tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61658083315489992152024-03-13T13:02:22.935-07:00INCREDIBLE KENYAA social-political analysis from an ordinary citizen who loves her country. Daima mimi Mkenya, Mwananchi Mzalendo!bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-47867998120602100162014-08-20T04:35:00.004-07:002014-08-20T04:35:42.519-07:00Can the ICC hold Israel and Hamas accountable for war crimes? <div class="MsoNormal">
During the early morning hours of July 30<sup>th</sup>,
2014, Israeli shells bombarded a United Nations Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees School housing 3,300 Palestinians,
killing 15.</div>
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to a briefing by the organisation <a href="http://m.whatsinblue.org/479808/show/e693c5ba03a374342933383b05edab67/">Security Council Report</a>,
the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
Commissioner, General Pierre Krahenbuhl, stated that the precise
location of the school and that fact that it was housing thousands of
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) was communicated to the Israeli army
17 times including just hours before the fatal shelling.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
addition to the attacks, the UNRWA stated that it had earlier found a
cache of rockets at one of its schools in the Gaza Strip, lending
credence to the accusation by Israel that Hamas was using these
shelters, and they were therefore legitimate military targets.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
continuous shelling of designated UN Shelters and schools by the
Israeli army has moved the United Nations Security Council to hold an
urgent meeting to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation in
Gaza.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/world/Gaza-war-truce-Palestine-Hamas-Israel/-/1068/2405054/-/c8mt22/-/index.html">Deadly shelling only hours into three-day Gaza truce</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/world/Israel-snubs-UN-calls-for-truce-boosts-troops/-/1068/2404654/-/outdpuz/-/index.html">Israel snubs UN calls for truce, boosts troops</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
the 23 days since the beginning of the Gaza invasion, the accusations
and counter-accusations of atrocities between Israel and Hamas has taken
centre stage, leaving the victims of the conflict exposed, without hope
for an end to the violence.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On July 25<sup>th</sup>,
the Palestinian Authority filed criminal complaints at the ICC,
accusing Israel of war crimes in its ongoing campaign in Gaza, a war
whose death toll now includes more than 1200 Palestinians and 61 <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.608331" target="_blank">Israeli soldiers</a>.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
is likely that Palestine will seek a UN Security Council referral of
the Gaza situation to the ICC. In cases where crimes that fall within
the mandates of the articles of the Rome Statute occur in non-member
states, the UNSC is at liberty to make referrals to the ICC as is the
cases of Darfur in Sudan, and Libya.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>THOROUGH INVESTIGATIONS</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At
this juncture, the considerations of the UN Security Council and the
probability of referral of the situation to the International Criminal
Court become most imperative. The greatest challenge is that Israel is
itself not a state party to the Rome Statute.</div>
</div>
<div>
The
Palestinian Authority issued a declaration to accept the jurisdiction of
the ICC over Palestine in 2012. Its acceptance of ICC jurisdiction was
rejected by the then ICC Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, as he
could not make a determination as to whether Palestine was a state as
per the tenets of the Rome Statute.</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://icc-cpi.int/NR/rdonlyres/C6162BBF-FEB9-4FAF-AFA9-836106D2694A/284387/SituationinPalestine030412ENG.pdf" target="_blank">The Situation in Palestine</a> (International Criminal Court)</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/-/1056/2402352/-/15dnqi4/-/index.html">Prayers for peace as Muslims celebrate Idd - VIDEO</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Editorial/Give-peace-a-chance-/-/440804/2402106/-/psvd9x/-/index.html">EDITORIAL: Give peace a chance</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
challenge facing such a decision by the UNSC lies in both the legal
limitations of the ICC and also the political considerations to be
undertaken by the member states of the Security Council. As with such
deliberations, the matter is likely to take a long and arduous course
despite the best of intentions.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moreover,
should such a referral be made, the ICC would be forced to conduct
thorough investigations into all parties’ actions, in order to obtain
justice for victims of the conflict.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All
this notwithstanding, it is clear that there is an incredible
humanitarian crisis looming, and both the attacks on UNRWA-designated
shelters and the use by Hamas of shelters for storing weapons leave the
UN Agency and the IDPs it houses in grave danger.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>AN ICC DETERRENT</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both
the attack by Israel of designated UNRWA shelters and schools, and
their use for weapons storage by Hamas are to be condemned.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
fundamental questions thus remains: while the ICC is intended to act as
a deterrent to war crimes, in an ongoing conflict situation, can the
ICC adequately provide any sort of deterrent against aggressive forces,
especially when the parties involved are not state parties to the Rome
Statute?</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moreover, how would the findings of the Court bring justice to those caught up in the ongoing conflict?</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At
this stage, it is increasingly clear that both Israel and Hamas are
actively engaged in what could constitute crimes of war, by attacking
designated humanitarian sites and using designated shelters to harbour
weapons and militants.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These actions
have placed the most vulnerable and unarmed right in the middle of an
escalating situation. For this, both Israel and Hamas should be held
accountable.</div>
</div>
<div>
<em>Update: The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has recently said that <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.589457" target="_blank">Palestine is eligible</a> to join the Court.</em></div>
</section>
</article><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
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<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
Under
the chairmanship of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, the main role of
EASF is seen as fighting the conflict in Somalia, and is expected to
have the full support of its various governments.</div>
<div>
The
truth is, the formation of an Eastern African Standby Force in response
to the threat of the Al-Shabaab group is neither novel concept nor
unexpected.</div>
<div>
The Harakat Al-Shabaab Mujahideen (HSM)
group, an Islamic extremist group that seeks to set up an Islamic state
in Somalia, was formed as the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union
(ICU), which at the time controlled much of central and southern
Somalia.</div>
<div>
Since the ICU lost power, Al-Shabaab has waged
a relentless war against the then Somali Transitional Government, its
successive established regimes and its Ethiopian supporters, with
fighting escalating from May 2009.</div>
<div>
In 2007, the
formation of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) under the
auspices of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council , as
documented in Security Council Resolution 1744 (2007) meant that the
troubled Somali Transitional Government now had the support of an AU-led
peace keeping force.</div>
<div>
<strong>CROSS BORDER ATTACKS</strong></div>
<div>
Al-Shabaab
claimed its first terror attack outside Somali borders in June 2010 in
Uganda during the World Cup finals, in which 70 people were killed and
several injured. At the time Al-Shabaab threatened additional attacks if
Uganda and other AU Countries did not withdraw AMISOM peace keeping
troops.</div>
<div>
At the time, the AMISOM mission was meant to
last only 6 months, a temporary measure intended to support what it was
hoped would be a quickly stabilized government. The 6-month deadline
came and passed without this being accomplished.</div>
<div>
By
October 2011, it was clear that the Al-Shabaab group was a bigger threat
to neighbouring Kenya after consistent cross border attacks left
several people dead. In response, Kenya launched “Operation Linda Nchi” a
military incursion by the Kenya Defense Forces into Somalia.</div>
<div>
It
is this particular act that seems to have refocused Al-Shabaab’s
onslaught to Kenya. Since 2011, attacks within Kenyan borders have
increased in frequency and intensity, with people being killed in
attacks on ‘soft’ targets such as churches, shopping malls, markets and
public vehicles. After the recent killings in Lamu the terrorist group
warned the government of further attacks.</div>
<div>
The decision by Mr Lenku to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXj30p_7iD4" target="_blank">label the attacks</a>
on Mpeketoni as politically instigated and targeted at a particular
ethnic community was strange, and also indicative of the distracted
manner in which the entire ministry has approached the war on
Al-Shabaab.</div>
<div>
Make no mistake, Kenya is at war, and the
use of the Eastern African Standby Force is an indication that this war
is greater than the Kenya government cares to admit. The EASF is likely
to provide a succinct “punch” against the forces of Al-Shabaab. </div>
<div>
However,
much like AMISOM and “Operation Linda Nchi”, without a complimentary
“block” in the internal structures of the concerned nations, terror
groups may be able to hit back.</div>
<div>
We can visibly see the
effects of years of corruption in the police service especially. It is
certainly necessarily to thoroughly examine the management of the police
service and to extract the elements that hinder its success.</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</section>
</article><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
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</h1>
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
On June 27th at the 23rd AU Summit in
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, the General Assembly surreptitiously adopted
draft legal instruments giving immunity for Heads of State and
government at the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.</div>
<div>
The immunities article (Article 46A bis "Immunities") states that:</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
"No
Charges shall be commenced or continued before the court against any
serving AU head of state or government or anybody acting or entitled to
act in such capacity or other senior state officials based on their
official functions, during their tenure in office."</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
Most
notable about the structure of this particular article is the ambiguity
in relation to exactly who is liable for prosecution. In totality, the
article gives immunity to just about every senior government official in
every government of every member state of the AU. </div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Fresh-push-to-save-Uhuru-and-Ruto-from-ICC/-/1064/2348938/-/k6ecsoz/-/index.html">Fresh push to save Uhuru, Ruto from ICC</a></div>
<div>
The
clause not only completely weakens the jurisdiction and ultimate
purpose of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, but makes an
utter mockery of the entire reason for expansion of the court to include
prosecution of individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity.</div>
<div>
Steve Arther Lamony, Senior Adviser - AU, UN and Africa Situations at the Coalition for the ICC (CICC) put it most succinctly:</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
“This
outcome is disgraceful. The principle of no immunity for grave crimes
before international tribunals or courts - no matter the status of the
offender - is crucial to the fight against impunity and part of the
foundation of the Rome Statute of the ICC, which most African states
have signed and ratified. African members of the ICC should bear that in
mind and not ratify this protocol. Africa should be moving forward in
the fight against impunity, not retrogressing!”</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
Such
a move by the AU goes directly against its own efforts, through the
Peace and Security Council, to stabilize these countries and bring about
constitutional order. There certainly can be no peace without justice.</div>
<div>
“At
a time when the African continent is struggling to ensure that there is
accountability for serious human rights violations and abuses, it is
impossible to justify this decision which undermines the integrity of
the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, even before it becomes
operational,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s Africa
Director for Research and Advocacy.</div>
<div>
Indeed, the very
creation and adoption of the clause exacerbates many conflict
situations. It gives free reign to perpetrators of grave crimes in the
knowledge that as long as they retain power they will not be held
accountable.</div>
<div>
“Accountability is surely needed in
countries like the CAR and South Sudan if they are to return to peace.
Under the AU’s proposal, however, government leaders would be beyond the
reach of justice even if they were found to have directed alleged
atrocities,” says Lamony.</div>
<div>
<strong>WORRIED ABOUT THEIR OWN FATE</strong></div>
<div>
The
adoption of such a protocol seems to be only the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to the apparent reluctance of the African Union to commit
to the pursuit of justice for African citizens. </div>
<div>
The
African Court not only faces the challenge of restrictive and harmful
legal instruments that impede its jurisdiction, but also the challenge
of funding a matter that severely limits the ability of the court to
function.</div>
<div>
The matter of funding for the court in turn
hinges on the political commitment from the member states and the heads
of state and government. It is quite a conundrum.</div>
<div>
"This
amendment is a law to shield the strong and the powerful; it does
nothing to protect the victims of horrendous crimes in Africa," said
Carla Ferstman, the Director of REDRESS. "Not surprisingly, the decision
comes at a time when two sitting presidents and one former president
are facing charges for serious human rights abuses at the International
Criminal Court."</div>
<div>
The inclusion of an immunities clause
makes the argument for an African Court similar to the ICC null and
void, given that the AU is yet to show the slightest commitment to its
own justice agenda.</div>
<div>
"This decision calls into question
the African Union's commitment to ensuring justice for victims of
serious crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide," added Ferstman. "At a time when the African continent is
grappling with accountability for massive violations, one should wonder
why some leaders instead of cooperating to ensure justice, would want to
give themselves immunity unless they are worrying about their own
fate."</div>
<div>
The International Criminal Court is intended to
be a complimentary court to regional international tribunals, but with
the inclusion of such a broad and ambiguous clause, there can be no
complementarity between the ICC and the African Court. According to Mr
Lamony: </div>
<div>
“In its current form, the Rome Statute of the
ICC is only complimentary to national criminal jurisdictions. Kenya and
South Africa submitted an amendment suggesting that the ICC should also
be complimentary to regional criminal jurisdictions, but if the expanded
African Court gives immunity to heads of state, it will in an important
sense not be complimentary to the ICC, because it will be unable to
prosecute the most powerful perpetrators of grave crimes.”</div>
<div>
Moreover,
the broad description means that one cannot determine who is a senior
member of government and who is not, leading to a situation where
immunity can be granted at the mere behest of a person’s official title.</div>
<div>
The
immunities clause goes against the AU Constitutive Act, as well as the
constitutions of several member states and protocols of regional bodies.
Steve Lamony explains:</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
“The new protocol
would also be in contradiction to many AU members’ own constitutions
that do not allow immunity, e.g. Kenya Article 143(4) and the Protocol
for the Prevention and the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, War
Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and all forms of Discrimination of
the International Conference of the Great lakes region.”</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
The immunities clause in the draft protocol of the African Court, quite simply, has dealt the ultimate blow to the court. </div>
<div>
It
is the culmination nearly 18 years of reluctance by the AU to form any
regional functional judicial system, where the people of Africa can seek
legal duress against regimes that commit crimes against humanity. </div>
<div>
As
it stands now, the survivors and victims of atrocities will be forced
to seek justice from other international tribunals, hopefully none of
which will contain any sort of “African solution.”</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</section>
</article><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
A Nairobi based Editor once told me that the laziest
professionals in this city are journalists; you would have to look hard to find
even a handful of committed journalists who are avid readers, researchers and
have well developed material. Given the pointed ignorance by the media of
situations that should ideally be the focus of their news reports and features, I
am inclined to agree.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever since the Jubilee government took office in April 2013,
the mainstream media in Kenya has actively pursued an agenda of bare-faced
brown nosing and boot-licking, self censorship and general laziness when it
comes to the most basic news stories. Events will occur right under their
noses, go on for days and only upon getting some kind of go-ahead signal from
the regime then choose to donate about 5 minutes of their time to the subject.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is no situation more grievous in Kenya today than the
illegal arrests and incarceration of ethnic Somali people in a highly
controversial and racially motivated “security operation” called Usalama Watch.
