Kenyan Police Divided Over Crackdown
By KATHARINE HOURELD

Monday, January 21, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) 

The police commander poured gasoline down the walls  of three slum shacks and set them alight. At each home, his officers  waited until his back was turned, then doused the flames.  The small rebellion is symptomatic of rifts within Kenya’s police force over harsh tactics ordered to suppress opposition protests, some officers say a new fracture in ethnic and political conflicts tearing at the country since a disputed presidential election.
Several police officers sought out The Associated Press to express concern over the tough measures they have been ordered to use against opposition  supporters protesting what they say was President Mwai Kibaki’s theft of  the Dec. 27 ballot.
“People are separating into tribes,” said one Muslim policeman in Nairobi, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job. “What is  outside is being reflected in the force.”

Human rights groups say more than 650 people have died in an election dispute that has sparked three overlapping conflicts between ruling party loyalists and the opposition, between ethnic groups with long-held  land grievances or connections to rival politicians, and between police  and the residents of Nairobi’s restive shantytowns.
Clashes have been particularly severe between Kibaki’s Kikuyu people, the largest ethnic group, and the Luo of opposition presidential candidate  Raila Odinga.
But rights groups say many deaths have been caused by police, who have fired tear gas and live rounds at protesters.
Several police officers said they had been given “shoot-to-kill” orders, and one described “a general rebellion which has been compounded by that kind of orders.”

Two officers involved in a raid on a Nairobi slum said they had refused to shoot to kill and fired their guns into the air instead.

Officers said some policemen had threatened colleagues with fisticuffs and even death in disputes over tactics. All the officers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The divisions further weaken a force already undermined by low pay–a recruit’s monthly salary is $154 and a mid-ranking officer makes $240–and a reputation for corruption.

One officer said tensions are so high there could be a police strike.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe denied there are any splits within the force and charged that officers may have been bribed by the opposition to fabricate testimony.

“There are no divisions in the police force as of now,” he said.

Kiraithe also said no commander had issued shoot-to-kill orders, insisting that officers are being told to use restraint.

Kenya’s police initially denied killing any protesters, but last week acknowledged officers had been responsible for some deaths and put the number at 82. Rights activists said the number was much higher. At a rally Monday attended by thousands in his hometown of Kisumu, the opposition leader Odinga raged against police violence, pointing to seven
bodies that had been brought into the stadium.

“You can see how our bodies are lying there dead because they were killed by ruthless police,” Odinga said.

At least 53 people have been killed in Kisumu. Hospital records indicate 44 of them died from bullets. Guns have been used primarily, if not exclusively, by police in the upheaval since the election, while rioters have often used machetes and bows and arrows.

Kiraithe also denied police officers would deliberately destroy property.

“There are no circumstances whatsoever when a police officer can set fire to a building. It is false,” he said.

Two officers, however, said that is exactly what happened.

They said that last week, after a train was looted as it rolled through Nairobi’s Kibera slum on the last of three days of opposition protests, they were given orders to enter homes there, beat any men they found and destroy property in the homes.

“Spare a woman and a child, but everything else was to be vandalized. Any man found in his house was to be dealt with beaten up,” one of the officers said.

He and a second officer involved in the raid said their colleagues reluctantly searched houses but refused to beat people or destroy property, because many of the officers were Luo, the same ethnic group as the householders. They said the commander was from the Meru tribe, considered an ally of the Kikuyu.

On Friday, another police patrol in Kibera fired from a train, and six people died, including a 15-year-old girl.

Later Friday, the two officers said, they were told they would be returning to Kibera that night and a senior officer told them they were taking gasoline along. Houses would be burned to teach the slum dwellers a lesson, the two said.

In response, junior officers hid 15 cans of water in the three trucks that transported them, the two officers said. Some also tipped off relatives in the area about the raid, and the area was deserted when they arrived, the officers said.

The men said their senior officer set fire to shanties in three different locations and left a group to guard each. When he left, the officers doused the fires, the two said.

Two residents, Beatrice Michael and George Okumu, corroborated parts of the officers’ story. Michael said she passed three truckloads of police while taking her daughter to a hospital after she was hit by a stray bullet. Okumu said residents were tipped off their homes would be burned and left the area Friday night.

The two officers said objections to such harsh tactics had been intensified by the ethnic splits plaguing Kenya. Some Luo officers have been transferred from their usual patrol areas, they said. An officer at the Criminal Investigation Department, where the two senior officers are both Kikuyu, said he knew of at least 10 non-Kikuyu officers who had been asked to give up their sidearms. No reason was given, he said.

“If they see two or three people (police) who are not Kikuyu discussing politics, they become suspicious,” the officer said.

Kiraithe, the police spokesman, said he was unaware of any such incidents.

