Clovis Atatah
The Director of the Yaounde-based anti-torture organisation, the Trauma Centre, Peter Kumche, has called for the trial of the policemen who tortured and killed striking students of the University of Buea recently. In an interview granted The Post in Yaounde, Kumche said the shooting to death of two unarmed students has no justification, as the perpetrators of the crime were acting in flagrant contravention of both national and international law.
"It is illegal by Cameroonian law for anti-riot police to carry live ammunition," Kumche said. "The anti-riot police were not supposed to have been carrying live ammunition in the first place.
The fact that they did presupposes that the police had premeditated employing violent means to break up the students' demonstration." He said even if the police were legally allowed to carry live ammunition, basic moral and human rights tenets require that they do not use firearms on unarmed people. “
These students were unarmed and demonstrating peacefully when police opened fire on them. Two of the students died instantly. One of them was even shot on the back of the head, a fact which dismisses any possibility that the person who opened fire was acting in self-defence," Kumche said. He said the authorities should immediately arrest and try the perpetrators of the violent crime.
He said delaying in bringing the perpetrators of the act to book would send a wrong signal to the police that they could act with impunity. "More atrocities could be committed by the police if firm and decisive deterrent measures are not taken immediately.
One of the most effective deterrent measures would be the immediate and speedy trial of those who killed those unarmed students," Kumche said.
He said those to be tried should be along the entire chain of command from the official who authorised the police officers to carry live bullets, through the person who gave instructions for them to open fire on unarmed demonstrators to the persons who actually killed the students.
He said the police who shot at the students could not be exculpated even if they were only carrying out instructions. "Police should know that they are personally responsible for their actions, even if they were following instructions.
They are bound by law to carry out only reasonable instructions. That is a fundamental principle in international law," Kumche said. Reminded that the government has already instituted a commission of inquiry to look into the incident, the Director of the Trauma Centre said he was not impressed.
He said police had been caught in flagrant perpetration of a felony. "It is already established that a grave crime has been committed. The perpetrators should be brought to book immediately. Any commission of enquiry would only be looking at the bigger picture so that certain factors that might have created the atmosphere for such an incident to occur could be identified and recommendations made.
But the setting up of that commission of enquiry should not preclude the immediate trial of the perpetrators of the killings," Kumche said. He equally condemned, in strong terms, the atrocities the police committed in the students' residential areas in Molyko, Buea.
He said police broke into students' hostels destroying property, confiscating money and looting other property. He said they are also investigating allegations of rape of several female students. He said the indiscriminate and extrajudicial punishment of students using violent methods is simply unacceptable.
"This is a state of law and not a jungle. Police should not go around breaking down doors, looting and raping students as if they were vandals. They were trained to protect life and property and not to take away lives and destroy property.
All those responsible for these reprehensible acts should be brought to book," he said. The Director of the Trauma Centre also recalled the spate of killings across the country by policemen in the last couple of months.
He said that in all of these cases, the authorities have only meted out administrative sanctions. "Murder is a felony. Police officers who commit murder should be dragged to court and given a fair trial. Limiting punishment for murder by a policeman to a three-month administrative suspension makes a mockery of justice and the law," Kumche said.
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