I write with reference to the recent events in Mumias, where in search of "stolen" guns, police brutalized hapless villagers.
I start by taking note of the fact that no ordinary person can dare attack a police station, injure a police officer, and proceed to steal guns. The people who did it are affiliated to the government. They are government thugs, possibly uniformed officers in fact. The government wanted an excuse to brutalize its people, in order to reassert itself. It is like the husbands who find it necessary to beat their wives and children, from time to time, in order to reassert themselves and to reassert their authority. Because they can't start beating the wives or children for no reason, they set up traps that the wives or children are sure to fall into. Then they use the same as excuses to assault their wives and children. With regard to Mumias, I have heard rumors that the people who took the weapons were thugs affiliated to the Kenyan military intelligence. The government wanted an excuse to beat the people. So it organized for guns to be "stolen", and then use that as an entry point to brutalize the people. I hear the people there refused to go in a certain direction politically, and they were allegedly rude to the president when he visited. So he or the people close to him organized for the people to be brutalized. They organized for arms to be "stolen" and for that to be used as an excuse to brutalize the people. That is the word on the street.
No doubt major atrocities were committed.
Quite a number of people died. The question is what can be done to right the wrongs done. You can't expect the government to do anything. The government is already defending its agents. Local police boss said that "the GSU were withdrawn after doing their bit, as planned." The keyword there is "as planned". So the entire thing was planned.
In the recent past, worse things have been done against the police in places like North Eastern and in Pokot and in Turkana. But the government agents on the ground dared not brutalize the people (for instance, following the Kapedo incident). What was the detterent? The detterent was one fact. The government agents dared not brutalize the people in those parts because they knew that the warriors of the communities would revenge and avenge for their people. However in Mumias, the government is dealing with hapless, peace-loving and civil Luhyias. So it proceeds to brutalize them. You also remember when Nyali Barracks in Mombasa was attacked, a soldier killed and arms stolen. The government dared not brutalize the people of Nyali, because they are rich and powerful. If it dared, the individual officers responsible would have been dealt with individually.
This, then is the solution I recommend, to ensure that the government doesn't brutalize its people in any part of the country in the future. I recommend that tribes set up their self-defense mafias. I would have recommended the formation of tribal self-defense militias. But that is too ambitious. The goverment is bound to smell any such formation and nip it in the bud. But a mafia can be kept secret. And that is what I am recommending. In case the government commits attrocities, the mafias would not of course confront the government directly in open warfare. They would lose badly. But the government agents committing the atrocities would be taken note of, and later dealt with individually. At the end of the day, every person exists as an individual, and can be dealt with as such. After brutalizing the hapless people in Mumias, the GSU and other police will find their way back to the camps. They will start moving around the camps, drinking in pubs around the camps, and traveling to various places. If the Luhya people had a tribal self defense mafia, this would be the time to strike. Identify the officers who brutalized their people. Then wait for the time when those officers are alone, outside the camps, and deal with them mercilessly. Send the message out strongly that government officers who act with impunity will be held directly and individually responsible for their actions, by the people. An officer, while off duty, without his gun and without the backing of the force, is just a man. Just another man, who can be dealt with like just another man. If they are dealt with individually, the police will be afraid of following unlawful orders. Then impunity will end.
It is a shame that previously peace-loving people like us, the Luhyas have started entertaining such thoughts, because of the government's actions. This unfortunately, is where where the entire nation will end up, with people setting up self defense mechanisms, if the government keeps on brutalizing them. You remember how coast ended up, after the attrocities commited by the government following Kayabombo in 1997. The people withdrew their consent to be governed. The government has subsequently had a very difficult time governing the region. The tourism sector which used to sustain the government with forex suffered, never to recover fully. A quiet civil war continues there. It only comes to surface like for instance in the Kwekwe Mwandaza killing. It is because people withdrew their consent to be governed. Previously, that region used to be the bastion of peace in this nation. Governing it never used to be very expensive. Today, governing the coastal region has become an expensive nightmare. Unfortunately that is how the Western region may also end up being.
Thank you for taking the trouble to read,
Wafula.
Topic: tribes need to set up mafias to defend themselves against a rogue government (Read 3540 times)