Led by the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National
Government Mr Joseph Ole Lenku, Usalama Watch not only ignored a 2013 ruling by
the High court stopping the forced transfer of 50,000 Somali refugees to Dadaab
and Kakuma camps, it also is now considered the most widespread government
sanctioned ethnic profiling ever undertaken by Kenya. Using as yet unwarranted
and inexplicable means, this government has decided that the face and source of
terror activities is Somali people. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(See: <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/26/kenya-court-quashes-plan-force-refugees-camps">http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/26/kenya-court-quashes-plan-force-refugees-camps</a>
)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To date the transformation of the Safaricom Kasarani Stadium
into a police station is yet to be explained – the claim that it was defined as
such via gazette notice is yet to be verified as to when this was done and
using which laws. Most egregious is the fact that there have been documented
systematic human rights abuses including and not limited to extortion and
ransoming of those arrested, rape, beatings and forcible transfers of asylum
seekers and Kenyan citizens who are documented.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fact that the mainstream media has chosen to wholly
ignore the ongoing illegal detentions and deportations over 70 days since
operation Usalama Watch began speaks volumes of the utter betrayal by
journalists. Not only have they not investigated the claims of human rights
abuses, they have also refused to further cover the situation entirely. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sum total result of this is that while thousands of
Somali people are intimidated, harassed and violated, the rest of the country
remains engulfed in a veil of darkness, wrongly believing that Usalama Watch
has and continues to provide “increased security.” The claims by Administration
Police spokesperson Masoud Mwinyi that “terror attacks have stopped in
Eastleigh area since the Usalama Watch operation started” in an interview with
Al-Jazeera’s social media show AJStream <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on
22<sup>nd</sup> April were immediately debunked when a day later a blast at
Pangani Police station resulted in the deaths of 4 people among them two
policemen. Since that time, neither Usalama Watch nor the bombings have
stopped, with multiple blasts occurring in both Nairobi and Mombasa. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(See: <a href="http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201404221635-0023659">http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201404221635-0023659</a>) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While the rest of the country is now forced to deal with
being searched at every entry point to a public space, including when getting
into public service vehicles, the journalists have chosen to generally remain
mum about this; they do not question, they do not highlight, and they certainly
do not investigate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This sort of self-censorship is an affront to the principles
of journalism, insulting to democratic values and quite frankly completely
unethical. If these journalists don’t want to do their job and be journalists
then they should do now what many of them choose to do later – leave the
profession and move on to other careers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any progressive state, the function of the Fourth Estate
is crucial to the management and culture of the nation. A lazy brood of
ineffectual journalists and their complicit media houses contribute negatively
to the overall social fabric; we have a reduced capacity to be a democratic
country simply because these journalists aren’t loyal to the people!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More importantly, it is an ugly stain on our conscience to
have a convenient silence when an entire community is targeted and suffers
extensive, prolonged abuse. There can be no justice if the media is silent about
the grave atrocities inflicted upon one ethnicity. The fact remains, that if
the media does not speak up, when they are supposed to, then none of us can be
safe while the government wages a “war on terror”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-79190469588188070852014-06-13T06:25:00.000-07:002014-06-13T06:38:44.406-07:00 AU seeks to entrench the impunity of Heads of State http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/waitherero/-/2274550/2347448/-/124j0kg/-/index.html<div class="story-information clearfix">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The
recent decision by the African Union’s council of justice ministers to
include immunity for Heads of State is perceived to further weaken the
structures of the court.</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This contradicts the political stance of the AU regarding the provision of justice on the African continent.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This amendment could be adopted at the upcoming <a href="http://summits.au.int/en/23rdsummit/news/media-announcement-23rd-au-summit">23<sup>rd</sup> Ordinary Session</a> of the AU Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of
particular concern is the decision to ignore the many pleas from civil
society and human rights organizations who appealed to the African Union
on this matter. In a letter to the African Union in May 2014, 19 civil
society organizations <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/waitherero/-/2274550/2347448/-/124j0kg/-/:%20http:/www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/12/joint-civil-society-letter-draft-protocol-amendments-protocol-statute-african-court-">wrote</a> to the Justice Ministers and Attorney Generals:</div>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The
irrelevance of official capacity is at the core of making
accountability for the gravest crimes meaningful. The alternative would
carve out a sphere of impunity for high-level perpetrators, and create
an incentive for such perpetrators to hold on to power indefinitely.
Such impunity is further inconsistent with the needs of victims and
ensuring justice for the gravest crimes.”</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
It seems that the African Union has a serious challenge ensuring the actions of its member states keep in line with the <a href="http://www1.uneca.org/Portals/ngm/Documents/Conventions%20and%20Resolutions/constitution.pdf" target="_blank">Constitutive Act</a>
of the African Union. Under Article 4 (o) of the Act, the AU is
mandated to adhere to “respect for the sanctity of human life,
condemnation and rejection of impunity and political assassination, acts
of terrorism and subversive activities.”</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ:<a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/An-impotent-African-Union-watches-as-killings-continue/-/440808/2153530/-/gs98ng/-/index.html">GAITHO: An impotent African Union watches as killings continue in South Sudan</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/AU-battle-for-ICC-immunity-/-/1959700/2088948/-/jje604/-/index.html">MAKOKHA : How AU battle for ICC immunity was lost at the Assembly for State Parties</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/-Immunity-for-Heads-of-State-/-/1959700/2170210/-/sokswvz/-/index.html">WAITHERERO: Immunity for Heads of State as an'African Solution'</a></div>
</div>
<div>
As
it is, at least 15 member states are currently in a state of conflict,
and it is alleged that severe atrocities are being committed by both
governments and insurgent groups. </div>
<div>
The
most devastating conflict currently receiving global attention is in
the Central African Republic (CAR), where it is estimated that thousands
have been killed in bloody sectarian violence that has seen the worst
atrocities committed, including cannibalism in some instances.</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hot
on the heels of the CAR conflict is the recent uprising by rebel groups
allied to former deputy President Riek Machar in South Sudan. Severe
atrocities have been reportedly committed by both government and rebel
groups in a conflict said to have taken on ethnic dimensions. Despite
several attempts at a ceasefire, the two parties to the conflict have
yet to bring the war to a decisive end, and only recently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/world/africa/death-toll-rising-2-sides-sign-pact-to-end-south-sudan-war.html?_r=0">signed an agreement</a> to that effect on 6<sup>th</sup> June, 2014.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
is quite disconcerting, therefore, for the AU to proceed with an
intention to set up the African Court of Justice with a clause to
provide immunity for heads of state, a matter that is also contrary to
Article 4 (h) which states that the AU has “the right to intervene in a
Member State pursuant to a decision of the General Assembly in respect
of grave circumstances namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against
humanity.”</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
most insidious thing about the proposed amendment is not just that it
is likely to be adopted by the General Assembly, but that it is the very
heads of state seeking immunity who will adopt it.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite
the seemingly well-intended legal instruments put together to formulate
the African Court of Justice, it is now becoming clear that the AU is
not only incapable of following through with its own decisions to seek
justice for victims, but also that no successful prosecution of state
government or individuals will occur in tandem with the political
objective of such an amendment.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whereas
the AU and its member states repeatedly wax lyrical about seeking an
“African Solution” to various peace, security, justice and human rights
concerns, they actively remove the possibility of any form of
accountability on the part of governments or heads of state.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
state of affairs leaves the very intention behind the push for the
African Court of Justice open to question. What is the point of having a
court that cannot prosecute? </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps the answer lies in the ongoing political war being waged between the AU and the International Criminal Court.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, for the millions of victims of human rights abuses, justice from the AU remains elusive.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</div>
</section>
</article>
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“After they beat me
up, they raped my wife in front of me and killed her. Then they said,
‘now take us to where the other Kikuyus are.’ ” This was the chilling
narration by a Luo survivor of the post-election violence. As he vividly
recalled the events that devastated his life, the room went absolutely
silent.</div>
</div>
</div>
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In early April, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC8QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jfjustice.net%2F&ei=WG2EU_OcIs_A7AaL5oHQDg&usg=AFQjCNHqtZ02mUlJHMPWtczx7nssbTMRVg&sig2=JEHvZXDgr5fdWpj4pYAcag&bvm=bv.67720277,d.ZGU">Journalists for Justice</a>,
a non-governmental project on media, commissioned Ipsos Synovate to
conducted focus group discussions across Kenya to assess the needs of
victims and survivors of the post-election violence of 2007/08. I
attended these discussions.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For each
area, there were two groups, one for men and another for women. What
followed were the most heart wrenching narrations, <a href="http://www.bettywaitherero.blogspot.com/2014/04/grief-pain-anger-and-hate-7-years-after.html">graphic illustrations</a> from a group of people politicians dared to claim have moved on.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One
by one, survivors recounted the events of 2008, before the elections,
during and after. The two hours that were allocated for the focus group
discussions seemed completely insufficient to fully address and express
the sort of needs that the survivors who were gathered felt were
imperative.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At times, the
conversation would get so charged with emotion that it felt like one
could cut open the air and hate and anger would pour out.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>DIMINISH GRAVITY</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While
there may indeed be some victims who have forgiven their tormentors, it
is in general a completely inaccurate statement that any victim of
politically instigated violence in Kenya has simply “moved on.”</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually,
many victims have been unable to recover in any form, primarily because
the government and its state agencies have implicitly failed to provide
any sort of humanitarian assistance or restitution towards their
recovery after the events of 2007/08.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
egregious state of affairs is the salient factor behind two public
interest cases filed at the High Court of Kenya. The first case is a
petition in which eight survivors of SGBV and 4 civil society
organizations are suing the Attorney General and 5 other senior
government officials for failing to protect them and provide assistance
during the PEV of 2008.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The second
case is a constitutional application in which Internally Displaced
Persons are seeking restitution from the court because the government,
they assert, had provided almost no assistance whatsoever to nearly
314,000 IDPS despite various claims by Cabinet Secretary for Devolution
and Planning Anne Waiguru that all registered Internally Displaced
Persons had been re-settled.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
appears the political objective of the Jubilee coalition may be to
diminish the gravity of the situation as regards the victims and
survivors of the 2008 PEV, and to challenge the credibility of the cases
at the International Criminal Court based on that erasure of victims. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The general logic behind this was “if there are no victims or if the victims have moved on then the cases have no merit.”</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
condition of the victims remains so dire, that in a letter to the
Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons
at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Common
Legal Representative for Victims in Case 1 at the ICC, Mr. Fergal
Gaynor, urged Dr. Chaloka Beyani to call upon the government in the
strongest terms possible to meet their obligations towards IDPs (see
download below). </div>
</div>
<div>
For seven years, the government of
Kenya has wholly ignored the plight of 314,000 IDPS from the
post-election violence, those of whom were considered “integrated”. </div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By
integration what the government means is that these IDPs were
temporarily at the IDP camps after which they were transported to what
was considered to be their “ancestral homes.”</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For
thousands of Luo, Luhya and Kisii people this meant that they were
transported to the Western and Nyanza regions of Kenya and dumped at
market centres, churches and other public places. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many
of these IDPs had not visited these areas in years if at all. After
this relocation by government, no further assistance was provided to
these people.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a result of the
government’s actions, the ethnic cleansing objectives set out by militia
and politicians who instigated the post-election violence were
successfully accomplished. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are
now entire regions of Kenya previously considered hotspots for violence
in which you will not find any member of other ethnic communities,
parts of Kenya where “foreigners” are not able to live.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>INCONSISTENT FIGURES</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In its recommendations on displaced persons in its <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/03/16/ballots-bullets-0">2008 report</a>,
Human Rights Watch stated that the Government of Kenya should “ensure
that internally displaced persons are protected from further violence
regardless of their ethnicity and location, and ensure that the
fundamental and social and economic rights of all those displaced by
recent and previous events are met, including through equitable access
to food, health, and education services.”</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In his State of the Nation address presented before Parliament on March 27<sup>th</sup> 2014, President Uhuru Kenyatta <a href="http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/State-of-the-Nation-address-by-President-Kenyatta/-/1950946/2259718/-/format/xhtml/-/hcpmhxz/-/index.html">asserted</a> that:</div>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“In
September 2013, the government began the implementation of a cash
payment programme for all pending cases of IDPs that had not been
resettled so far, a total of 8298 households. A total of 777 have
received cash payments of Sh400000 per household, totalling Sh3.3
billion. The exercise continues. This settlement was followed by a
concerted effort by government that focused on peace building among
communities.”</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most
noticeable inconsistency in this statement is the fact that the figures
mentioned by the President do not add up. 777 households receiving
Sh400,000 each comes to Sh310,800,000 and not Sh3.3billion. The
difference represents a massive shortfall of 2,989,200,000.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Further, one cannot tell which IDPs the President is referring to, whether they are Mau evictees or post-election violence IDPs.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There
is a clear lack of political will to provide any form of justice to
victims of post-election violence, and along with this, the decision to
churn propaganda concerning the situation of the victims only causes
further harm. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There seems to be no
end to the victimization of the survivors of the post-election violence
by government. Given this situation, it is indeed quite necessary to
turn to litigation on behalf of the victims in order to seek what is
their constitutional right.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<h2>
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<span>In his address on
May 16 2014, President Kenyatta claimed that Usalama Watch had
disrupted the networks that supported radicalization and violence.</span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>This
is certainly not the case. If anything, activities under Usalama Watch
have opened up new avenues for the unfiltered flow of information and
finances, given the accepted corrupt nature of arrests, ransom and
release going on at Kasarani and Pangani police stations.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>It’s
no longer a secret that the security agents and in particular the
police have taken the opportunity accorded to them under Usalama Watch
to exort the community. The horror visited upon ordinary citizens is
depicted in a short film by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCWiZ7uQ8Iw&app=desktop">InformAction</a>, a not-for profit organization.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>At
the time over 400 tourists were evacuated from the Kenyan coast by
Thomson Travels, a long established tours and travel company, President
Kenyatta was stating that his government had received <a href="http://www.president.go.ke/press-statement-by-his-excellency-hon-uhuru-kenyatta-c-g-h-president-and-commander-in-chief-of-the-defence-forces-of-the-republic-of-kenya-on-16th-may-2014-at-state-house-nairob">no intelligence</a> from its partners, including Britain. </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>As he addressed the nation, two blasts occurred in Gikomba open air market, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's
a well known fact that the Anti-Terror Police Unit is supported by both
British and US agencies that focus on counter-terrorism. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>SHIFT ECONOMIC BLAME</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
is highly unlikely and implausible that foreign intelligence agencies
will act independently on a nation's soil, receiving information on
imminent terror attacks and not share that information with the host
nation despite being partners in a "war on terrorism" leaving civilians
at risk.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The idea that the National
Intelligence Service, the Anti-Terror Police Unit, the Criminal
Investigations Department and Kenya's entire military intelligence
network were absolutely unaware of a threat so massive and serious that
over 400 people had to be evacuated at short notice to another continent
is rather ludicrous. </div>
</div>
<div>
<span>That Kenyan authorities can seek to shift economic blame to a foreign government seeking to protect its citizens is laughable. </span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>At
a time when the forces behind trans-national crime in Kenya are at
their strongest, it appears that the Kenya government is conveniently
providing political cover for their shortcomings by shifting blame to
partners who see the risks and the dangers clearly and take action. </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>The
only idea that Kenyans can derive from this sort of policy is that
Kenyan lives seem to matter far much less than those of tourists.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span>Most
certainly, it is time that the call to sack certain officials and
appoint new smarter and more intelligent replacements was heeded.</span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></span></div>
</div>
</section>
</article>
<h2>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The past four weeks have been filled with much anxiety in the Somali community living in Eastleigh, for good reason. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Up
to 4000 people have reportedly been arrested and “screened” at the
Safaricom Stadium Kasarani, in a security operation dubbed Usalama
Watch. </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to the Cabinet
Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government, Joseph
Ole Lenku, the overall objective of <a href="http://ntv.nation.co.ke/news2/topheadlines/interview-cs-joseph-ole-lenku-speaks-on-operation-usalama-watch/">Usalama Watch</a> is to “clean up, mop up and get rid of these criminals” in response to terror attacks in Dadaab, Likoni, and Eastleigh.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What
should have been a security operation focused on singling out criminal
elements within the population of Eastleigh has morphed into a crackdown
on illegal immigrants and the unlawful arrest and detaining of refugees
and asylum seekers, presumably with the intention of forcibly
repatriating the illegal immigrants to their home countries and
relocating the refugees and asylum seekers to Dadaab camp from where, it
is presumed, they came.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
C.S. Ole Lenku has <a href="http://ntv.nation.co.ke/news2/topheadlines/interview-cs-joseph-ole-lenku-speaks-on-operation-usalama-watch/">claimed</a>
in an interview with Nation TV that they have suspects whom they can
prove to be criminals in a court of law. Yet the poor results from such a
wide-spread “crackdown” are alarming. Despite having arrested
thousands, the number of actual arrivals at Dadaab is as low as a total
of 79 urban dwelling refugees and asylum seekers as at 19 April, 2014,
according to the UNHCR Dadaab Situation report.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
79 were transported to Dadaab Camps by the Department of Refugee
Affairs (DRA) from the Safaricom Stadium in Kasarani, Nairobi. Among
them were 41 Somalis, 36 Ethiopians, 1 Cameroonian and 1 Kenyan.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
READ: <a href="http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/15%20April%20UNHCR%20Dadaab%20Sitrep.pdf">UNHCR Dadaab Situation report</a> [PDF]</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With
only 79 people arriving at Dadaab in the crackdown so far, one has to
wonder what happened to the 4000 people arrested. Administration Police
spokesman Masoud Mwinyi, in an interview with Al-Jazeera’s social media
show ‘The Stream’, claimed that a majority of the people arrested were <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_QrLUM1bs">simply processed through</a>
and later released. AP Spokesman Masoud Mwinyi was of the belief at the
time of the show that Usalama Watch had resulted in peace and better
security in Eastleigh area, citing that no terror attacks had occurred
since the start of the operation.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>CHILDREN KEPT FROM PARENTS</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Mwinyi’s remarks were immediately overshadowed by a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ZgGOe1URc">horrific blast</a>
at Pangani Police station in which four people, including two police
officers, lost their lives, putting paid to the claim that Usalama Watch
has been effective in preventing terror attacks.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
the face of forced transfers in which family members are separated,
children kept from their parents and individuals not allowed to collect
their belongings, the furor raised by human rights organizations is
quite justified.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Repeatedly, the call
for a systematic and strategic plan in dealing with those arrested in a
humane manner has been ignored, or shouted down by proponents of the
security operation. The consistent illogical argument put forth by
pro-regime activists is “What do you want the police to do? They have no
choice!” Well, actually, they do have a choice, several choices in
fact.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Foremost, the security
apparatus in this country needs to consolidate its actions nationally.
