World leaders had to accept some blame for the violence that rocked Kenya following a disputed election in December, killing more than 1,000 people, the international Human Rights Watch group said yesterday.
The report by the New York-based group also found that police shot hundreds of people protesting the election result in Nairobi, the western port town of Kisumu and other towns between late December and early January.
In many cases, it said, witnesses reported that the police had not acted in self-defense and had not been provoked.
"Foreign governments should remember that decades of turning a blind eye to corruption, impunity and mismanagement by Kenya's governments has contributed to the recent crisis," the group said in its report.
The world was shocked at the bloodshed in Kenya, previously seen as a haven of stability on a volatile continent, and many leaders helped pressure Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga into a Feb. 28 power-sharing pact.
Human Rights Watch accused police of causing "hundreds" of deaths by resorting to excessive force during the two-month crisis in the East African country, especially in opposition strongholds like Kisumu.
Fleeing children had been shot, the group said in its 88-page report.
It also criticized authorities for acting impartially. Lethal force was used quickly in opposition areas but restraint was shown toward pro-government supporters, it said.
"As the country slid into interethnic violence, there were examples of the police intervening to protect lives, but in many other situations the police appear to have had little will or capacity to prevent violence," the report said.
"The ethnic divisions laid bare in the aftermath of the elections have roots that run much deeper than the presidential poll," the report said.
"No Kenyan government has yet made a good-faith effort to address long simmering grievances over land that have persisted since independence," it said.
"Lasting solutions require a thorough overhaul of Kenyan institutions and a serious attempt to redress deep-seated problems that have been ignored or exacerbated for too long by those in power," said the report, titled Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance.
It said that the deep-seated problems include, "the ownership and allocation of land, the Constitution, and impunity for corruption and the organization of political violence."
The report was based on 200 interviews with victims, witnesses, perpetrators, police, magistrates, diplomats, Kenyan and international NGO staff, journalists, lawyers, businessmen, councilors and members of parliament across the country.
The crisis was Kenya's worst since independence from Britain in 1963 and damaged its international reputation as a prosperous trade and tourism hub.
Kenya is East Africa's biggest economy.
Human Rights Watch blamed successive post-independence governments for failing to address land and poverty issues at the root of the violence.
"Much of the ethnic-based violence was organized by local leaders, politicians and businessmen from all sides, according to eyewitnesses," it said.
"Human Rights Watch believes that there is no alternative to criminal prosecutions of those who have contributed to the violence, including for members of the police found to have used excessive force," the report said.
"Kenya's leaders, Kenyan civil society, and international actors deserve praise for uniting and bringing the country back from the brink," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
"But the hard work starts now. Confronting long-ignored human rights violations and historical injustices means investigations and prosecutions," she said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS