ABSTRACT

Lawless law enforcement is a familiar feature throughout Africa. In their efforts to uphold the law and in their response to those who break it, state and non-state policing agencies use methods that are both contrary to national law and international law. According to the Human Rights Report of 2000, by the US State Department, police in Malawi 'continued to beat and otherwise abuse detainees and to use excessive force in handling criminal suspects... Police sometimes hide these abuses by keeping prisoners in police custody until wounds heal before turning them over to the prison system for remand'. To the south, members of the security forces in Namibia 'used excessive violence against citizens and Angolan civilians along the northern border of the country ... Senior civilian and military government officials made public statements acknowledging that security forces abused and killed civilians in the Kavango and Caprivi regions during security operations'. To the north a mass grave was found near Lake Chad in Niger in 1999 'containing 149 bodies alleged to be those of missing Toubou former rebels ... When last seen the Toubous were in the custody of the Nigerian armed forces'. To the west, in Benin, 'a rural popular leader, the self-styled Colonel Devi, incited mobs [in 1999] to lynch more than 100 suspected criminals in the southwestern part of the country. Most of the victims were burned alive, many after being abducted, beaten, and tortured by Devi's followers... Individual incidents of mob justice continued to occur nationwide, and police most often ignored vigilante attacks' (US Department of State, 2001).