There is a clear and obvious disconnect between the actions and standard
procedures applied by police in Dadaab camps versus the conduct of
police towards urban based refugees and asylum seekers.</div>
</div>
<div>
According to an feature story by <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/04/cracking-down-nairobi-somalis-201442012628685801.html">Al Jazeera</a>,
the latter have repeatedly complained of police brutality, physical
assaults, rape, and damage to property as well as demands for bribes
from police officers. It is disheartening that the police have yet to
own up to their excesses. Police Spokesperson Zipporah Mboroki
underscored this consistent denial in her statement where she stated
that the police force had not received any complaints from the public
about the operation adding that anyone can take their grievances to the
Independent Policing Oversight Authority”.</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong>PALTRY NUMBERS</strong></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
all of this, the plight of those being arrested seems to have been
completely swept under the rug. The first casualties of Usalama Watch
were a 40-year-old Somali woman, Zeynab Mohamed Muse "Bulhan", a refugee
who was hospitalized and died two days later, and Mohamed Kadiye Robe,
67, who reportedly died of shock after his whole family was arrested. He
suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
the course of the activities being conducted under Usalama Watch, it
seems that no ethnic Somali has been spared. Somalians, Kenyan nationals
and journalists were all harassed. Al-Jazeera’s correspondent <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/malkhadir-muhumed.html" target="_blank">Malkhadir Muhumed</a>,
a Kenyan ethnic Somali was arrested and held incommunicado for 3 days
and subjected to humiliating searches. His “crime” was entering a
detention camp with a video camera. His equipment was only returned to
him with the video deleted. It is hard not to believe so many reports of
human rights abuses all of which share a singular consistent theme of
targeted, ethnic profiling.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Given the
paltry numbers of both returnees and deportees, it is clear that the
racially motivated approach to Usalama Watch and the subsequent
crackdown on illegal immigrants has had little to no impact on securing
the country against terrorist action. It is also obvious that the police
are too under-resourced, poorly trained and ill-equipped to
successfully engage terrorists in successful warfare. These terrorists
seem to have no qualms at all conducting warfare among civilian
populations, including ethnic Somali communities.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s
a real travesty that the police choose to visit abuse on the very same
population targeted by the terrorists, leaving much doubt as to who is
protector or persecutor between them and the terrorists.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Twittter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</div>
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<span class="icon comments" href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/waitherero/-/2274550/2286972/-/11mvu3k/-/index.html#comments"></span>The past three weeks have seen a
campaign of swoops and raids by the Kenya Police in an operation dubbed
Usalama Watch in which the focus of the crackdown was said to be illegal
immigrants and undocumented refugees.</div>
</div>
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
Up to 4000
people have been arrested, detained and “screened” in a process said to
be rife with flaws, and whose overall objective remains unclear.</div>
<div>
Soon after a shooting incident in a <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Terror-in-Mombasa-church/-/1056/2255212/-/mno8oy/-/index.html" target="_blank">Likoni church</a>
in which gunmen killed 6 churchgoers and injured 15 others, Usalama
Watch was launched with the intention at the time to target “suspected
terrorists and criminals”. However, the nature of the swoops was so vast
that Usalama Watch was soon re-engineered to target “illegal immigrants
and refugees.”</div>
<div>
Since its launch, the operation has arrested thousands, yet currently it has managed to isolate <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Kenya-to-deport-225-illegal-immigrants/-/1056/2282110/-/r3g67gz/-/index.html" target="_self">about 200</a>
people for deportation due to a lack of documentation. This leaves the
vast majority of those arrested as having valid documentation, either as
refugees, Kenyan citizens or registered aliens.</div>
<div>
<strong>COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE</strong></div>
<div>
A
key factor in the activities of Usalama Watch is the singling out of
the Somali community in Eastleigh as the primary area where searches and
“screening” are occurring. This sort of knee-jerk reaction to a
security crisis is consistent with the government’s approach to handling
affairs, dating to colonial times.</div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/55-arrested-in-Mombasa-police-swoop/-/1056/2280490/-/6r7vgt/-/index.html" target="_blank">55 arrested in Mombasa police swoop</a></div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/34-arrested-in-Nairobi-South-C-swoop/-/1056/2280476/-/75yt7z/-/index.html" target="_blank">34 arrested in Nairobi’s South C swoop</a></div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Police-swoop-nets-62-in-Nakuru/-/1056/2277546/-/xtj8uh/-/index.html" target="_blank">Police swoop nets 62 in Nakuru</a></div>
<div>
The
bungling, excessive force and blanket discrimination against one ethnic
community is not new; during the Emergency period, the colonial
government used similar tactics of ethnic profiling, community-wide
swoops and indefinite incarceration in gulags and concentration camps.</div>
<div>
The
approach then was completely ineffective in the long run and ultimately
led to even more radicals joining the anti-colonial movement.</div>
<div>
Usalama
Watch, in this regard, is no different from previous government
crackdowns in that it is an inefficient, ineffective and unsustainable
approach to security matters.</div>
<div>
Yet, the police will
claim that ever since the crackdown began there have been no further
terror attacks in Eastleigh. Unfortunately, there have been attacks in
Garissa and Dadaab.</div>
<div>
<strong>BUSINESS RIVALS</strong></div>
<div>
The
emerging sentiments from the public following the launch of Usalama
Watch are mixed. There are those who were business rivals with business
people based in Eastleigh, especially in the import-export trade.
Certainly, these people’s interests have been brightened by the
temporary disruption of business in Eastleigh.</div>
<div>
There
are those whose livelihoods are directly or indirectly dependent on the
Somali community. These people feel that though there is need for
increased security, the crackdown has had far-reaching negative effects
with little to no improved security.</div>
<div>
Then there are
those who remain ambivalent to the situation, mainly because they are
not reliant on Eastleigh for business or livelihood and neither are they
Somali people.</div>
<div>
In the discourse that has taken centre
stage politically and at the social level, what is clearly absent is
leadership that has the genuine interests of the entire nation at heart.</div>
<div>
We
are yet to hear from moderate, balanced leaders who take into
consideration the concerns of every sector in society. Instead we have
Usalama Watch led by Interior Ministry CS Joseph Ole Lenku, a man <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Kenyan-Somalis-treated-like-second-class-citizens-/-/440808/2277348/-/p72vxgz/-/index.html" target="_blank">described</a>
by Nairobi Law Monthly Publisher, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, as “a former
third rate beverages manager in a two star hotel on the outskirts of
Nairobi.”</div>
<div>
Personal digs aside, Mr Ole Lenku has displayed a total disregard for the law by ignoring the directives of a <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/84157" target="_blank">High Court ruling</a>
in 2013 that put a stop to the push to relocate urban-based refugees
back to Dadaab in the name of national security, citing that there was
no correlation between the two.</div>
<div>
<strong>FATTENING OF WALLETS</strong></div>
<div>
It
is completely disheartening that the CS who has been given the
responsibility to uphold the law not only brazenly flouts it, but goes
ahead to grievously infringe upon the constitutional mandate incumbent
upon government as regards the rights of citizens.</div>
<div>
The
sum result of Usalama Watch thus far can be said to be the fattening of
wallets of corrupt policemen who took advantage of the operation to
arrest Kenyan citizens and demand bribes.</div>
<div>
This is not
the first time that allegations of corruption during a serious security
crisis have emerged; in September 2013, during the Westgate siege, there
were several complaints that officers responding to the terror attack
at the mall were robbing victims, indeed a few policemen ended up inside
the docket on such charges as robbery during the terror attack.</div>
<div>
Ultimately,
it appears that Mr Ole Lenku has no control over the police force or is
totally incapable of weeding out the corrupt elements such that his
activities seem to be consistently marred by the indiscipline of those
officers on the ground.</div>
<div>
To his credit, Mr Ole Lenku is
not alone in his current situation. It is now clear that even among the
Muslim community, there is a total absence of sobriety and responsive
leadership.</div>
<div>
<strong>STOICALLY SILENT</strong></div>
<div>
Interestingly
enough, there have been up to 84 terror attacks in Kenya since 2005 .
Whereas the majority of these attacks were centred in Eastleigh,
Garissa, Wajir and Mandera, the leadership in the Supreme Council of
Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) have been stoically silent, providing no real
insight or feedback, nor engaging the government in a forward and
visible manner despite being Islamic community leaders.</div>
<div>
This
lack of correspondence on a public and visible level leaves both the
Muslim community feeling unheard and the greater non-Muslim community
feeling that they do not care about the situation, or that they are
hiding potential terrorists due to religious reasons.</div>
<div>
It
does not help that during such a tense and volatile moment, we have
vocal, hot-headed activists publicly denouncing non-Muslims as “kafir”
as was the case with the late Abubakar Sharrif aka Makaburi. “Kafir” is
an Arabic term meaning a person who rejects the truth of religion.</div>
<div>
An
emerging hypocrisy of radical preachers is to bypass the fact that
historically Islamic communities have always found it possible and
acceptable to live with other communities. The rejection of people based
on religious reasons is not only un-Islamic but also a sign of sheer
anti-social tendencies.</div>
<div>
More importantly, the Muslim
community finds itself burdened with several emerging young politicians,
many of whom have no real grasp of the situation at the grassroots
level. Out of the entire Islamic population in Kenya, less than 2 to 4
per cent even agree on an intellectual level with much of the political
and radical religious leadership. The vast majority are moderate
Muslims, people who wish to live in peace and harmony with their fellow
citizens.</div>
<div>
<strong>CIRCUMSPECT AND SENSIBLE</strong></div>
<div>
The
problems that lead to gangs and organized criminal groupings such as
Taliban, Mungiki, Chingororo, Bagdad boys, Al-Shabaab and Jeshi la Mzee
are still rife within the Kenyan societal framework. Al-Shabaab is not
necessarily a Somali problem, or a Muslim one. The factors that create
radicalized young men in Islam also create radicalized young men in the
Kikuyu community.</div>
<div>
A moderate, circumspect and sensible
leadership will recognize this and find a long term strategy to deal
with it. It is proper leadership that is structured that can help guide
the greater republic away from inbuilt terror and criminal activities
and towards a more peaceful and cohesive nation.</div>
<div>
As it
is, the well of money from extortion that Usalama Watch generated for
corrupt police officers is running dry. Each day more and more Kenyan
Somali are getting bolder and standing up to the incessant harassment.
