Greg Barrow in Nairobi
THE Kenyan government has published a 40-page dossier defending its human rights record. The report comes as Kenyan human rights groups grow increasingly vocal about a rise in mob violence and a breakdown of law and order.
In the report, The Way It Is, the government says its overall record is positive, and blames budgetary restraints for preventing authorities from addressing all human rights issue.
Kenyan human rights groups say the report offers no answers to the growing problem of civil disorder. Incidents of crowds taking the law into their own hands are on the increase.
Almost every day the media carry reports of civilians being beaten, necklaced, or hacked to death by mobs seeking vengeance for petty crimes .
“The government is either unable or unwilling to curb crime in the country,” says director of the Kenyan human rights commission Maina Kiai.
“When a crime is committed, no action is taken. The police seem unable to move, so the people have decided that the best thing is for they themselves to do something about it.”
John Githongo, a columnist in a regional newspaper which has campaigned against mob violence, believes the rulers are to blame. “Human life is cheaper here in Kenya than ever before,” he says.
“The trouble is that people can’t look to any part of our society for moral leadership: if you have a problem, you either bribe your way out of it or you use violence.”
Data collected by the human rights commission reveal that deaths in mob violence far outstrips deaths due to ethnic clashes and banditry.
The government dismisses its data as “a propagandist catalogue of criminal incidents”.
But the commission says: “There’s a feeling that the government actually accepts mob violence. We’ve become a society that doesn’t care for the weak and the poor. We care much more about property and wealth, and if that’s the case, we’re a society in big trouble.”