole!
International Department
Young Communist League
London, Britain,
01 March 2026