At the end of the day, in terms of security, there is little to no
achievement. In terms of business in Eastleigh, the traders may have
taken a blow but are willing to rebuild themselves, and those who aren’t
are looking at Uganda, South Africa and Angola as an alternative place
to invest in.</div>
<div>
However, the biggest blow has been dealt
to Kenya at the social level. There is an ever widening fragmentation of
communities and deepening mistrust that is volatile, tangible and
slowly being entrenched into the psyche of the ordinary person. It is
this fragmentation that true leadership needs to address, if we are to
ever begin to win the war against terror.</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</section>
</article>
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</h1>
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy">
<div>
On the night of 3<sup>rd</sup> April
2014, 3 blasts were heard in the Dadaab airstrip in Northern Kenya
during the incident, no one was injured but the main gate was completely
destroyed. The unknown assailants were said to have accessed the area
on motorbikes.</div>
<div>
In Dadaab, there have been about 21
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) found since 2011, but in the camp
the police have not thus far been extra-judicial in their responses.</div>
<div>
This
is a marked contradiction to the police responses in Mombasa and
Nairobi. Last week alone, over 3000 people were arrested in swoops,
including women and young children. An overwhelming majority of those
arrested were Somali, and a large number were documented Kenyans, some
not of Somali ethnicity.</div>
<div>
It is true that Kenya has
suffered greatly for its activities in Somalia; in 2011 Kenya launched
operation “Linda Nchi” a military incursion into Somalia with the aim of
fighting Al-Shabaab and recovering or “freeing” towns where the
Al-Shabaab militia had taken over. Al-Shabaab is an offshoot of the
Al-Qaeda network, created in 2006 and led by Ahmed Abdi Godane also
known as Mukhtar Ali Zubeyr. Godane recently <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/10/us-somalia-alshabaab-leader-idUSBREA291OL20140310">urged Somalis</a> to fight their age-old enemy Ethiopia.</div>
<div>
<strong>ROLE OF ANDALUS FM</strong></div>
<div>
It has been the group’s approach to claim responsibility for attacks in Somalia and Kenya by <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/somalia/140213/islamist-rebel-group-al-shabaab-claims-responsibility-bo">announcing it</a> to the media. <a href="http://www.unsom.org/2014/02/06/february-6-2014-daily-monitoring-report/">Andalus FM</a> in Mogadishu is the main radio station they utilize to state their claims and reasons after attacks in Somalia.</div>
<div>
After
the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Al-Shabaab claimed
responsibility through their representative Abu Mansur Al-Amriki, who
demanded that Kenya withdraw its troops from Somalia. When they choose
to do so, not only do Al-Shabaab announce that they are responsible for
attacks, but they also allow journalists to interview them on the
matter, as was seen with Abu Mansur’s extensive interaction with the
international media. It is quite surprising then that the Al-Shabaab has
not staked a claim to the attacks in <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Terror-in-Mombasa-church/-/1056/2255212/-/mno8oy/-/index.html">Likoni</a>, <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Blast-kills-six-in-Eastleigh/-/1056/2264544/-/13h3miiz/-/index.html">Eastleigh</a> or <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Tension-high-as-two-successive-blasts-rock-Dadaab/-/1056/2270006/-/mbhb0cz/-/index.html">Dadaab</a>.</div>
<div>
It’s
hard to say why these attacks take on the form that they do, and the
police are yet to report on what their investigations reveal. But more
importantly the subsequent targeting and profiling of Somali refugees by
the Kenya government is quite concerning.</div>
<div>
Security in
Dadaab can be said to be moderate on average; the people there live in
fear of Al-Shabaab more than they fear government forces. If one were to
make a comparison, the refugees find Dadaab safer than Somalia. They
are simply civilians, and when the government blames them, it lends to a
feeling of being targeted because of being Somali. All Somalis are not
criminals, Al-Shabaab exists but they kill Somalis as well.</div>
<div>
The
profiling of Somali refugees is now the national narrative; when there
is an attack in Mombasa or Nairobi, fingers point to Dadaab. But the
reality is that Dadaab may indeed be more secure than other towns in
Kenya. </div>
<div>
Dadaab is at least the <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/horn-of-africa/region.php?id=3&country=110">fourth-largest</a>
town in Kenya although resources there are very scarce. It has been a
sanctuary for Somali people fleeing oppression in Somalia. It provides a
haven for people to <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/KU-opens-Dadaab-campus/-/1107872/2224390/-/6hmfc0z/-/index.html" target="_self">gain an education</a> and make a life for themselves. It has become a place for moderation rather than radicalization.</div>
<div>
<strong>REFUGEES QUICK TO REPORT</strong></div>
<div>
In addition, Kenya has signed and <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/horn-of-africa/download.php?id=1295">ratified</a> a <a href="http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5285e0294.pdf" target="_self">tripartite agreement</a>
between the UNHCR, Kenya and Somalia. The document, in which Kenya
agrees to its legal obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees from
Somalia, is explicit in its detail.</div>
<div>
Despite this, the government’s tone now is “you will go or you will go”.</div>
<div>
For
the 20 years that Dadaab has existed it has become a place for
moderation rather than radicalization. In that time, the police have
learned to deal with the people in such a manner as to gain co-operation
from them. With about 500 police operating in the area, there has been a
noted improvement in the conduct of the police force with regards to
raids.</div>
<div>
It is quite clear that not all government
departments are in harmony with the negativity stemming from the
Internal Security Cabinet Secretary, Joseph Ole Lenku who has <a href="http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Lenku-now-orders-all-refugee-camps-closed-/-/1950946/2086172/-/format/xhtml/-/74bnv6z/-/index.html">directed</a>
that “all urban based refugees should be relocated to Dadaab.” CS Ole
Lenku’s directives show that he lacks a reflection of the reality in
Dadaab, and as regards the refugees; he doesn’t seem to get the bigger
picture.</div>
<div>
It is the refugees who have suffered the most
under terror groups such as Al-Shabaab, and it is the refugees who are
quick to report any member of these terror organizations.</div>
<div>
It
is quite disconcerting that the police in Nairobi and Mombasa have yet
to adopt the same level of professionalism as their peers in Dadaab;
they need to be able to identify who is a criminal and who isn’t rather
than arresting the whole neighborhood as they have done in Eastleigh
where old men, women and children were all arrested in night-time raids.</div>
<div>
Moreover,
it is time for the security forces in Kenya to acknowledge that
Al-Shabaab could be entering the country through other entry points and
not just Dadaab. There need to be genuine efforts to secure these access
points across the nation, rather than pinning the blame on the one town
where Al-Shabaab are not likely to hide.</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</section>
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</h1>
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
A colleague recently mentioned that
during her courses in law school, the Criminology lecturer gave a
descriptive analysis of what criminals look like – red eyes, gaunt face,
square jaw and unkempt appearance. According to this particular
lecturer, all criminals are physically identified with such an
appearance.</div>
<div>
From a very early stage in our development,
we are trained to associate certain physical traits with criminals.
Perhaps this is the root of the malaise that currently plagues the
country’s legal authorities.</div>
<div>
In graphic novels, the
villain is always represented by gaunt and highly exaggerated features,
whether male or female; the villain and criminals are always easy to
recognize physically by their racial and facial features.</div>
<div>
In
the last few days we have seen politically driven racism take on
shocking proportions among the general public – hateful comments made in
public forums have metamorphosed into open racial attacks against
innocent citizens of Somali ethnicity; reports have come in of Somali
people being forcefully ejected from public service vehicles.</div>
<div>
We
are certainly a nation of bigots; this fact is displayed every 5 years
during ethnically motivated elections in which the electorate
predictably votes in ethnic blocks in a sham of a democratic process and
consistently flawed electoral process.</div>
<div>
It is the
national narrative to segregate and even isolate millions in ethnic
enclaves leading to a national mentality of “it’s our turn to eat.”</div>
<div>
<strong>INGRAINED AND INCONTROVERTIBLE</strong></div>
<div>
Political
office is seen as an ethnic entitlement especially among the ruling
elite; the very idea of an inclusive national ideology is completely
foreign.</div>
<div>
It is an ingrained and incontrovertible
attitude; that we are not one nation with several ethnicities but simply
a country of various ethnic groups all claiming superiority.</div>
<div>
Woe
unto the other ethnic communities that do not gain political office in
significant numbers, woe betide all those who are not Kikuyu or
Kalenjin.</div>
<div>
Ethnic profiling, of Somali or any other
ethnic community ,is not only unconstitutional but an egregious form of
state driven discrimination, one of the worst human rights abuses that
any law enforcement authority can come up with.</div>
<div>
It
simply means that by virtue of your god given features and being born in
a certain community you are a criminal. It is a completely irrational
line of defence to use in a war against terror and certainly has no
merit or legal basis whatsoever.</div>
<div>
Given the national
propaganda being driven by what I consider the cheapest sort of idle
bigots among the political class, it is no wonder that any person who
stands up to this sort of tyrannical racism is branded a “terrorist
sympathizer”. Journalists, human rights defenders and clergy who have
been vocal against this sort of blatant discrimination have faced a
backlash of hatred for their stance.</div>
<div>
When it comes to
national security, it is incumbent upon us as citizens to unite and
consider security for all while protecting the fundamental freedoms and
rights of every member of society. Ethnic profiling is illegal; using
absurd means like ethnic facial features to identify criminals is
illegal and cannot stand up in any just court of law.</div>
<div>
We
deserve proper answers to the terror threat. It is time that the state
authorities stopped the shenanigans and produced tangible results in
terms of increased security.</div>
<div>
Most certainly it is time
that this country learned that targeting certain ethnicities and
propagating absurd blanket stereotypes is not only divisive, petty and
immature it is an ugly approach to nationalism that leaves all of us
vulnerable to attack.</div>
<div>
Twitter: @bettywaitherero</div>
</section>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is the irony of being Kenyan. That we
call ourselves a nation fighting terror for the sake of national security and
at the same time endorse a national policy of ethnic profiling that targets one
community and makes them live in perpetual insecurity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There is a damnation that accompanies a
history such as ours, where for 50 odd years we as a country internalized our
bigotry and visited endless conflict on one ethnicity simply because they, at
one point did not want to belong to Kenya.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It is the rankest irrationality; that we
would punish, discriminate, torture, jail and maim people because 50 years ago
they voted to secede. We forced them to be a part of Kenya, and yet spend every
single day, egging on a government that does not acknowledge their citizenry or
rights.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The profiling of Somali ethnic people by the
Kenyan government and the Jubilee regime is of the most egregious sort. When
4000 people were arbitrarily arrested and detained for weeks, the entire
society watched on with approval. Never mind that the people are innocent,
civilians, men, women and children and that not a single person arrested thus
far has been charged and convicted with crimes of terror.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Never mind that most of these people were
never produced in court, nor was there any justification given for their
arrests. Never mind that operation Usalama Watch despite all its recent illegal
and unconstitutional activities has not improved security in this country one
bit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I don’t know what security chiefs were told
but it looks like they now have the free will to invent operations that are of
the most abusive and corrupt nature; “security measures” that mean Police
Inspector General David Kimaiyo can wake up one day, utter some nondescript
traffic act and make an illegal declaration on personal vehicles and tinted
windows.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The fact that the law enforcers are so
willing to break the law while claiming to be fighting crime would be laughable
were it not so devastating. Criminals are defined by the simple fact that they
break the law and commit crimes. What then is the difference between the police
and the criminal if both commit crimes and both break the law?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It’s just so acceptable to all the other ethnicities
that those members of the police service and security apparatus, people who are
your own tribesmen can and do the most horrendous acts upon unarmed innocent
Somali people. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The justification of atrocities committed by
in-group members is a psychological phenomenon studied and documented by Alin
Coman from the Department of Psychology, Princeton University see: <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/16/0956797614531024.abstract">http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/16/0956797614531024.abstract</a>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In his abstract, Coman explains that moral
disengagement strategies are some of the ways people will rationalize the
immoral acts of people they perceive as one of “us”, the in-group. Thus, the
recounting of acts by American soldiers (in-group) will be watered down and
even ignored by their comrades, while the acts committed by Afghan soldiers
(out-group) will be more accurate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We can see this psychological disengagement
in Kenya; where for the better part of this year, the Jubilee government
through its security apparatus has propagated a xenophobic doctrine in their
claims to be at war with terror.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Its obvious that the completely immoral
justification of ethnic and racial profiling has been swallowed whole primarily
by ethnic groups that perceived themselves as the winners of the March 2013
elections. In the eyes of some Kenyans, the only people who suffer are
non-somali victims of terror attacks – never mind that more Somalis have
suffered under both Al-Shabaab and the Kenya government and for longer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">With the blasts that occurred at Gikomba on
16<sup>th</sup> May, Kenya marked over 100 terror attacks in the past decade
with nearly 400 people being killed. It is quite disconcerting that while
President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the nation on the travel advisories and
admitted to not having received any security information from the British or US
embassies, 10 people lost their lives and 70 others were hospitalized.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Almost immediately, Moses Kuria a self-styled
political analyst rumored to be an adviser to State House creates an
inflammatory post on social media that contained a thinly-veiled threat of
repercussions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Here is the full post as it appeared on
facebook:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“I think its just a matter of time before
Kenyans start violence against PERCEIVED terrorists, their sympathizers, their
financiers and those issuing travel advisories without sharing intelligence. I
am not sure I will not be one of those Kenyans. When you touch Gikomba the
nerve centre of our economic enterprise you really cross the line. Brace
yourself. Choices have consequences.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">See: <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertAlai/status/467597677136707584/photo/1">https://twitter.com/RobertAlai/status/467597677136707584/photo/1</a>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The sort of irrational hate mongering that
fills the post beggars’ belief. We still don’t know who was behind the blasts
at Gikomba, nor do we know what their ethnicity is. But it is clear that in
line with the current Jubilee regime’s ethnic profiling that Moses Kuria
implied Somali people; the only ones who thus far have been PERCEIVED as
terrorists and suspects by government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We have gone from fighting a war on terror,
to fighting a war on perceived terrorists, forgetting that our perceptions of
each other are massively tainted by our tribal bigotry and a history that is a
curse upon the various marginalized communities in Kenya. Jubilee pledged to
unite the country through its national policies, but thus far has engaged
itself in doing the exact opposite, and its supporters justify atrocities
simply because they perceive Jubilee leadership to be from their own tribe.</span><br />
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<![endif]--><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
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3 weeks ago over 200 teenage girls were abducted from their
boarding school by Boko Haram militants in Northern Nigeria. What followed next
was 3 weeks of international media completely ignoring these girls and the
Nigerian government doing nothing to recover these girls. Tragically, reports
filed in that the girls were being sold off as the Boko Haram moved through the
northern territory. Out of sheer despair and the need to call attention to the
plight of the girls, Nigerian Attorney Ibrahim Musa Abdullahi created the
hashtag #bringbackourgirls on twitter, an adaptation of a chant he had heard on
TV.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It took 3 weeks but the online campaign finally gained
momentum worldwide with nearly 2 million re-tweets and celebrities and high
profile individuals using it. What was lost in all this, is that not only has
the Nigerian government done little to respond to the numerous calls to find
these girls, nor are the Nigerian authorities <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>effective in dealing with Boko Haram who thus
far have been responsible for hundreds of deaths in addition to numerous
abductions of women and children in the North, making the region one of the
most dangerous places in Nigeria.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s certainly ironic that 200 black girls can go missing
and the whole world ignores this until American celebrities notice. But what’s
even more disturbing is the fact that we in Kenya can talk of how devastating
Boko Haram is while our own daughters suffer similar injustices in Kenya. The
Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence better known as the Waki
commission found that there were over 900 cases of sexual and gender based
violence and described this as just the tip of the ice-berg. It is estimated by
human rights organizations that up to 40,000 cases of sexual violence may have
occurred during the 3 month period leading up to and after the signing of the
National Peace and Reconciliation Accord (NARA). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fact that rape and sexual violence was used extensively
during the PEV and in particular targeting women and girls has been quietly
swept under the rug, even as much of the attention has been deftly diverted
from the victims of PEV to suspects charged with crimes against humanity at the
ICC. It has now become part of our national narrative, to accuse the Office of
the Prosecutor and the then chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of not only
failing to conduct thorough investigations into the PEV as recommended by the
Waki report, but also of coercing, bribing and causing witnesses to lie about
suspects charged and about the events of 2008. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In just 2 short years, the ICC has been morphed from being
the sole resort for justice for suspects to being dubbed a “western” court that
is purely political and targets Africans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In all of this humdrum rhetoric the women and girls who suffered so
brutally are completely forgotten. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Along come Boko Haram, and their brazen abduction of over
200 girls and all of a sudden even the political class in Kenya is concerned
about the situation. The graphic irony in this is that, just like our own
suspects who are charged with crimes against humanity, the ICC is also alert to
the fact that there is reason to believe Boko Haram is guilty of similar
crimes. See: <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Documents/OTP%20Preliminary%20Examinations/OTP%20-%20Report%20%20Preliminary%20Examination%20Activities%202013.PDF">http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Documents/OTP%20Preliminary%20Examinations/OTP%20-%20Report%20%20Preliminary%20Examination%20Activities%202013.PDF</a>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sort of hypocrisy displayed by Kenyans when it comes to
victims and the ICC is completely unpalatable. Whenever it suits us, we lambast
the ICC, witnesses and victims as “paid by westerners.” Whenever it suits us,
we lament the plight of women and girls who are savaged in conflict by militia.
