NCIC has vital role in peace building

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission, which is charged with preserving national unity, needs to step up and provide long-term solutions to the clashes in hot-spot areas across the country where ethnic intolerance and animosity have led to loss of lives and displacement of people.

To do a good job, the commission must enlist the support of all the players in order to put in place peace programmes.

However, there must first be a careful audit to identify the root causes and triggers of conflict in these areas.

Peace building is not a straightforward undertaking. Implementing peace programmes is a daunting task and it could take years before any meaningful results are achieved. One can, therefore, appreciate the enormity of the task that awaits the commission as it strives to fulfil its mandate.

TRADITIONAL COMPETITORS

The warring communities in these areas are traditional competitors, not just for resources but also for political and social influence.

The commission’s work should be to generate suitable strategies to eliminate the customary prejudices that cloud reasoning among these groups.

The commission must provide an alternative to the usual narrative of hatred that is common among the communities, an alternative that is reformative, attractive and reasonable.

It must remain resourceful as the focal point for the government’s national peace and unity initiatives by providing early warnings on emerging situations to pre-empt conflict, recommending to the government the minimum peace and security requirements for hostility-prone zones, and proposing quick-impact projects to mitigate ongoing conflicts and prevent their recurrence.

Politics and corruption are at the centre of most of these conflicts. The government needs to adopt a zero-tolerance policy to deal with incitement, warlords and unscrupulous merchants only interested in the commercial benefits they can derive from such crisis situations.

NYUMBA KUMI FALLACY

The Kapedo incident has demonstrated the fallacy of Nyumba Kumi as a blueprint for addressing internal security. National security strategists need to go back to the drawing board to come up with a more workable plan.

Police reforms, which were expected to instil a sense of professionalism in the operations of the national police service, seem to have fallen far short of their mark. Leadership is critical in driving change.

It is unrealistic to expect improvement in the work of police officers when their bosses appear clueless about what is happening. In the Kapedo case, for example, the inspector-general of police and his operations commanders should have been the ones updating the nation on the situation.

The team should have explained in clear terms what actions it was taking to apprehend those who killed the police officers. Instead, the President of the republic was the first one to land in Kapedo and was soon followed by the military.

Military intervention only builds confidence in the short term. It should remain the option of last resort to deal with internal security problems.

Mr Wato, a former military officer, is a security officer with an international organisation. ([email protected]).