Send LMPS to Ukraine

Lesotho is currently experiencing an increase in the cases of police brutality. More than 80 cases of police criminal offences have been reported in the past four years. Unfortunately, the police bosses are not doing enough to address these challenges or this has given the public an impression that they are not doing anything about these cases.

I understand we come from background of military rule. But after 29 years of democratic rule, we are still struggling to ensure that we have a police service that upholds democratic tenets. We have been forced to accept that what we have is not a police service but an army that should be sent to Mozambique or Ukraine to fight.

Soldiers kill each other in war and that is normal. In war people count dead bodies. Our parliament must resolve to send the police to Ukraine since they are very good at killing people. We have been counting dead bodies in police custody for the past five years. It appears to me that the police are simply above the law.

Lesotho has been very inconsistent on matters that affect citizens. We have a police service that does not hesitate to pull the trigger and mow down citizens. The police were ruthless when they were called to intervene in the students protest at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) on June 16, 2022. Their barbaric behaviour saw one student killed in cold blood.

The students were protesting over a decision to slash their stipends. What I cannot understand, though, is why matters were allowed to get to that level by the National Manpower Development Secretariat (NMDS).
There is something clearly wrong with that institution.

There was absolutely no need for the NMDS to breach their contract with students. Moreover, there was no need for police to resort to brutal force to put down the students’ demonstration.

I still cannot understand how our blood-thirsty police operate. I cannot understand what could possess them to use so much force against unarmed students. In all this, I stand with students. The police should stop shooting our children. The NMDS must give students their full package.

Last Friday, a day after their callous murder of a student, the thugs reported for duty as if nothing had happened. Under the leadership of Holomo Molibeli chances are these rogue police officers will get away with murder! But that should not be allowed to happen. These rogue police officers must be held responsible.

Before Molibeli became the Commissioner of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS), the police already had certain powers over civilians. They could arrest civilians, stop them in the streets and search them. They are still allowed to retain some of our personal information on their own computer databases – and they can still access details held by other organisations on request.

They can access details of our phone records and our phone calls and emails may be intercepted. Sometimes, the police are permitted to detain us in custody – for up to 48 hours. They can determine the length and conditions of bail while they carry out an investigation; and in some cases, they can caution or charge us with a criminal offence.

In addition to all that, officers have equipment – handcuffs, batons, CS spray, Tasers, firearms – that can be deployed with deadly effect, when they deem it necessary to do so. I therefore do not understand why Commissioner Molibeli allowed these police officers to carry live ammunition to a students’ protest. That is why I am saying they should be taken to war.

It would be surprising, despite the numerous safeguards that are in place to prevent abuse, if, on occasion at Roma, the police officers did not overstep their powers. In my opinion the police are employed to stop crime and make citizens feel safe but when police officers become perpetrators of the same crimes they are supposed to prevent, they become no better than rapists, robbers, murderers and other miscreants that society has ejected and locked away.

Suspects often experience extreme violence and cruelty, including being suffocated, when under police investigations. A plastic bag might be put over his or her head, restricting his or her breathing, and a tube down the throat or a strangulation may also be used.

Suspects are brutally beaten even when they were not resisting arrest and the level of force used by the police appears to be disproportional to the circumstances in which suspects have to be restrained.

The use of violence by the police has implications not just in terms of an individuals’ pain and suffering or the workings of the criminal justice system, but it also causes a social problem that ripples throughout society. The other day we witnessed two men being burned alive on a video at Ha Matala.

The use of force has become a ritual within the police because it is accepted as an effective strategy to solve problems and the victim’s suffering and pain run the risk of becoming irrelevant to the law, as the victim becomes isolated at a time when he/she is in need of the law’s protection.

It appears that there is something wrong with the police training programme. I was shocked when the training recruits at the PTC who came out a few months ago during the festive season were caught on camera beating poor civilians.

I strongly feel that the perpetuation of police brutality is rooted in the lack of comprehensive training to equip members of the LMPS with skills and strategies in dealing with challenges such as suspects’ lack of compliance and dealing with riots.

Police training is lacking in two areas, namely interviewing skills and a legal approach to restraining a suspect. I am convinced that the trainings that the police get do not speak to the challenges that they encounter when executing their duties on the street.

In conclusion, the scourge of police brutality that still plagues our communities is clearly not an old or new phenomenon, as it appears to be firmly embedded in a police culture that persists in embracing force and violence as its operational tools.

We must do away with the current police service and send them to a war situation, where they can practice force and violence. If we fail to send them to Ukraine then the Commissioner must be fired together with most senior officers in management and we must restructure and professionalise the LMPS.

Ramahooana Matlosa