To What Extent is the Government of Kenya Committed to Police Reforms?
When the UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston initially reported that there are extrajudicial killings in Kenya orchestrated by the police, he may have shocked the world but not citizens and residents of Kenya.
When the UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston initially reported that
there are extrajudicial killings in Kenya orchestrated by the police,
he may have shocked the world but not citizens and residents of Kenya.
On the contrary, Kenyans must have been shocked when the government
denied the existence of illegal police executions and rubbished the
Alston report as untrue and shoddy work.
In the course of time however, the government has now eventually
conceded that indeed extrajudicial killings have occurred in the
country and promised to protect human rights and those defending it.
Interestingly, this concession did not happen until the report was
presented by Alston at a United Nations 11th Session of the UN Human
Rights Council held in Geneva recently.
A delegation representing the coalition government made up of the
Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM)
gave the government’s point of view at the Geneva conference. Perhaps
this concession by the coalition government might be an indicator that
finally there is commitment to reforms, particularly in the police
force.
The Kenya Police Force has now been put on the spot and a wide
aray of stakeholders have been pressing for reforms. Among other
allegations, police have been accused of being unable to fight
spiraling crime especially relating to the crack down on organized
criminal groups such as the dreaded outlawed mungiki sect and sungu-sungu.
Instead, the police are accused of dealing with such organized
criminal groups through excessive force and extra-judicial killings.
The notorious mungiki has its origin as a traditional
religious sect but over the past decade and a half, the sect has
transformed itself into a Kenyan version of the mafia involved
in murder, dismembering the bodies of their victims, extortion,
abduction and racketeering, just to mention a few atrocities committed
against innocent Kenyans.
Some of the serious characteristics that may have attracted
severity on the side of the police while dealing with mungiki include
the manner in which the sect hires out its services and levies
protection fees on the urban poor and beheading as its trademark system
of killing. However, the question still remains if excessive force is
the answer to dealing with organized groups which often retreat against
the police force, only to resurface and hit back when least expected,
leaving a trail of death and destruction.
Allegations of extra judicial killings became more pronounced in 2006 when the police launched a major crackdown on the mungiki
that continues up-to-date but with no apparent success as yet. Press
reports indicate that in April alone (this year) 45 people died in mungiki related incidents. The persistence of mungiki
criminality has made some sections of the citizenry become concerned
over police capacity to protect them. Consequently, some communities
have resorted to the formation of vigilante groups for self protection.
The Kenyan-based The Standard newspaper reported that the
vigilantes who call themselves “The Hague” have a spot where they
operate a kangaroo court and execute mungiki suspects in a
gory fashion specifically at Kamuiri village of Kirinyanga District.
The suspects are given little or no chance to defend themselves and are
tortured during the “trial sessions” mainly carried out in the dead of
the night. This, coupled with the alleged existence of killer squads in
the police as reported by Professor Alston, only makes matters worse.
Indeed, fighting crime with crime can only increase animosity and lead
to more killings of both innocent citizens and suspects.
There are other events that seem to indicate the need for Kenyan
police to beef up its capacity to handle crime. One case in point is
when the Speaker of Parliament directed that a parliamentary committee
investigate mungiki killings that occurred on the 20th and 21st
of April this year, a matter that should have been a preserve of the
police. Also, when two civil rights activists Oscar Kamau and Paul Oulu
were murdered, the United States ambassador offered the services of
the FBI while the UN rapporteur Philip Alston called for detectives
from Scotland Yard to lead the investigations.
It is partly against this background that a National Task Force on
Police Reforms chaired by retired judge Philip Ransley was formed and
is on-going. The Task Force will review police preparedness to fight
insecurity as well as police recruitment, deployment, training and
career progression, standards and practices. The Task Force will then
recommend proposals to oversee implementation of reforms. This perhaps
is the first step in the long awaited police reforms as recommended in
Agenda 4 of the National Accord mediated by former Secretary General,
Kofi Annan, as well as the Kriegler and Waki reports both constituted
to pursue issues pertaining to post election violence of early 2008.
However, a former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs,
Hon Martha Karua claim the Task Force is aimed at stalling reforms of
the security forces and the implementation of the Waki report. She is
of the view that the Task Force is inferior to and less capable than
the Waki report on post election violence. She believes all this is a
ploy to stall reforms in the police because the Waki report was adopted
by parliament last year. As to whether the former minister is right or
wrong, only time will tell.
An argument in favour of the government is that the Philip Ransley
Task Force is more specifically focused on police reforms. The
government image has been bolstered by acceptance before the United
Nations Human Rights Council of Alston’s report. Nevertheless, we need
to keep in mind that another police reform task force has been
constituted without informing the country what was actually achieved by
a previous Task Force constituted in March 2003. Unless the state
prioritizes human rights issues and provision of security, this latest
Task Force is likely to be yet another deep hole where tax payers’
money goes into waste.
The government will need to go beyond mere rhetoric and match
words with action. An improvement in budgetary allocations to the
police, establishment of a functional and independent statutory body
for police oversight, and ensuring professionalism by preventing
political interference in police work, are some of the ways of proving
commitment to reforms.
Police reforms alone however may not achieve much unless
corresponding reforms are also made elsewhere such as in the judiciary
and prosecution department. Definitely, commitment to reforms goes way
beyond mere rhetoric and acceptance of the state of affairs. At the
moment it can only be hoped that by acknowledging extra judicial
killings, the government of Kenya has sent a positive signal of
willingness to change and effect reforms.
By Erasmus Twaruhukwa, Senior Legal Advisor – Pastoralist Security Programme (PSP), ISS Nairobi
