Police station attacks a pointer to Tanzania’s state of insecurity

Dar es Salaam. Few weeks after Ikwiriri tragic incident which took lives of two police officers another incident occurred on 2nd February 2015 at Mgeta Police Station in Kilombero Morongoro. In the recent incident in Kilombero again the ganstar took on SGM with magazine of 30 shells. We strongly condemn the increasing invasions of police stations and the killings of police officers in the country. As the same time we also condemn the incident between police and CUF in Dar es Salaam.

Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition understands that Police officers are also Human Rights Defenders because they do protect the rights of people and their properties. We are shocked that attacks and killings of police officers by a group of bandits have recently been mounting in Tanzania.

Police as law enforcers are obliged to know and to apply International Human Rights Standards during their operations. Generally, police must respect and protect human dignity, maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons. The Tanzania Police Force (TPF) is statutorily mandated by the Police Force and Auxiliary Services Act524 to oversee the ork of the preservation of peace; maintenance of law and order; prevention and detection of crime; apprehension and guarding of offenders; and protection of property. What happened with CUF rally it is not what the force is supposed to do. The Force should now learn to be independent from political orders unless otherwise they will continue to named as an enemy of the people and servants of the ruling mighty.

Police officers do receive allegations of human rights violation every day. just like other Human Rights Defenders police officers do fight all sorts of criminal conducts, brutality, and gender based violence as well as restore peace where the security of people is at risk. It is therefore, very clear that police and human rights actors play almost similar and mutual role in the field of human rights. It is because of this similar responsibility and existing mutual relationship between the Force and Human Rights Defenders that THRDC openly condemns the killing of police officers. The trend shows at least 10 police officers are killed every year by bandits.

Factors Behind

There are so many factors that make the Force easy prey for bandits and angry mob. The entire Police Force especially in most cases operates in very difficult working condition. Police officials are not well paid, they sometimes if not most of the time work without working tools, and they work under constant pressure from political quarters. When working with Legal and Human Rights Centre as a researcher I managed to visit many police stations For instance, Kishapu Police Post was found to be below standard for it to be named as a District Police Office. The Kishapu Police Post building was formerly used as a garage by Shinyanga Regional Cooperative Union (SHIRECU) it was small, old, unsecured, dilapidated and can easily be invaded. Usually, any police post at the district level must have a reception, two big rooms for female and male suspects, and three main offices for a District Police Commander, Prosecutor and District Crime Investigation Officer. Contrary to that, Kishapu Police Post has only one office space used as the reception at the same time staff office.

Police officials are not well treated as majority of them mix with civilians due to lack of police buildings. Ethically and professionally, police officers are not supposed to mix with the community for security reasons. Police officers are required to stay in police centers or quarters close to Police Post. In Kishapu and other places visited police officers including the OCD do not have police building hence forced to rent apartments within the community. Furthermore, in all visited areas police officers work without essential working tools such as cars and motorbikes.

Also the Police officers are lowly paid for instance a Police officer of lower rank earns not more than Sh250,000 per month. The nature of police work requires well facilitation which hardly leaves a room for corruption and other professional misconduct.

Interms of capacity and modern technology the force is also lagging behind and they can easily detect crimes using modern technology. Another challenge facing the force is poor relationship with the public; there has been always a negative perception by citizens towards the force. Police have been seen and reported to be involved in extrajudicial killings and brutality of offenders or suspects. Some people alleges that some police officer collude with bandits in crimes all these may have immensely contributed to the attacks and killings of police officers that the country is currently experiencing.

Another major challenge that damages the reputation of the police to the public is the use of extra force against citizens especially during political rallies. For instance, incidents of extrajudicial judicial killings continue to mount while perpetrators are left unpunished. This was also mentioned by UN Human Rights Council under the Universal Periodic Review, which ranked Tanzania among the ten countries that have unprecedented record of the said killings perpetrated by security forces. The LHRC’s report on extra judicial killings by security forces in Tanzania submitted to the International Criminal Court reveals that a total 246 people died in the hands of security forces between 2003 and 2012.This a huge implication on the relationship between the force and the public. Police needs the public for them to combat crimes but if they live in this antagonistic relationship, the capacity of the force to detect crime will always remain poor.

