It’s wrong for police to cede part of its mandate to gangsters

Didn’t anyone advise the authorities that when the police cede part of its mandate to gangsters in the name of better street control and crime intelligence, winning back dominance of the streets becomes expensive and problematic later?

When the ‘Kiboko Squad’ and other civilian outfits allegedly started getting involved in sensitive security operations, I couldn’t help but reflect on Edmund Burke’s 1789 letter to the French Assembly warning of the ‘danger of mixing riotous civilians with mutinous soldiers’.

Such a seemingly perfect, but perilous fit inspired research that unearthed the article on the ‘New Middle Ages’ by columnist for the Jamaica Gleaner John Rapley in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2006), where he described Jamaica’s Ghettoes as ‘Gangster Paradises’; towards which Uganda seemed to be gravitating before the ‘Invisible Government’ (Intelligence community)at the behest of President Museveni, as we have come to learn, took action.

Rapley narrates how the local gangs in Jamaica maintained their system of law and order, complete with their own detention cells. Although at a glance they seemed anti-establishmentarian, he narrates, the police routinely cooperated with gang leaders, whose efficient rule made police work easier! The result, we are told, was tenuous reciprocation. If the gang leaders kept order, the police turned a blind eye to their criminal activities.

When the police made arrests, convictions became impossible because out of loyalty, fear or both, potential witnesses remained incommunicado; just as has allegedly been the case in Uganda in recent years. Noteworthy though, is the fact that Kingston’s ‘Gangster Paradise’ was only part of a worldwide phenomenon, which as doctors would in medicalspeak have put it, ‘presented’ (in Afghanistan, Colombia, DRC, Papua New Guinea, Somalia and the Solomon’s Islands) with a metastatic growth of ‘known’ origin and private statelets coexisting in convenient symbiotic relationship with the larger State. Brazils’ Rio de Janeiro’s favelas were reportedly so perilous that politicians went there only with the Gangster Dons’ express permission!

Déjà vu? If Ugandans know where we have been, but doubt where we might have gone, that is probably where! Sadly, the concept of a ‘New Medievalism’ is more applicable in Africa where modernity has been constricted by authoritarianism even though in reality, democracy seems no better suited than dictatorship to creating security.

By the way, I don’t want to say, ‘I told you so’, but didn’t I tell you that apart from being a committed pan-African milito-politician, the president fancies military history (Daily Monitor, March 13, 2018)? Didn’t his address absolve me? Incidentally, I do not know much about Parliamentary procedures, but I know a little about protocol: the exercise of good manners, courtesy, correct form and observance of established formal procedures. Regardless of political affiliation, it is inappropriate for any invited person not to attend a function where the Head of State presides.

Anyhow, I have a vivid image of Uganda as defined by its past chaos and litany of tribulations. I have no hesitation stating that even though not exactly lovely, this is a different and better country than it once was, and like I said (Daily Monitor, June 27, 2018), we should be optimistic about now and the future.

De-Kayihurification evokes difficult questions and answers such as whether the replacements will not face the same pressures and challenges Gen. Kale Kayihura probably faced; making real change tenuous? Nonetheless, emphasis on provision of direct security combined with improved public perception about the need and importance of police-public cooperation, knowledge of whom and where to look for security threats, might together result into changing the underlying security calculus setting off a virtuous cycle in which insecurity eventually decreases.

With modern security equipment and temporary deployment of auxilliary personnel; police officers and security operatives could be pulled off the less urgent operations for re-training. Then, all of the efforts being contrived may raise the potential for creating a new, better, stable and security order/regimen.

Mr Baligidde lectures at Uganda Martyrs University-Nkozi.

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