We cannot, in all good conscience find the actions of Boko Haram alarming and
repulsive while at the same time conveniently glaze over the rape of our own
women and girls as though they don’t exist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reason it took 3 weeks for the world to even notice that
200 girls had been kidnapped into sexual slavery is because we, as a continent
do not care about women and girls and we are least concerned for their safety
or lives. If we ourselves don’t care about African women, why should the rest
of the world? If we can actually argue that the ICC is working for western
political interests when it seeks justice for hundreds of victims of sexual
violence in conflict simply because of our own political affiliations then why
should we expect the same ICC to give women and girls justice when it comes to
Boko Haram? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the eyes of the law, suspects of crimes against humanity
are equally subject to a judicial process regardless of our own emotional or
political ties. It’s quite possible that if some political arguments were to be
considered then even Boko Haram is being “oppressed by western paid elements in
a Kangaroo court.” If you find such a thought unacceptably illogical when it
comes to Boko Haram, then you should find the same when it comes to all other
suspects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47733#.U2zkrSjMorZ">http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47733#.U2zkrSjMorZ</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-50369369910468365462014-05-11T04:46:00.001-07:002014-05-11T04:46:11.049-07:00Linda Okello’s Skirt is about more than uniforms<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It took just one lascivious or maybe just mischievous
photo-journalist to bring attention to the entire world the ample blessings of
a lady traffic police officer in her skirt. For all the right reasons, Linda
Okello has been the focus of attention in the media, although I am sure that by
now she really would rather everyone go away and focus on their own behinds. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The thing about her skirt is that it fit her rather well. In
fact, according to Grace Kaindi the Deputy Inspector General of Police, the
skirt fit her so well that it may have been adjusted; something considered a
breaking of the rules. Fortunately for Linda, Inspector General David Kimaiyo
assured a parliamentary committee that no disciplinary action would be taken
against her.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The idea that police uniform can be such a hot topic speaks
volumes as to the mindset of most Kenyans. For starters, discussing the assets
of a police officer simply underscores how far down the intellectual scale we
are sliding as a nation. The fact of the matter is the central issue
surrounding police uniforms is not how the officers fill them out, but how
often they are issued with said uniforms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The police service is undergoing reforms, but sad to say,
these reforms thus far have not taken into consideration simple issues like how
many uniforms are distributed and how often. Let’s face it; we can have no
pride in a service where the policemen don’t even have sufficient clothing that
fits well and at the same time is a smart representation of the sort of service
and national pride we expect of officers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If the police don’t even get uniforms that can fit them
“decently” how can we expect the police to deal with terrorists or organized
crime? We often forget something so crucial about our police; that the
servicemen and women are essentially ordinary everyday people like us. They
aren’t rich middle class civil servants. These are people who live among us and
are part of our society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Isn’t it incumbent upon us to discuss more than Linda’s
body? Let’s talk about what support she and her colleagues get if she can’t get
sufficient uniform. Let’s talk about the fact that members of the service are
expected to provide protection for millions while they themselves number in the
mere tens of thousands. Let’s talk about the fact that though we do have a
working police line to call for help, the police officer we expect to help us
doesn’t have sufficient resources to be able to respond adequately to each and
every call for help.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Let’s really talk about police reforms. So far, the
restructuring of the service has simply created new dispensation at the higher
levels, much of this dispensation has certainly not trickled down to the lower
cadres. You would think that the higher ranking officers, having had to climb
up through the ranks under such difficult circumstances would also be willing
to engage reforms that improves the working conditions of officers across the
board.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I.G David Kimaiyo has insisted that we are in a war against
terror and that we must win that war at all costs. But what exactly has been
done for the officers who are to conduct that war? I believe it is incumbent
upon the Inspector General and the Independent Police Oversight Authority to ensure
that the officers are fully equipped in every sense of the word so as to be
successful. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We lament the sort of brutality that the police officers use
in “screening” illegal immigrants at Kasarani, and by extension we complain
relentlessly about corruption in the service. As a nation, we surely can do
more than just complain. We can provide avenues for these issues to be
addressed with finality and we can do that as easily as we discussed Linda
Okello’s “tight security”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We talk about corruption as though it is something that
happened in the past, and expect that by putting up posters and signs that say,
“This is a corruption free zone”, like magic the Service or institution has
cleaned up its record. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But if an officer cannot even receive uniforms in a regular
manner so as to be able to have her measurements adjusted as she grows
horizontally, then we have a serious problem. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We cannot expect police officers to function effectively if
they don’t have enough uniforms, if they are limited by the very clothing that
bears the sort of authority they wield. They say the clothes do not make the
man, but if the officer can’t even get enough clothes then it is no wonder that
some officers desecrate that uniform by being corrupt, and sometimes criminal
in their actions. In Kenya, the clothes do indeed make the officer, and a lack
of uniform tells us all what sort of officers we have in the service. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-66648675551442726272014-04-21T22:59:00.001-07:002014-04-21T22:59:06.466-07:00Lack of moderate, circumspect leadership hampers the war against terrorism http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/waitherero/-/2274550/2286972/-/view/asBlogPost/-/xwaduf/-/index.html<div>
The past three weeks have seen a campaign of swoops and raids by
the Kenya Police in an operation dubbed Usalama Watch in which the
focus of the crackdown was said to be illegal immigrants and
undocumented refugees.</div>
<div>
Up to 4000 people have been
arrested, detained and “screened” in a process said to be rife with
flaws, and whose overall objective remains unclear.</div>
<div>
Soon after a shooting incident in a <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Terror-in-Mombasa-church/-/1056/2255212/-/mno8oy/-/index.html" target="_blank">Likoni church</a>
in which gunmen killed 6 churchgoers and injured 15 others, Usalama
Watch was launched with the intention at the time to target “suspected
terrorists and criminals”. However, the nature of the swoops was so vast
that Usalama Watch was soon re-engineered to target “illegal immigrants
and refugees.”</div>
<div>
Since its launch, the operation has arrested thousands, yet currently it has managed to isolate <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Kenya-to-deport-225-illegal-immigrants/-/1056/2282110/-/r3g67gz/-/index.html" target="_self">about 200</a>
people for deportation due to a lack of documentation. This leaves the
vast majority of those arrested as having valid documentation, either as
refugees, Kenyan citizens or registered aliens.</div>
<div>
<strong>COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE</strong></div>
<div>
A
key factor in the activities of Usalama Watch is the singling out of
the Somali community in Eastleigh as the primary area where searches and
“screening” are occurring. This sort of knee-jerk reaction to a
security crisis is consistent with the government’s approach to handling
affairs, dating to colonial times.</div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/55-arrested-in-Mombasa-police-swoop/-/1056/2280490/-/6r7vgt/-/index.html" target="_blank">55 arrested in Mombasa police swoop</a></div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/34-arrested-in-Nairobi-South-C-swoop/-/1056/2280476/-/75yt7z/-/index.html" target="_blank">34 arrested in Nairobi’s South C swoop</a></div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Police-swoop-nets-62-in-Nakuru/-/1056/2277546/-/xtj8uh/-/index.html" target="_blank">Police swoop nets 62 in Nakuru</a></div>
<div>
The
bungling, excessive force and blanket discrimination against one ethnic
community is not new; during the Emergency period, the colonial
government used similar tactics of ethnic profiling, community-wide
swoops and indefinite incarceration in gulags and concentration camps.</div>
<div>
The
approach then was completely ineffective in the long run and ultimately
led to even more radicals joining the anti-colonial movement.</div>
<div>
Usalama
Watch, in this regard, is no different from previous government
crackdowns in that it is an inefficient, ineffective and unsustainable
approach to security matters.</div>
<div>
Yet, the police will
claim that ever since the crackdown began there have been no further
terror attacks in Eastleigh. Unfortunately, there have been attacks in
Garissa and Dadaab.</div>
<div>
<strong>BUSINESS RIVALS</strong></div>
<div>
The
emerging sentiments from the public following the launch of Usalama
Watch are mixed. There are those who were business rivals with business
people based in Eastleigh, especially in the import-export trade.
Certainly, these people’s interests have been brightened by the
temporary disruption of business in Eastleigh.</div>
<div>
There
are those whose livelihoods are directly or indirectly dependent on the
Somali community. These people feel that though there is need for
increased security, the crackdown has had far-reaching negative effects
with little to no improved security.</div>
<div>
Then there are
those who remain ambivalent to the situation, mainly because they are
not reliant on Eastleigh for business or livelihood and neither are they
Somali people.</div>
<div>
In the discourse that has taken centre
stage politically and at the social level, what is clearly absent is
leadership that has the genuine interests of the entire nation at heart.</div>
<div>
We
are yet to hear from moderate, balanced leaders who take into
consideration the concerns of every sector in society. Instead we have
Usalama Watch led by Interior Ministry CS Joseph Ole Lenku, a man <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Kenyan-Somalis-treated-like-second-class-citizens-/-/440808/2277348/-/p72vxgz/-/index.html" target="_blank">described</a>
by Nairobi Law Monthly Publisher, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, as “a former
third rate beverages manager in a two star hotel on the outskirts of
Nairobi.”</div>
<div>
Personal digs aside, Mr Ole Lenku has displayed a total disregard for the law by ignoring the directives of a <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/84157" target="_blank">High Court ruling</a>
in 2013 that put a stop to the push to relocate urban-based refugees
back to Dadaab in the name of national security, citing that there was
no correlation between the two.</div>
<div>
<strong>FATTENING OF WALLETS</strong></div>
<div>
It
is completely disheartening that the CS who has been given the
responsibility to uphold the law not only brazenly flouts it, but goes
ahead to grievously infringe upon the constitutional mandate incumbent
upon government as regards the rights of citizens.</div>
<div>
The
sum result of Usalama Watch thus far can be said to be the fattening of
wallets of corrupt policemen who took advantage of the operation to
arrest Kenyan citizens and demand bribes.</div>
<div>
This is not
the first time that allegations of corruption during a serious security
crisis have emerged; in September 2013, during the Westgate siege, there
were several complaints that officers responding to the terror attack
at the mall were robbing victims, indeed a few policemen ended up inside
the docket on such charges as robbery during the terror attack.</div>
<div>
Ultimately,
it appears that Mr Ole Lenku has no control over the police force or is
totally incapable of weeding out the corrupt elements such that his
activities seem to be consistently marred by the indiscipline of those
officers on the ground.</div>
<div>
To his credit, Mr Ole Lenku is
not alone in his current situation. It is now clear that even among the
Muslim community, there is a total absence of sobriety and responsive
leadership.</div>
<div>
<strong>STOICALLY SILENT</strong></div>
<div>
Interestingly
enough, there have been up to 84 terror attacks in Kenya since 2005 .
Whereas the majority of these attacks were centred in Eastleigh,
Garissa, Wajir and Mandera, the leadership in the Supreme Council of
Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) have been stoically silent, providing no real
insight or feedback, nor engaging the government in a forward and
visible manner despite being Islamic community leaders.</div>
<div>
This
lack of correspondence on a public and visible level leaves both the
Muslim community feeling unheard and the greater non-Muslim community
feeling that they do not care about the situation, or that they are
hiding potential terrorists due to religious reasons.</div>
<div>
It
does not help that during such a tense and volatile moment, we have
vocal, hot-headed activists publicly denouncing non-Muslims as “kafir”
as was the case with the late Abubakar Sharrif aka Makaburi. “Kafir” is
an Arabic term meaning a person who rejects the truth of religion.</div>
<div>
An
emerging hypocrisy of radical preachers is to bypass the fact that
historically Islamic communities have always found it possible and
acceptable to live with other communities. The rejection of people based
on religious reasons is not only un-Islamic but also a sign of sheer
anti-social tendencies.</div>
<div>
More importantly, the Muslim
community finds itself burdened with several emerging young politicians,
many of whom have no real grasp of the situation at the grassroots
level. Out of the entire Islamic population in Kenya, less than 2 to 4
per cent even agree on an intellectual level with much of the political
and radical religious leadership. The vast majority are moderate
Muslims, people who wish to live in peace and harmony with their fellow
citizens.</div>
<div>
<strong>CIRCUMSPECT AND SENSIBLE</strong></div>
<div>
The
problems that lead to gangs and organized criminal groupings such as
Taliban, Mungiki, Chingororo, Bagdad boys, Al-Shabaab and Jeshi la Mzee
are still rife within the Kenyan societal framework. Al-Shabaab is not
necessarily a Somali problem, or a Muslim one. The factors that create
radicalized young men in Islam also create radicalized young men in the
Kikuyu community.</div>
<div>
A moderate, circumspect and sensible
leadership will recognize this and find a long term strategy to deal
with it. It is proper leadership that is structured that can help guide
the greater republic away from inbuilt terror and criminal activities
and towards a more peaceful and cohesive nation.</div>
<div>
As it
is, the well of money from extortion that Usalama Watch generated for
corrupt police officers is running dry. Each day more and more Kenyan
Somali are getting bolder and standing up to the incessant harassment.
At the end of the day, in terms of security, there is little to no
achievement. In terms of business in Eastleigh, the traders may have
taken a blow but are willing to rebuild themselves, and those who aren’t
are looking at Uganda, South Africa and Angola as an alternative place
to invest in.</div>
<div>
However, the biggest blow has been dealt
to Kenya at the social level. There is an ever widening fragmentation of
communities and deepening mistrust that is volatile, tangible and
slowly being entrenched into the psyche of the ordinary person. It is
this fragmentation that true leadership needs to address, if we are to
ever begin to win the war against terror.<br />
</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After a rare chance to travel and meet with first hand
survivors of the 2007 post-election violence, I am left with the haunted
memories of the people and their account of what happened to them. One after
the other, regardless of ethnicity or location, the survivors speak of horrors
beyond belief.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One woman in Kibera, Nairobi tells of how her husband was
pulled right through the walls of her mud-hut, and the attackers slashed and
hacked at his genitals and left him dying. She was raped, beaten and later learned
that she was infected with HIV. A man in Kisumu explains how his attackers
chopped off his arms. A woman in Nakuru describes how her daughter was raped
and their home set ablaze.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s been 7 years since the post-election violence, and in 7
years, we haven’t taken the time to address the fact that the victims are never
heard. All too often the government propaganda and narrative with intent to
sweep away these people is that they have been compensated and resettled. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The failures of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation
commission to put the spotlight on the victims are manifested in the bitterness
expressed by nearly all of them. “Why do you come here to ask us these
questions? What is the use? Nothing is done!” says Mary* in Naivasha. (*not her
real name)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The realities surrounding the conditions of those who
survived the violence in are all too clear. They live in fear, poverty and are
deeply psychologically traumatized by the events. Many refuse to speak of how
they were injured or raped, choosing rather to focus on what they lost –
family, homes, livelihoods. There are those who cannot dare go back to where
they lived, because the people living in those neighborhoods were their
attackers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“How can we have justice when the people who chased us away
are living inside our houses? How can we have justice when the killers and
rapists live among us, free?” Mary says with bitterness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s time we as a collective took responsibility for failing
to seek justice for those victimized within our society. Even as the Director
of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko declares that of 5000 cases from the
post-election violence are un-prosecutable, we must still find a way to deliver
some kind of justice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Firstly, it is incumbent upon us as a whole to recognize
that government is not the only one responsible for the victims, but that we as
citizens do have a responsibility towards them as well. It’s very sad to see
how we have chosen to abandon majority of those who suffered, forcing them to
rely mainly on humanitarian organizations for assistance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Moreover, it’s our responsibility to hold this government to
account on behalf of victims, because we cannot surely expect those who died to
speak up for themselves. Of the 1300 or more documented deaths, only a handful
of perpetrators have been convicted. It may be 7 years on, but those who
orchestrated the killings must be known to members of the society; why have we
not done something to ensure that these perpetrators are brought to book?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Social justice is a matter of the collective taking it upon
themselves to ensure that corrective measures are undertaken. The fact that we
have in totality ignored the plight of victims is a stain on our conscience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are many needs that the victims have expressed – need
to have security, shelter and a decent livelihood, and it is my view these
needs can be addressed by the society. We can, through the various
opportunities accorded at the county and national levels ensure that each
victim receives what is adequate such that they can rebuild their lives.
