Is Kenya facing a security meltdown?
- By Jeremy Lind
Posted on
<
http://africanarguments.org/2014/12/02/is-kenya-facing-a-security-meltdown-
by-jeremy-lind/> December 2, 2014
Turkana, Kenya's poorest county, is once again experiencing a
<
http://sabahionline.com/en_gb/articles/hoa/articles/features/2014/11/03/fea
ture-01> spate of violence. The situation in Turkana, and Kenya more widely
has become so bad, that John Githongo, a highly esteemed whistle-blower of
regime malfeasance, has called it a "security meltdown. unprecedented in
Kenya's independent history".
<
http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/kenya-normalisation-absurd> Writing in the
Star, Githongo suggests that collapsing public confidence in Kenya's
internal security apparatus has in part been driven by the government's
mishandling of badly needed security and policing reforms. Instead of
following through on reforms that should have come after Kenya's successful
2010 plebiscite, President Uhuru Kenyatta has, instead, increasingly turned
to the military to address violence. Githongo notes that Kenya has descended
into the absurd, where most Kenyans simply shrug at high levels of violence,
disappearances and the creeping militarisation of security responses.
So, too, has insecurity in Turkana reached new levels of absurdity. In
Kapedo on Turkana's southern border, over
<
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000140840/kapedo-killings-were-seco
nd-highest-loss-to-police> 20 administrative police as well as civilians
were killed in an ambush earlier this month carried out by a heavily armed
group of fighters from neighbouring West Pokot. Mourners and security
officials who attended the funeral for the first victims to be laid to rest
were themselves ambushed on returning home. Kapedo remains closed off, with
a media blackout on the ongoing military operation to flush out and track
down those who were responsible.
Following this attack, and others, the MP for Turkana South, James Lomenen,
called on the
<
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/thecounties/article/2000142305/turkana-south
-mp-james-lomenen-blames-government-for-security-lapses-in-the-country?pagen
o=1> government to intensify its war against insecurity, claiming "local
political leaders and administrators are often aware of planned attacks and
should help in the investigations".
The state has done little to respond
However, the state has failed to respond decisively to chronic violent
insecurity that has plagued Turkana peoples for decades. Southern Turkana
suffered devastating losses to Pokot raiders throughout the 1970s and,
despite the establishment of a Turkana Home Guard to defend both life and
property, <
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0udtz7db50> patterns of raiding
have persisted and continue up to this day.
Yet raiding is only one aspect of violence that happens in Kenya's deeply
insecure northern counties. Much of the violence is actually rooted in
structures, relations and change in pastoral economies that are undergoing
rapid transformation as the country's northern margins are increasingly
penetrated by various forms of capital and subsumed in ever complicated
governance arrangements.
Against a backdrop of worsening violence, new county-level governments are
benefitting from a windfall of public resources that have poured into the
region under Kenya's new devolved system of government. In fact, devolution
has raised the stakes for county-level political-administrative positions,
and at least some of the violence seen relates to contestations for local
supremacy and power.
The region is also benefitting from an influx of recent private investment,
including expanding oil exploration activities in southern Turkana, raising
the spectre of a whole host of new tensions arising from people's
expectations for jobs, contracts and greater economic opportunities.
Uneven security responses erodes trust
For the moment, private investors seem undeterred by northern Kenya's
chronic violence. In an article for
<
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.2005.107.3.377/abstract> the
American Anthropologist, James Ferguson describes investments around mining
and oil extraction across Africa as being "concentrated in secured enclaves,
often with little or no economic benefit to the wider society." He adds,
that "there is an increasing acceptance of the idea that effective mineral
production and endemic violence can coexist."
Northern Kenya's oil finds are highly important to Kenya's regime and their
backers amongst the military and in global capital. Yet, investments do not
necessarily translate into large numbers of new jobs or greater
entrepreneurship opportunities for local people. Last year,
<
http://africajournalismtheworld.com/tag/tullow-suspends-kenya-exploration/>
Tullow Oil, a British-Irish oil firm, suspended operations in south Turkana
following demonstrations that Lomenen led over access to jobs and tenders.
Although the company
<
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/tullow-oil-strikes-deal--to-resume-work-
in-turkana--/-/539546/2064608/-/9l7egaz/-/index.html> resumed operations
following an agreement with local leaders, it was announced earlier this
year that the <
http://ices.or.ke/military-to-guard-turkana-oilfields/>
Kenya Defence Forces would establish a military base adjacent to its
operations.
And, yet, where there is a security response, there is little confidence
that it is actually trying to address locally-felt insecurities. Some
Turkana voice concern that while the state is quick to respond to protests
around oil exploration activities, it does not respond quickly to raids and
other incidents of insecurity that threaten lives and livelihoods. As one
observer of the region shared with me, many Turkana she spoke with were
telling her:
"When we are getting killed and having our livelihood taken from us, you
can't help us, but then when we protest for a few hours, you show up and
arrest some of us!"
Thus, Kenya confronts a crisis not only in its spiralling insecurity, but
also in weakening public confidence in its security structures. Militarising
internal security responses may speak to immediate public appetite for a
robust response to worsening violence. But in the long term it will not
repair the breakdown in public trust, which has happened over a long period,
and may in fact diminish confidence. A rethink of security strategy and
reform of internal security structures and policing is urgently needed.
Jeremy Lind is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. He
is leading a new project investigating the impacts of large new
'development' investments on peace-building and conflict dynamics in Kenya's
north.
Received on Tue Dec 02 2014 - 14:26:28 EST