Geneva: Kenya backs down on police killings

The team representing Kenya at a United Nations human rights hearing in Geneva on Wednesday dropped its plan to attack rapporteur Philip Alston and owned up to police killings. In a compromise hammered out in stormy negotiations late into the night on Tuesday and all of Wednesday morning, the delegation of five ministers and eight government officials surprisingly presented a joint statement.

In it, the PNU and ODM ministers agreed that some police officers had illegally killed suspects — though not as part of a government-sanctioned policy — and refrained from accusing Prof Alston of breaching the UN code. The delegation, led by Prof George Saitoti, however, rejected Prof Alston’s demand that Attorney-General Amos Wako resigns and that Commissioner of Police Maj Gen Hussein Ali be sacked, saying the recommendations were beyond Prof Alston’s mandate.

The delegation also promised the UN that human rights workers will not be harassed and expressed regret over the murders of Oscar Foundation officials. The delegation made up of Security minister George Saitoti, Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo, Attorney-General Amos Wako, Lands minister James Orengo and East African Cooperation minister Amason Kingi, which had gone to Geneva with totally different briefs, met late into the night on Tuesday.

They were negotiating whether to admit to illegal executions and whether to censure Special Rapporteur Philip Alston for allegedly going beyond his mandate and not following the UN code, which binds him to countercheck the information he received.

A member of the delegation said “for the sake of consensus” it was agreed that the Kenyan position be softened by not criticising Prof Alston, explaining the reforms the government was carrying out and an admission that there have been killings by rogue officers.

Prof Saitoti made what Nation Correspondent Osei Kofi described as a “spirited and robust defence”, a “genuine mea culpa” and a “compelling show of the government’s effort and preparedness to do the right thing.” In a statement that Mr Kofi said went down well, the delegation acknowledged that there have been cases of unlawful killings by police and investigations into 53 of those cases had been carried out and completed and 81 officers prosecuted.

“The Kenya government does not condone extrajudicial killings and there is no government policy sanctioning such violation of law,” he said. Although a member of the Kenyan delegation said Prof Alston “went to town on us,” the UN official significantly softened his own criticism of Kenya and urged the UN to support the government’s reform programme, including those affecting the police.

The session at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which was scheduled to start at 11am (9am Geneva time) was pushed to 4.30pm (2.20pm in Geneva), mainly because discussions of other countries took longer. The delegation took advantage to refine a compromise. The joint defence took five minutes. Speaking from Geneva, Mr Kilonzo said they stayed up beyond 1am on Tuesday haggling over the common position to take before going to the meeting.

Working well

Mr Salim Lone, who accompanied the ODM contingent as an advisor, said the compromise showed that the coalition government was working well and was ready to compromise on matters that concern the country. Mr Orengo and Mr Kingi joined the rest of the team after Prime Minister Raila Odinga petitioned President Kibaki to send a delegation that reflects the political divide in the coalition.

Prof Alston urged the Kenyan coalition partners to use the same effort they had used to come up with a joint statement to deal with illegal killings. “I hope that the herculean and admirable efforts of the coalition partners to craft a joint statement today presage a new era in Kenya’s approach to extrajudicial killings,” he said.

In his statement, Prof Alston began by acknowledging that the Kenyan government deserves full credit for having invited him into the country. He added that he viewed the presence of a large Kenyan delegation as proof of the vigorous debate on reform issues within the government and the society as a whole.

He praised members of the coalition government, including Mr Odinga, who had supported his findings. He added that while the PM condemned extrajudicial executions, President Kibaki was yet to do so. He, however, hit out at the police whom he said had remained a major stumbling block to the reform agenda.

He noted that the force’s attitude is reflected in the views expressed earlier this week by Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe, who was part of the government delegation to the Council. When he rose to present the joint position, Prof Saitoti said:

“The government acknowledges there have been cases of unlawful killings within the police force in respect of which investigations into 53 cases have been completed and 81 officers have been prosecuted since the year 2000.”

He differed with the UN Rapporteur’s findings that police execution squads are sanctioned by the government. The Internal Security minister agreed that internal and external police oversight mechanisms were weak; that the police force standing orders were inadequate and that there was urgent need for an independent police commission.

The flaws, Prof Saitoti said, were being addressed by a task force on police reforms headed by retired judge Philip Ransley. In what appeared to be a tactic to pre-empt the findings of the Prof Alston, he said the weaknesses in the police force had already been identified by the government, which started addressing them under the Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector (GJLOS) reform programme in 2003.

He said that the National Accord, which was signed to end the post-election violence and establish the Grand Coalition Government, upped the urgency and widened their scope. Prof Saitoti also told the sitting in Geneva that a whole set of reforms were underway and mentioned the Witness Protection Act, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Act and the National Cohesion and Integration Act.

He said most of the recommendations of Prof Alston were “constructive and useful” and promised that they would be implemented. On Thursday, Mr Kilonzo will address the UNHRC session on human rights in Kenya. At the time of going to press, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights was on the floor, making its contribution.

A member of the technical team told the Nation that the contributions by the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland were “generally supportive”.