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Violations by Kenyan Security Forces

Too Much, Too Late

Nearly all residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch were initially supportive of the Kenyan joint police-military operation against the SLDF, but expressed serious misgivings about the way it was being carried out. They indicated that it had been a long time coming. Local human rights organizations Mwatikho and WKHRW, have repeatedly called for the government to tackle the SLDF problem since the beginning of 2007, a sentiment reflected by nearly all interviewees.⁷⁶

Throughout 2007, the police, General Service Unit (riot police), and Anti Stock-Theft Unit conducted some operations against the SLDF but they were sporadic and not sustained. They were marred by allegations of human rights abuses, including beatings, burning of houses, and attacks on villages viewed as supporting the SLDF.⁷⁷

The army first became involved in July 2007 although the military presence in Mt. Elgon was not publicly acknowledged by the authorities.⁷⁸ A senior government official told Human Rights Watch that operations were low level, because, “we feared politicizing the issue. You know SLDF and [local politicians] were closely related.” Foreign diplomats were briefed along similar lines.⁷⁹

However, once the December 2007 elections were completed, the government apparently felt unconstrained by political considerations and launched Operation Okoa Maisha (Operation Save Lives). The operation is supposedly a police-led joint operation comprising forces from the Kenyan army, General Service Unit (riot police), Administration Police, and regular police. However, officials have not so far been clear or consistent about who is actually in charge of day to day operations on the ground. There were numerous reports of the security forces committing unlawful killings, arbitrary mass detentions, systematic beatings and torture, and the enforced disappearances of dozens of people taken into the custody. As a man who had been beaten while farming in his field, taken to Kapkota military camp,⁸⁰ and then released, said, “Are they saving our lives or destroying our lives?”⁸¹ 

Unlawful Killings and Enforced Disappearances

The government’s principal strategy to flush out the SLDF in Mt. Elgon has been to arrest all adult and teenage males (some as young as 10) in the area, and “screen” them at several camps including the Kapkota military camp in Cheptais division. At the time of arrest, and later in detention at Kapkota, detainees were routinely beaten by security personnel, and some died as a result. Others have not reappeared since being detained and are feared to have “disappeared.” According to press reports, many children are also in detention.⁸² A report by the visiting justice officer for Bungoma High Court put the figure at 32 school-age children in detention on May 21, 2008.⁸³

In the mortuaries of Webuye and Bungoma in districts neighboring Mt. Elgon, Human Rights Watch saw the bodies of five men brought by police from Mt. Elgon over the previous 14 days. Mortuary attendants say the police told them they came from the camp at Kapkota.⁸⁴ The bodies showed obvious visible signs of torture such as welts, bruising, swollen faces, broken wrists, and rope burns around the wrists.

As of April 2, 2008, 13 such bodies had been delivered to the mortuaries, and three of the victims were identified and collected. In those cases, in order for the hospital to release the body without a post-mortem, police told relatives to sign an affidavit stating, “that I or the relatives do not intend to lodge claim of any nature against anyone or the state pertaining the death of the said, X [name of deceased].”⁸⁵ Relatives who collected two of the bodies told Human Rights Watch the men had been arrested by the military several weeks before.⁸⁶ When the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights visited Bungoma mortuary several weeks later, technicians there showed them 20 bodies that had been delivered by the police and remained unidentified.⁸⁷

Dozens of women described to Human Rights Watch how during several weeks in March their husbands and male relatives had been taken by soldiers or police at dawn. The women are now searching prisons, police stations, and mortuaries for the missing men.  One widow who found her husband in Webuye mortuary two weeks after he had been abducted by the army, complained: “Before the security operation, male residents of Mt. Elgon fled the district for fear of forceful recruitment into the SLDF.  Now they have either been rounded up or they have fled again, for fear of being tortured.  Mt. Elgon is a mountain of women, all the men have gone.”⁸⁸

As of June 3, WKHRW has compiled a list of 72 missing people whom it says are confirmed dead, and a further 34 missing whose relatives could not confirm whether they were alive or not.⁸⁹ The military and police spokesmen continue to maintain in public that no one has died and no one has been tortured. Meanwhile, a source within the operation claimed that as of the end of April, 184 known SLDF suspects had been “disappeared” by the army and police (and this figure had reportedly risen to 220 by the end of June.)⁹⁰

