Let’s talk about security, not police or army work

When Daily Monitor published a story titled, ‘Soldiers train to take top police jobs’ on September 30, 2007, I wrote a rejoinder that was published in The New Vision of October 8, 2007 under the title, ‘No problem army officers heading the police.’

I posed two pertinent questions: Why worry about 40 or 80 soldiers being trained to head police units throughout the country? Will this be harmful to the regional security architecture?

I argued: ‘Each of the (then three) East African countries has an army and a police force. Other than these, Kenya has a well-trained and well-equipped paramilitary police unit known as the General Service Unit (GSU), while Tanzania has a quasi-military-cum-riot police formation known as Field Force Unit (FFU)…. The training of the GSU and FFU makes them critical to the internal and external security of our neighbours.”

Many people say by appointing Gen Katumba Wamala and Gen Kale Kayihura to head the police, President Museveni was ‘militarising’ the police force. I don’t agree. Many people believe that Gen Kayihura, while heading the police, acted as an NRM cadre fiercely loyal to President Museveni. I agree.

And I wish to express deep disappointment that Gen Kayihura blew an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how military exactitude can effectively and efficiently tame cross-border crime, which threatens our national security much more than theft, burglary, robbery, assault, etc, do.

We live in an era of fear, terror and raw greed. Syndicated cross-border criminals are increasingly using ever more sophisticated technology to mete out violence and economic crimes to societies like ours.

Terrorism, smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, trafficking of weapons, money-laundering, illicit sale of ivory and minerals, and business fraud (including the manufacture and sale of counterfeit products), are some of the crimes that hugely pose a real and present danger to our security. With oil production expected to commence in the near future, we should get ready for the crime of bunkering, the illegal sale of oil products, in fuel containers, across borders.

Cross-border crime is committed by individuals and groups across national borders. This means that crime-fighting is the job of the army, the police and other security agencies. Clearly, things are going to get worse.

Just look at the dangers we are exposed to from counterfeit products. From fake skin lotions, foods and mineral water to adulterated building materials - none of us is safe.

What can a government do about things like these? On March 14, Egypt announced the setting-up of a specialised digital forensic lab for intellectual property as an enforcement mechanism for combating cyber-crime and cracking down on counterfeit products.
With cutting-edge technology, the lab is designed to fight Internet-based piracy by recovering data from digital devices and unearthing sophisticated fraud techniques that fraudsters utilise to produce fake products.

The government there plans to roll out the technology and share it with key players in the justice, law and order sector such as judges, lawyers, prosecutors and crime investigators to enable them to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit products.

We too urgently need to properly assess threats and potential threats from cross-border criminals in East Africa. Only then can we come up with properly coordinated, innovative and collaborative law enforcement models to protect the people of this region.

Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, which was founded on May 28, 1975, is doing something along those lines. A while back, Ecowas intervened after investigations revealed that Nigeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast were fuelling illegal sales of tonnes of ivory poached in neighbouring countries.

Significantly, Ecowas has a well-armed multilateral military force known as Ecomog (Economic Monitoring Group) with just the right firepower to take on cross-border criminals.

So, instead of talking about police or army work as though they are separate and incompatible activities, we should talk more about who can protect us from internal and external threats, and with what physical, material, financial and human resources.

Dr Akwap is the Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Management Studies
at Kumi University.