Kenya's Infighting is Good for No-one, Except Al-Shabaab
Unlike after the Westgate siege, the attack on Mpeketoni has left Kenya more
divided and therefore more vulnerable.
By <
http://www.thinkafricapress.com/author/tomas-zak> Tomas Zak
Article | 30 June 2014 - 12:36pm |
The response to the
<
http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/Mpeketoni-Attack-Lamu-Court-Case/-/1107872
/2359158/-/6ndteu/-/index.html> attacks in and around Mpeketoni earlier this
month, in which over 60 people were killed, could not have been more
different to the reaction prompted by the attack on the Westgate shopping
mall in September 2013, when 67 were murdered.
On an international level, there was comparatively little media coverage and
a muffled international outcry over Mpeketoni, despite the similar death
tolls.
Domestically too, the response differed significantly. In the wake of
Westgate, the nation became galvanised and united in rebuking the threat
posed by the Somali Islamist militants al-Shabaab who were responsible for
the siege. Following the Mpeketoni attack, however, confusion ran amok and
the finger of blame was pointed in all directions. The incident was treated
less as a tragedy and more as an opportunity for political point-scoring.
Initially, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for Mpeketoni killings through
a spokesperson,
<
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/kenya-war-zone-alshabaab-islam
ist-militants-massacre> declaring that Kenya was now "officially a war
zone." However, in a
<
http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Uhuru-blames-massacre-on-tribalism--hate-po
litics/-/1950946/2352306/-/format/xhtml/-/1pr72a/-/index.html> speech to the
nation the next day, Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta
<
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/23-Jun-2014/kenya-attacks-revive-spect
re-of-ethnic-violence> dismissed the notion that the Islamist militants were
behind the attack, maintaining instead that it was "politically motivated
ethnic violence."
Though he did not explicitly mention names, local media outlets interpreted
Kenyatta's allegations as being aimed at the leader of the opposition, Raila
Odinga. In response to these apparent accusations, Odinga in turn
<
http://allafrica.com/stories/201406190264.html?page=2> blamed the Kenyatta
administration for failing to address the security situation since Westgate
and called for the resignation of Joseph ole Lenku, Kenya's Cabinet
Secretary for the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National
Government.
Playing into the hands of al-Shabaab
Regardless of where responsibility lies, the Kenyatta government's security
policy since Westgate has done little to assuage fears of renewed attacks.
In particular, its infamous crackdown in the form of
<
http://somalianewsroom.com/kenyas-operation-usalama-watch-not-so-amani/>
Operation Usalama Watch (usalama meaning security in Kiswahili) has arguably
aggravated the situation.
The operation was ostensibly a counter-terrorism initiative
<
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/eblog/2014/04/22/anti-terror-crackdown-must-and-
will-continue/> seeking to "weed out criminal elements" in Eastleigh,
Nairobi's predominately Somali neighbourhood. However, this intention seems
to have been undermined by security officials going indiscriminately from
door-to-door, often in the dead of the night, rounding people up and
apprehending them indefinitely in Kasarani Stadium, as outlined in a recent
<
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/SOMALIS%20ARE%20SC
APEGOATS%20IN%20KENYA%25E2%2580%2599S%20COUNTERTERROR%20CRACKDOWN.pdf>
Amnesty International report. Rather than targeting individuals, the report
suggests that the operation ended up being "a pretext for the blanket
targeting of the Somali community." Whilst recognising that Kenya has
legitimate security problems, the researchers warn that treating the Somali
community as "scapegoats" is counterproductive.
The policy may have worked in al-Shabaab's favour. As Laura Hammond, an
expert on Somalia at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), puts
it, "every time [the Kenyan government] ramps up its hostility towards
Somalis it plays directly into the hands of al-Shabaab, who are seeking to
cast the Kenyan government as anti-Somali and anti-Muslim. The possibility
for increased radicalism becomes greater."
Indeed, in pursuing such a policy, the Kenyan government is throwing away
one of the few assets available to it in the fight against terrorism:
namely, that of collaboration and cooperation with the Somali community.
Moving south
Al-Shabaab is all too aware of the fact that Kenya is becoming a more
fertile ground for recruitment, and it appears to be moving south to take
advantage of this. In fact, the need to expand beyond Somalia's borders was
already integral to the organisation's survival strategy. According to Nic
Cheeseman, Director of the African Studies Centre at the University of
Oxford, "The weaker [al-Shabaab] has become domestically, the more
aggressive it seems to have become internationally, perhaps in a deliberate
attempt to provoke the Kenyan government into actions that would alienate
Kenya's Muslim minority and so build a new constituency into which it can
grow."
In this respect, the Kenyatta government has aided al-Shabaab's cause and
shot itself in the foot. Pointing the finger of blame at each other as well
as the Somali community has left the country divided and more vulnerable to
attack. And as one
<
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/our-politics-gave-Al-Shabaab-a-gift/-/
440808/2353384/-/12dhvrez/-/index.html> commentator observed, it now makes
sense for al-Shabaab to try to heighten these divisions and ethnic tensions
by going for "working class targets" such as "buses, matatus, markets, and
pubs." High-profile targets such as Westgate, by contrast, risk generating
solidarity amongst Kenyans and bringing international support.
Indeed, the low-profile attack on Mpeketoni seems to have turned Kenyans
against one other. Politicians have begun to engage in a debate that is
eerily reminiscent of rhetoric leading up to the
<
http://www.irinnews.org/in-depth/76116/68/kenya-s-post-election-crisis>
post-election violence of 2007/2008. Negative ethnicity, as Koigi wa Wambere
has termed it, is slowly creeping back into the discourse as politicians
interpret where the blame for the Mpeketoni attacks should be apportioned
through an ethnic lens. And by labelling the attack as "politically
motivated ethnic violence", Kenyatta might inadvertently be offering
ethnicity as the best framework for making sense of future terrorism
incidents.
Kenya's politicians would do well to be wary of creating a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Received on Mon Jun 30 2014 - 15:52:04 EDT