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Mt Elgon exposed our soft underbelly
KENYA TIMES
11.04.2007
ON the first anniversary of the Marsabit plane crash that killed 14 people among them six legislators, the government raised the tempo of the memorial, ferrying senior officials to Northern Kenya where the tragedy occurred, even as a new conflict threatens the residents of western Kenya.
Residents of Mt Elgon district have not known peace for the last six months. About 150 people have lost their lives in the area following the eruption of ethnic violence.
According to reports, no economic activity is currently ongoing. Schools have closed while life has been reduced to a most desolate state of individual survival.
In the midst of this confusion and blood-letting, one might hope the government would do better than issue press statements that reveal its casual treatment of the violence and its approach to containing it. Twice in this week Internal Security minister John Michuki has brushed aside call for his resignation; he has not visited the conflict area since the conflict began and President Kibaki is yet to comment on the killings.
It is surprising that until Monday this week when Michuki catalogued what the government has so far done to contain the blood-letting, no top government officials has seen it fit to give a comprehensive assessment report on what has been taking place ; not even the Commissioner of Police under whose jurisdiction the law and order portfolio rests has found it fit to visit the area and acquaint himself with what was clearly a significant security lapse. The inescapable impression created is that the government approach was tepid and even indifferent, something which runs against the expectation that the government’s basic duty is protection of citizens.
The Mt Elgon clashes is a crisis that must be dealt with firmly and decisively for several reasons, not least of which is the continued suffering it visits upon innocent civilians, including children thousands of whom are unable to go to school.
The manner the killings are being conducted vindicates the cynics who have been questioning how Kenya can underwrite peace elsewhere yet fail to ensure the same within our borders.
For the first time in Kenya, an organised militia group has given warnings to the government; asked civilians to vacate an area or face terrorist wrath; and struck terror when their demands were not met. At first reading one thinks Kenya has become some banana republic where armed militia groups can operate comfortably outside the gambit of the state. It will be recalled that a number of those holding top positions in this government used to dismiss clashes like this one as being authored by the government of Kanu.
Yet the strength of the Kenya Police and Army, acting on good intelligence, can easily solve some of the nuances that is now turning a whole community into refugees. What ails the security services is a dangerous politicising and arrogant abdication of responsibility which makes security administrators think they are above the law.
In sharp contrast to when he held the Transport docket, throughout his tenure at Internal Security, Michuki has conducted himself in style that can only perpetuate insecurity in the country.
This includes the handling of the Mungiki menace, the raid on the Standard and the 'mercenary' issue, Marsabit and Turbi massacres and now Mt
Elgon.
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