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Houses Burnt After Officer Killed

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Published on Saturday, 02 June 2007 06:20

The General Service Unit has been accused of torching houses in Gucha District in revenge over the killing of an officer. Villagers said the revenge operation in Kehanya Location on the Gucha-Trans Mara border has been going on for the past week since the killing of the GSU officer at Nyabitunwa as they pursued stolen livestock from Trans Mara.

Hundreds of voters are now saying that they have been disenfranchised because their documents were burnt in their houses. The GSU's raids have drawn the ire of the Catholic Church and the Bomachoge Social Democratic Party (SDP) parliamentary candidate Zephaniah Nyang'wara. On Tuesday, Mr Nyang'wara, a former MP, told the Electoral Commission to ensure that those who lost the cards were issued with new ones to enable them to vote.

He at the same accused the government of deliberately causing a crisis along the Gucha-Trans Mara border to deny opposition supporters a chance to vote. "The government has always looked for an excuse at election time to cause chaos along the border, disenfranchising many people because the region is an opposition zone," he claimed.

The former MP said he might sue the government for compensation of destroyed property and to force it to pay medical bills for those injured in the operation. "Our people have been injured and their property destroyed and I would like to remind Police Commissioner Philemon Abong'o and Attorney-General Amos Wako that they will be held responsible for crimes committed by the security forces," he said. Mr Nyangw'ara asked the government to halt the operation which, he claimed, had disrupted campaigns in the constituency.