We’ll crush you, criminals warned

• Kibaki tells Kenyans to boost security by reporting the arms dealers in their midst

The government will not allow militias to rearm themselves and unleash terror in any part of the country, President Kibaki has warned.

The Head of State challenged Kenyans to help identify and arrest militias by reporting them to security agents.

In both his official and off-the-cuff speeches as the nation observed the 46th Kenyatta Day, President Kibaki spoke against arms-buying and crime.

“Let us all discourage arms buying in families and our villages, and let us report any arms merchants and dealers to the security forces,” the President said.

Kill and maim

Referring to criminals, he said: “Tutawatwanga. (We will crush them.)

The responsibility for security, he said, lies both with the government and wananchi, and the President urged the public to play their role in the fight against insecurity.

“Citizens cannot arm themselves, raid their neighbours, kill and maim others, and then accuse the government of not providing security. Nor can citizens harbour known criminals and criminal gangs, protect them as community members, and then complain of extortion, murder and other crimes,” he said.

The Head of State challenged all Kenyans to identify and report all criminals in their midst to the police while refraining individually or collectively from “protecting or condoning organised crimes and criminal gangs.”

He seemed to be responding to reports that communities were rearming themselves in parts of Rift Valley in readiness for a fresh wave of ethnic violence in the area.

In parts of the North Rift, where ethnic violence was at its worst following the disputed 2007 presidential election, some residents expressed fears that renewed violence could occur if the government hands over the “Waki List” containing the names of suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence to be tried by the International Criminal Courts (ICC).

The list is said to contain the names of at least four Cabinet ministers.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo is expected in the country in the next two weeks for talks with President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga ahead of the trials.

Mr Kofi Annan, the chief mediator after the post-election crisis, took up the reports with top government officials during his recent visit to the country, but was told that there was no large-scale rearmament of militia.

Government officials, however, told Mr Annan that there had been an “increased level of criminality in parts of the country and it was being dealt with”.

This led the former United Nations secretary-general to advise people living in Rift Valley against turning on each other because individuals, not communities, would be tried for the post-election violence by either the ICC or a local tribunal.

End impunity

On Tuesday, the President also dwelt on the need to end the culture of impunity, stating that the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Mr Bethuel Kiplagat, had been set up to promote national healing and reconciliation as well as tackling impunity.

“The Commission will help our nation to deal decisively with past injustices, so that we can move forward as a united and cohesive Kenya,” he said.

The President further added that the government had set up a new body to create laws that will criminalise hate speech, ethnic profiling and discrimination along ethnic lines, which helped fuel the post-election violence.