He said that the option of deploying the military was still being considered although he believes the police have all they need to deal with the situation/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept11 – Prime Minister Raila Odinga has now promised decisive action over the Tana River killings within the next 48 hours.
He said that the option of deploying the military was still being considered although he believes the police have all they need to deal with the situation.
Odinga told reporters in his office that the administration in the area has failed and that the initial action taken by security agencies was insufficient.
“Give us one or two days because it is clear that those in the area are unable to deal with the situation and we will take it to another level,” he said.
The PM said that it set wrong precedent that no culprit has been apprehended and charged over the initial attack on the night of August 21 in Reketa in which at least 52 people were killed.
“Police know that in this kind of situation they have power to use reasonable force to effect arrest; they do not need any other power in legislation to do that but we are looking into other possibilities of deploying other forces to bring this into normalcy,” he insisted.
“After visiting the area I talked to the forces to arrest the perpetrators. That is what I would have expected but I only saw chiefs and administrators arrested,” he said adding that he had warned that people were bound to take the law into their own hands if action was not taken.
The PM says that thorough investigations should be carried out on the killings after normalcy is restored as the crimes committed are serious and have been sustained.
“These crimes could meet the threshold of crimes against humanity because we have a group of people who seem to pan and attack another community using certain methods. At the moment we have to take action that will take this brutality to an end,” he asserted saying that the situation was serious but not out of hand.
Thirty eight people were killed in a fresh wave of violence on Monday in Kilelengwani area while another three were killed on Tuesday in Semikaro.
Already, area leaders have called for military intervention to quell rising insecurity.
Addressing a news conference at Parliament Buildings on Monday, MPs Danson Mungatana, Dhadho Godhana and Abdi Nuh said the situation on the ground was getting out of hand.