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Never mind the election, violence is now normalised

Thursday July 20 2017
boni

Residents of Maleli Village in Witu, Lamu County, flee to Katsaka Kairu on July 11, 2017. Residents from no fewer than nine villages around Boni forest in Lamu have been ordered out to enable air-strikes by the Kenya Defence Forces against Al Shabaab adherents believed to be sheltering in the forest. PHOTO | KALUME KAZUNGU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By MUTHONI WANYEKI

When abnormal situations are normalised, we cannot see them for what they are. This is the case with the abnormal criminality and state violence in specific parts of Kenya.

This past week alone…

In Nairobi, the body of a murdered advocate who worked for the Kenya Revenue Authority was found along Mombasa road on Wednesday. The Law Society of Kenya — already jittery from another advocate’s murder earlier this year and the extrajudicial execution of Willy Kimani last year — is certain his death was linked to his work. Meaning we’re normalised the murder of professionals simply practising their profession.

At the Coast. Residents from no fewer than nine villages around Boni forest in Lamu have been ordered out to enable air-strikes by the Kenya Defence Forces against Al Shabaab adherents believed to be sheltering in the forest.

Bear in mind here that Linda Boni began two years ago — the forest was already meant to have been secured. The indigenous and minority Boni community feel unfairly accused and targeted for their supposed support for the Shabaab.

All those displaced have lost their homes, sheltering in churches and wherever else they can, with the Kenya Red Cross calling for Kenyans to assist with the humanitarian response. Their children are also losing out on education, with parents scrambling to find places for them elsewhere.

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In northern Kenya. The Kenya Red Cross has estimated 3,000 people were displaced from the Isiolo/Meru border (the state says it’s “only” 1,000 people) after an armed attack by “bandits” on Monday left 10 dead.

This is on top of recent deaths in Mandera caused by improvised explosive devices (IED) believed to have been placed by Al Shabaab. Which (unsurprisingly) provoked a retaliatory response by the KDF, together with other security services.

Resulting in first the arrest of 12 residents and then the discovery of five of their bodies — one shot and four strangled — early this month. Local politicians are up in arms, demanding justice from the KDF and other security services involved.

Here what we’ve normalised — as at the Coast — is an ineffective and scorched-earth response to Al Shabaab.

In the Rift Valley. In Baringo, three people were killed in an exchange of bullets on Tuesday — two defending their homes and cattle and one an armed cattle raider. In Laikipia, six police officers were killed and four more injured when ambushed by an estimated 100 “bandits” on Wednesday night in the Laikipia West Conservancy.

In Baringo, cattle theft and the military and police response have rendered an estimated 10,000 internally displaced and made no less than 22 polling stations inaccessible.

In Laikipia, the search for pasture given the drought has resulted in ranch invasions that in turn have been (predictably) responded to by yet more scorched-earth military and police deployments.

Livestock found on the ranches is being killed, affecting people’s livelihoods. No less than three local politicians have been murdered. None of which has abated the Zimbabwe-induced, racialised fear among the ranchers.

All this abnormal criminality and state violence is already having an impact on citizens’ rights to vote and participate in public life.

On the one hand, murder, ambushes, IED attacks and obviously organised cattle theft. Fear and displacement. These are the things we should be concerned about. Right now. Not pending the presidential elections.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes

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