Kenyan Police on spot over abuse of refugees in Dadaab

Refugees in Dadaab Camp, Kenya. GUARDIAN

By Human Rights Watch

Police brutality in Dadaab in recent days suggests that the promises by senior police officials to investigate reports of mistreatment are nothing more than hot air. Despite many inquiries and promises of police reform, police in Dadaab respond to attacks by abusing anyone who happens to be nearby. Daniel Bekele, Africa director

(Nairobi) – Kenyan police arbitrarily arrested, detained, and beat refugees following the discovery of explosives and an attack on a police vehicle in the Dadaab refugee camps in mid-May 2012. Senior officials visiting the camps on May 23 should ensure a full and speedy investigation leading to the identification and disciplinary measures against any officer responsible for abuse and the compensation of victims.

“Police brutality in Dadaab in recent days suggests that the promises by senior police officials to investigate reports of mistreatment are nothing more than hot air,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite many inquiries and promises of police reform, police in Dadaab respond to attacks by abusing anyone who happens to be nearby.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed refugee leaders, aid agency staff, and nine victims of two attacks on the Hagadera and Dagahaley camps, two of the five in the Dadaab complex.

On May 11, two improvised explosive devices were discovered by police in Hagadera. That evening, police went house to house in blocks L and N of Hagadera camp indiscriminately beating residents while arresting others.

Six residents – four men and two women – told Human Rights Watch that police came to their homes asking for weapons, explosives, and the men of the house. But the police appeared to make no distinction between men, women, and children, beating and detaining anyone they found, and later requiring bribes of 10,000-15,000 Kenya shillings (US$115-175) in exchange for release.

A 17-year-old girl, who was at home when the police arrived, said: “They beat me with batons on my arms and back and legs. They lifted me outside the house and threw me into a big truck with so many people packed [in].” She was detained for 15 hours during which police, she said, “asked me to admit that I was the one who put the landmine in the road and I said that I have no idea.”

A 50-year-old man said: “They beat me with big sticks and a gun. They pulled me outside the house and threw me into a truck in which many other people were stacked like sacks of maize. They were beating and arresting people for six hours.”

Refugee leaders said at least 70 people were detained in Hagadera on the night of May 11, including three female minors. Aid agencies told Human Rights Watch that the figure was probably higher. The provincial police officer, Leo Nyongesa, contacted by Human Rights Watch on May 21, claimed no knowledge of the detentions and denied reports of police abuse.

One Hagadera refugee leader who requested anonymity said, “We are ready to cooperate with the police to improve the security but the police cannot be trusted since they beat everyone indiscriminately and unprofessionally.”

On May 15 an improvised explosive device went off under a police car near the market in Dagahaley camp, killing one police officer and injuring two others. According to four witnesses, police reacted by attacking residents in the market.

One man told Human Rights Watch: “I was closing my shop when three policemen stopped me and started slapping me with no question[s]. Theyentered the shop and searched inside. One of them was with me outside holding my hands crossed. I was horrified. People were running for their safety. They hit me with batons several times on the arms and shoulders.”

A female merchant in the market said that police beat her and destroyed her vegetables. Both witnesses said that police looted shops in Dagahaley market following the blast.

Abdifatah Ahmed Ismail, refugee chairman of Dagahaley camp, called the police reaction “deliberate robbery.” He said that “What the police did in Dagahaley was the same as what they did in Ifo [another camp in Dadaab] in December: looting the shops and business centers in the pretext of searching for explosives.”

Nyongesa told Human Rights Watch that a high-level delegation including the national police commissioner, Mathew Iteere, is scheduled to visit Dadaab on May 23 to assess the situation. He claimed to have no knowledge of recent police abuses, although he acknowledged that there had been problems in Dadaab in the past.

Human Rights Watch called on the Kenyan authorities to offer compensation to victims of abuse or looting.

In December 2011, following widespread police abuses against refugees, the police promised to investigate.

In response to earlier allegations about police misconduct in Dadaab in 2010, in October 2010, the Ministry of State for Internal Security established a team to investigate abuse. The team consisted of a representative of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims; two women representatives, one from the Dadaab area and one from a national women’s organization; a youth representative from Dadaab; and a representative of the Refugee Consortium of Kenya.

The team conducted an investigation and drafted a report, which was submitted to the Ministry of State for Internal Security, but never made public. The ministry did not respond to repeated requests from Human Rights Watch in 2011 for a copy. A member of the team told Human Rights Watch that the team found significant evidence of human rights abuses by members of the security forces, but that the ministry did not take any action to hold those responsible to account. Since then, no public statement has been made about any such investigation.

