Kenya: Where is the evidence of extrajudicial killings of Muslim clerics?

By

Joe Khamisi

Heads should and must roll following the highly damaging documentary this week by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network.

And this is not because the Islamic funded television station aired the forty-seven minute programme which Nairobi authorities have described as “scandalous and unethical.”

Heads must roll because people who identified themselves as members of various branches of the Kenyan security forces allowed themselves to lend credence to a project that is either intended to puff up the Islamic Jihadist movement, or, project the Government of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto as murderous and anti-Islam.

From the onset, the narrator made it clear that Al Jazeera had vetted the officers and found them to be genuine employees of Kenya security agencies. If indeed they are, then the officers, enshrouded in shadows to conceal their identity, violated their oath of office which, in part, calls for confidentiality of materials gathered in the course of duty.

Also, if it can be proved that those officers obtained official documents illegally and passed them over to a foreign agent, then they ought to be punished in accordance with the law of treason.

The Government should also investigate to find out who else was involved either within or without the civil service.

No government allows its officers to go on camera with the type of information given by the officers in “Inside Kenya Death Squads.” They seemed to forget that the country is in the midst of a terrorist onslaught.

But there is one more issue. No one – including the so called human rights organisations – has offered any concrete evidence to prove the Government is involved in any killings of Islamic leaders or others as part of an official elimination programme as claimed. If any such evidence exists, why hasn’t it been given to the Government or to any international organisation for action?

What we have so far are speculations and innuendos which serve no useful investigative purpose.

For an international medium like Al Jazeera to engage in a propaganda war aimed at causing conflict between Muslims and Christians is a cheap way to gain favour from its largely Muslim Arab financiers.

Today, Governments all over the world are tightening their domestic security protocols and Kenya is not an exception. That is why the Administration has proposed sweeping changes in law.

But while I welcome the changes, I do not support any attempt to snatch away fundamental human rights as suggested.

Joe Khamisi

Joe Khamisi is a former journalist, diplomat and Member of Parliament. He is also the Author of the Politics of Betrayal:Diary of a Kenyan Legislator, a political memoir about the situation in Kenya between 2001, when the ruling party of President Daniel Arap Moi, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), merged with Raila Odinga’s National Development Party.

The book also narrates cases of corruption in Parliament and in the Media and records Senator Obama’s visit to Kenya in 2006. As a friend of Barack Obama Senior, the author also remembers the times and tragedies of the American-educated economist.

Joe Khamisi’s second book, a biography, ‘Dash Before Dusk’, has recently been published and is now on sale.

In addition to the above books, Joe Khamisi blogs at http://joekhamisi.wordpress.com/ , http://joekhamisi.blogspot.ca/ and for media enquiries can be reached at [email protected]

(This article is courtesy of Joe Khamisi and was originally published at the above blog on 10th December 2014)