Daudi Mwangosi

Tanzania: Opportunity to Honor Journalist Mwangosi

BY RAMADHANI KUPAZA, 15 SEPTEMBER 2012

COLUMN

The government of Tanzania has got an opportunity to honor Journalist Daudi Mwangosi and other people claimed to have been killed by the police. It is necessary to value lives.

A study in 2001 by Issa Shivji, a Professor of Law in Tanzania, implies that the police are prone to killing civilians because of the existing principles within the force.

In general, the study elaborates that the existing police force in Tanzania operates based on inappropriate principles established during colonial times. The authority and force of the police during colonial times were directed against restless 'natives'. The police force was accountable to the government rather than to the public. It was paramilitary in nature and isolated from the community with the primary purpose of instilling fear of authority in the entire population. It is difficult to argue against the need to review the policing practices in Tanzania if the country's police force is indeed a reflection of the colonial era.


Professor Shivji argues further that the one-party state that has been in existence in Tanzania for 27 years between 1965 and 1992 helped to reinforce the colonial mentality of the police force in Tanzania. The one-party state isolated the police force from communities in the country making it difficult to tell the difference between colonial and independent times. For example, it is still possible to encounter a situation whereby police officers take the law onto their hands by intimidating or beating a civilian who is supposedly on the wrong. The intimidated civilians take no action against the officers thereafter.

In particular, the one-party state in Tanzania has concentrated and centralized police powers in the executive arm of the state and within it in the office of the president. For example, the president of Tanzania has been and continues to be both the appointing and ultimately disciplining authority in the country. The president appoints the top officials in the police force.

In addition, Professor Shivji hypothesizes that the police force in Tanzania is predominantly a 'law and order' political police as opposed to a civilian police whose main function is to prevent and detect crime as a public service to the community as practiced in Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

It is argued further that the one-party state has made the police force to consider political expressions of all forms to be criminal offences. Such perception formed the legal and institutional framework of the police force as part of culture and practices in relation to civilian population. Therefore, it is not surprising that the public in Tanzania associate police officers with party-politics when they allegedly kill civilians.

Professor Shivji proposes establishment of a police force for Tanzania which is based on the police as a 'citizen-in-uniform' principle in order to make the police accountable to law, and only law, as opposed to political accountability either to the government of the day, or through government to parliament.

Meanwhile, another academician notes for Britain that the 'citizen-in-uniform' principle has no basis in reality today but the principle does serve one useful purpose in reminding us that any and every power exercised by the police must be based on a law. It means that every police action must be justified by a specific law. Otherwise, a police action becomes an abuse of power.

In conclusion, Professor Shivji suggests a review of the country's policing laws and rules in order to establish a police service that is seen as a public (civilian) service as opposed to political or military service. Simply said, he proposes establishment of a police force which is insulated from politics. The government can review the country's policing laws and rules in honor of journalist Daudi Mwangosi and those who lost their lives in the hands of the police force in Tanzania.

Source: The Arusha Times