The Muslim officer in Nairobi said he had been ready to fight some colleagues when they suggested tear-gassing Nairobi’s main mosque during a small demonstration Friday.

There was outrage when police in the coastal city of Mombasa fired tear gas outside the main mosque at unarmed protesters who were preparing to march after Friday prayers.

The officer said he threw away his tear gas without using it. He added that although most of those disobeying orders were non-Kikuyus, there were also some Kikuyu officers unhappy with the situation. Many of his Muslim colleagues, he said, were concerned they could be transferred or fired because of the perception that Muslim communities support the opposition.

“There are people who say they are ready to join Raila’s force,” the Muslim officer said. “Senior officers are also divided … Some guys are saying, ‘Let me see anyone shooting a civilian, I will kill you.’”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080121/ap_on_re_af/kenya_police_rift

- Sent by Oremo

    Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:47:17 -0800 (PST)
   
  Naitwa Tirus Okolah Omolo mwanfunzi wa Green Acres High school Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, kwanza kabisa nina majonzi makubwa sana kuwapa wakenya poleni na na matatizo ya kisiasa,vilevile napenda kutuma salaam za rambirambi kwa wafiwa wote na jamaa/marafiki na ndugu zao.
  
  Jamani mweshimiwa Mwai Kibaki Hauoni kuwa watu wanakuwa wakimbizi nchini mwao na nchi jirani za Uganda na Tanzania.Swali ni kwamba hutaongoza wakina nani huku wananchi walio wengi hawakupendi na hutatumia jeshi la polisi mpaka lini kiwauwa Raia wasio na hatia MFANO M ZURI  ni ya kule Jijini Kisumu Kijana mdogo Ahmed Salimu alipopigwa Risasi 2 na polisi jamani hivi motto kama huyu wa miaka 15 ana uwezo wa kupiga kura???  Nakusii mweshimiwa mwai Kibaki iundwe kwa Serikali ya Mpito huku ukiwa nje ya kiti cha urais ili kunusuru hali ya kisiasa/kiuchumi na kijamii.
  
  Jumuiya ya Umoja wa nchi huru za Kiafrika A.U, Umoja wa mataifa  U.N,Jumuiya ya madola COMMONWEALTH na mataifa Makubwa,wakati uliopo sio wakati wa kubembelezana, kilichopo ni kutumia nguvu kama njia za KIDIPLOMASIA zimeshindikana kumwambia mweshimiwa mwai kibaki9 angatuke madarakani na kurudiwa kwa uchaguzi wa Urais au uhesabuji upya wa kura kwa kuanzia kwenye majimbo.Vinginevyo hakuna haja ya Kusema kuna demokrasia na hakuna haja ya kufanya uchaguzi kama wanaonekana kushindwa kwenye uchaguzi ndio wanapewa uongozi.

  Mabadiliko yasipofanyika KENYA basi kesho na Kesho kutwa viongozi wengine wan chi za kiafrika au pengine watangangania madaraka.
  
  Mwenyekiti wa Tume ya Uchaguzi Kenya hana huruma na sio mwajibikaji katika kazi yake, na kwanini ashinikizwe kutangaza.

  directortirus@yahoo.com
 

    Date: 21 Jan 2008 15:20:58 -0800
   
Personal message:

As you can see things are not good in the police force, there is division with those who support the orders to kill wanainchi and destroying properties and those againest those same orders.

- Alex
—————–

Please read the link below
Kenyan police divided over crackdown – Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080121/ap_on_re_af/kenya_police_rift

    Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:14:44 -0800 (PST)
      
  
   TODAY 17 of  JANUARY ,,,,,,,,,,,,ODM….
  
  Despite ODM being stopped from conducting their countrywide peaceful protest for the second day running they have vowed not to call off their three-day protest.
  
  ODM team leader Raila Odinga condemned the police for using excess force and acting on a shoot to kill order on unarmed protestors and alleges that close to 16 people have been shot by the police in this two days of protests.
  
  Raila said 44 peopple have been confirmed dead in kisumu and 143 suffering from bullet wounds as he sought to give the name of the  police constable from Kondele who was caught by KTN camera man shooting an unarmed protester who was only jumping up and down calling for his right
  
  “In mathare 7 have been killed this past two days while 3 in kibera and 6 in migori” Raila said during an international press conference in Nairobi.
  
  Adding that the their records indicate that the post elections violence has claimed over 1000 lives with more than half of them suffering bullet wounds and his now calling for the international bodies to take action against the government for committing crimes against humanity as he showed photographic evidence of bodies with bullet wounds in morgues and hospitalized victims.
  
  
  At the same time, Kasarani Member of parliament Elizabeth Ongoro blamed the police for shooting her driver Felix Okongo to death as he left for work early this morning.
  
  END

Why are the police doing this to our people?

Odak Paul
——————————————————

Protests bring new violence in Kenya
By Jeffrey Gettleman The New York Times
Thursday, January 17, 2008

Opposition protests resumed in Kenya on Wednesday, and as many people here feared, violence erupted across the country once again.

The worst clashes were in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and an opposition stronghold, where mobs of furious young men hurled stones at police officers, who responded by charging into the crowds and firing their guns.

One of Kenya’s television stations broadcast images of a police officer in Kisumu shooting an unarmed protester who was dancing in the street and making faces at security agents. After the protester fell to the ground, the officer ran up to him and kicked him several times. Witnesses said the protester later died.

“There’s been war since the morning,” said Eric Otieno, a mechanic in Kisumu. “The police are whipping women, children, everyone. We were just trying to demonstrate peacefully.”

Eric Kiraithe, a spokesman for the Kenyan police, said the only people wounded by police officers were hooligans destroying property and robbing people.

“What we are seeing are teams of young men trying to commit crimes,” Kiraithe said. “You cannot call this a demonstration.”

Opposition leaders have vowed to carry on protests for two more days, and it seems that Kenya’s security forces, which have deemed all protests illegal, are cracking down harshly. On Wednesday afternoon, police officers in padded suits sealed off downtown Nairobi, the capital, and ordered everyone out, sending wave after wave of bewildered office workers trudging down the roads leading to the suburbs.

Fourteen of Kenya’s leading donors, including the United States, issued a statement this week warning the Kenyan government that they were reviewing foreign aid in light of the crisis. The United States gives the country more than $600 million in aid each year.

It seems that Kenya has been unable to get back to normal after a flawed election on Dec. 27 ignited unrest and violence that has already claimed more than 600 lives. Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president, was declared the winner over Raila Odinga, a top opposition leader, but several election observers said the government rigged the tallying of the results to give the president a slim, 11th-hour victory.

American diplomats in Kenya recently finished their own analysis of the voting results and concluded that the election was so flawed it was impossible to tell who really won.

Outraged opposition supporters have attacked members of the president’s ethnic group, with many people killed by machete-wielding mobs. Most of the ethnic violence has diminished, though it has left more than 200,000 people displaced.

On Wednesday, many protesters said that they would continue to wreak havoc until Kibaki stepped down. Judging by the amount of live ammunition and tear gas that was fired at demonstrators or near them, police officials seem increasingly determined to show that they will not back down. Opposition leaders are not budging either.

“Nothing will stop us from mounting these rallies,” Odinga said.

Kenya’s economy, which powers trade and industry across a large part of eastern Africa, is taking a beating from all this. Tourists, drawn by wildlife and white-sand beaches, are canceling trips in droves, leaving some of the biggest hotels in the country only 20 percent occupied, which could lead to layoffs.

On Wednesday morning, protesters fought with the police in the streets of Mombasa, Kenya’s biggest port and a main artery to the rest of East Africa. Witnesses said that hundreds of demonstrators, many of them Muslims, tried to block traffic circles in the city center but that police officers in riot gear chased them away with tear gas.

Previous unrest in Mombasa seriously disrupted food and fuel supplies, forcing several neighboring countries, like Uganda and Rwanda, to ration gasoline. Many Muslims in Kenya support the opposition because they believe that the Kenyan government, a close American ally, has persecuted members of their religion during counterterrorism operations.

Many Kenyans are getting tired of the violence and disruptions and the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over the country. They had hoped that tensions would now decrease because the opposition had demonstrated that it could influence the government through its numbers in Parliament and did not necessarily need to take its grievances to the streets.

On Tuesday night, the opposition party, which won more seats in Parliament than the president’s party in the December elections, used its muscle to install one of its own members as speaker, which could mean serious gridlock in Kenya’s government for the foreseeable future.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/17/africa/17kenya.php

Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:42:36 -0800 (PST)
   
I want to commend that photo journalist with KTN, who captured an unarmed youth dancing in jubilation, and shortly thereafter, a police officer killed him in cold blood.

These are trying moments for our country, times when the police kill innocent people just because they have come out to exercise their democratic rights.

These are trying times for our country, times when police lobby teargas at journalists, people who bring the cowards such news to the comfort of their bedrooms.

These are trying times when Kenyans must continue coming out despite the provocation by the police, to claim our just victory.

The press must bring us more of such shots, and eventually, the police will tire against the collective will of the people.

Dictators have no place in the modern world. It seems Charles Taylor is getting lonely at the Hague, he needs company, and that company will come from Kenya, at whatever time.

The killing of innocent Kenyans by the police cannot be allowed to continue. The person who gave them the order must account, at whatever time.

