The Police and Mungiki II

There’s a second report out, from the Oscar Foundation this time (no I haven’t heard of them before either), which makes for even more gruesome reading than the first. They claim to have documented 8040 cases of death by execution or torture at the hands of ’state security agents’ in the five years between August 2002 and August 2007 (page 5). Another 4070 disappeared persons remain unaccounted for. The report is thin on evidence and long on assertion. Still, it is now clear that the Commissioner of Police has a case to answer.

It’s happened to me too.

I have put vital documents in the post and lost them. So I have some sympathy for Alistair Darling this morning; still, mislaying the personal details of nearly every child in the UK is some going.

Good-ish news on the trade front

Kenya appears to have avoided the GSP, and the East African Community appears to have put off full-scale market liberalisation for 25-years. (BusinessDaily)

The police and Mungiki

KNHRC has a report out suggesting that the police have killed nearly 500 young men in the ‘war’ against Mungiki. (I’ve been unable to find the report online, but the Nation, Standard and AllAfrica have stories.) A disturbingly large number – ‘almost all’, according to the Nation – of the victims appear to have been executed by a single gunshot to the back of the head. The distribution of the bodies around various mortuaries is prima facie evidence of a conspiracy to conceal the deaths. KNHRC will, apparently, soon release its final report. Till then, it looks very like the police have engaged in indiscriminate murder.

(Those wishing to learn about Mungiki might begin with Anderson 2002 (draft here), Kagwanja 2003, and Murunga’s 2006, which is a response to Kagwanja 2003.)

UPDATE (07.xi.07): The preliminary report is now online here.