ONYANGO OLOO: A New Fascist Dawn on the Kenyan Horizon

Ab-Titchaz · 2014-12-17T05:48:30+00:00

International Human Rights Day Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo in Nairobi 28 people were dragged off a bus and butchered mercilessly. A few days after that, three dozen manual labourers were startled from their sleep and executed. A national outcry, the latest in a series of angry denunciations at the deteriorating situation in the country ensued. This time, a couple of heads rolled-that of the long reviled interior security minister and the much discredited chief of police were offered as some kind of tepid sacrifice from a beleagured regime to a traumatized nation still coming to grips with the nightmares that for eons had forced many victims from neighbouring states flee across the border to seek solace and refuge in a supposedly stable and pacific Kenya; those nightmares were the waking daily realities from Mombasa to Mandera; Kapedo to Mpeketoni; Nyando to Mount Elgon. As if they were extras from a horrid and torrid Spaghetti Western or fugitives from a Sylvester Stallone Rambo sequel, the arrogant, insecure men who misrule Kenya strutted before the network television cameras, thumping their chests, baring their fangs, jabbing their fingers as they jeered their abject subjects to embrace the state functions of security, counter-terrorism, intelligence gathering and apprehending trigger happy brigands. There is a new Kenyan John Wayne riding and striding into town-the blood stained and decorated retired General and soon to be retired politician Joseph Nkaissery; he of Operation Nyundo which left massacred Pokot villagers and slaughtered livestock crying for vengeance, retribution and justice as profiled on page 131 of the fourth volume of the final report of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. NAME: MAJ GEN(Rtd) JOSEPH NKAISSERY ALLEGED VIOLATION: From 22nd February to 22nd May, he spearheaded Operation "Nyundo"where many people lost their lives and over 20,000 animals starved to death. Operation was also punctuated with rape and beating of the locals. The disarmament exercise resulted in deaths of civilians in what has come to be known as "Lotiriri Massacre." DATE OF NOTICE/SUMMONS: 25th March 2013 NATURE OF RESPONSE: Major (Rtd) Nkaissery failed to appear before the Commission for hearings on 23rd February 2013 and again on 8th April, 2013. COMMISSION'S FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendation to the Director of Public Prosecution for prosecution proceedings. Apparently, he knows three or four things of how to deal with pesky outlaws who want to make the Government of Kenya, as by law established, look bad when they are busy trying to implement their digital, laptops for toddlers, business empires for twentysomethings agenda. But there is a fly in the ointment; there are some rude boys who have dropped their pants and are pooping right in the middle of the balloon littered party room and some other vermin rascals have grabbed the ladle used to stir up the fruit punch and are employing this utensil instead to disturb the freshly manufactured turd. Who are the party poopers, the excrement stirrers? Well if it is not pesky boys who hang out with Peter Greste over at the Doha-based Al Jazeera? A gripping documentary aired on the eve of 2014's International Human Rights Day has serving members of Kenya's Recce, APTU and Radiation police death squads chortling and guffawing on camera as they boastfully confessed that they have clinically assassinated controversial Muslim clerics and others deemed by the state as "radical" "extremist" "terrorists". Shocking as this may appear to be, one of my activist acquaintances has wondered loudly in one of his social media reflections about the possibility that the Al Jazeera documentary far from being an embarrassing expose destined to leave egg on the face of the Jubilee administration is actually a SPONSORED PR stunt cooked in the murky and morbid kitchens of Kenya's National Intelligence Service cynically calculated to send a code and not so subliminal messages to the capitals of Capital in Washington, London, Berlin, Ottawa, Paris, Tokyo, Brussels and elsewhere that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto almost unshackled from the irritations at Dan Haag are actually batting with the same team which brought the world Guantanamo and renditions; secret CIA torture cells and enhanced torture; the Coalition of the Willing and the Carpet Bombing of Afghanistan; Syria and IS. Expect shortly, a boisterous rah rah fah flag waving National Assembly content free session as the raucous TNA and URP mobsters use their tribal tyranny of numbers to steam roller the much resisted Made in Kenya Suppression of Terrorism Act, a poor nephew of Uncle Sam's Patriot Act down the hapless throats of Kenyans, in the new episode of criminalizing dissent and mounting a final onslaught of the globally respected 2010 Constitution which Deputy President William Ruto working in cahoots with