One woman told Human Rights Watch how her uncle was taken by the military at night at the beginning of March. Two days later, a relative told her that he had been killed by the army. Two days after that, his body showed up in the mortuary at Webuye. She collected the body and buried him. One of the security personnel present at his arrest apologized to her at the funeral.⁹¹

Dumping of Bodies

The Daily Nation newspaper on March 27, 2008 quoted a military source describing how bodies had been dumped in the forest reserve in Mt. Elgon national park.⁹² In addition, a different military source told Human Rights Watch that eight bodies from Kapkota were flown in two helicopters and dumped in the forest, north of Kaptaboi village on April 2.⁹³ A former detainee from Kapkota told the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights that a helicopter was always kept on standby at Kapkota to ferry bodies to the forest.⁹⁴ Children interviewed by Associated Press described how they were forced to help load bodies of victims of torture onto military helicopters in Kapkota camp.⁹⁵

A resident of Kaptaboi village interviewed by Human Rights Watch described seeing a military helicopter dropping off bodies on April 2:

We ran away from Kaptaboi where the military were conducting operations. We ran to the forest. There we stumbled across other soldiers. I was about 10 meters away, a helicopter landed and four soldiers dragged four bodies out of the helicopter and then threw them in the bush. Then they left, very fast.⁹⁶

When asked about these reports, a senior government official told Human Rights Watch, “We take no responsibility for those killed in the forest. What are they doing in the forest anyway?”⁹⁷

Arbitrary Arrest and Detention, and Torture

Dozens of men interviewed by Human Rights Watch described how military and police officers arrested them in their homes, on the street, in their fields. The soldiers asked them to show them members of the SLDF or the whereabouts of illegal weapons, and when they said they did not know, they were beaten. According to a man arrested in Cheptais trading center on March 14, 2008: “Soldiers came into my home and started beating me, they were shouting, ‘Show us the criminals! Show us the criminals!’”⁹⁸

Another person who was arrested in Cheptais on the same day explained:

It was 6 a.m., the soldiers banged on the door. They took me and others to the market place and made us lie down on the road while some of them beat us and others went to collect more men. Then they took us to Kapkota. There were many people there, maybe 1,000, it was all the men of Cheptais. There were many soldiers, kicking, beating with sticks. They made us lie down, they walked on top of us. Then they made us walk past a Land Rover with black windows. Those inside were the ones condemning or releasing us. The guilty ones had to stand in the ‘red’ line, the innocent ones, like me, went to the ‘blue line.’⁹⁹

Eyewitnesses described to Human Rights Watch men being beaten to death at Kapkota. One former detainee said “they [the military] were telling us, if one dies, just drag him off to one side.”¹⁰⁰  Another saw officers holding apart the legs of a man while another soldier took a club to his genitals; two corpses lay nearby on the ground.¹⁰¹

Those in the red line were then taken to the jails at Bungoma and Kakamega. The army spokesman says around 750 of them have been charged.¹⁰² As of April 2008, Bungoma prison was holding more than 400 persons brought from Mt. Elgon as a result of the security operation.¹⁰³ The government-appointed visiting justice officer to the prison told Human Rights Watch that all of those from Mt. Elgon had been tortured; many had urinal problems and fractures as a result; and 32 of them were in a critical condition and needed urgent medical attention. One died on April 2, four others died later in the month.¹⁰⁴

A doctor working with Mwatikho Torture Survivors Organization was

denied entry to the prison in the presence of Human Rights Watch on March 31. Several weeks later in April 2008, a team from the human rights organization, Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) gained access to Bungoma. What they found was shocking.

