Police should change tack on terror war

By Ally Jamah 

ajamah@standardmedia.co.ke

Kenyans are currently agonising over how the country can best be secured from the constant danger of terrorist attacks that hit us frequently, with resultant loss of lives, injuries and great harm to the struggling economy.

I assert that part of the solution lies in how the security agencies respond to these incidents because their behaviour whenever the attacks occur is undermining the fight against terrorism.

The practice of arbitrarily arresting people and extorting money from them is harming the relationship between the police and the citizens, who would otherwise be expected to be a valuable source of information.

While no one questions the need for robust investigations to bring the criminals to book, and the arrest of anyone police consider to be a suspect, this exercise has been turned into a huge extortion ring that is alienating the population from working closely with security agencies.

In Nairobi’s Eastleigh estate, for instance, a good number of residents have confirmed losing valuables such as electronics, gold and cash from their homes whenever police conduct “house to house” searches to flush criminals out.

The arrests are so arbitrary that even young children fall into the dragnet, further heightening the sense of alienation and victimisation. They see themselves as double victims of both the terrorists and police.

Ironically, the security agencies never tire of requesting the co-operation of the public in terms of sharing information about suspicious activities and people. But the same officers go ahead and abuse the public thereby frustrating community policing.

It is fair to conclude that security agencies could be missing a lot of information from citizens who could prevent terrorist attacks, thanks to poisoned relationships.

Another key concern that is weakening the fight against terrorism is the fact that people of certain communities or faiths in the country are being stigmatised or having insinuations of collective blame made against them as a result of the terrorist attacks.

Let it be known that crime is not committed by whole communities but by individuals who should be isolated through thorough investigations and smart intelligence gathering.

The writer is a reporter for The Standard