Standard prescription to insecurity seems to be collective punishment

All Kenyans are angry about the brutal attack on the police at Baragoi that took away the lives of dozens of officers and our sympathies are with their families. They died in the line of duty while fighting criminals.

What irks many Kenyans though is how they were killed, and why none of the criminals died. In police parlance, they call it a botched operation, and the police boss blamed it on the field commanders who planned the operation.

In functional democracies, when such a failure results in deaths, someone must take the flak for professional negligence and poor judgment, and resign or be fired.

It does not happen in our society; men do not resign ovyo ovyo. Nor do they take responsibility for failure by their juniors.

As our ministers often say, ‘they would rather die than resign...’ And they don’t get fired.

This latest incident follows several others in which security officers and innocent civilians were killed in large numbers.

It reveals operational bankruptcy in our police force and the dearth of our investigative and intelligence units.

That the force is corrupt to the hilt also aggravates the situation. The frequent calling in of the army to fight crime clearly reveals increasing failure in operational command of the police.

However, when it comes to security in Northern Kenya, policy failures is to blame. Nearly 50 years after independence, the region is steeped in ethnic conflicts on the scanty resources, and cattle rustling.

Life is hard and parasitic, and survival is for the strongest. The upcountry public officers who lord over the residents seldom understand the pastoralists, and worse still care too little about their livelihood.

Neither does Nairobi. The region invariably hits the headlines when such tragedies occur. The reaction is always predictable; send in more forces, carry out massive operations, mobilise the army, carry out disarmament and what have you.

The result is collective punishment in which residents of whole villages and towns are beaten, maimed or tortured as State violence is meted on them.

It is a ‘scorched earth’ policy as civil rights and liberties are rubbished. And it happens only in Northern Kenya. Mt Elgon was the only exception.

There are no attempts to carry out a simple evaluation of the process. No effort to review the failed actions. Successive Governments just dole out the same punishment. And the situation remains the same. When you prescribe medicine for an ailment and there is no cure, you change it.

Even before giving the prescription, you carry out some tests to diagnose the problem. In Northern Kenya, the standard prescription to our insecurity seems to be collective punishment. The result is apathy, feeling of marginalisation, lawlessness and more poverty.

Rushing in the Kenya Defence Forces to Sugutta Valley will not bring the culprits to book. Neither will it stop future cattle rustlers. Innocent men, women and children will suffer their brutality.

We have seen it in Mt Elgon, Mandera, and Tana Delta. If a Turkana bandit kills an officer, it is the individual bandit who must be sought and arrested. All Turkanas in that region cannot be punished as culprits or accomplices. Regrettably, that is what will happen.

In Central Kenya, if Mungiki massacres a village as they did 29 people in Gathaithi in 2009, the army is not called in.

There will be no collective punishment of that village or neighbourhood. Detectives will swoop the area and suspects will be arrested. Clearly, we live lives apart in our country.

The colonialists hired police from pastoralist communities and posted them to that region. We ought to do the same.

An officer from elsewhere who abhors the hardship in the region cannot perform. The local person understands the terrain and gets informal intelligence readily. 

However, the police force requires massive transformation. It requires leadership that will improve their terms and operational effectiveness. The Kenya Police Service just set up is a bold step. Perhaps it is time a fresh mind from outside headed the force.

The writer is a former MP for Mandera Central and political economist