A closer look at Wachira, the police chief who blew the lid on 1990s tribal clashes

Former police commissioner Duncan Wachira, who died on Wednesday, had protested against a conspiracy of silence by special branch officers that abetted tribal clashes in the 1990s and exposed State-sponsored terror. 

Three decades later, the country is still grappling with how to end the violence that is witnessed after every election cycle, the latest effort being the constitutional reforms proposed under the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), whose report was unveiled on Wednesday by President Kenyatta and Orange Democratic Movement leader Raila Odinga. 

In 1998, then President Moi appointed a judicial commission of inquiry into the tribal clashes that had rocked various parts of the country since 1991, which found out that rogue intelligence officers linked to the attacks were promoted, a stunning development the then spy chief downplayed as how a “third world country” was run. 

Commissioners were also stunned by the case of a Mombasa politician who was issued with a police communication gadget to listen in on communications, noting it was no surprise that raiders seemed to have prior knowledge of security forces’ moves. 

The commission revealed politicians implicated in the chaos were never punished, partisan provincial administrators fuelled the mayhem and security forces were only bystanders as the killings and destruction of property went on, the kind of impunity that continues to plague the country to date.  

Wachira, who served as police chief from 1996 to 1998, told the commission chaired by Justice Akilano Akiwumi that intelligence about impending attacks was hidden from him, as he painted a picture of rogue intelligence officers who seemed to enjoy protection from high up. 

“Duncan Wachira condemned what can be described as the conspiracy of silence on the part of the special branch officers…This, together with the apparent reluctance to investigate and criticise the actions of special branch officers, undermined the work of those members of law enforcement agencies who had no hidden agenda and who were prepared to do an honest day’s work,” the Akiwumi commission wrote in its report. 

The commission, which held public sittings between July 14 1998 and June 11 1999, laid bare correspondence between the police chief and Criminal Investigation Department (CID) bosses that exposed the dissatisfaction with security lapses. 

'Evasiveness'

Wachira, in a letter on September 1, 1997, to Noah arap Too, the then Director of Criminal Investigation Department, wrote: “It cannot be gainsaid the attacks against upcountry people at the Coast were premeditated and professionally executed.” 

“The impunity, blatant arrogance and daring nature of these attacks including the burning of nothing less than the office of a District Officer and a police station as well as the looting of its armoury, and the apparent deliberate ineptitude or inaction on the part of the provincial administration officers and members of the security forces, have their own story to tell,” stated the commission’s report handed to President Moi on August 19, 1999. 

Justices Akiwumi, Samuel Bosire and Sarah Ondeyo, however, observed “evasiveness” characterised the evidence of both Wachira and Too. 

They noted that Wachira's favourite answers to difficult questions as captured from the verbatim reports of the proceedings were; "I have no comment on that", "I am not able to confirm that" or "I take note of that, my Lords". 

The commission also observed the fact that special branch officers kept the information that they had from their colleagues did not necessarily mean that these colleagues did not also have prior knowledge of some of the tribal clashes. 

Curious case of Kihika and Kipkorir 

One intriguing case involved David Kipkorir, at the time the Nakuru district security intelligence officer.  

On January 23, 1998, Kipkorir received a letter from the then opposition MP Kihika Kimani, which warned of attacks following the 1997 General election. 

In the letter, Kihika warned of imminent attacks targeting to drive out a community from Nakuru and nearby districts. 

Kipkorir never brought the contents of the letter to the district security committee during its meeting on January 23, 1998. 

The security situation was misleadingly described as “still satisfactory”, according to minutes of the meeting. 

Kihika and Kipkorir met the next day, January 24, but still the spy never bothered to inform the security committee about the looming tragedy.
 
The communication noted in a fax on January 24, 1998, to the headquarters of the directorate of intelligence in Nairobi, he played down the seriousness of the situation. 

He never mentioned his meeting with Kihika who had warned him of the impending clashes, which the commission found “most suspicious”.

The intelligence officer then left Nakuru and attackers struck on the evening of January 25, 1998. 

Kipkorir would show up at the scene the next morning when he tried to persuade police who had arrested some of the attackers caught burning houses to free them. 

Boinett, the 'selectively frank' spy

Wilson Boinett, who by January 19, 1999 had been appointed Director-General of the new National Intelligence and Security Service, was praised by the commission for his “refreshing candidness” as he agreed with the commissioners that Kipkorir’s actions showed he deliberately played down the real state of affairs. 