The Justice system in Tanzania is composed of various entities. These are the Judiciary whose role is dispensation of justice while as the Police Force maintains peace and people’s security as well as their properties. The Police force has got the mandate to arrest, suppress, investigate and finally prosecute alleged offenders. The criminal justice system in place is unsuitable to dispense justice when it comes to extrajudicial killings due the fact that criminal system is slow in acting when police personnels are involved in crimes such as brutality and extra judicial Killings.

All these have negative impacts on the security of the police themselves and the general public. Some bandits target isolated police stations for the purpose of collecting fire arms which can be used to in their day to day crime attacks such can increase the rate of crime such as armed robbery, Insecurity and state of fear among citizens, the increase level of human right violation, the illegal proliferation of fire arms , make the police force work insecure and might increase fear among police officers.

Way forward

The relationship between the police and human rights is discussed by at looking how police relate with the community and how they implement their duties without violating the rights of the people. In Tanzania the police force does not portray its capacity to combat crimes due to several reasons one being lack of resources to do so. Moreover, the Police force is negatively perceived by the majority public as a group of people who are well placed to defend the interest of rulers and not the public which is not supposed to be so. We have a recent CUF incident saga.

The force should also increase the capacity to combat property related crimes and new emerging crimes such as human trafficking and cyber crimes. If the Tanzanian Police force does not portray professionalism and accountability in its dealings it might fail to combat crimes and human rights violations. That is to say the capacity of any police force entails a couple of things including Security Sector Reform (SSR), professionalism, integrity and accountability.

In Tanzania, the Police Force is still regulated by Colonial laws and legislations. To continue using such legislations may always water down the capacity of the TPF since the context in which such legislations were made differ tremendously. Therefore the TPF has to speed up the reform process and operate within a legal framework that guarantees accountability and human rights as expected in a democratic society.

For TPF to regain its trust from the public and improve its capacity, it has to vigorously embark on reform programs. Police reforms programs are important because they enhance security, increases professionalism and security actors’ accountability. However, the aspects of human rights principles, democracy and community policing should not be ignored for effective and result oriented reform programs.

These reforms should focus on reforming community involment in policing; infrastructures as police stations; Systems for Improving Policing Operations; tools/ equipment and the use of IT; and legal, regulatory and institutional structure. The government must prioritize on security of people and their property by empowering the force and by allocating sufficient resources to the Force.

The autonomy of the force is also another key area to be addressed. The Force needs to be independt from political leaders such as Ministers, Regional and District Commissioners. The Force should not be dictated many orders from outside the force. If the force is free from political orders, can easily make it trusted by the entire public.

An external and independent oversight body embodded with powers to investigate and prosecute cases involving police brutality lead into police officers involved in crimes should be established. This can be supported by an incident of extrajudicial killing involving the Dar es Salaam Regional Crime officer, Assistant Commissioner of Police Abdallah Zombe in R vs ACP Abdallah Zombe and 12 Other. In this case perpetrators were accused of killing three businessmen Ephraim Chigumbi, Sabinus Chigumbi, Mathias Lukombe and a taxi driver Juma Ndugu. The incident took place on January 14, 2006 at Pande forest in Mbezi Luis, Dar es Salaam. However, perpetrators were declared innocent and set free due to poor investigation by the same force. Nevertheless,the state has appealed.

Police officers are required to stay in police centers or quarters close to Police Post. The force should avoid installing police post in isolated areas. All police post must be well built, fenced and next to police quarters.

I also call the public to collaborate with the force to identify all who are responsible for the killings of police officers in Ikwiriri, Bukombe and other parts of the country. We should all remember that police officers are our brothers, parents, sisters, friends and relatives. We should therefore as the public take trouble to protect them for our security. We should also remind the police force to stop receiving political orders from the incumbent leadership; this is because continuing work under their instructions will one day put a nation into un ending civil unrest as it was in Arab Spring. And by that time the Force will not have FFU and SGM to fight 45 million people.

Mr Onesmo Olengurumwa is national coordinator of the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition. E-mail:[email protected]