“By praising police who killed, Uhuru Kenyatta made himself accountable for the killings”
Kenyans across the country are intensely debating which issues should be on the agenda of the NASA People’s Assembly when it is inaugurated in the next week.
It is an extraordinary moment in Kenya’s political history. Never before have ordinary people had a direct say in framing crucial national discussions. And they are boldly telling their leaders exactly what they want addressed, and in which manner. And we their leaders have promised them that we will do their lawful biddings.
There has never been such a democratic moment in Kenya before.
Without any doubt, of the issues discussed, the people’s most insistent demand – and their fury - is about the mass killings of innocent civilians that rend the country and still show no sign of slackening. Many thought that at least on Tuesday, when Uhuru installed himself president, he would pretend to be the leader of all Kenyans and try to reach out to all of them. And that he would stop the killing of his own people, if only for a day - after all, some fellow African Heads of State were in Nairobi to witness his event.
Instead, security forces were unleashed to go on another killing spree against those gathering peacefully for a memorial ceremony for the dead at Jacaranda Gardens, which was miles from his installation site and posed no threat to anyone whatsoever.
Indeed, on that day of his installation, his regime revealed yet another side of its depravity when it trucked in tons of human waste and poured it at the very spot where the dead were to be memorialized.
Is there no one within this regime who is decent enough to say that we are taking things too far? That we are imperiling this nation? That things are already at the knife’s edge and continued killings could split the country into two?
As if things were not already troubled enough, Uhuru two days ago dealt another blow to our stability by sending out a deeply inflammatory message praising the police who have been carrying out wanton killings of unarmed civilians since the 8 August election. He told police officers that they had discharged their duties “firmly, professionally and in accordance with the law.” He was clearly determined to rub salt in the wounds of mourning Kenyans.
No doubt there was also the intention in the message to signal to the police there should be no letup in the brutality being wreaked on Kenyans in the continuing attempt to intimidate them from protesting the regime’s lawless actions. And to continue denying the people their right to assemble peacefully, attacking any who sought to gather against the police’s arbitrary and unlawful bans. It seems that that right, and the right to life for all innocent Kenyans, has been abrogated from the Constitution.
The list of crimes by this regime is endless. Another child shot dead playing on his balcony, not even a word of regret issued. The 6 month old Samantha Pendo’s skull fatally cracked by a policeman’s rifle butt. Human waste thrown where the dead were to be memorialized. Mass killings of the unarmed. IEBC’s Chris Msando brutally tortured and killed, and photos of his savaged body widely distributed to terrify others in the Commission who wanted an honest election. Threatening IEBC Commissioner Roselyne Akombe, making her flee the country. The Justices of the Supreme court repeatedly threatened by the president himself for annulling a fraudulent election. And the Deputy Chief Justice’s driver/ bodyguard shot.
The list is endless. But there has never been an outcry in the media demanding that this stop, or condemnation from the diplomatic community.
And yet the Jubilee regime keeps piling it on recklessly, seemingly unaware how profoundly agitated Kenyans are, how close to a disaster this country is. They not only assaulted and killed many of those who wanted to welcome home the leader of the party they love, they actually attacked with live ammunition NASA flagbearer Raila Odinga’s car in which he was travelling when he returned from the US last month. Can you imagine what might have happened if one of the shots had penetrated the bullet-proof windshield? It’s as if the country’s stability does not matter in the drive to keep everyone intimidated from even showing support for NASA.
Kenyans know well the history of mass extrajudicial killings by death squads that existed in the past and were catalogued in a devastating 2009 investigation by Prof Philip Alston, the United Nations’ specialist on such crimes. The killings taking place now are again exactly the same. Except that those who are carrying them out have been praised by Uhuru Kenyatta.
In publicly saying that the police have been killing civilians lawfully, Uhuru has affirmed that these were not rogue units who acted against orders. He has therefore made himself accountable for crimes the police were ordered to commit. He has ensured his place in the dock of a Kenyan courtroom once he is no longer in power.
The situation is so bad that in October, even before the latest round of police atrocities, the highly respected Independent Medico-Legal Unit’s executive director Peter Kiama said that evidence gathered by IMLU “demonstrates a situation of war."
The people want to know how they will be helped by their chosen representatives to protect themselves in such a situation. They also want to know how those doing the killings, and those giving the orders, will be brought to justice for targeting members of communities which support NASA.
The question of accountability for major crimes is already clear in Kenyan and international law. It does not need any action by the People’s Assembly to trigger the required investigations. In Law, the responsibility lies with those who kill, those who give the orders, and those who formulate the policies that result in those orders.
As Daniel Twining and John Tomaszewski, the President and Africa Director respectively of the democracy promoting International Republican Institute in Washington wrote in the journal Foreign Policy last week, the flawed election has opened up major divisive fault lines “and Kenya is less democratic now than before. What has Kenyatta really won? He is now at the helm of an even more geographically and ethnically divided country…The other victims are the Supreme Court and the electoral commission. No democracy wins when courts and election bodies lack the integrity and independence to do their jobs.”
Kenya has never fallen so low. That is why we need to hold another election soon, which will be guaranteed to be free and fair by a genuinely independent electoral commission. And which will restore democracy and the rule of law, and heal the divisions that could soon permanently tear Kenya apart.
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