Kenya president blames local leaders, not al-Shabab, for attacks that killed
60
By Jason Straziuso
Associated Press
Posted: 06/17/2014 09:00:19 AM
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya's president blamed political leaders inside Kenya
Tuesday for carrying out two nights of deadly attacks that killed at least
60 people in coastal communities, saying that despite claims of
responsibility from al-Shabab, the Islamic extremists were not behind it.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a nationally televised address, said evidence
indicates that local political leaders inside Kenya were behind what he
termed ethnically motivated violence. The Somali militant group al-Shabab
had claimed responsibility for two nights of attacks near the tourist resort
island of Lamu that targeted non-Muslims.
The newer attack came Monday night in Majembeni village in which 10 people
died. The village is next to Mpeketoni, where four dozen Christian men were
slaughtered Sunday night and Monday morning.
Al-Shabab said the second attack killed government workers and Christians. A
county commissioner, Benson Maisori, said the attackers appear to have been
the same in both cases.
"The style of killing is the same. They slit the victims' throats wide open
or shot them several times in the head," said Maisori.
But in a surprising turn of events, Kenyatta said outright that al-Shabab
did not plan and execute the attack, but rather local leaders. He did not
get more specific.
Kenyatta said police officials in Mpeketoni had advance intelligence about
the attack but did not act on it. The president said some officers have been
suspended and will be prosecuted.
Kenyatta said that some political leaders are preaching the idea that some
Kenyans are less human than others. "My deputy and I will never go the route
of ethnic violence," Kenyatta said.
The back-to-back attacks underscore the weak security around the Lamu area,
which lies just south of the Somali border. Lamu once attracted swarms of
foreign visitors but its tourist sector has been suffering in recent years
because of the violence.
Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said a new slate of government and
security officials have been installed in Lamu, in part because "there seems
to be some inside job."
Ole Lenku said the problem facing the country "is elaborate and is intended
to cause discord among our people." Meanwhile, Muslim leaders on Tuesday
conferred inside Nairobi's largest mosque, a grand white facade nestled
among the capital's high rises. The bearded elders from four different
Muslim groups condemned what they called savage acts and ghastly killings
and said there was no justification for the deaths.
The Muslims leaders warned of a potential sectarian rift.
"The continued violence risks tearing the country apart," they said,
continuing later: "We need to be cognizant of the fact that some of these
attacks are aimed at planning seeds of discord and animosity among Kenyans
and divide the country along ethnic and religious lines."
The Muslim leaders said the government is taking "knee-jerk reactions" and
harassing specific communities, a reference to Kenya's Somali population,
which has suffered in a widespread crackdown the last several months which
has seen the arrests of thousands of Somalis and the deportation of dozens.
Kenya has seen ethnic violence rip apart the country in recent years. More
than 1,000 people were killed in ethnically motivated violence after the
country's 2007 election. That violence, though, did not have religious
component to it.