KENYA ABANDONS RULE OF LAW-

WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE GRISSLY CARNAGE?

By:Miguna Miguna
Published:Sunday October 14th, 2007
As both the PNU and ODM strategists sharpen their arsenals for political battle, Kenyans need to turn their attention on a grisly occurrence in Ngong Hills. According to Abiya Ochola's report in The Sunday Standard of October 14th, forty bodies have been dumped in the quiet Ngereyian area of Ngong Hills in the past three months by people suspected to be Government security agents.

Many of the victims appear to be young men, some as young as eighteen. Also discovered at the scene are surgical gloves and human body parts; suggesting that both the killings and eventual dumping are systematic and calculated.

The main question is: Who are responsible for these murders and why? The second major question is: Why are our politicians and major human rights organizations quiet over these deaths?

Some human rights workers who have visited the scene have confirmed the report and added that “the killings are premeditated.� Surprisingly, all attempts to have the Government confirm or deny if investigations are being conducted on the killings or who are behind the killings have not yielded any results. Apparently, the Government is not interested in this gruesome discovery. At the nearby Kiserian Police Station, the Occurrence Book is apparently eerily empty. No entries of those murders have been located.

Eye witnesses confirm that the killing orgy occur at night after several high powered 4x4 vehicles appear at the scene, followed by the sound of gunshots, before the vehicles speed off. Witnesses claim that they have seen that scenario over and again, reported it to the nearby police station but that nothing has been done about it. The killing spree continues unabated.

These are very serious claims that deserve immediate and thorough investigations. The fact that the Government has not commented, leave alone taken any steps to address them, gives us cause for concern. Insecurity in Kenya is a major problem. Over the past three years, we have lived with innumerable violent armed robberies, car jacking, the Mungiki carnage, sporadic artificially manufactured conflagrations, and now these mysterious executions.

They are vile and ugly. It is completely unacceptable that Kenyans are being killed in this senseless manner without any word from the Government.

One of the basic functions of Government is to protect all its citizens from harm. Clearly, the carnage occurring on Ngong Hills are of innocent Kenyans. I say these victims of violence are innocent because no one has indicated why they have been killed in such a brutal and inhumane manner.

No one is permitted to summarily execute another in the manner these Kenyans have been murdered. Even though the primitive death penalty still exists in our Penal Code, before anyone may be killed by the state, the law requires that such a person be tried, convicted and sentenced to death by a competent court of law following a fair and impartial judicial process. The law further requires that those condemned to death be accorded all legal avenues of appeal, and if or when those appeals fail, that their executions be conducted in a humane manner.

Rambo-like brutal summary executions in thickets, forests or bushes under the cover of darkness, with bodies of the dead dumped for wild animals to feed on would not pass the most elementary legal test.

The fact that President Kibaki's government is silent on these deaths sends the wrong signal that perhaps there is Government complicity in the carnage. There cannot be any justification whatsoever for any group of Kenyans to hunt and subject fellow citizens to this kind of brutality. Any country that deserves to be called a democracy ought to protect all its citizens from arbitrary application of force or power.

A country that either condones and tolerates violence or pretends not to see such injustices is not entitled to be a member of a community of civilized nations. Consequently, as Kenyans, we must decide whether we would like to belong to a civilized democratic state or a banana republic where vigilantes, organized criminals and insecurity reign supreme.

In view of the foregoing, Kenyans are entitled to demand that they be free from fear, violence and thuggery, whether the perpetrators are rogue elements from Government or outlaw groups.

Our police forces must be retrained with the security of the citizens as its core mandate; not only the security of those with fat pockets and massive political muscle. Without reorienting the attitude of our security forces to the service of the ordinary citizens, no amount of economic progress will have meaning to Kenyans.

In addition, security will not be realized for everyone in Kenya if the fundamental problems affecting us are not addressed. Of first priority should be the eradication of runaway unemployment, grinding poverty, homelessness, sectarianism and tribalism. These problems must be exterminated with speed if we are to realize complete peace.

Finally, I wish to challenge my party, the Orange Democratic Party of Kenya (ODM), to come out strongly in condemnation of these ongoing carnage. The ODM should also give a comprehensive statement on how it wishes to address such abuses once it takes over the reigns of government after this year's elections. That way, Kenyans will be able to judge between the ODM's agenda and that of the status quo.

*Miguna Miguna is a Barrister & Solicitor; Mediator & ADR Consultant; political analyst; prolific commentator on social, cultural and political issues; and a published author.