Kibanda attack: Police must rise to the occasion to save lives, injuries

BY ABDALLAH BAWAZIR

9th March 2013

Editorial Cartoon

Top government officials, various stakeholders and opinion makers have expressed shock and dismay at the violence meted upon New Habari Corporation group managing editor Absalom Kibanda, also the chairman of the Tanzania Editors’ Forum, and on that basis, easily one of the most respected journalists in the country.
He was also previously managing editor for Tanzania Daima, rated generally as an opposition newspaper, and now serves with a pro-CCM group, which underlines his professionalism, without sworn political adversaries and lifelong allies. The main worry is that the reason for his attack was his position taking in public issues, but many remain unconvinced, that this cause is fully contingent.

Neither of the parties to which he has worked have such a violent hatred of each other as to make it a danger for him to change newspaper camps, nor indeed the political loyalties involved.
 

At the same time, while some may treat New Habari Corporation as allied to a fairly controversial wing in CCM, being a top level editor there doesn’t expose anyone to mortal danger, as nothing really is changed by having such a journalist out of sight. The motivation for this attack seems murky; that it may also be informed by the top editor’s public positions but not necessarily limited to this dimension, as often people have other vendetta to cultivate with prominent journalists, who may know a few things about their lives or such mundane issues, etc.

The point that however needs to be stressed is not really who carried out that attack and why, as this issue, primary as it is, is tied up with a second one, that these acts are multiplying in the city of Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and elsewhere in the country.

There is a phenomenal rise in such attacks since police officers in a zest of anger and hatred leveled a riot gas gun at television journalist Daudi Mwangosi, which may have served to underline, to a section of society at least, that the police may not be overly troubled to investigate or put to clear the reasons for attacking this or that journalist. Evil doers became aware that ‘the police would connive,’ just laugh off the matter by some charade that ‘journalists are troublesome.’

In other words, more journalists might be in the line of fire now that it seems that the police will not care less if a journalist is hurt because they are also sick and tired with their work - which fuels existing negative habits.

If on the general level it is hard to get a case worked upon, soured relations between the police and journalists make matters worse. It is not something that has been publicly declared but felt acutely enough: persons with a reason to detest a top editor take risks, by exploiting police sentiments.

That is why blame will be directed at the police not by having failed to protect the New Habari top editor or anyone for that matter, but having set a negative example that buttresses lawlessness, noticed in daylight attacks on priests and in several cases, senior journalists. It is therefore vital that the police show by diligence and thoroughness of investigation into the latest attack to unveil who lies behind it -- and why.

The precedent laid by calling in the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) would conceivably work against the public interest, as cases where police or political sentiments are involved will now be offloaded to the FBI, or perhaps Interpol, and as these bodies aren’t on the group, attacks will only surge up.

It must thus be admitted that Tanzania stands on a precipice between the rule of law and the law of private individuals; the people who may be perceived to know that police won’t investigate certain attacks won’t be investigated with any zeal, similar to the usual manner in which they wait until someone asks for the arrest of a specific person by filing a complaint or suspicion against him.

While this method is being touted by senior police officers – in a newspaper photograph yesterday, an OCD explaining to primary school toddlers the merits of community policing – it eliminates proper investigation and turns police station counters into malls for soliciting police services. And when an editor knows he faces powerful enemies, it will be advisable on his part to shut up, entrenching impunity, unlike when the police conduct their own, thorough investigations.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN