T
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A change of the/ ::
police force s attitude
I have been angry. I am angry. I am very angry.
I am seething with sizzling anger in this season of goodwill. But perhaps it is misplaced,
directed as it is at the trigger-happy Kenya
Police.
It matters precious little that there is a new
man in charge at Vigilance House. It matters
precious little that one Duncan Wachira is now
the pohueman of policemen.
Why? It matters a great deal that lives have
been lost in situations involving the police.
The Kenya Police just don't get it; they just
don't see it and theyjust don't feel it. They are
dead to the pain and cries ofthose they torture
and they turn a blind eye to the tears of those
whose kin they kill. Of course, they hear no
evil, see no evil and speak no evil about the
evil they do.
The problem is this; the Kenya Police do not
see Kenyan citizens as their employers first,
the vast najority of whom are law-abiding
folk. They see them as ignorant, gullible and
easy to scare and fleece. Their attitude is that
Kenyans ought to feel like law-breakers first.
The Kenya Police do not regard themselves as
friends ofthe Kenyan people; they look at society in terms ofthem-against-us. The Kenyan
citizen is the enemy, the whipping boy, a
bribe-paying human vending machine.
Remember the old joke about the cop who is
told by his wife one evening that there is no sukuma wiki to go with the ugali and he responds 'put on the ugali, we are going to eat
it with nyama tonight. I'll be back soon".
And the off-duty fellow prowls the streets,
shakes down a few fellow Kenyans for a couple of bribes on the pretext of non-existent
misdemeanours and is back home with the
nyama and sukuma before the ugali water
has come to a boil. Not community policing at
all, is it?
The Kenyans of the colonial era were always suspicious of the police as the symbol of
their oppression, but the Kenyans of 33-yearold Kenya are scared stiff of the police.
Yes, on October 15 last year I wrote thus:
"When St Augustine asked us (humankind) to
hate the sin and not the sinner, he clearly had
not heard of, let alone met, elements of the
Kenya Police."
What had happened that week? Police had
accosted a pregnant woman and arrested her,
bundled her into a police van and taken her to
Buru Burn Police Station whereupon they set
on the 24-year-old with kicks, blows, name it,
until she miscarried.
I raised the hackles against the men and
women in uniform. I am not a police hater, but
1 am opposed, body and soul, to police violence and there is a reason which I always state
here. It is this, the police are the custodians of
the law and when they violate the law, then
there is no law. That is why police violence is
the worst form of violence anybody can come
across.
This is the reason why all human rights bodies that write about Kenya grouse about its
rights record and will always put on record the
excesses of the police. Police violence is regarded as State-sanctioned violence.
There is a second reason. The police are
armed while Kenyan civilians are not allowed
the slightest excuse. They and us need to be
taught about the concept of policing with
consent.
I am angry, very angry.
to carry even a walking stick in some areas for
this could very easily be defined by the police
as a dangerous or offensive weapon. The populace is delenceless when the police attack or
set upon them.
The third reason is simply that the police are
members of the disciplined forces. They are
supposed to be disciplined ifthey are going to
go about carrying guns, otherwise they will
misuse them.
In a nutshell, police are supposed to be disciplined precisely because if they are not, then
they will not enforce the law; they will break it
and anarchy could be let loose on, ironically,
the law-abiding citizen.
And, by the way, the Police Act is very clever, too clever by hall? It will allow the police to
use ' 'reasonable" force. The result, of course:
Broken bones and fractured skulls.
The police will shoot ' ' in self-defence' ' , especially where the would-be assailant is armed
with a knife or a stone. But perhaps Kenyans
should be told when, exactly, are the police aIlowed to carry and use live ammunition?
We have seen British police policing demonstrations, even violent demonstrations, with
batons NOT guns. We have seen on television,
heard on the radio and read in the print media
about police using plastic bullets or water cannons or teargas to disperse demonstrators.
But what happens in Kenya? The police
shoot at unarmed and defenceless demonstrators with live bullets.
All of this prompts the question; just whose
police are these? Are we supposed to understand each other or are we not?
In my view, before the police move in to disperse a crowd, they should be alive to one
question; what kind of people are we dealing
with here? When it comes to university students, we should know the following:
That students believe they are the only intellectuals around;
• That everybody else is envious or jealous of
them;
• That they are right and everybody else is
wrong and,
• That they are the moral guardians of society.
But the real crux of the matter is that these
people are young, which means that the current
Kenya Police force cannot deal with them.
Why? Because first, students must be taught
that they can demonstrate or boycott classes
and put their point across without rioting.
Second, as already stated, the police will
move against demonstrating students without
asking questions. The Kenya Police run riot at
Are these people cowards or is this the way to
play politics?
Suddenly, everybody is saying that they do
not know ofthe existence ofKanu A or Kanu B
and that this schism in the ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) is a creation of the
media.
What one can say without the shadow of a
doubt is that Kanu A is on the retreat, that is, if
they are men and women who can pick up the
gauntlet thrown at their feet by President Moi
in Bungoma recently.
The President asked those who are dissatistied with Kanu to quit. Then the President hinted that the ruling party may be forced to re-introduce expulsion as a disciplinary measure. If
Kanu A folks are retreating, then that means
they are playing politics, buying time in order
to strike at an opportune time.
Ifthey cannot pick up the President's gauntlet, then we should ask whether, as our fathers
and grandfathers would ask, they are men, real
men. The way some of us understand it is that
Kanu A has a principle, and a democratic one
at that: That party rank and file are entitled to
choose their leaders after every five years.
The way some of us understand it is that
there are some among those who support this
view who are interested in becoming Kanu
leaders in future. That is as it should be because Kanu, or any political party for that matter, is not the property ofany one individual or
cabal of politicians.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with ambition. Why would anybody get into politics
just to be a Kanu branch chairman or just a delegate to one ofthe party's organs? I have yet to
hear ofa worker who does not want to be promoted.
In party politics it is the rank and file who
promote the leaders at party elections. These
promotions show whether a party can accommodate different views and personalities, heal
the wounds elections bring about and identify
the leaders of tomorrow. Let us put it this way.
The men and women in the ruling party are desirous of presenting a united front as the Opposition parties around them crumble. Nineteen
ninety-seven is an election year and that is only
weeks away and Kanu people know well what
the dangers of a divided party are all about.
Back to the beginning. The media did not
create Kanu A and Kanu B. Conflicting interests in Kanu did. Kanu A has either been obliterated in one fell swoop or it is retreating to
fight another day.
Whatever your political affiliation, may
you have the kind of Christmas you desire.
QUICK QUIP: Traffic police stopped a vehicle
on Thika Road and one of them approached the
lady in the passenger's seat. Asked he,
Mama kwa nini unaendesha gari bila
steering? (why are you driving a vehicle without a steering wheel?) The puzzled lady pointed at the wheel opposite. The car was an LHD.