Refusing to acknowledge that those who live amongst us need our assistance only
entrenches the social disparities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As part of the healing and reconciliation process, there
have been a few initiatives in areas that were considered hotspots during the PEV;
however the impact of these peace-building initiatives is minimal. There is a
collective failure by the various stakeholders to try and rectify the
situation, and the politicians do not help in this regard, rather, some seem
keen to hold on to their tribal enclaves by whipping up ethnic emotions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The post-election violence was a culmination of several
factors that together created a volatile situation within the society. It is
completely disheartening that we as a nation have been unable to address these
factors. The issues that led to the ethnic hatred still exist, and in fact seem
to be further fueled by the attitudes expressed by various leaders across the
country. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kenya is still fragile; its societal fabric barely holding
together. In parts of Rift Valley especially, there is a tangible tension
between ethnic communities and a total lack of cohesion. It would take only a
small spark to fire up the sort of hatred and animosity seen in 2008, and we
would be thrust back into a violent period.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s time for us to deal with these problems directly even
as we push to have government meet its obligations to citizens. We can and
should reach out not only to the victims and survivors of the PEV, and also
make a concerted effort to heal the fragmentation in the nation’s societal
fabric which is based on ethnic diversity. It is up to all of us to heal this
country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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On the night of 3<sup>rd</sup> April 2014, 3 blasts were heard
in the Dadaab airstrip in Northern Kenya during the incident, no one was
injured but the main gate was completely destroyed. The unknown
assailants were said to have accessed the area on motorbikes.</div>
<div>
In
Dadaab, there have been about 21 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)
found since 2011, but in the camp the police have not thus far been
extra-judicial in their responses.</div>
<div>
This is a marked
contradiction to the police responses in Mombasa and Nairobi. Last week
alone, over 3000 people were arrested in swoops, including women and
young children. An overwhelming majority of those arrested were Somali,
and a large number were documented Kenyans, some not of Somali
ethnicity.</div>
<div>
It is true that Kenya has suffered greatly
for its activities in Somalia; in 2011 Kenya launched operation “Linda
Nchi” a military incursion into Somalia with the aim of fighting
Al-Shabaab and recovering or “freeing” towns where the Al-Shabaab
militia had taken over. Al-Shabaab is an offshoot of the Al-Qaeda
network, created in 2006 and led by Ahmed Abdi Godane also known as
Mukhtar Ali Zubeyr. Godane recently <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/10/us-somalia-alshabaab-leader-idUSBREA291OL20140310">urged Somalis</a> to fight their age-old enemy Ethiopia.</div>
<div>
<b>ROLE OF ANDALUS FM</b></div>
<div>
It has been the group’s approach to claim responsibility for attacks in Somalia and Kenya by <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/somalia/140213/islamist-rebel-group-al-shabaab-claims-responsibility-bo">announcing it</a> to the media. <a href="http://www.unsom.org/2014/02/06/february-6-2014-daily-monitoring-report/">Andalus FM</a> in Mogadishu is the main radio station they utilize to state their claims and reasons after attacks in Somalia.</div>
<div>
After
the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Al-Shabaab claimed
responsibility through their representative Abu Mansur Al-Amriki, who
demanded that Kenya withdraw its troops from Somalia. When they choose
to do so, not only do Al-Shabaab announce that they are responsible for
attacks, but they also allow journalists to interview them on the
matter, as was seen with Abu Mansur’s extensive interaction with the
international media. It is quite surprising then that the Al-Shabaab has
not staked a claim to the attacks in <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Terror-in-Mombasa-church/-/1056/2255212/-/mno8oy/-/index.html">Likoni</a>, <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Blast-kills-six-in-Eastleigh/-/1056/2264544/-/13h3miiz/-/index.html">Eastleigh</a> or <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Tension-high-as-two-successive-blasts-rock-Dadaab/-/1056/2270006/-/mbhb0cz/-/index.html">Dadaab</a>.</div>
<div>
It’s
hard to say why these attacks take on the form that they do, and the
police are yet to report on what their investigations reveal. But more
importantly the subsequent targeting and profiling of Somali refugees by
the Kenya government is quite concerning.</div>
<div>
Security in
Dadaab can be said to be moderate on average; the people there live in
fear of Al-Shabaab more than they fear government forces. If one were to
make a comparison, the refugees find Dadaab safer than Somalia. They
are simply civilians, and when the government blames them, it lends to a
feeling of being targeted because of being Somali. All Somalis are not
criminals, Al-Shabaab exists but they kill Somalis as well.</div>
<div>
The
profiling of Somali refugees is now the national narrative; when there
is an attack in Mombasa or Nairobi, fingers point to Dadaab. But the
reality is that Dadaab may indeed be more secure than other towns in
Kenya. </div>
<div>
Dadaab is at least the <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/horn-of-africa/region.php?id=3&country=110">fourth-largest</a>
town in Kenya although resources there are very scarce. It has been a
sanctuary for Somali people fleeing oppression in Somalia. It provides a
haven for people to <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/KU-opens-Dadaab-campus/-/1107872/2224390/-/6hmfc0z/-/index.html" target="_self">gain an education</a> and make a life for themselves. It has become a place for moderation rather than radicalization.</div>
<div>
<b>REFUGEES QUICK TO REPORT</b></div>
<div>
In addition, Kenya has signed and <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/horn-of-africa/download.php?id=1295">ratified</a> a <a href="http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5285e0294.pdf" target="_self">tripartite agreement</a>
between the UNHCR, Kenya and Somalia. The document, in which Kenya
agrees to its legal obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees from
Somalia, is explicit in its detail.</div>
<div>
Despite this, the government’s tone now is “you will go or you will go”.</div>
<div>
For
the 20 years that Dadaab has existed it has become a place for
moderation rather than radicalization. In that time, the police have
learned to deal with the people in such a manner as to gain co-operation
from them. With about 500 police operating in the area, there has been a
noted improvement in the conduct of the police force with regards to
raids.</div>
<div>
It is quite clear that not all government
departments are in harmony with the negativity stemming from the
Internal Security Cabinet Secretary, Joseph Ole Lenku who has <a href="http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Lenku-now-orders-all-refugee-camps-closed-/-/1950946/2086172/-/format/xhtml/-/74bnv6z/-/index.html">directed</a>
that “all urban based refugees should be relocated to Dadaab.” CS Ole
Lenku’s directives show that he lacks a reflection of the reality in
Dadaab, and as regards the refugees; he doesn’t seem to get the bigger
picture.</div>
<div>
It is the refugees who have suffered the most
under terror groups such as Al-Shabaab, and it is the refugees who are
quick to report any member of these terror organizations.</div>
<div>
It
is quite disconcerting that the police in Nairobi and Mombasa have yet
to adopt the same level of professionalism as their peers in Dadaab;
they need to be able to identify who is a criminal and who isn’t rather
than arresting the whole neighborhood as they have done in Eastleigh
where old men, women and children were all arrested in night-time raids.</div>
<div>
Moreover,
it is time for the security forces in Kenya to acknowledge that
Al-Shabaab could be entering the country through other entry points and
not just Dadaab. There need to be genuine efforts to secure these access
points across the nation, rather than pinning the blame on the one town
where Al-Shabaab are not likely to hide.</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Two weeks ago, a small church in Likoni area of Mombasa County
was brutally attacked by unknown gunmen and 6 people were killed and 15 others
injured. In what appears to be a pattern of attacks by “criminal” elements targeting
civilian populations, the gunmen executed their objective swiftly, and escaped
effortlessly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The emerging story of one
little boy, baby Satrine Osinya has now captivated the national attention even
as the public condemnation of the attack changed direction from blaming “criminals”
to blaming Muslims.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The immediate response by the Mombasa County commissioner
was to give the police a “shoot-to-kill” order even before any investigations
were conducted and suspects identified. The police response since that church
attack has been quite shocking. They arrested over 100 villagers, and then
detained a further 59 people of whom 49 were later released for loitering. 2 “suspects”
were shot to death and thus far no direct link between all these individuals including
the people killed has been made. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Almost predictably, an outspoken Muslim activist, Abubakar
Sharrif aka “Makaburi” was shot dead outside the Mombasa courts in an execution
style killing. Makaburi was known for his virulent and aggressive style of
talking, and his most heinous crime against Kenyans can be said to be
supporting the killings at Westgate in 2013. Unfortunately, we are burdened as
a democratic nation to have to tolerate freedom of speech for all, even if what
people say is offensive. Other than his utterances, Makaburi was yet to be
convicted for crimes related to terror activities or murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following his assassination, there was a grenade attack in
Eastleigh section of Nairobi, in which another 6 people were killed and several
more injured. Bizarrely, the police chose to arrest 627 people and did a
further swoop in which 2600 people were arrested. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is interesting to note that not only did
the police make arrests among the affected community; they targeted the very
people who were attacked!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arresting over 3000 people isn’t a security measure nor is
it conducting investigations. It’s just a blatant abuse of power, disregard for
the rule of law, and state sanctioned targeting of communities. Not
surprisingly during these police raids, the narrative being spun is that those
arrested were Somali refugees, a narrative that is in tandem with an illegal
directive by Cabinet Secretary for Internal Security Joseph Ole Lenku in which
he “ordered” over 50,000 refugees back to camps under the guise of seeking
security measures.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is just sheer laziness and cowardice to blame asylum
seekers for the gross incompetence of the security forces. This isn’t a police
state nor is there a state of emergency in this country. Arresting thousands of
people has not added one iota of security to the rest of public; rather it has
just spread fear and terror among civilians. For the record, not just refugees
were arrested but Kenyan citizens as well, some of whom were not even Somali
ethnicity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be fantastic if the police could understand that
you don’t secure the nation by arresting people for loitering. Actual security
measures need to be implemented and this is done when a genuine effort to
address the situation is made. Ever since Westgate, private businesses have
undertaken the extra cost of having security guards check patrons with handheld
metal detectors, searching vehicles at entry points and requesting documentation.
