Extrajudicial killings cause for concern

What you need to know:

  • In the past three years, Muslim suspects have been targeted and eliminated all over the country.
  • When the enforced disappearances are systematic, prolonged and clinically carried out, we should worry.

It may pass unnoticed and without fanfare but Sunday is the International Day to remember victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Hardly a reason to pop the champagne or make a song and dance. More like a day to hang our heads in shame as we remember the hundreds — perhaps thousands — who have been abducted or arrested in Kenya in the last decade and subsequently disappeared without trace or explanation.

Last weekend, Alamin Kimathi revealed how four young men were picked off the streets of Eastleigh and their mutilated bodies found in a river in Murang’a a few days later.

The previous week, Muhuri and KNCHR held a press conference to inform the nation that 40 young people had disappeared in the Coast in 2015.

Most of these were last seen in the presence of security officials. A week earlier, Human Rights Watch named 12 young men who were picked up by ATPU officers in the Coast and Nairobi and were never seen alive again.

Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa laments that 200 young people released on bail in the coastal city have vanished into thin air.

Who could blame them when they know the fate of Rogo, Ibrahim and many others who were assassinated in broad daylight and their families denied inquests even when recommended by a government task force.

DAILY OCCURRENCES

When giant billboards display mug shots of more suspects under the caption ‘wanted dead or alive,’ you know the state preference is for the former.

Enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are daily occurrences in Garissa, Isiolo, Tana River, Lamu and Nairobi, but you never hear a murmur of protest from the area elected representatives.

The silence of politicians, religious leaders and just about everyone in power is a definite nod of approval for abductions and killings.

The government has won the propaganda war and is rewarded with a carte blanche to eliminate anyone and everyone condemned as a terrorist.

President Obama never said a word on the matter either, but that is hardly surprising since he has been unable for seven years to keep his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

But this systematic state policy of abductions, disappearances and eliminations is not a new phenomenon. It began in 2007 when 500 Mungiki members ended up with the hyenas in Ngong Forest.

It has continued with the threats and disappearances of ICC witnesses. The failure of state machinery to investigate the cases of John Kituyi, Jonah Bureti, Meshack Yebei and many others tells its own story of complicity and cover up.

APATHY

In the past three years, Muslim suspects have been targeted and eliminated all over the country.

When the enforced disappearances are systematic, prolonged and clinically carried out, we should worry.

When no voice of outrage or protest is heard you wonder what group will be the next target. Will it be civil society and politicians as the 2017 elections approach?

The apathy, indifference and resignation about disappearances and extrajudicial killings mean we have not interiorised the values enshrined in the Constitution starting with the right to life and a fair trial for each accused person. The right to life is not sacred in Kenya; it has many exceptions.

[email protected] @GabrielDolan1