Cosmas Butunyi and Walter Menya
18 January 2008
Nairobi — Theatre of the absurd by police was captured by TV cameramen as a trigger-happy officer snuffed out the life of hapless Olago Junior who had joined others for a peaceful protest in Kisumu.
Olago, who was killed on Wednesday, was not armed, not even with a stone. But he was never to return home alive.
Although the right to peaceful assembly is one of the cornerstones of democracy and is enshrined in Chapter Five of Kenya's Constitution, the police bullet stood in the way for Olago Junior.
A police officer brandishing an AK-47 rifle charged at him and his friends as they danced and made faces, shooting him dead and injuring his friend on the shoulder.
Kisumu, a stronghold of ODM leader Raila Odinga, who accuses President Kibaki of stealing the December 27 poll, has suffered the worst police brutality. More than 70 people have been killed in the town, most of them shot dead by police. Six have been killed in the latest round of protests.
Rights groups have blamed this on what they call a shoot-to-kill policy by the police and use of live ammunition against protestors.
One of the casualties succumbed to bullet wounds at Bandani Estate.
The woman whose name was given as Judith Namukuru was reportedly killed by a bullet that teared through her tin-walled shanty. Her eight-year- old daughter who was also in the House was unhurt.
Other demonstrators were shot in Otonglo area on Kisumu-Busia road, which became the main battleground for the better part of the day.
Protestors lit bonfires on the road as they engaged police in running battles.
Commonwealth and other observers have described the elections as failing to meet international standards. The killing of Olago was brought right into the living rooms of Kenyans and the world by TV cameras. After the killing, the police officer then turned to his wounded friend and kicked him even as he writhed in pain besides Olago's lifeless body.
Manyatta area, which served as Olago's home, was sealed off by police Thursday.
Once again, the killing has brought into sharp focus what human rights agencies have described a shoot-to-kill order being implemented by police in Kisumu and elsewhere against unarmed Kenyans.
People who knew Olago said he did menial jobs in the lakeside town to survive.
Journalists who tried to venture into the crowded Manyatta estate were threatened with dire consequences.
Beyond the horrifying pictures of perceived brutality are families counting losses of their loved ones who were also felled by bullets. By Thursday, the toll had hit six.
Both felled
The perception that death could be met only in the streets is also becoming a myth as residents recount tales of women and children being hit by bullets at home.
Ms Rosa Akinyi was hit by misfortune for the second time since the controversial polls. She lost her husband in circumstances that were strikingly similar to those that led to her brother's death earlier. Both were felled by bullets in Manyatta estate during the post-election protests.
While her brother was shot dead in the first round of skirmishes that rocked Kisumu immediately after the announcement of election results, her husband died on Wednesday as the three-day mass action called by ODM kicked off.
Rosa fought back tears as she recounted her last moments with George Odunga, the father of her nine-year-old son.
After taking lunch with his family, which turned out to be their last meal together, she says Mr Odunga left home. He returned about three hours later and ventured out to visit a relative who lived nearby.
Not long after he left, gunshot fire rent the air. She would later learn that one of victims was her husband.
According to Mr Odunga's friend, Esau Ochir, who was with him when he was shot, they had been chatting with some friends when a contingent of police officers arrived in a van.
They alighted and split in two groups of three officers each.
"They began shooting at whoever they saw in sight and so we took off," he explained.
As they fled, he added, the officers shot at them, and as fate would have it, one of the bullets caught Mr Odunga, killing him instantly. His body was taken to the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital mortuary, where his brother-in-law's body has been lying for the past two weeks.
Mr Ochir says as they were taking Mr Odunga's body to the mortuary on a hand cart, they encountered a seriously wounded victim.
They lifted him onto the cart and dropped him off at the hospital's casualty department before proceeding to the mortuary.
As the Odunga family mourns, only a few metres away in the same estate friends and relatives of 10-year-old Salim Ahmed are also in mourning.
The Standard Four pupil at Obinju primary school in Kisumu was also felled by a policeman's bullet on Wednesday.
His mother, Mrs Halima Ali, says Salim was shot as he played with a friend a short distance away from the house.
Mrs Ali said she was at home when she was alerted that her son had been shot. On rushing to the scene, she found the boy lying in a pool of blood.
His body was carried back to their house, where it stayed overnight. It was transferred to the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital mortuary Thursday for post-mortem before burial later in the day.
Bitterness was evident in the mother's face, as she narrated events leading to the death of her son.
"Police who were pursuing protesters started shooting indiscriminately without establishing who the protesters were," she said amid sobs.
Mrs Ali claims police also lobbed tear gas canisters into their house.
"We voted for peace but it seems like that was our worst mistake, with police killing innocent people who know little about politics," Mrs Ali said.
Salim's friend who was with him at the time of the shooting escaped with no injuries. He was, however, still in shock and was yet to come to terms with the death of his friend.
The boy could barely speak to journalists who visited their house. Manyatta Estate seemed to be the worst hit in Kisumu.
Apart from the two deaths, many walls bear bullets marks, a testimony of the trigger-happy nature of the police.
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