Paramilitary troops of the Kenya General Service Unit
NAIROBI
Nov. 19 (Xinhua)
Dozens of people have been injured on Monday in a revenge attack in Nairobi’s Eastleigh residential estate largely inhabited by Kenyans of Somali origin. The riots pitting Kenyans against people
of ethnic Somalis are a continuation of
fighting which erupted on Sunday after a grenade which was thrown at a bus near to St Teresa’s church on Second Avenue in Eastleigh, Nairobi, left at least seven dead and 34 others injured.
“Youths have come from neighboring
slums to revenge against the beating up
of Kenyans in Eastleigh on Sunday. The
Juja road is a no go-zone for better part
of today’s morning. The police have
arrived in three lorries and they are beating up everyone in sight. The youth
have also looted shops along Juja road,”
resident Martin Odhiambo told Xinhua on Monday.
Violent clashes first erupted on Sunday
after the suspected terrorists blew up a
public passenger vehicle but police
managed to contain them. However the
calm situation does not prevail on
Monday. Odhiambo said business promises have been closed in the ever busy Eastleigh also known as “little Mogadishu” as police engage the rioters in running battles.
“The rioters are also stealing from people and many people have been injured along Juja Road. There are no vehicles and the road has been deserted,” he added.
The residents are also attacking Kenya’s
Somali community whom they also
suspect to be behind a spate of insecurity that has affected the residential estate in the recent past. The security forces in certain instances were forced to use teargas to disperse the rowdy youth who were terrorizing business owners and travelers using the
Fourth Avenue.
The youth claim that residents in the area were shielding terrorists who are a threat to their security and that of the country at large. “Today’s chaos also erupted due to targeted attacks against members of Kenyans of Somali origin that first started on Sunday following the blast. Many people have been injured. People lost their valuable property as youths from Huruma and Kariobangi estates are revenging against the beating up of non Somalis in Eastleigh,” Helen Nyakiama who runs vegetable kiosks along Juja road told Xinhua.
Most businesses remain closed as owners fear that the protesting youths might attack them and loot their shops. Most of the Eastleigh residents have
refrained from staying in groups and
most of them are spending their time
indoors for fear of being roughed up by
the mob.
Nyakiama said a contingent of police officers are at the scene and are trying to contain the situation in the area.However, regional police commander,
Moses Ombati the security forces have
been deployed in Eastleigh to contain the violence. But witnesses said the police seemed overwhelmed by the rioters.
D-E-S says:
In a sense this ‘riots’ seems to have loose parallel to the ‘Tottenham riots’
in the UK, just a bunch of ‘youths’ riding
a legitimate wave of communal dis-
enfranchisement in that particular part
of town to loot and pillage.
Just like in London, that particular riot gained national momentum and spread once the ‘yobs/hooligans/youth/kids/blacks/chavs etc. (take your pick) sensed an indecisiveness or ‘weakness in Police
response’, just in Kenya today
This is not about ‘community intolerance’ it’s about ‘the youth in that area (lack of jobs, opportunities, education etc.) and the state of the Kenya Police in general…tough times ahead for both!!!
Hey D-E-S, you might be interested in seeing this emerging report. Kenya-related.
ANTI-TERROR OPERATIONS STOKE RELIGIOUS TENSION IN KENYA
VOICE OF AMERICA
Roopa Gogineni (18 Nov)
In Kenya’s second largest city, Mombasa,
a string of alleged extrajudicial killings
and disappearances of suspected
terrorists has raised tensions between
the police and the Muslim community.
The latest alleged target was Omar Faraj, a 40-year-old cashier, who was shot dead at home by police. At the butcher shop where Omar Faraj worked as a cashier, the till is unmanned. In late October, Kenyan police killed Faraj,
accusing him of planning a terrorist
attack. “Many customers have not come back…the customers who do come are very upset. They come here and they cry,” said butcher Joseph Kawemba, who worked with Faraj since 2008.
Early on a Sunday morning, anti-terror
police surrounded Faraj’s apartment,
firing at the building and lobbing
canisters of tear gas inside. After the
raid, neighbors found Faraj’s dead body
on top of his wife Rahma, who had passed out. Police said they recovered grenades and ammunition from the apartment.
