Arguably, both sides, the general public (in particular the political party demonstration organizers and followers) and the law enforcement personnel notably the police force need to have their capacity built to effectively deal with public order management.  The past experiences have revealed lack of non-lethal skills at public order management such as engaging the demonstrators for dialogue.

If anything, the Police has been earmarked as provocative with its actions being categorized as catalysts to the violence instead of being conduits of de-escalation of the violence.  Non-violent tactics such as negotiation and mediation have often been sidelined. Consequently the notion of proportionate use of force by the police has been questioned with different circles alleging excessive use of force and branding the special police constables who are new recruits as ‘trigger happy’.

This has only widened the already existent gap between the police and the community, a situation that is undesirable especially in the event of the upcoming 2011 general elections and thereafter.

In turn, the Police has argued that the public too is not free from blame. The public seems to know not their limitations in as far as the right to assembly and association is concerned.  Consequently, they too have been a provocative pill in the situation and have often acted in disregard of the law. In such circumstances, both the Police and the public are in need of non violent public order management and civic education of their rights and their limitations respectively.

The above situation has been exacerbated by the lack of formal evaluation by the police after public events to learn from previous experiences. The evaluations given by CSOs have been often dismissed as criticizing, ‘demonizing’ or ‘judging’ the police.

The absence of/and inadequacy of a human rights sensitive legislative foundation and regulations describing the nature and extent of police powers in managing public order; to guide and spell out the various duties and rights of all the stake holders in public order management particularly the political parties who normally organize these demonstrations; the absence of specialized police units dealing in public order management ; the confusion surrounding police role in ‘granting permission’ to all those that seek to exercise their right to assembly and demonstrations, have only added to the precarious situation.