“Senior Kenyan officials should recognize that this abusive police behavior is counterproductive and order all police forces deployed in Dadaab to treat residents with restraint and respect,” Bekele said. “There is no excuse for this abuse.

Horn of Africa: Will Famine in Ethiopia lead to a Regime Change?

Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi, his government has been implicted for holding aid from rebels and opposition areas.

The report of Ethiopian government under Meles Zenawi using aid as a weapon against opposition in the famine ravaging the Horn of Africa is worrying. This trend is compounded with mass detentions, widespread torture and extra judicial killings.

Sadly, this same scenario during famine in the country helped in toppling Haile Selassie and Mengistu in 1974 and 1991 respectively. The current famine affecting about 10 million people in the region and the worst in 60 years according to UN may cause a regime change.

BBC Newsnight report has uncovered the ruling party Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) as denying people deemed to have voted for the opposition in 2005 and 2010 elections food, fertilizer and seeds.

The report has been supported by earlier ones by Amnesty International and UN.

As a major western ally in counter terrorism, Ethiopian is among the largest recipient of aid in the continent explaining the laxity in upholding human rights record since the country is pivotal in controlling Somalia’s Al-shabaab rebels.

It is estimated that 13 million Ethiopians are dependent on aid making it a potent weapon of war.

“There is a great deal of political differentiation. People who support the ruling party, the EPRDF, and our members are treated differently. The motivation is buying support (by) holding the population hostage” Prof. Beyene Petros an opposition politician is quoted in the report.

Southern Ethiopia is worst hit like areas controlled by Somalia tribe Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) where about 200 people throng to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya daily.

 Considering the country’s history of regime change in famine will the ripple in Ethiopia tickle in other countries of the Horn of Africa?

The 1973 famine that claimed tens-of-thousands peasant became the last straw that broke Emperor Selassie by coalescing disparate rebels and elites against his monarchy. The rebels included Ogaden, Oromo and Eritrea.

Then, like now, the government insisted it could feed the population to avoid shame in international community.  When he was toppled and killed by Mengistu in 1975, a British movie The Hidden Famine was aired on state television showing the Emperor and his entourage feasting on champagne, caviar and feeding dogs from silver trays while the famine killed people. (I posted Selassie's life here)

Later, in a sharp precision the ghost of 1984 famine would topple Mengistu in 1991 undermined by support gained from Soviet bloc and Cuba in quashing rebellion.  To avoid international condemnation and shame the government banned donors, journalist and foreign visitors from famine areas.

Aid was used as a weapon in war, to fund the army and in celebration of Mengistu decade rule. (Mengistu's rule is here )

“There was famine in Ethiopia for years before we took power, it was the way nature kept the balnce” Mengistu is quoted by Dawit Wolde Giorgis his minister in Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia (Red Sea Press: 1989)

The world was only jolted into reality when Kenya photojournalist Mohammed Amin and Michael Burke from sidelines of Mengistu celebrations on 23^rd October 1984 broadcasted the famine for BBC which was aired on 425 TVs worldwide and aid in rising over $1 billion in a year. (Read about Amin's life  here)

A famine victim in Dadaab Kenya 

This revelation never made Ethiopia to relent on her stance which brought together Tigray rebels (now in power), Eritera and Ogaden in a major offensive that toppled the government.

Now Zenawi is in power supported by aid from the West which he uses against opposition and rebels. Zenawi is reading from the same script as its predecessors and expects peace and unity.

The famine across the Horn of Africa is causing mass movements, conflict and little faith on governments. The big question now is: how long will foreign aid be used as a weapon in Ethiopia before a war against the regime erupts?

Book Review: The State of Africa: A history of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith

TITLE: The State of Africa: A history of fifty years of Independence.
AUTHOR: Martin Meredith
PAGES: 752
PUBLISHERS: Free Press, London (2006)
GENRE: History

Martin Meredith book is conceive and offer insightful knowledge on the historical development of Africa as a continent, before the settlement of European colonialist, through the struggle of independence, the emerging of nations and the state of Africa, as a continent, in the world map.

As Times journalist who did corresponding in Africa, an auto-biographer and a writer, Meredith has written an outstanding book. A masterpiece. Albeit if his use of facts is anything to go by, the author went to greater length to glean for facts and figures from respected authors and sources. The authoritative bibliography speaks for itself.

The book’s magnitude in understanding the contemporary state of the African continent-from whichever facet you see it- is echoed by Bob Geldof. The Irish pop singer who has been involved greatly with charity work in the continent (notably the fund raising record Do they know it’s Christmas’ for 1984 Ethiopian famine victims), says “you can’t even contemplate about the contemporary state of Africa without first having a look at why Africa as a continent is where it is.”

