Security Forces Under Fire

Kenya's security forces are in the news again, and again it's bad news. A report by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch accuses them of torture and rape during an operation to disarm feuding clans in North Eastern province -- a volatile region near Kenya's borders with Ethiopia and Somalia -- last October. According to HRW, "scores" of men were tortured, at least a dozen women raped, and over 1,200 people wounded during the three-day operation.
"Some men had their genitals pulled with pliers, tied with wire or beaten senselessly as a method of torture designed to make them confess and turn over guns," the report said.
"This was clearly an operation directed from above. And the torture that we described in this report was systematic and widespread, so much so that we believe there is a good case to be made that crimes against humanity were committed," said Kenneth Roth, HRW executive director. The brutality was not very effective. Some families reportedly bought guns from Somalia to hand over to the security forces and get them off their backs.
As with other allegations of abuse, the authorities have denied the charges in the HRW report."The story of torture and rape by our forces does not exist. Anyone who says so needs psychiatric help," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told Reuters.
HRW is calling for the removal of the police commissioner and the attorney-general -- the same demand made by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston in a report earlier this year that found that police in Kenya kill often, and with impunity.
But the two men -- Hussein Ali and Amos Wako -- are still in their jobs. If anything, the Alston report in some ways served to boost defenders of the security forces, some of whom argued that the U.N. rapporteur was meddling in Kenya's sovereign affairs -- always a popular argument on a continent where many view the West and its institutions with suspicion, and not without justification.
Security in Kenya is not a simple subject of course. Some Kenyans will tell you the police and security forces have a difficult, thankless job. Gun crime is on the rise, kidnappings for ransom are becoming more common, carjackings are reportedly in double-figures every night in Nairobi and some say illegal weapons smuggled in from Somalia are fueling a nationwide crime spree. Criminals will shoot with impunity -- three CID officers were shot dead while on patrol in Athi River on Saturday -- and some might argue so should the police, especially given the snail's pace of justice in this country (another failing that has been laid at the Attorney-General's door).
President Mwai Kibaki has announced a national task force to put police reforms on a fast track, but it is hard to see how you can change a deeply entrenched culture of impunity and excess if you do not change the leadership under which this has flourished.
The rot in the security forces does not just manifest itself in excesses against civilians and criminals. There are worrying signs of internal feuding among the police as well.
On Saturday, two senior administration policemen were gunned down by their regular police counterparts in Mombasa. It's not clear why: the regular police said the APs were with a group of gangsters and preparing a robbery. Some witnesses said this was not the case. Some APs said their colleagues were killed because of their investigations into the drugs trade on the coast. Internal Security Minister George Saitoti has ordered an inquiry. But beyond the details, it is clear that with insecurity on the rise, and faith in the security forces at a low, talk of internal feuding only adds to the feeling that serious top-down reform is urgently needed.