by James Pod, Kenya, 1 April 1997
THEME = VIOLENCE
Crime has been increasing in Kenya lately, and there has been a proliferation of armed gangs prepared to kill in order to make their getaway proliferate. The police justify their actions as the only way to end this lawlessness.
On 15 February 1996, unknown robbers raided Habib Bank in Nairobi, killed a guard and escaped by car with shs. 200,000. The police, reinforced by a helicopter, pursued the robbers and shot dead Evans Luvusi, who was going around his employer's compound searching for a chicken that had strayed. This took place in Limuru, several kilometres away.
The police insisted he was one of the robbers. Relatives and friends said he was innocent. There was an outcry over the incident and four days later, Attorney-General Amos Wako called a press conference in which he asked the Criminal Investigation Department to speed up their inquiries into the killing.
In some cases, the police are said to be accomplices in crimes in which innocent people have been killed, and that suspects who might reveal the identity of the real killers, are suitably "disposed of".
It's over a year, now, since Luvusi was killed, and the public had tended to become rather blasé about this and similar incidents. But when three university students joined the list of victims last December, Kenyans openly accepted the fact that the police could be exceeding their powers.
Attorney-General Amos Wako says that the police can use arms only when it is strictly necessary, and due care must be taken that there is a genuine necessity. The law states categorically that the police can only use firearms when there is danger to their lives or in order to prevent criminals from escaping.
However since the former Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Charles Njonjo, adopted a "shoot to kill" policy sixteen years ago, the Kenyan police have become trigger-happy and have had a field-day killing those they describe as suspects.
On March 14, 1997, the Standard published a telephone interview with a man known popularly as "Rasta", who was described by the police as a wanted criminal with a large cash reward on his head. Rasta was reported as saying that he was only declared to be a "wanted criminal" criminal after he had disagreed with a highly placed police officer for whom he had been working. Rasta's particular "work" was to change engine numbers, registration numbers and the colour of motor vehicles which the officer brought to him from unknown sources.
In the interview, Rasta claimed that he had threatened to report the officer to his superiors when he refused to pay him his dues. The officer then swore to "finish him off".
==> 1996
- 17 December: Police shoot dead, Festo Etaba Okongo, an Egerton
University student, during riots on campus.
- 18 December: Two Kenyan University students, are shot dead by
police during a riot on campus, to protest the 17 December
killing at Egerton.
- 20 December: Two suspected gangsters are gunned down in
Kikuyu.
- 23 December: Police kill four suspects in the city.
==> 1997
- 5 January: Four gangsters suspected of raping an elderly woman
in Kiambu, are shot dead by police.
- 6 January: A robbery suspect is gunned down in Nairobi's River
Road Area.
- 10 January: City police kill three suspects in Nairobi's
Industrial area.
- 14 January: Elizabeth Wamalwa is killed in a crossfire between
police and armed gangsters.
- 15 January: Police shoot dead a suspect in a Nairobi street.
- 22 January: A Catholic missionary and a watchman are shot dead
by two Administration policemen.
- 24 January: A police inspector, suspected of being a robber
is shot dead by security officers in Machakos.
- 2 February: An Administration policeman kills a suspect in
Kakamega.
- 3 February: Two suspected robbers are killed by police in
Kikuyu Kiambu district.
- 5 February: A suspect is gunned down by police in Nyali,
Mombasa.
- 14 February: N'gan'ga Kabui dies in Elburgon after being shot
by police who mistook him for a robber.
These facts speak for themselves. Our police are far too trigger- happy and should be making genuine efforts to administer the law, and protect property and human lives.
END