What Dutch royal couple's visit portends for Kenya's justice bid

 King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands  and Queen Máxima greet Chief Justice Martha Koome during the Royal couple's visit at the Supreme Court in Nairobi on 20th March 2025 [David Gichuru,Standard]

The visit of the Dutch royal couple provided another opportunity to alert the international community that accountability and justice for the 65 dead young protesters, the 89 who were abducted and those still injured like Nyerian Brian Mwangi, remain unaddressed.

It also created a moment to test whether the Netherlands could combine a respect for human rights and democratic governance and their business and trade interests in Kenya. Initially planned for last year, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima’s state visit was postponed presumably to avoid the optics of teargas, abductions, distress and death.

The announcement of new dates triggered diasporan Kenyans in the Netherlands to mobilise 20,000 signatures calling for the state visit to be cancelled or reconsidered. The petition was vigorously debated by parliamentarians across the Dutch political divide before the Royals boarded their flights.

Critics have argued online that the petitioners and those who met the royal couple in Nairobi were naïve. Like many of their European cousins, the Dutch have extracted vast resources from African, Asian and South American colonies for the last 250 years.

It is often forgotten that the Dutch took 30 years longer than the British to abolish slavery. The legacy of slavery and racism can be seen in its increasingly xenophobic asylum system, discriminatory race-policing and annual “black Pete” festivals.

Furthermore, critics continued, the current Dutch government appears completely disinterested in what happens in the rest of world unless it affects the interests of Dutch citizens and corporates.

A month before the Royals arrived in Kenya, the government presented its International Development Policy to Parliament. It’s “Doing what is good for the Netherlands” mantra reads more like a national development policy than a policy for international development.

Announcing a US$ 2.6 billion cut, one of the most savage cuts in overseas assistance, the Netherlands seems set to lose its relevance as the world’s seventh biggest aid donor. Dutch trade and geo-political security interests is the new focus, not fighting global poverty, improving gender equality, good governance, sexual and reproductive rights.

Were the petitioners and those who supported them naïve, therefore? I think not. If they had not acted or avoided meeting the couple, last year’s atrocities would have remained buried. The anguish of victims’ families would have been silenced once more.

During Tuesday’s state banquet, King Willem-Alexander expressed his government’s “concerns with the abductions and impunity”. He encouraged “accountability for human rights violations.”

In the exchange, Kenya’s third-largest export market and one of its top five investors underscored the crucial point that stability and legal certainty are unattainable without the rule of law and justice.

Appealing to Dutch human rights principles touches another historical nerve. Their Bill of Rights is over two hundred years old. The Netherlands has a strong constitutional order that enshrines human rights, rule of law and democratic governance. The Dutch constitution has protected the freedom of expression, assembly and association, prohibited the death penalty and declared that all are equal under the law since 1983.

Furthermore, the royal couple is well-acquainted with the responding to public sensitivity surrounding rights abuses. Queen Máxima’s late father Jorge Zorreguieta stayed away from her 2002 wedding to prevent his past role as a Minister in General Jorge Videla’s dictatorial regime from overshadowing their marriage vows.

Whether the trip catalyses the Kenya Kwanza administration to independently and decisively act on the accountability and closure needed from 2023 and 2024 remains to be seen.

The days of business as usual without accountability may be over though. With or without human rights organisations, Kenyan youth have again demonstrated their capacity to independently speak and act up both at home and on a global stage.

This is not the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last. Long before overseas development assistance and NGOs were a thing, African diasporan and host communities in Europe campaigned to end slavery, colonialism, settler-apartheid and then one-party states across Africa. The love for justice has no boundaries or nationality.