semi-retired dictator Daniel arap Moi fought tooth and nail less than five years ago. In the aftermath of the Mandera carnage, the Ole Lenku/Kimaiyo Da'esh style beheadings, the Nkaissery coronation and the Al Jazeera Kenya Death Squad Showcase what has rattled and startled me are not the usual empty headed yammering and jabbering from demented status quo apologists on Facebook and Twitter but the outbursts of reputable lawyers and respected journalists employing the same social media platforms to broadcast their opinions to a virtual global audience. For illustration, I will limit my exhbits to two Facebook wall status updates. As everyone knows, Onyango Oloo was almost born online, where he has been a sturdy resident for more than two decades. From those fading years of the 1980s where I would hesitantly and anxiously clamber onto the internet via ghoulish green text on a pitch black Apple II dinosaur perching on a cluttered rickety desk of my militant Marxist Sri Lanka born, Toronto-based community radio comrade, through the grammatically incorrect daily news summaries sent from Nairobi to North American and European members of the fledgling Kenya Net subscribers in the early nineties to the almost comical scheduling of emails to be dispatched overnight from the EcoNews office in South C over a dreadfully slow 24KB modem line to the tribal venom spewed 24/7 over at RC Bowen and Mashada in the first years of the 21st Century to the swashbuckling and sabre rattling at Africa Op-Ed, Mwananchi, NVK Mageuzi, Safari Lady, Kenya Ni Yetu, Nipate, Kumekucha, Kenya Imagine and Jukwaa over the last few years, Onyango Oloo has been a core of online Kenyan enthusiasts (together with people like Matunda Nyanchama, Shem Ochuodho, Wamuhu, JM Kuria, Mapinduzi Mwangi, Mkwawasi Mcharo, David Otwoma, Bob Awuor, Mil Polo, Man Tinga, Dr. Rage, James Sang, Chifu wa Malindi, Adongo, Abdul Mote, Daniel Waweru, Fanya Mambo, Nereah, the late Kasuku, the late Jogider and very much alive Kamale) who helped to forge Kenya's distinct social media identity long before social media platforms like Facebook and micro blogging sites like Twitter were invented. But I digress. Back to the shocking Facebook outbursts. I have over 4,700 FB friends. To paraphrase the reigning Microsoft mogul Bill Gates, it is NOT possible to have more than two dozen REAL FRIENDS offline so the term "friend" is used very loosely where more than HALF of my Facebook acquaintances probably sent me an urgent, fervent request to be a virtual buddy assuming, incorrectly, that I was a powerful party apparatchik in President Uhuru Kenyatta's ruling party! I follow postings on Facebook, occassionally engaging in banter and mild debate with my online neighbours. A day or so ago, I saw a wall post that sent me frothing and hopping mad as I scrambled to transform the buttons of my Infinix smartphone into an instant QWERTY keyboard. The author, a thirty something Nairobi lawyer who is a rising star in litigation circles, was weighing in on the damning revelations on the Al Jazeera documentary on Kenyan death squads. In his opinion, he saw nothing wrong with existence of elite troops to physically eliminate those the government deemed to be extremists. Citing the shooting death of a close colleague, the lawyer said the buller was the only remedy for dangerous suspects who always set free when taken to court. This surreal remark spurred a robust exchange with many of his admirers including myself, expressing dismay. In may case I simply stated that I was surprised that a lawyer of his repute could dare to endorse extra judicial killings in Kenya oblivious to things like presumption of innocence, due process and natural justice. I was merely echoing what a dozen other posters had already told him. When a hwakish pro government piped in using as a justification, that the US was doing this, I fired off an incensed rejoinder scathily reminding that individual about Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq invasion, racist police shootings of unarmed African American youth and the CIA's notorious torture techniques. For some bizarre reason, when I attempted to make a third contribution, I found myself blocked from any further posting on that subject on that particular person's Facebook wall. I say bizarre because I double checked and found out that I have not been "unfriended" by that FB friend. While I was still reeling with shock, I was gob smacked by another Facebook status update. Another online friend, a very well known, and widely respected Kenyan radio journalist who has worked with both local and international news outlets also registered his approval for officially ordered extra judicial executions while decrying all the hullaballo over the Al Jazeera story. His opinion surprised me because I have for a long time associated him with liberal, democratic, libertarian, progressive and open minded views. He almost sounded like my fellow Jukwaa member Kamale, who has recently opined in that online discussion forum that I administer