Bungoma prison was then holding a “staggering” 1,380 prisoners while its official capacity is 400.¹⁰⁵ The IMLU investigations also revealed that the prison authorities had turned away 40 further suspects from Mt. Elgon because of overcrowding. The men were taken to Webuye police station instead. IMLU interviewed 119 prisoners selected at random representing about 30% of the total of 400 detained at Bungoma prison. All of those interviewed had been tortured, with recurring patterns of injuries to the genitals, legs, back, and upper body.¹⁰⁶ These injuries are similar to those described by former detainees of Kapkota who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch.¹⁰⁷

All of the detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch described systematic torture, affecting every single person picked up by the military-police operation and taken to Kapkota. These accounts were from groups of victims interviewed separately, of different ethnicities and in multiple locations, who were detained on different days throughout March 2008. IMLU concluded that 100 percent of those who had passed through Kapkota had been tortured.¹⁰⁸ According to the military’s own figures, 3,818 suspects had been arrested between March 1 and April 29, 2008.¹⁰⁹Later, in June 2008, the spokesman claimed the operation had arrested 3, 779.¹¹⁰

Further indication of the operation’s widespread and systematic use of torture against Mt. Elgon detainees is shown by the figures of the Kenya Red Cross which reported that, as early as March 25, they had treated 1,400 people with injuries related to the operation during its first three weeks.¹¹¹ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also reported that, “between March 10 and April 14 MSF teams treated 252 victims of intentional trauma.”¹¹²

Rape and Sexual Violence

Residents have been complaining of rape by security forces throughout the counter insurgency operations of 2007 and 2008.¹¹³ A Kenyan legal organization warned about rape as early as April 2007, estimating that three women a day were being raped by security forces in Mt. Elgon.¹¹⁴ At the beginning of the post-electoral violence in January 2008, several women complained of rape by GSU police.¹¹⁵ 

The actual number of rape cases documented in detail is low. However, human rights and women’s rights activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch claim that rape is common and widespread. There are significant social barriers to gathering reliable information; women often fail to report violations to the police or local authorities, since they are viewed as perpetrators.¹¹⁶ The only independent clinics in the area are operated by MSF who reported an increase in rape cases treated in their clinics as a direct consequence of the security operation, although they did not provide statistics.¹¹⁷

A woman described to Human Rights Watch the rape of her neighbor by security forces in March 2008: “At night [the officers] steal food, destroy homes and rape women. I heard a commotion next door. I woke up and came outside. I hid in the bushes. I saw my neighbor there on the ground outside her house. Three soldiers all took their turn.”¹¹⁸ 

The Kenya National Commission of Human Rights noted only one case of a 14-year-old girl allegedly raped by police who had reported the matter in February 2007.¹¹⁹

Destruction of Property

Several residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch complained of the destruction of their homes by security forces in recent months, both before and during the recent operation. Police appear to commit the attacks to punish villages they believe are supporting the SLDF. International NGO staff also described widespread destruction of homes across the district.¹²⁰ A mother of four from Mt. Elgon district described how the security forces came to her village throughout October and December 2007 looking for SLDF members. “They had a list of SLDF suspects, but they did not follow the list, they just burnt all the houses, there was no pattern to it.”¹²¹ Another woman whose house was burnt in December 2007, just before the election said, “the police burnt ours because they thought we were janjaweed.¹²²  If you take things out of the house then they throw them back on the fire.”¹²³

Who is Responsible?

According to the military, the operation Okoa Maisha is “a police operation involving the regular police, administration police, anti-stock theft unit and aided by the military.”¹²⁴ In the press, government spokesmen refer to the operation as a “joint police-military operation.” The Department of Defence spokesmen repeatedly refused to meet with Human Rights Watch and referred researchers to the police claiming that the police are in the lead. ¹²⁵

These statements were matched by District Commissioner for Mt. Elgon, Birik Mohammed, who assured Human Rights Watch that the police were in charge.¹²⁶ However, the reality appears to be that in the area of operations the military are running things. When asked about the allegations of torture at Kapkota camp the District Commissioner immediately referred Human Rights Watch to the military command at Malakisi rather than the police, saying that the camp and surrounding area was under the military’s control. Dozens of victims and witnesses who passed through Kapkota described being arrested by men in military uniform and transported in military trucks to Kapkota where soldiers beat them and asked them questions. Many people used the Swahili word “jeshi” meaning specifically army soldier, and not the word “askari” meaning any armed guard, whether police or military. The police normally wear blue uniforms. Riot police wear military fatigues but with distinctive red berets. Witnesses described to Human Rights Watch being apprehended by men in full military fatigues, not wearing red berets of the GSU, but the black and navy berets of the army.¹²⁷

