The passage of the Kenya Communications bill by the Tenth Parliament has received well deserved condemnations by all sections of the Kenyan Societies and rightly so. Going by recent raids on the standard Newspapers by a combination of hired thugs and Policemen- or at least a section of the force, passing a bill that will justify such actions in the pretext of safeguarding state security will certainly damage the fight against official corruptions and mismanagement of resources in Kenya and also erode the recent gains in the opening up of democratic space experienced by a vast majority of Kenyans.
Media’s disclosure of mega corruptions will not of itself end corruptions when political will is lacking. However by exposing it the public will be engaged and educated on its magnitude and scale in the government and its impact on their daily lives. With such understanding will in the long run help the communities to disassociate themselves and withdraw their support to civil servants, politicians, businessmen and women accused of corruption to carry their own cross rather jump to their defence when these individuals use tribal cards to escape from the rule of law.
A vast majority of communities in Kenyan are excluded from the benefit of such exposure because of poverty and remoteness. Vital information obtainable especially through print and television media is not available to them and therefore they don’t empathise with the predicament media houses area facing currently. The media’s coverage of the sufferings of the rural communities is not adequate.
The media’s coverage of the recent despicable and derisory response by the Government to the conflict between Murulles and Garres in the former Mandera districts was measly. The clear human rights violations that occurred during the security operation make you wonder whether the statement of former
The Government’s argument that they responded in order to safeguard the security of the local population threatened by bandits from
- Was the provincial administration aware of the underling root causes of this conflict?
- What steps did they take to resolve the conflict?
- Were they aware when the influx of the so called militias into the country took place?
- Why did they not stop them entering the country or flush them out?
- Were the militias based in towns or outbacks?
- How many of the militias are arrested in towns?
- Why was the former PC Saleh able to restore peace in the province in a very short space of time while those who preceded him or succeeded him have failed?
The provincial administration is familiar with the root cause of the conflict but decided not to intervene pragmatically to stop the clashes from erupting and finding long lasting solutions. There are allegations that the administrators are all compromised and only took the actions they did albeit selectively to cover up their incompetence.
The kind of atrocities committed by the security personnel is diametrically paradoxical to their mandate. When did torturing innocent men and women in towns including teachers and civil servant, beating and raping women and girls in some cases in front of their family members, coercing them to admit to owning firearms and forcing them to spend their meagre resources to buy them constitute a legitimate law enforcement strategy?
Since the near massacre of innocents residents of Mandera district, the people in authority, The President and PM in particular have not uttered a word let a lone visiting the traumatised victims of police and army brutality who are languishing in what could be considered an open air prison with their human rights still been violated.
Unknown to the rest of the country thanks to the neglect by the media, business and social life in Mandera are virtually coming to a stand still. Many families have fled to the outbacks and other towns and cities as far as
As a result businesses are collapsing, students sat their KCSE and KCPE examinations under a state of fear, women traumatised because of the rape and violation of their persons and restrictions on the religious practices of the residents, runaway bribery among others.
The residents of Mandera and Elwak Town continue to be denied the right to practice their religious obligations because of a curfew which is serving no purpose whatsoever other than psychologically traumatising already fraught communities. Just imagine being denied to pray in the mosque 3 out of 5 daily prayers? Prayer is compulsory for Muslims and the government of Kenyan is guilt of religious discrimination if it fails to lift the curfew from the affected towns immediately.
The justification for the curfew is preposterous and has no bases whatsoever. How many nights did Nakuru, Kisumu, Eldoret and Naivasha Towns were under curfew after the recent violent protest during the bungled and slipshod election was stopped? Despite the many number of people killed and properties destroyed, it did not take long before the curfew was lifted and things went back to normal.
In contrast, although the destructions of properties and human deaths in a town like Elwak for example is negligible as no clashes happened in the towns and yet the residents are subjected to torture and continue to be under curfew until today.
If the government fails to act and stops the discrimination and human rights violations of the residents of Mandera, the communities will be forced to resort to civil disobedience as continuous interference in their religious life will build up anger and resentment towards the government. Raila Odinga should also think of addressing violations of human rights in his backyard before venturing abroad criticising other governments.
Abdirashid Ali
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