At the Memon Villa mosque where Faraj
often led prayers, a friend who declined
to be on camera, believes the police made a mistake. “They claimed he was found with grenades, and yet we know he doesn’t even own a knife to slaughter a chicken. He wouldn’t even know where to buy a grenade. These things, they surprise us. Even now,” said the friend.
Kenya receives U.S. funding and
intelligence support for its anti-terror
efforts. In October, it passed new anti-
terrorism legislation, giving authorities
more leeway to root out suspected terror cells.
“Whenever we come across anybody who may be associating with al-Shabab or any other militia groups like al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, then we are able to deal with this particular person quite rightly to distort their operations and disorientate them completely so that they do not create any kind of crimes within the region,” said Aggrey Adoli, the Coast province police chief.
In August, rioters set fire to cars after
Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo, with alleged
ties to al-Shabab, was shot dead.Though the police deny responsibility, human rights groups believe Rogo’s was one of several extrajudicial killings and abductions carried out by Kenyan security forces.
Mombasa-based Muslims for Human
Rights, or MUHURI, is now investigating
Faraj’s death. “The responsibility to investigate, it is the police, it is not a human rights organization or anyone else. They are mandated by law. Going to a place at 2 o’clock and terrorizing the whole neighborhood, it is not fair, really,” explains MUHURI’s director, Khelef Khalifa.
Khalifa claims the passing of the anti-
terror bill has allowed the police, whom
he says have a long history of committing extrajudicial killings, to act with impunity.
“Now we ask ourselves, why did they go and shoot somebody if that person was
not hiding? They could have easily gone to his place of work and arrested him,” he said.
In this city, many now live in fear of the police.
D-E-S says
As you can clearly deduce from that
‘editorial’ it’s more about ‘speculations’
other than real evidences. It is
improbable that any given community
should know the whereabouts of all
their residents and/or visitors…that the Kenya police should ‘punitively and
collectively’ punish all of them is
wrong…yes!!
But it’s ‘defeatist’ and preposterous to imagine that they won’t react to any ‘legitimate’ intelligence gathered/collated based on the fact that the community/family did not/does not or choses not to know that he was/is engaging in subversive activities….
Move that argument on to the courts, surprisingly enough which is a ‘very important part of the argument’ that hasn’t been detailed on that editorial, having already noted that there is actually an entire NEW law in play here. Why?
…[Quote]..”Kenya receives U.S. funding
and intelligence support for its anti- terror efforts. In October, it passed new
anti-terrorism legislation, giving
authorities more leeway to root out
suspected terror cells”…[end quote]..
The above excerpt is what the
‘editorial’ seeks to inform the US audience an assumption to ‘legalised
abuses’, very poorly crafted if I may
add, why?
1. It attempts to evoke emotion by
narrating Mr Faraj’s plight. Which is
buy-and- buy reasonable as families do suffer when family members go ‘rogue’. But linking their pain to the general feelings of a generalised wider religious community is crass and anti-social deception
2. The Kenya police might be tactically inept at executing their arrest
procedures. I see only one ‘legitimate
complaint’ which is outlined in the
complaint by a Mr Khalifa of MUHURI…
….“The responsibility to investigate, it
is the police, it is not a human rights organization or anyone else. They are
mandated by law. Going to a place at 2
o’clock and terrorizing the whole
neighbourhood, it is not fair, really,”
explains MUHURI’s director, Khelef
Khalifa”… Perhaps KP should take that complaint into their considerations of ‘public situational assessments’ before
executing arrests
3. Kenya didn’t wantonly enact this
Law, it has been in consultations with the larger Muslim community and other
invested communities to the chagrin of
the US for close to 4 years. They (US)have cajoled, kraaled, postured, inferred, all manners of threats to leverage ‘The terror act law enactment, we didn’t bulge then easily and stayed politically firm to its ‘mutually agreed’ fruition…so let it work now. Got any problem or complaints run to the judiciary, and ask to your heart’s content…
4. In regards to issues of ‘terror
intelligence’ we ‘share’ with our
esteemed partners in the fight against
terror, we have established networks
to peruse and pursue intelligence. And
in the case of Mr Faraj whatever evidence were acted upon will be a
matter of record….let’s see the editorial
bank that with HRW or Amnesty. Why
waste time intimating?