Certainly these measures make it more difficult for criminals to access certain
premises but this is not enough. It is incumbent upon the police themselves and
the internal security ministry to go further and do more on a wider scale as a
government. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead, we have the pleasure now of having to source for
15,000 kshs per person in order to have them released from jail because they
were arrested for “loitering”. Mark you, many of those arrested in Eastleigh
were inside their own homes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is no correlation between these arbitrary arrests and
increased security whatsoever, and Kenyans do not feel safer simply because
Joseph Ole Lenku decides to pin the blame on asylum seekers. Despite all the
activity by the police after the gruesome attacks in Likoni and Eastleigh, not
a single person arrested has been charged with criminal offences of any kind,
and not a single person has been charged with crimes linked to terror
activities. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bottom-line is that the police are just arresting people
without any sort of merit or real cause. In the meantime, soft targets such as
malls, shopping centers, churches, mosques, hotels, buses and restaurants
remain vulnerable and open to attack because the cops are doing a truly shoddy
job.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-88752221448606958202014-04-05T02:01:00.003-07:002014-04-05T02:01:52.568-07:00Kenya uses terror attacks to stigmatize and oppress the Somali ethnic community http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/Kenya-uses-terror-attacks-to-stigmatize-oppress-Somali/-/1959700/2263168/-/view/asBlogPost/-/mxb54b/-/index.htmlIn response to the Likoni church
shooting in which 6 people were killed and 15 others injured, Mombasa
County Commissioner Nelson Marwa issued a <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Police-given-green-light-to-gun-down-terrorism-suspects/-/1056/2259066/-/rwmdny/-/index.html">shoot-to-kill order</a>
in which he claimed that it is counter-productive to take terror
suspects to court because it is very difficult find witnesses in their
prosecution.<br />
<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
This directive caused uproar among the
civil society who termed it illegal and an affront to the legitimate
efforts to combat attacks. By Friday, 28<sup>th</sup> March, the
Inspector General of police Mr. David Kimaiyo had announced to the media
that the police should ignore the shoot-to-kill order by the Mombasa
County Commissioner.</div>
<div>
In the time that it took the Inspector General to give directions on the shoot-to-kill order, the police had <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Two-killed-and-500-seized-in-crime-war/-/1056/2259088/-/9x5fx7/-/index.html">rounded up 100 villagers</a> in the search for the terror suspects, <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Police-arrest-59-over-Likoni-church-attack/-/1056/2256440/-/v8tf9u/-/index.html">detained 59 people</a>
and apparently charged 49 of them for “loitering”. In Nairobi, tens of
youth were arrested in a swoop in one of the suburbs, many of whom were
later released. </div>
<div>
As a response to the security situation, Kenya has ordered all urban-based Somali refugees to <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/Kenya-orders-all-refugees-into-designated-camps/-/1066/2257848/-/77la9lz/-/index.html">move into designated</a>
camps in a bid to end attacks by militant Islamists. The Cabinet
Secretary for Internal Security Joseph ole Lenku further stated that
“Any refugee found flouting this directive will be dealt with in
accordance with the law”.</div>
<div>
<strong>NO PROVEN CORRELATION</strong></div>
<div>
This
new plan by the Kenya government seeks to force 50,000 registered
refugees and asylum seekers back to under-resourced and already
overcrowded refugee camps in direct violation of a 2013 <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/84157">High Court ruling</a>
that declared such forced movement of refugees a violation of their
dignity and rights to freedom of movement that would indirectly force
them to move back to Somalia.</div>
<div>
In addition, the July
2013 ruling found that there was no proven correlation of the
restriction of refugees to the refugee camps and national security
issues.</div>
<div>
It is not the first time that the Kenyan
authorities move to use completely unlawful and illegal means to target
members of Muslim community and Somali ethnicity regardless of their
citizenry. It is part of the national narrative that all terrorists in
Kenya are Muslims and all Somalis are terror suspects. Kenya is once
again using attacks by terrorists to stigmatize, target and harass
refugees and people of Somali ethnicity.</div>
<div>
In a <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/05/29/you-are-all-terrorists-0">report</a>
named “You are all Terrorists” released in 2013, the Human Rights Watch
interviewed 101 refugees and Kenyans of Somali ethnicity in which they
document torture, rape, extortion and arbitrary detention of individuals
in Eastleigh area of Nairobi.</div>
<div>
The report details the
extent to which the police will go in abusing the rights of refugees in
Kenya – one woman narrates how she was walking home when she was <a href="http://www.hrw.org/node/115734/section/2">accosted by regular police</a>,
who beat her, put her in the police vehicle, raped her and dumped her
in an unknown location. There was no reason for this brutal attack,
other than to rape and abuse this woman.</div>
<div>
Even as terror
attacks increase in frequency in Kenya, the government engages in
atrocities that have nothing whatsoever to do with national security,
acts that do not bring about investigations nor arrests of actual
criminals, acts of government-sanctioned terror.</div>
<div>
<strong>NO INVESTIGATIVE REPORT</strong></div>
<div>
In
this “war against terror” women and children are targeted based on
their ethnic heritage regardless of whether they are refugees or Kenyan
citizens. To add a shoot-to-kill order on top of such flagrant human
rights abuses is to increase the frequency of extra-judicial killings by
rogue police officers who utilize government resources and their
authority to attack women and children.</div>
<div>
It’s been one
week since the Likoni attack. Tens of people have been arrested, and two
“suspects” killed. Thus far, no investigative report has been brought
forward indicating how resources were utilized or to what extent the
activities of the police have managed to increase security for civilians
around the country. Despite the killings of “suspects” and the arrests
done, not a single terror group has come forward to claim responsibility
for the church attack and not a single government official is able to
pin-point exactly who was responsible for the attack.</div>
<div>
In
the meantime – the ugly xenophobic narrative being spun by government
against Muslims and people of Somali ethnicity is swallowed whole by the
Kenyan public who feel that it is indeed plausible that women and
children who are asylum seekers could be behind terror attacks in Kenya,
which is why they should be forced back into refugee camps.</div>
<div>
Whenever
there are terror attacks in Kenya, there is a huge uproar over the loss
of innocent lives; but when the police target people because of their
ethnicity, no one remembers that these human rights abuses are
themselves meted out on innocent people.</div>
<div>
Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero">@bettywaitherero</a></div>
</section>
</article><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-8759463209124645842014-03-29T04:00:00.000-07:002014-03-29T02:39:07.019-07:00Time to raise awareness on Autism in Kenya<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A devastating story in one of the local dailies tells of an
autistic girl who was raped in Kariobangi. This is just a glimpse into the
world of autistic children in Kenya. Autism is a condition that children are
born with. It affects their behavior, social skills, and learning and
communication skills. An autistic child is often incapable of expressing themselves
so as to be easily understood. Often times the child does not speak as in the
case of Anne from Kariobangi, who could not shout or scream when her rapists
attacked her. It’s just tragic that people with mental health issues often fall
prey to sexual violence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This country isn’t known for its progress in the mental
health sector, in fact Kenya government has shortchanged the population for
decades when it comes to mental health. According to a report by Dr. Lukoye
Atwoli, Chairman of the Kenya Medical Association, Eldoret Division, it is
estimated that upto 10-15% of our population suffers from common mental
disorders including depression, anxiety and somatisation. See: <a href="http://www.wambuiwaithaka.com/mental-health-priorities-for-kenya-2013/">http://www.wambuiwaithaka.com/mental-health-priorities-for-kenya-2013/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For parents of children with mental health challenges like
Autism, life is hellish in Kenya. For starters, it’s very difficult to access
the right doctors who can help give a diagnosis on the child’s mental health
status. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of autistic children are
misdiagnosed around the world. In Kenya the chances are very slim that an
autistic child will receive the right medical attention at the right stage in
their lives so that proper care and treatment is administered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The statistics on Autism in the US say that 1 child out of
every 68 children could be autistic. There are currently no reliable figures
from Kenya and no way of knowing just how many children have this condition
because they are hidden away from society by their families.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abigail (Abby) Brooke is a talented young photographer who
has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of Autism in individuals who are considered “High
functioning”. High functioning autism means that the individual may have
similar challenges with other autistic people but they have managed to overcome
those challenges or some of the problems have stopped manifesting over time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abby missed out on being properly diagnosed at an early stage
and was diagnosed at age 13. Since then, Abby and her supportive family have
done everything they can to learn as much as possible about Autism and Asperger’s
Syndrome. Abby is now 30 years old, and is working on her own awareness project
called Walking Autism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When you first meet her, Abby is a bit shy, because she
still struggles a bit in social settings. But once you get her talking about
Africa and her project to raise awareness that is when you see the fire and
determination in this beautiful young woman. Abby hasn’t had an easy life – she
suffered such great discrimination and depression that at age 21 she attempted
suicide. It was not easy for her to recover from that low point in her life,
but she strives harder every day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While a lot of autistic people have challenges when it comes
to being able to look after themselves, Abby is surprisingly independent. Walking
Autism is a project where she intends to trek across Kenya and later across
Africa to raise awareness on autism and also to fundraise towards educational
programs for autistic children. She began her first trek from Rumuruti to
Nanyuki in Laikipia County this week and is expected to arrive in Nanyuki on 2<sup>nd</sup>
April, in time for World Autism Awareness Day. Abby will have covered over 100
kms in her trek.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s no secret that mental health issues are largely considered
some kind of taboo in this country and that abject neglect and horrific
conditions will meet you when you dare to visit Mathari Mental Hospital. It’s
just saddening and maddening that Mathari is the only government facility of
its kind and that access to mental healthcare for majority of Kenyans is next
to impossible. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In his ‘State of the Union address’, President Uhuru
Kenyatta did not even mention mental healthcare rather a reiteration of a
promise to give free maternity care for women. It’s been a year full of
theatrics, intrigue and suspense surrounding the Laptop project for children
and the sum total result of that endeavor is that finally the tender issued was
cancelled. <br />
Why not forget about giving laptops to kids who don’t even have classrooms? Why
not put all that energy and funds into providing adequate healthcare and support
to families with children who have mental health challenges? That would
certainly make more sense!<br />
Never the less, even where the government refuses to meet its obligations there
are some brave individuals who try and do the best they can, and Abby Brooke is
one such individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s time to raise
awareness on Autism in Kenya, and that is exactly what Abby is doing. Bravo!</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-18027723667501973372014-03-29T02:37:00.002-07:002014-03-29T02:37:36.613-07:00The Somali-Ogaden protest at the Pan-African Parliament http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/The-Somali-Ogaden-protest-at-the-Pan-African-Parliament-/-/1959700/2254450/-/view/asBlogPost/-/103akriz/-/index.html<article class="article"><section class="body-copy"><div>
On 18<sup>th</sup> March 2014, A small
gathering of protesters outside the buildings at Gallagher Park in
Midrand, South Africa shouted “AU where are you? Down, down, Ethiopia
down!” during the inauguration of the 10 years Anniversary of the <a href="http://www.pan-africanparliament.org/">Pan-African Parliament</a>.</div>
<div>
The
protesters were members of the Ogaden-Somali and Oromo ethnic
communities who live in Johannesburg, South Africa. They had convened to
protest the actions of the Ethiopian government and massive human
rights abuses inflicted over 20 years by Ethiopian troops.</div>
<div>
LISTEN: <a href="http://yourlisten.com/JFJustice_tw/protestors-chant-against-au-and-ethiopia-outside-pap">Protesters chant against AU and Ethiopia outside Pan-African Parliament</a></div>
<div>
Despite
the fact that the police in Johannesburg had allowed these protesters
to convene, the very same police decided to directly interfere with the
protest. Under the <a href="http://www.parliament.gov.za/live/commonrepository/Processed/20091112/87760_1.pdf">Gathering Act No. 205 of 1993</a> the police gave permission to the protestors to convene at the Pan-African Parliament. </div>
<div>
Attorney Ziyaad Patel explained. “I would like to state for the record, that the Johannesburg police department <a href="https://twitter.com/JFJustice/status/445902058122518528/photo/1">had provided</a>
for the Ogaden community to protest outside the Pan-African Parliament
and particularly it states under clause( 2): ‘100 metres outside the
Pan-African Parliament’. We have been pushed 500 metres away from the
PAP. It is a clear sign that those who have given authority have decided
to hide that these people have a legitimate case.”</div>
<div>
This
may have been a small gathering of voices. Nonetheless, these voices
speak volumes of the utter hypocrisy behind the message propagated by
the African Union, which states, “One Africa, One voice.”</div>
<div>
<strong>PUSHED BACK</strong></div>
<div>
Not only did the PAP <a href="https://twitter.com/JFJustice/status/445897639301632000/photo/1">refuse to receive</a>
the memorandum created by the Ogaden –Somali people, but they also
asked them to re-schedule their protest, and failing that, pushed them
as far away as they could from the center of the 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary celebrations.</div>
<div>
The
Pan-African Parliament (PAP) proudly boasts the slogan “The Pan African
Parliament represents all the people of Africa.” Established in March
2004, by Article 17 of The Constitutive Act of the African Union, The
Pan-African Parliament is one of the nine Organs provided for in the
Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community.</div>
<div>
READ: <a href="http://www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/ConstitutiveAct_EN.pdf">Constitutive Act of the African Union (PDF)</a></div>
<div>
This
past week, the Pan-African Parliament commemorated its tenth
anniversary under the theme “10 years of existence of the Pan African
Parliament: Reflections on its roles”. Pan African parliamentarians are
expected to represent all the peoples of Africa, and the vision of the
PAP is well documented in a statement underscored by its president, Hon.
Bethel Amadi.</div>
<div>
Speaking specifically on the engagement
of African governments with the youth, the President of the Pan African
Parliament Hon. Bethel Amadi pointed out the grave gaps in governance on
the continent. “Investing in youth education is the key to development
in Africa. Regrettably our governments have not shown leadership in
engaging the youth," he said.</div>
<div>
<strong>LEAST REPRESENTED</strong></div>
<div>
During
the Youth Dialogue, Dr Olawale Mayeigun noted that least two thirds of
Africa’s population consists of young people aged 25 and below, yet
unemployment among those with secondary education or above in Africa is
three times higher than among those with similar educational attainment
on other continents.</div>
<div>
Despite the numbers being in their
favor, young people are the least represented in the Pan-African
Parliament. During the Youth Dialogue, Sindane, a student from
University of South Africa, made this observation quite succinctly. "On
tables in front me and behind me I see so many old people; it’s
disturbing."</div>
<div>
While one Member of Parliament valiantly
tried to argue that youth is a matter of attitude and not age, it was
clear that the young people who had the fortune to attend the PAP
celebrations were not only outnumbered by older MPs but were also
struggling to have their issues concretely addressed.</div>
<div>
Sindane,
the student from UniSA, put it best. “I am not trying to disrespect
this sitting, but it should be about giving solutions and not problems".</div>
<div>
<strong>DISREGARDING CRIES FOR HELP</strong></div>
<div>
If
the Youth Dialogue was anything to go by, then the PAP is incapable of
truly representing the vast majority of the people of Africa, despite
having members drawn from national assembly in the various AU member
states.</div>
<div>
This is not just about 60 per cent of the
continent anymore. It is also about a political decision by the
Pan-African Parliament to disregard the cries for help by an ethnic
minority in a country that houses the headquarters of the AU.</div>
<div>
It is also about justice. The fact that many young people were unable to attend the 10<sup>th</sup>
anniversary celebrations due to discriminatory policies that enforce
visa requirements from residents and citizens of member states to travel
to both South Africa and Ethiopia speaks to access and visibility, and
being heard and taken seriously.</div>
<div>
Ten years down the
line, the Pan-African Parliament is not able to even give the time of
day to African people who are unrepresented; yet it claims that through
the parliament, all African people will be represented. This isn’t just
about electing the right leaders at the National Assembly in each
country, but about the AU and its different organs recognizing that it
is indeed one of the last resorts that oppressed communities have to
turn to. Failing this, the people of Africa may turn to the
International Criminal Court.</div>
<div>
<em>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" target="_blank">@bettywaitherero</a></em></div>
</section>
</article><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
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It’s amazing what occupies the floor of parliament. Take the
amendments to the marriage bill for example. One wonders why male MPs thought
it is crucial to put into law the need NOT to seek consent from wives when a
man wants to marry more – it’s not like they were asking women to begin with
anyway. The fact that the clause on consent was put in there in the first place
was meant to allow their wives the option of knowing when their domestic
situation was going to be expanded PRIOR to its expansion. Eventually of
course, most women do discover the second/third wife.<br />
The way polygamy was defended you would think that any man can actually afford
a second wife and family – they can’t. To repeat the words of one MP – “This is
Africa.” Most of the population in Kenya is living under the poverty line. To
demand /not demand consent in polygamy is a non-issue when you are trying to
survive, nay EXIST. You can demand consent till you go blue in the face, if he
can afford a second wife he will get one. If he can’t, what’s the point of a
law that allows him to marry again without consent?</div>
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These are useless undertakings quite frankly. The only
admirable thing about the marriage bill is that now every single marriage needs
to be registered legally. See that? You want to marry as many women as you can
afford but you have to do it legally meaning that if you can’t afford these
wives you will be in deep trouble soon after you say “I do.”</div>
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I can only imagine the sort of trouble an “African” man is
looking for when he seeks a second wife whom he shall be legally obligated to. It’s
almost comedic – the matter of being just and equal and fair to all wives while
single handedly providing for them, their children and all your in-laws is such
a herculean task that polygamous men in Kenya can honestly consider their full
time occupation as “being married.”</div>
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In some ways – it’s almost romantic that men who should
genuinely be focused on being the providers for their families can take THAT
much interest in being attached to yet another woman and yet more children
because “This is Africa.” I think that if a man has that much love and
commitment no woman should be overly concerned about whether he asked for her
consent or not; clearly he is keen to be dominated by you, your co-wives, your
children and domestic affairs 24/7 for the rest of his life. That’s real love,
ladies!</div>
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I applaud these MPs – for making polygamous marriages
legally binding and also for inadvertently forever committing themselves to all
the wives they wish to marry. It is quite admirable that these legislators have
chosen to bind themselves to the “old ball and chain” willingly. Usually you
have to get a shotgun to make some men marry, here in Kenya they WANT to marry!</div>
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So, ladies, there is no need for getting worked up over the
consent issue – to be frank, they weren’t asking for your consent before while
supporting the second or third family and thus far you were still being catered
to as is your right as his wife. If he wasn’t catering to you, you had the same
legal channels as always to enforce your rights.<br />
Speaking of legal channels – which many will argue are skewed in favor of men,
the same courts that will recognize polygamous unions will also have to issue
orders on family rights. Such that, even though “This is Africa” polygamous men
will definitely have to do right by ALL their women. For example, If you are
polygamous you have to provide housing for all your wives. That’s two houses if
you have two wives. Or a really big house if you choose to live under the same
roof. You also have to make sure you provide for your children fairly so that’s
school fees, clothes, and healthcare multiplied by the number of offspring your
loins can produce and that is into infinity seeing as you can marry as many as
you wish.</div>
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It’s just absurd to even have a clause on consent when you
really think about it. Your husband has to be a really rich person to go round
marrying women and legally binding himself to a second family in Kenya, where
the cost of living is considered among the highest in Africa while at the same
time being bound legally to provide for you and your kids as well. As far as I
can tell, rich men don’t stay rich by spending their money – never mind
splitting their money and time between so many people who are legally entitled.</div>
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I am certainly not against polygamy – in fact I agree, marry
as many women as you can afford. The key issue here is “afford.” Just like you
didn’t need consent to marry, you also don’t need anyone to remind you that
your bank account just got halved and that you have shrinking resources due to
your desire to acquire wives as though they are appreciating assets. When you
consider these implications, I dare say that clause on polygamy could very well
mean the end of clandestine affairs, absentee husbands, mistresses and
eventually will lead to the end of polygamy which legally speaking is quite an
expensive matter. So thank you, dear MPs!</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-7700487165671037252014-03-09T23:33:00.004-07:002014-03-09T23:33:52.444-07:00 For many, there’s little to celebrate on International Women’s Day http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/little-to-celebrate-on-International-Women-s-Day/-/1959700/2236826/-/view/asBlogPost/-/k19iej/-/index.html<div>
8th March, was International Women’s Day. </div>
<div>
In Kenya, this auspicious event marked a continued state of injustice for women and inequalities at the legal and social level. </div>
<div>
Significantly,
the fact that hardly any cases of sexual and gender based violence from
the post-election violence (PEV) of 2008 have been prosecuted speaks
loudly of the state of persistent injustice in Kenya for women and girls
in particular.</div>
<div>
In so far as common law is applied in
Kenya, the DPP indeed cannot be faulted given the circumstances he has
presented as reasons why <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/JSC-Tobiko-in-row-over-special-court-/-/1056/2196020/-/esy0yh/-/index.html" target="_blank">he cannot proceed</a> with these cases. </div>
<div>
However,
ever since we promulgated the Constitution in 2010, statute laws under
treaties Kenya signed and ratified were domesticated, and this includes
the Rome Statute. Within article 7 of the Rome Statute, sexual and
gender based crimes such as rape, forcible circumcision, genital
mutilation and sexual slavery are prosecutable offenses falling under
International Crimes, yet there seems to be a clear lack of political
will to pursue justice under these laws<strong>.</strong><br />
<strong> FIELD OF BLOOD</strong><br />
<strong></strong>This is evident in the <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/JSC-Tobiko-in-row-over-special-court-/-/1056/2196020/-/esy0yh/-/index.html" target="_blank">response to application 122/2013</a>
by the DPP. To put the DPP’s response in perspective we have to revisit
the situation back in 2008. After election disputes erupted over the
presidential election results, there followed a period of 2 months
during which violence and insecurity was pervasive throughout “hot
spots” in parts of Rift Valley, Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa and Western
Kenya. </div>
<div>
Widespread, systematic violence took on ethnic
proportions in which people from ethnic communities perceived to belong
to rival political parties ODM and PNU were targeted, attacked,
brutalized and killed. Out of this vicious conflict, the story of one
particular young man’s experience should haunt us all.</div>
<div>
At
the time, this young man was only 12 years-old, Luo and living in
Naivasha area. He says that he and many other young boys were dragged to
a field, stripped naked, and held down by four men who then used a
machete to “circumcise” him. He passed out from the brutality of the
ordeal, and later woke up in what he describes as a field of blood. </div>
<div>
Out
of the tens of boys who were attacked that day, this young man believes
he was the only one who survived because none of the others left that
field. He does not know who his attackers were, nor can he identify
them.</div>
<div>
It has always been the argument in common law,
and indeed the prevalent attitude that the victim must present evidence
of a crime being committed and also to identify the perpetrator of the
crime. This is a skewed version of justice where the crime did not occur
if the victim is not able to report the crime or identify his attacker.