When reminded this had not prevented Kipkorir from being promoted, Boinett “pleasantly surprised us all by his honest comment that this is the sort of thing that happens in a third world African country like Kenya”.

The commissioners, however, noted that true to his profession as a spy, Boinett was only “selectively frank” as he did not disclose that at the time, senior special branch officers like Kipkorir were promoted by the Public Service Commission upon his recommendation. 

Read: Wilson Boinett - Military man who turned around NIS

Wachira, who as Commissioner of Police, was at the time Kipkorir’s overall superior, told the commission he would have disciplined Kipkorir if he had been directly under him. 

The commission noted another interesting aspect of the matter related to an investigation into the cause of the clashes in Molo undertaken by a team of police officers led by the then deputy commissioner of police Philemon Abongo.

According to the report, Kipkorir’s “deliberate act of deception” was repeated in his first statement to the police on February 12, 1998, in which he never mentioned either Kihika’s letter or his meeting with the MP. 

Abongo told the commission it was impossible to obtain any statement from Nakuru Provincial Security Intelligence Officer Petkay Miriti, who was then Kipkorir’s immediate senior. 

Sacred-cow syndrome

In his report to the Commissioner of Police, Abongo, in spite of having told the commission that Kipkorir should have alerted the district security committee to the contents of Kihika’s letter, did not castigate Kipkorir. 

The commission observed this “sacred-cow syndrome” also seems to have played a role in the report on ethnic clashes in Coast province by Peter Mbuvi, the deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Department. 

The commission said there was ample evidence that Chief Inspector Omar Raisi of the Special Branch had prior information of the taking of illegal oaths and the military training of youths to attack Likoni police station, in which six police men were killed. 

Omar gave a self-recorded statement to Edwin Nyaseda, then a senior assistant commissioner of police, who was assisting Mbuvi in his investigations. 

The commission termed Omar’s statement “deliberately shallow and misleading”, which the commissioners concluded showed he was not only “concealing important information” but “must have condoned or taken part in the outrageous attack”.

“Yet in his light-weight report, Mbuvi did not dare point an accusing finger at Omar Raisi or any of his superiors who, like him, were all, now, not surprisingly, subsequently rewarded with promotions,” the report stated. 

The report added that all that Mbuvi dared recommend was that: “Once any criminal intelligence report is received by any law enforcement agency the same should be shared, coordinated and acted upon promptly and appropriately.”

“Duncan Wachira condemned what can be described as the conspiracy of silence on the part of the special branch officers. He recalled that Omar Raisi had to be compelled to even make his unhelpful and uncandid statement contained in Peter Mbuvi’s report.”

Wachira told the commission, having read Shukri Baramadi’s letters of June 25 and July 28, 1997 to Boinett on the recruitment of over 7,000 youths for military training, “he thought that his attention should have been drawn to the contents of those letters by Wilson Boinett.” 

Shukri was the Coast provincial security intelligence officer. 

The commission noted six weeks before the attack on the Likoni Police Station on August 13, 1997, Shukri wrote to Boinett, his Director of Intelligence, on June 25, 1997 warning about possible attacks. 

The letter was headed ‘criminal activities of possible security significance/alleged plans by youths to perpetrate political thuggery/Kwale’.

Shukri explained he had received information that some youths from Kwale and Likoni who did not support Kanu were taking illegal oaths that would bind them “to cause civil disobedience and other acts of lawlessness during the election period”.

About 7,763 men including some 800 servicemen and ex-servicemen were to be recruited. 

The next letter Shukri wrote to Boinett on July 28 1997, which was some 16 days to the attack on the police station, was headed ‘matters of morale within the Kenya police/OCS Likoni Police Station accused of being compromised by a politician/Mombasa’.

Diversionary tactic

The commission noted Shukri diverted attention from the main subject of his letter on June 25 1997.

Commissioners concluded the diversionary tactic was intended to give the directorate of intelligence the excuse – when cornered – of saying that it did not get a realistic and proper account of the situation.

The commission noted the special branch handler’s comment on the report stated: “A similar report was submitted that the youths were taking oaths.

The youths are claiming regional government and are prepared to start clashes any time. However, the allegation is still being investigated and a full report will be submitted.”

A comment of the handler’s senior officer, Peter Wilson, the district security intelligence officer, Mombasa, dated August 12, 1997, the commission noted, was worth setting out.

