19 Jun 2009: ISS Today: To What Extent is the Government of Kenya Committed to Police Reforms?

19 June 2009: 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. 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