The State of Africa starts with the ancient African kingdoms before the scramble and partition of the continent by European colonialists lead by Germany’s Otto von Bismarck in the Berlin conference. With little knowledge the colonialist least cared as they curved out states transcending across ancient lands separating kingdoms, tribal lands and merging other which never existed before.

Notable are the Bakongo of Congo, Ashanti of Ghana and King Moshoeshoe of Tswana. The Britons got their protectorates to Great Britain, the French assimilated minor French provinces in Africa; the Belgians were content to reap Zaire to enrich king Leopold II, together with the Portuguese, Spaniards and Italians.

The seed of discord was thus implanted.

The Europeans forcefully struggled and settled in Africa. As Christianity and western education spread in the Africa, an elite class emerged and fought for independence. The old guard- African leaders who inherited power from colonialists- brought the birth of nations amid glimmer of hope riding the crest of expectations about the future of Africa.

The European colonialists retreated- hastily like in Algerian independence struggle- to leave the leadership to Africans. The old guards experimented with ideologies. Some countries picked up economically shortly before the coups, the cold war effects and the lingering neo-colonialism.

Martin Meredith writes of the effects of the East and West power struggle effects on the continent. In their ism-schism of capitalism and communism the elephants- USA and USSR- descended on the African grass for the struggle of world supremacy.

The cold war, Otiose to Africa, was triggered by emergence of sovereign states which could topple the scales at world scene. At its peak in ‘60s US supported Mobutu Sese Seko to plunder Zaire and aided in usurping Liberia’s resources. American firestone controlling rubber plantations helped prop semi-illiterate Samwel Doe.

On the other hand Russia, in association with Cuba, propped Major Mengistu Haile Mariam red terror in Ethiopia and thwarted west influence in Angola against rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in a blood bath.

The struggle of Anglo-phone and Franco-phone effects on the continent in former colonies is tackled. With otiose cultural misgivings Britain and France flex their muscles to neo-colonize their former colonies with devastating effects.

French propped and later turned against Jean Bedel Bokassa of Central African Republic because he was a French soldier during the WWII. In a bid to suppress the spread of Anglo-phone influence in central Africa, French propped and maintained a genocide regime in Rwanda against the Tutsi and moderate Hutus.

The effect was the 1994 Rwandan genocide which spread towards DRC and Northern Uganda causing the fall of two ‘Anglo-phone’ leaders, viz. Mobutu Sese Seko and Milton Obote.

In the story “In the name of prophet” The State of Africa has extensively covered the Egyptian revolution against the monarchy of King Farrouk and it culmination to pan-Arab fever that culminated to 1965-67 Arab-Israel war. Muarmar Gadaffi’s taciturn involvement in internal affairs of Chad and the bloody diamond fields of Liberia and Sierra Leone war by training guerrillas.

The root cause of Nigerian conflict on Biafra war is caused partly by the murder of Chief Abiola is elaborately written. In addition, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgians and The CIA, and the culmination of the Zaire’s war is written with historical flair.

My gripe with the book is the casting of France. Meredith, a Briton, espouses the idea of treating the French as villains in expense of the Britons. It aligns with the Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla with a story of a French illegal nuclear testing gone haywire.

The effect, a giant dinosaur, creates havoc in New York City. The French in the movie are down casted and stereotyped like the Arabs and Russians.

Meredith treats British colonies, especially South Africa and Sudan with velvet gloves.

In “A degree in violence”, a story of Robert Mugabe (need I say a villain); little is said of suffering of Zimbabweans under the apartheid rule, And Mugabe’s house arrests and the death of his infant son. Likewise the impact and magnitude of apartheid rule in South Africa is sidelined.

In addition the book places the onset of Darfur war after the introduction of sharia laws. This is far from Blaine Harden, once a Washington Post bureau chief Nairobi, book Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent placing the problem on British rule. Harden, an American, writes that by the failure to effectively colonize the Muslim North the Britons segregated the Christian South.

The segregation brought two distinct cultures. At independence the ‘suit’ wearing Christian South considered the northern Muslims with suspicion. The Arabs had sold them as slaves.

The passing of sharia laws just exploded a simmering volcano and turned the fissures into a mountain of a problem.

Insightful
Martin Meredith’s book gives insight into understanding the winding politics and events in Africa easily. You will understand why French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally attended, and got booed at Omar Bongo Ondimba’s funeral for interfering with Gabon’s internal affairs. Paul Kagame’s gripe with the France over the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The book should miss in the shelf if you need to know how Charles Taylor ended up at ICC in The Hague and why Omar el-Bashir is wary of ICC indictment and southern Sudan supporting him though the Janjaweed militia kills with impunity.

The reader will be conversant with how Somalia warlord Aideed drove Americans and UN officials out of Mogadishu in ‘Black Hawk Down’