Report on rights abuse has many gaps

What you need to know:

  • Whereas this might look like justifying use of extrajudicial means in combating terrorism, it actually behoves those in authority to exercise high level of caution when investigating and suppressing incidents of crime.

  • Despite facing myriad and dynamic security challenges, Kenya’s security agencies are trying their best within the confines of the law and in collaboration with strategic security partners to secure citizens and visitors alike both within and outside our borders.

  • Let us give them the benefit of doubt.

Governments have a duty under international human rights law to take all reasonable steps to protect people within their jurisdictions from acts of violence, reads a sentence in the recently released report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report titled “Deaths and Disappearances: Abuses in Counterterrorism Operations in Nairobi and in Northeastern Kenya” chronicles 34 cases in which civilians have disappeared and 11 more where the concerned individuals were confirmed dead, all allegedly in the hands of Kenya’s security agencies.

Whereas these security agencies have unique features confirming their identity, HRW has failed to explain how they were able to identify the personnel from these distinct security agencies and conclusively link them to the disappearance of suspects.

It is true that the individuals reported to be missing are, in all likelihood, indeed missing, and most probably forcibly so. Those confirmed dead are indeed dead. But to link all these to the security services without any tangible evidence, all based on hearsay, is wrong. The author of the report seems not to have done their homework well.

It leaves us with overwhelming speculation on who could have been responsible for the disappearances and deaths; though the simplest and safest option for HRW was to rope in the police.

The report only identifies a few cases that were reported to the police. This is attributed to suspicion that the police service is involved in the disappearance in the first place. But this is a narrative that is only speculative and which, if allowed to be inculcated in our collective mind as a society, could be very destructive.

The report points out that “the security officers who carried out arrests or searches were, in most cases, not uniformed and did not have identification insignia and failed to identify themselves, making it difficult for families to trace their relatives or seek justice. In some cases, security officers wore balaclavas or masks during arrests and, in a majority of cases they blindfolded those they detained.”

How do we even tell with certainty that the individuals involved are security agents?

APPROACHING TARGETS

What would stop criminals from approaching their targets by simply behaving in a manner likely to suggest that they are policemen or simply saying they are, pluck them from their families, go torture and even kill them, in the full knowledge that no one will report to the police?

It is a fact that the Shabaab terrorist group is active in the region. It is a fact that the group has also abducted and sometimes killed people for various reasons. What is not clear in the 135-page report is what HRW did in its research to establish whether the victims cited might have been victims of the terror group’s machinations or not. In war, there is a general tendency of enemies using the assumed tricks of their adversaries to fight each other. In a region like northeastern Kenya, this possibility is not so remote, and it will be wrong for an international community fighting for the rights of humanity in the face of terror and torture, to ignore this reality.

During the period under review by the report, there were several instances where al-Shabaab was reported to have hunted down those assumed to be deserters, tortured them and their families and even killed some of them.

In the same period, several young men have gone missing, with some families suspecting al-Shabaab’s involvement in their disappearances. We will be killing the hope of ever finding them if we shift focus and turn the blame on security agencies.

Has our society got to a level where it cannot believe anything the security agencies tell them even when there is glaring evidence that whatever they are being told is true? Whom does it benefit to put Kenya’s security machinery on trial? The security agencies require not just our cooperation but our trust to aptly fulfil their mandate of securing us. As citizens, we are important stakeholders in matters security as our President rightfully said, “Usalama unaanza na mimi na wewe” (security begins with you and I). To refuse to give information and later apportion blame to security services when things go awry is unwise and unjust.

Whereas this might look like justifying use of extrajudicial means in combating terrorism, it actually behoves those in authority to exercise high level of caution when investigating and suppressing incidents of crime.

Despite facing myriad and dynamic security challenges, Kenya’s security agencies are trying their best within the confines of the law and in collaboration with strategic security partners to secure citizens and visitors alike both within and outside our borders. Let us give them the benefit of doubt.

Michael Cherambos is a commentator on security and social issue.