“A similar report had been received here from a different source confirming that chances are high that oathing is secretly being conducted. Investigations are underway,” the handler wrote. 

“It is in the light of the foregoing circumstances that we have come to the conclusion that not only Wilson but also Shukri, who must have known that tribal clashes were about to erupt in the Coast province anytime, deliberately diverted attention from them and played down the issue,” the report said. 

Boinett testified that Shukri and other provincial security intelligence officers had in 1996, because of tribal clashes that occurred in 1991/92, and the imminent general election in 1997, prepared a threat assessment report. 

Dated September 3, 1996,  it was titled ‘flash points for violence 1997 general elections’ and distributed to the head of public service, Permanent Secretary Internal Security, Chief of General Staff, Department of Defence, Commissioner of Police, PS Foreign Affairs and Director of Intelligence. 
The commission noted though Wachira received a copy of the report warning of possible violence, he only called for the “strengthening of …especially the security organs, which will be the sole authority to take measures on the looming crisis.”

“Duncan Wachira did not seem to have taken any appropriate measures as a result of this report. Instead, he seemed to have been more concerned about providing cover for some people that might be affected by the investigation into the clashes that occurred in the Coast province,” the Akiwumi report noted. 

Wachira had also denied that in 1992, when he was the Provincial Police Officer in Mombasa, he had allowed Rashid Sajjad, then a local Kanu politician, to be issued with a police pocket phone or walkie-talkie. At the time of the inquiry, Sajjad was a nominated Kanu MP.

“However, we had no difficulty in accepting as true the evidence that Rashid Sajjad had given, that the police pocket phone, which would enable anyone operating it to overhear what was being said over the police radio network, had been issued to him on the instructions of Duncan Wachira. Indeed, Rashid Sajjad had been assigned a police call sign “Romeo Siera”,” the report stated. 

The commission observed the police communication gadget enabled Sajjad “to eavesdrop on the police communications network and to know what actions the police were planning to take against the raiders. With such information, the youths could elude, as often happened, planned police offensives.”

The commission also condemned the partisan role played by members of the provincial administration, citing tribal clashes along the border between Transmara and Gucha districts. 

A criminal intelligence report on the clashes authored by the then senior assistant commissioner of police John Namai detailed allegations of criminal acts against certain politicians. 

It stated that chiefs and assistant chiefs in the affected areas were partisan and also that the district security intelligence officers did not share the relevant information they had obtained with their colleagues in the district security committees. 

The intelligence report was submitted by Namai to his boss, Too, who in turn passed it on to Wachira. 

“This report is for your information and any necessary action you may consider necessary taking,” read the report forwarded by Too to Wachira. 

The commission said Wachira adopted “the same lukewarm attitude” and avoided taking steps to investigate the allegations made against the politicians” in his letter on January 12, 1998, to Fares Kuindwa, then the Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of Public Service. 

“Though the report is long, I would appreciate if you could study it and please take necessary administrative action to direct appropriate administrative and political action so as to harmonise the close cooperation and co-existence of the tribes living in this area,” Wachira wrote.  

Kuindwa, according to the report, did not tell Wachira to investigate the allegations of criminal acts made against the politicians. 

The commission recounted an incident of October 28, 1991, one day before the first of the tribal clashes in the country at Miteitei farm in Nandi district. 

That day Julius Ndegwa, then of Songhor police station, and Nandi District Officer 1 Christopher Mwashi had gone to Miteitei Trading Centre to settle a long-simmering dispute between rival groups of shareholders in Meeteitei Farmers Company Limited, which owned the farm. 

The two knew violence was likely to flare up and had armed policemen. But when it became obvious chaos would erupt, “Mwashi hurriedly made his exit together with the District Officer”. 

Ndegwa was left behind to deal with the situation and he directed six armed police officers to stand guard at night. 

On the early evening of October 29 1991, houses belonging to one community were burnt by raiders. Ndegwa, who had arrived with about 13 armed police officers, “could not do much to stop the burning of houses”.

The police officers fired in the air, a strategy the police were to employ in many other incidents of tribal clashes but which, according to the commission, proved not only useless but also at times seemed deliberately calculated to assist the arsonists. 

“This trade-mark police intervention was condemned by Duncan Wachira, who testified and we agree with him, that the police on such occasions, such as during the violent acts of tribal clashes, should have shot to disable, but which they had obviously been ordered not to do,” the report stated.