</div>
<div>
Yet, in statute law, the onus of proving that a crime
occurred is no longer placed upon the victim, but upon the prosecutor.
It is the prosecutor who is mandated and expected to conduct
investigations, and who is responsible for seeking justice on behalf of
the victims. </div>
<div>
<strong>FAILED VICTIMS</strong></div>
<div>
It is clear that as far as statute laws in Kenya are concerned, the DPP has failed victims abysmally.</div>
<div>
It
may be that the culture of impunity is vested in the culture of the
people. It’s a fact however that when it comes to women and girls, the
prevailing cultural attitude is that they are assets, such that if a
woman is violated or raped, then a man’s asset has been violated. Does
the DPP then expect some man somewhere to come forward with evidence
that his female assets were violated and for that man to identify the
other man who violated his assets? In the entire discourse, the woman,
her body and her rights have ceased to exist. </div>
<div>
That
same discrimination and impunity regarding sexual violence has in turn
affected boys and men who are also subjected to crimes such as forcible
circumcision, genital amputation and sodomy. </div>
<div>
The truth
is that as long as this society practices entrenched patriarchy that
denies human rights to women, that same patriarchy will create victims
out of men as well.</div>
<div>
We choose to belong to the
international community by signing treaties and ratifying them. We also
choose to celebrate international days alongside the rest of the world.
But we as a nation refuse to recognize that half of our society is even
human.</div>
<div>
This is not just a problem at the societal level
but an ingrained policy that is finely expressed through the patriarchy
in our laws. </div>
<div>
That prevailing patriarchal attitude and
disproportionate discrimination against women and girls in particular
defines the implicit state of Female Justice in Kenya. </div>
<div>
<em>Twitter: @bettywaitherero</em></div>
<section class="related-articles sidebar-item">
</section>
<span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-88143821335244043002014-03-08T01:15:00.001-08:002014-03-08T01:15:15.704-08:00Nairobi Should not be Held hostage by Touts <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kenyans seem to have a collective problem and that is
IGNORANCE. Granted, being ignorant is not necessarily a bad thing; I am happily
ignorant of what cocaine “high” feels like, and I don’t want to know. It’s a fact
that there are some things on this planet you would much rather never know
about, but certainly the LAWS of your country do not fall under that category.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dr. Evans Kidero really is a man under siege. You would
think, given the sort of chaos that erupted on 5<sup>th</sup> March in the
public transport sector, that he was a person who is unreasonable, a bully and
an oppressive dictator who woke up one day and decided to impose a 200% increase
in parking fees overnight. Certainly, that is the message that the public
service operators (PSV), SACCOs and touts were sending; that they were compelled
to protest, to disrupt transportation and to force thousands of Kenyans
including myself, to walk to work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My legs have recovered from the trek, which turned out to be
an unnecessary exercise even though it may have been much needed. These PSV
operators chose to hold the whole city hostage instead of adhere to rulings on
their own petition 486 of 2013 in which the court found that the Nairobi
Governor and county government had indeed consulted the public before
increasing fares and instituting other measures that the PSV operators were
protesting about.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Somewhere along the way, the general public was held for
ransom by corrupt PSV operators whose sole intention was BLACKMAIL. Their view
was simple; if the court cannot rule in their favor then they can easily
disrupt public transportation and create chaos until the county government does
exactly what they want.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The last time these PSV operators did something similar that
was equally illegal, barbaric and an attempt at blackmail was back in 2003,
when the government instituted new transportation laws better known as “Michuki
rules”. Simply because the government, for the first time in the history of
Kenya, showed some superficial concern for the lives of passengers and
implemented rules on the provision of safety belts and speed governors, the PSV
operators decided that all commuters in Kenya should walk to work. For 3 days,
Kenyans valiantly walked, 3 days of excessively exercising previously sedentary
legs, only for the PSV operators to balk and realize that they live hand to
mouth and need to pay their rent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the curse of ignorance. It doesn’t matter for how
long PSV operators decide to strike, at the end of the day; they are the ones
who are disrupting their OWN businesses. We are simply passengers; our sole
investment in commuting is by virtue of the need to get to work without being
exhausted. So deciding that the best response to a ruling on parking fees is to
disrupt your OWN businesses and bring chaos will only inconvenience thousands
of people for a few hours and then you will have to get back to earning your
daily bread, which is what happened.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think Dr. Kidero was being rather magnanimous by
negotiating. He certainly was in a really compassionate mood when he decided to
do that. If John Michuki was governor of Nairobi this week I assure you that we
would still be walking to work 3 weeks later. So in a sense, I am grateful to
Evans Kidero for agreeing to sit down and work things out with PSV operators.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As for the argument that the Nairobi County government did
not engage the public adequately prior to enactment of the new laws concerning
parking fees, it’s clear that ignorance caused PSV operators and their umbrella
bodies to miss the SEVERAL gazette notices and advertisements put into the
newspapers asking the public to attend forums in which the legislation, fees
and implementation procedures were discussed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been 4 years since the Constitution was promulgated,
isn’t it time that we all read it and internalized the various rights, privileges
and responsibilities accorded to us? It’s not up to Dr. Evans Kidero to make a
speech on TV each time the county government asks the public to engage in
participatory forums. Actually, it is the citizens DUTY to seek to participate
in governance issues at the county level as is mandated by the Kenya
constitution article 10 and article 174. It may be a Kenyan thing to be
ignorant, but to be ignorant of your own duties and then to run riot when you
are left out of governance process is a sign of plain idiocy. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/bettywaitherero" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @bettywaitherero</a>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script></div>bettywaithererohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256176176946008460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165808331548999215.post-80148081550608047192014-03-08T01:14:00.001-08:002014-03-08T01:14:10.390-08:00DRC’s failure to arrest Bashir deals injustice to Darfur victims http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/-/1959700/2227394/-/view/asBlogPost/-/14oh1wo/-/index.html<div>
Since 1998, the Democratic Republic of Congo has struggled with
bitter successive conflicts affecting vast regions of the country,
especially in Kivu and Ituri regions during and after the Second Congo
War.</div>
<div>
Despite several peace agreements made between
combatants in 2003, the extreme atrocities committed against vast
numbers of the population soon became internationally acknowledged as
possible crimes against humanity, including genocide, rape, forcible
transfer and sexual slavery.</div>
<div>
When the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/2004/Pages/prosecutor%20receives%20referral%20of%20the%20situation%20in%20the%20democratic%20republic%20of%20congo.aspx">referred the first cases to the International Criminal Court</a>
in 2004, it was President Joseph Kabila who signed a letter written to
the then ICC Chief Prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo requesting him to
investigate the DRC situation in order to determine if any person within
the territory of the DRC should be charged with crimes as stipulated in
the Rome Statute.</div>
<div>
The state authorities have committed to cooperate with the International Criminal Court.</div>
<div>
The
DRC authorities have so far exhibited cooperation in the cases of six
indicted and charged individuals, having arrested and delivered three of
them to the ICC for prosecution. </div>
<div>
It is Joseph
Kabila’s signature that began the first investigations ever to be
conducted by the ICC, and today it is Joseph Kabila’s government that
stands in the path of justice by refusing to arrest an indicted fugitive
from justice, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, the current President of Sudan.</div>
<div>
On February 25<sup>th</sup> 2014, in total disregard of its legal obligations under the Rome Statute, the DRC hosted President Bashir at the 17<sup>th</sup>
Heads of State and Government summit of the Common Market for East and
Southern Africa (COMESA). Despite calls by the President of the Assembly
of State Parties, H.E Tiina Intelman, and a request by the OTP that the
DRC arrest Bashir the moment he arrived in Kinshasa, the Congolese
authorities refused to comply, stating that they were following the
wishes of the African Union (AU).</div>
<div>
To date, 90 civil society organizations have added their voices to the demand for the arrest of President Al-Bashir.</div>
<div>
“Congo
as an ICC member has an obligation to arrest and transfer President
al-Bashir to The Hague, where he is wanted for crimes against humanity
and war crimes,” said <a href="http://www.jfjustice.net/sudan-president-in-dr-congo-bashir-faces-icc-charges-of-genocide-war-crimes-crimes-against-humanity/">Georges Kapiamba</a>, president of the Congolese Association for Access to Justice, based in Kinshasa. </div>
<div>
<strong>HYPOCRITICAL STAND</strong></div>
<div>
For
the DRC to turn their backs on the Darfuri victims and to side with the
man charged with horrific crimes against them is not only a devastating
blow to justice in the case of Sudan, but also a clear hypocritical
stand taken by the very initiators of the court processes and functions
in Africa.</div>
<div>
“Having long worked closely with the ICC,
Congo should demonstrate that it stands on the side of Darfuri victims,
and arrest al-Bashir,” said Descartes Mpongo, executive secretary of
Christian Activists Actions for Human Rights in Shabunda of the
Democratic Republic of Congo.</div>
<div>
Unlike other African
states like Kenya, Zambia, South Africa and Malawi that have avoided
state visits by Bashir by cancelling events, inviting other government
officials or relocating events, the DRC was brazen, choosing to host
Bashir and then purporting to justify its actions.</div>
<div>
The DRC has refused to comply by Assembly Resolution <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/asp_docs/Resolutions/ASP12/ICC-ASP-12-Res3-ENG.pdf">ICC ASP-12/Res.3</a>
adopted in November 2013 by the Assembly of State Parties which
categorically states among other measures that “contacts with persons in
respect of whom an arrest warrant issued by the Court is outstanding
should be avoided when such contacts undermine the objectives of the
Rome Statute.”</div>
<div>
When it comes to the weak argument that
the DRC is complying with the wishes of the AU, it is only fair to note
that the July 2009 Resolution concerning the arrest of President Bashir
was passed without a vote, and holds no legal weight over the Congolese
authorities.</div>
<div>
<strong>DEMANDS TO WITHDRAW</strong></div>
<div>
Since
the indictment of President Bashir, the AU has developed a strained
relationship with the ICC, one that began with the now pervasive myth of
the ICC being an “imperial and neo-colonial court” funded by western
nations. It is important to note that when it comes to funding of the
court, all state parties are obligated to contribute to the financial
requirements of the ICC, and that includes the DRC and Kenya.</div>
<div>
More
importantly, the clear antagonistic demands to withdraw AU member
states from the Rome Treaty en masse appear to stem primarily from
countries that have refused to sign the treaty. Indeed, the increased
insistence on non-cooperation with the ICC comes from most notably from
AU member states that are not state parties to the Rome Statute. Madame <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Pages/PR984.aspx">Tiina Intelman</a>, President of the Assembly of State Parties was quite categorical.</div>
<div>
“As
President of the Assembly, I deplore the visits of persons subject to
arrest warrants of the Court to any State Party. I urge the authorities
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to fully comply with their
obligation to cooperate with the Court.”</div>
<div>
It is unlikely
that the Dafuri victims will ever see justice given the fascist and
insidious nature of the current Sudan regime and the ICC may indeed be
their only hope to not only see justice for crimes already committed but
a possibly more stable political future in the absence of Bashir’s
government.</div>
<div>
It is indeed deplorable for persons’ with
arrest warrants to visit any state party in the first place. But it is
without a doubt the rankest mockery for the State party that has thus
far seen the most action taken on behalf of their victims to turn around
and deny the victims of Sudan that same chance at justice from the
ICC. </div>
<div>
<em>@bettywaitherero</em></div>
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