that it is time to pass a Kenyan Patriot Act, while reminiscing fondly of the glory days of the KANU one party dictatorship under the despot Moi when the dreaded Special Branch secret police rode roughshod over civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights: For those old enough, one can claim that during the Moi regime, Kenya was a more secure country than it is today. The fact that one could have a drink at GVL (near the university) until it closes at midnight and then walked downtown to Sabina Joy to wait out the night shows how secure the city was then. You do not need to cross Uhuru Park to get mugged, you will be robbed within the city centre without waiting for it to get dark! The thuggery may be of the petty type, but we also face bigger problems due to terrorism that we have to deal with. How some mad men decide to attempt a raid on an Army Barracks suggests how low we have fallen in the management of security. Moi's system was simple - take away human rights and the problem manages itself! The Special Branch (today's NIS) had a lot more power that include arrest which our 21st century sleuths cannot. If need be, they would water-board you, torture you for plotting crimes against the state. Unfortunately the zeal to weed the country of criminals against the state got extended to political crimes against the ruling party!! It is in this latter part of the fight against crime that the likes of Jukwaa's Onyango Oloo find themselves! When people fought for the new constitution, one key element of the activist world was the enshrinement of the Bill of Rights in the constitution that was inviolable and which could not be amended without a referendum. The bill of rights was drawn up in a manner that ensured the atrocities of the Moi government would never happen again. With the Bill of Rights so many changes were made to the security apparatus that weakened their overall capability with power being transferred from the executive to the legislature in how these institutions worked.The head of police is now appointed via parliament and has security of tenure with parliament only being the final authority in his removal. We took away the power of arrest from the Intelligence staff leaving the outfit that is a key cog of national security with the enviable role of making advisory reports that can or cannot be followed up! Knowing that a crime is about to be committed and preventing it is the first step in fighting crime. But if the person who becomes aware of this cannot act but has to file a report with someone else and that someone else cannot be ordered around by anyone due to constitutional independence creates the perfect recipe for anarchy! Guys - Kimaiyo is going no where.....! So I thought I would take a look at the US Patriot Act that was loved by the Republicans and hated by the Democrats who would do nothing to have it not die in December 2005 when it was supposed to die a natural death. The Patriot Act was declared by the Democrats as an affront to the US Bill of Rights but it was still allowed to pass and very many atrocities were committed in the name of the Act. Personal liberties were taken away and all that security operative had to do was claim that they were acting in accordance with the Act and your rights immediately disappeared. So is time for Kenya to consider enacting a similar law to the Patriot Act to stem the security situation that we currently are moaning about? Is the deprivation of some rights for the better good of the society at large desirable? At a personal level, I do not think the present state of our laws allows us to deal with the security challenges we are facing. How do we allow people charged with terrorism related crimes bail and still hope that we can stop terror in Kenya? There is of course those whose first instinct will be to insist on their rights and those of criminals remaining intact and will argue against such a law. But i would venture to ask why anyone who has no criminal intentions would resist such legislation? We must give the government the opportunity to do what is right for Kenyans on matters security, but there should be provision to ensure the law is not abused with sufficient reparations for anyone wrongly deprived of their rights through illegal action by government agents and punishment for anyone that abused this law. Read more: jukwaa.proboards.com/thread/9227/insecurity-kenya-time-patriot-act#ixzz3LUVll0Gf There is in fact a veritable rush to legitimize this rash plunge into draconian roll back of the constitutional safeguards under the Bill of Rights under our supreme document. As I write this, human rights activists, governance campaigners and concerned Kenyans are rallying to fight back. At the KPTJ mailing list there is currently a robust exchange involving Kenyans inside and outside the country and their regional, continental and international friends to sensitize people, raise awareness and plan countermeasures: Parliament today received notice of proposed amendments to a range of laws governing conduct and oversight of the security services. Including: - the evidence act - the criminal procedure code - national police service act - independent policing oversight authority act - the penal code - national police service commission act No reference to the constitutionality of some amendments (this is on top of unconstitutionality of previous amendments, which many have commented on but not yet addressed). Bringing security services back under purview of the Presidency and lessening scope for internal and external oversight. Plus no reference to need for public participation. Could individuals/organisations that work on police reform please advise if they've picked up and will act on the same? Intention's apparently to pass before the recess. Obviously, the insecurity in the country's a disaster/tragedy and needs to be addressed. But going back to the days of Nyayo House won't help. Among the proposed measures : terms of up to twenty years for journalists and those using social media to praise or incite terrorism Clearly what we witness in Kenya right now is the manifestation of what renowned US linguist/scholar/social justice defender Noam Chomsky dubbed Manufacturing Consent. The emerging Jubilee/KDF neo-colonial quasi military state has managed to skillfully manipulate widespread fears and anxieties about crime, insecurity and terrorism to pummel otherwise intelligent Kenyans ( including the above cited legal beagles and scribes) into such a sorry, submissive state that they would, like robotic lemmings they are rapidly being transformed into, they would, if asked by the government slit their own throats or machine gun down their own mothers if they were told their own maternal parents were lurking members of an undiscovered Al Shabaab/Al Hijra/Al Qaeda/Daesh terrorist cell. But as Lee Mwiti argued in a recent Mail & Guardian piece, Al-Shabaab's greatest achievement could be remaking Kenya into a soft military state. But if anything in the United States is to go by, there is bound to be the inevitable blowback and backlash. Yesterday, the United States Senate released a scathing indictment on the CIA for their brutal and inhuman torture methods justified by hawkish neo-conservatives in the wake of the jingoistic baying for blood post 911. Even UK Prime Minister David Cameron, whose government helps to train the shadowy Kenyan Death Squad profiled in the Al Jazeera story was quoted in a BBC story on December 10, 2014 shedding crocodile tears and emitting faux horror at the "excesses" of the CIA. " The great importance of the Report is to refute the claim, made or believed by every torturer, that brutality "gets results". The Report states authoritatively that at no time did "coercive interrogation techniques" help to expose imminent threats or achieve successes and that the CIA has incorrigibly lied about this (and is still lying, to judge from its reaction to the Report). These findings hit the torture lobby where it hurts. No longer can it trot out the unreal "ticking time bomb" hypothetical – fanatics who know where the bomb is hidden stay silent because they welcome death as martyrdom, whilst those who are pain-wracked supply false information which distracts the police while time ticks away. Interrogators always do better by offering money, or freedom – one of the most important leads to Bin Laden was elicited by offering a cup of tea. The exposure of how spooks regularly lie also repays study: where the CIA leads, MI6 usually follows, although political cowardice in Britain generally allows our intelligence services to stay silent. Certainly, among the 5,500 unpublished pages in this Report, will be found details of MI6 collaboration in CIA torture. They are unpublished because the British government has invoked a protocol that allies must not spill each other's secrets. Mr Cameron, if he shares the gumption and integrity displayed by President Obama, should call for these redacted passages and publish them. Britain, too, should publicly reject conduct up with which we should not put."-Geoffrey Robertson QC, author of "Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle For Global Justice writing in the December 10, 2014 edition of the Independent (UK) President Uhuru Kenyatta, his Deputy William Ruto and their bevy of TNA and URP sycophants will realize sooner rather than later that it takes more than donning military fatigues and attempting a very amateurish rendition of Rambo to tackle the convoluted challenges of the myriad headed insecurity monster in Kenya. But that is a digital essay for another day, hopefully unleashed before Jamhuri Day-where we will once more, having nothing tangible to celebrate. Onyango Oloo Nairobi, Kenya Wednesday, December 10, 2014 Happy International Human Rights Day! Source: proboards

Thread starter Ab-Titchaz
Start date Dec 17, 2014

Ab-Titchaz

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ONYANGO OLOO: A New Fascist Dawn on the Kenyan Horizon

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