The army has said in private to western diplomats that its battalions were deployed on combat operations in the forest reserve and to provide security to police units conducting cordon and search operations in the villages lower down the mountain, the implication being that they were not in charge of detainees. However, an intelligence officer working with the military told Human Rights Watch that army and police officers were working hand in hand rounding up and torturing suspects. Many police were present at Kapkota, he reported, but were dressed in military uniform and taking orders from the military commander. He himself took his orders from the military commanders at Kapkota and Chepkube, where he said the military are firmly in control.  According to him, orders pass directly from Nairobi to the military commander or via the Provincial Commissioner, but always to the military commander as effective head of the operation on the ground.¹²⁸

The police spokesman for the operation similarly claimed that although it was a joint operation in which the Provincial Commissioner was in overall command, “the military provide logistics, but of course in Kenya the military is superior to the police.”¹²⁹

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch and those who recorded statements to IMLU lawyers were explicit in clearly differentiating between military, GSU, and other police units, based on their distinctive berets, and in identifying military officers as perpetrators of abuse. Human Rights Watch spoke to dozens of victims who were tortured inside military trucks.  The report of the visiting justice officer in Bungoma jail describes victims being hung from army helicopters while flying.¹³⁰

According to the IMLU investigation:

Virtually all the survivors were tortured by military officers but a few confessed to having been also tortured by police officers from the Kenya Police Service, Administration Police, and General Service Unit at the point of arrest or while being transferred to police stations or law courts…All the survivors identified Kapkota Military Camp as the main place where torture took place.¹³¹

In discussing the role of the police, IMLU found that:

The torture survivors indicated that police officers assisted the military in arresting the torture survivors and victims and in transferring them to waiting military vehicles and Kapkota military camp where they were tortured. Police also waited and picked torture survivors from the camp and transferred them to the police station, brought them back to Kapkota for further torture or took them to court. The survivors also pointed out that police also provided their vehicles to be used in ferrying survivors from one place to another.¹³²

The army is clearly the most influential player in the joint operation, the one in charge of combat operations, and the principal supplier of logistics in terms of trucks, jeeps, arms, and helicopters. The available information points towards a chain of command in which the police and military are not only both fully aware of what is going on, but are actively adopting tactics that violate Kenyan and international human rights and humanitarian law. As a senior government official involved in the operation put it to Human Rights Watch:

This is how counter-insurgency is done. This is how the British did it during Mau Mau. This is what the Americans and the British are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tell me how we should do it differently?  In a cordon and search operation like this one you might have to detain everyone to get at the ones you want and if you try and detain a large hostile population, you might have to use force. One must first of all subdue those you want to question.¹³³

While international humanitarian law provides armed forces leeway to temporarily detain civilians for security reasons during military operations, conducting mass arrests without legal basis and mistreating those in custody is prohibited at all times.

The military has consistently denied the claims of torture and suggested to concerned Western diplomats and Kenyan human rights organizations that “paramilitary units” of the police were responsible for the abuses. Even if such claims were true, commanders responsible for the operation would still ultimately be accountable for serious abuses.  Those commanders include police, civilian, and military personnel.

The Kenyan civilian and military officials with authority for the security forces operating in Mt. Elgon include Minister of Internal Security George Saitoti, who is in overall charge of the police, Police Commissioner Hussein Ali, and the Administration Police Commandant, Kinuthia Mbuguathe. Those in charge of the army include the Minister of Defence Yusuf Haji, Chief of General Staff Jeremiah Kianga, and Kenya Army Commander Augustino Njoroge.  The two men officially in charge of the operation on the ground are the Western Provincial Commissioner, Abdul Mwasserah, and the commander of the army in Mt. Elgon, S.K. Boiwo. All of these men should be subject to an independent investigation into the chain of command in the joint operation in Mt. Elgon to establish how much was known about the nature of the systematic torture, at what level, and what steps were taken to prevent it.