Oto

Coalition Constitution Reform wrote: 

   http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/ … .kenya.cnn
   
   http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DtFhwgyeVyI
 
 CCR-Kenya brings together organizations and individuals who believe that for Kenya to truly attain genuine democratic liberation, comprehensive constitutional reforms must be completed before any elections. The coalition works to raise awareness to bring pressure on the ruling class to allow Kenyans to reform the constitution before another election. To read the CCR Roadmap for Constitutional Reforms,click: http://www.ccr-kenya.com. The struggle henceforth, is between “those who, satisfied with today, would make an effort to delay the future as much as possible, to put up obstacles against any substantive change, and those who, exploited today, aspire to a new reality.”Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Heart, (1997), (p53).

BBC News – Kenya Police Fire Over Crowd

Wed., Jan. 16, 1:44 PM ET

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=5972170&ch=4226714&src=news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_re_af/kenya_opening_fire

KISUMU, Kenya – The police chief in this opposition stronghold said she ordered her officers to fire on a rioting crowd, saying she was forced to because police were overwhelmed during protests over disputed elections…

Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:32:20 -0800 (PST)

When I raised this in the petition about police brutality in Kisumu, some facts had not come out clearly.

It is now getting clear that those killed by police in the entire Nyanza province could be 300 people. Most were shot in the back as they fled. Some were shot in their balconies as they watched.

Then we have more than 500 who are nursing bullet wounds.

By any standard, this is not acceptable; that the police who are to maintain law and order are the ones shooting at Kenyans, yet they have more effective ways of dealing with the crowds if at all they became rowdy.

The people of Nyanza, Western, Rift Valley, Coast and Nairobi Provinces must ask the police some hard questions; Who gave them the shoot to kill order?

We must also ask the police; Are they Kenyans like the rest of us?

The final question; What happened to the investigative arm of the police that they could not see what all Kenyans were clearly seeing, a stolen electoral win?

Oto

——————————-

POLITICS

Alarm over shoot-to-kill order

Story by KEVIN J. KELLEY and WALTER MENYA
Publication Date: 1/15/2008

The Government should immediately order the police to halt what is being described as a “shoot-to-kill” policy, a US human rights group has said.

Human rights chief Maina Kiai at Nyanza Provincial Hospital mortuary in Kisumu yesterday where victims of electoral violence are preserved. New York-based Human Rights Watch also called on the Government to lift its ban on opposition demonstrations planned for this week. Noting that Kenyan authorities have prohibited live broadcasts, the organisation further urged the Government to end “unnecessary restrictions on media freedom.”

Human Rights Watch cites unnamed police sources and independent observers as charging that a “shoot-to-kill” policy is in effect.

Credible reports

The monitoring group says it has received credible reports of police shooting to death dozens of demonstrators in Kisumu on December 31.

Unarmed by-standers have also been shot in Kibera and Mathare, Human Rights Watch says, citing witness accounts.

“Many of us are unhappy with what we are being asked to do,” the group says it was told by a police source unwilling to be identified.

“This ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy is illegal, and it is not right. We have brothers and sisters, sons and daughters out there.” In a statement issued in Nairobi on Sunday, the rights group’s acting Africa director, Ms Georgette Gagnon, said the Government should make it very clear that police would be held to account for using lethal force against people for expressing political views.

“The right to peaceful assembly is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy,” Ms Gagnon said.

In Kisumu, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has also called on police commissioner Hussein Ali to order his officers not to use live ammunition on protesters.

Commission chairman Maina Kiai also termed the ban on political rallies illegal and called on the Government to lift it.

He said the ban on the rallies was a violation of the rights of Kenyans to assembly.

Challenge police

“The law is clear that police cannot place a blanket ban on political rallies unless there are imminent and palpable threats to State security.

“The more police ban these rallies the higher the likelihood of people resorting to illegalities,” he said.

“The police commissioner should explain to Kenyans why they had to use live bullets on protesters, including children when tear gas would have done the job,” he said.

Mr Kiai was addressing journalists after visiting Nyanza Provincial General Hospital where majority of those injured in the skirmishes are admitted.
The rights chief was also taken around the mortuary where bodies of those killed are.

The hospital medical superintendent, Dr Julianna Otieno, told the commissioners that the facility attended to 214 patients with bullet wounds sustained during the violence. Most of the victims were shot in the chest, with the bullet entering through the back, Dr Otieno said.

The commissioners took the bullets recovered from the victims for ballistic analysis.

At the mortuary, some of the commissioners were shocked by the figures given by the medic, calling the situation horrendous. The mortuary took in 54 bodies, all victims of shooting.

Kisumu was the epicentre of the violent skirmishes that rocked the country over the disputed election results.

Mr Kiai appealed for calm and called on PNU and ODM leaders to visit the violence-torn areas to witness the damage and desperation caused by the standoff.

“I would urge the PNU team to visit Kisumu and the ODM to do likewise in parts of the Rift Valley,” he said.

- Sent by Bob