Rex Tillerson falls sick in Kenya, cancels engagements

US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson has cancelled engagements in Kenya after falling ill

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cancelled scheduled events on Saturday on the second day of a visit to Kenya because “he is not feeling well”, a State Department spokesman said.

“The secretary is not feeling well after a long couple days working on major issues back home such as North Korea and has canceled his events for the day,” spokesman Steve Goldstein said.

Tillerson arrived Kenya on Friday after visiting Ethiopia and Djibouti.

After talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday, he told newsmen he had shared his concerns with Kenyatta about the importance of democracy and said the government should not stifle the media and threaten the courts.

The Kenyan government shut down three television channels in January on the day opposition leader Raila Odinga took a symbolic presidential oath, then defied a court order to switch them back on.

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The stations had planned to live-stream the oath.

“We believe that there are actions that need to be taken in Kenya and that they need to correct certain actions like shutting down independent TV stations and threatening the independence of the courts,” Tillerson told a news conference in the Kenyan capital.

“I know Kenya takes these matters seriously. A free and independent media is essential for safeguarding democracy and giving all Kenyans confidence in their government.”

Asked at the news conference with Tillerson if Kenya could call itself a democracy in light of restrictions appeared intended to stifle dissent, Kenya’s foreign affairs minister, Monica Juma, said that “the notion that there is a restriction of the media is not backed by fact or reality.

She said that only “three of more than 10s” of TV stations were temporarily shut down. The three stations taken off air reach the majority of viewers in the country.

In September, after Kenya’s Supreme Court overturned President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election victory and ordered a new poll, Kenyatta dismissed the judges as “wakora”, meaning “crooks” in Swahili.

He also said the country had a “problem” with its judiciary that needed to be fixed.

Tillerson, the top US diplomat, praised Kenyatta and opposition leader Odinga for meeting on Friday and pledging to bring their people together after last year’s contentious and bloody elections.

“All the credit” for the meeting went to the Kenyan political leaders, Tillerson said, in response to a question as to whether the US had a role in organizing it.

As expected, Tillerson also emphasized the US security partnership with Kenya and what he called “our shared fight against terrorism”.

He said he would pay his respects on Saturday in Nairobi to victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombings killed 224 people.

He also recognized the 4,000 Kenyan troops fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia as part of the African Union peacekeeping mission AMISOM.