Up to 4000
people have been arrested, detained and “screened” in a process said to
be rife with flaws, and whose overall objective remains unclear.
Soon after a shooting incident in a Likoni church
in which gunmen killed 6 churchgoers and injured 15 others, Usalama
Watch was launched with the intention at the time to target “suspected
terrorists and criminals”. However, the nature of the swoops was so vast
that Usalama Watch was soon re-engineered to target “illegal immigrants
and refugees.”
Since its launch, the operation has arrested thousands, yet currently it has managed to isolate about 200
people for deportation due to a lack of documentation. This leaves the
vast majority of those arrested as having valid documentation, either as
refugees, Kenyan citizens or registered aliens.
COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE
A
key factor in the activities of Usalama Watch is the singling out of
the Somali community in Eastleigh as the primary area where searches and
“screening” are occurring. This sort of knee-jerk reaction to a
security crisis is consistent with the government’s approach to handling
affairs, dating to colonial times.
The
bungling, excessive force and blanket discrimination against one ethnic
community is not new; during the Emergency period, the colonial
government used similar tactics of ethnic profiling, community-wide
swoops and indefinite incarceration in gulags and concentration camps.
The
approach then was completely ineffective in the long run and ultimately
led to even more radicals joining the anti-colonial movement.
Usalama
Watch, in this regard, is no different from previous government
crackdowns in that it is an inefficient, ineffective and unsustainable
approach to security matters.
Yet, the police will
claim that ever since the crackdown began there have been no further
terror attacks in Eastleigh. Unfortunately, there have been attacks in
Garissa and Dadaab.
BUSINESS RIVALS
The
emerging sentiments from the public following the launch of Usalama
Watch are mixed. There are those who were business rivals with business
people based in Eastleigh, especially in the import-export trade.
Certainly, these people’s interests have been brightened by the
temporary disruption of business in Eastleigh.
There
are those whose livelihoods are directly or indirectly dependent on the
Somali community. These people feel that though there is need for
increased security, the crackdown has had far-reaching negative effects
with little to no improved security.
Then there are
those who remain ambivalent to the situation, mainly because they are
not reliant on Eastleigh for business or livelihood and neither are they
Somali people.
In the discourse that has taken centre
stage politically and at the social level, what is clearly absent is
leadership that has the genuine interests of the entire nation at heart.
We
are yet to hear from moderate, balanced leaders who take into
consideration the concerns of every sector in society. Instead we have
Usalama Watch led by Interior Ministry CS Joseph Ole Lenku, a man described
by Nairobi Law Monthly Publisher, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, as “a former
third rate beverages manager in a two star hotel on the outskirts of
Nairobi.”
Personal digs aside, Mr Ole Lenku has displayed a total disregard for the law by ignoring the directives of a High Court ruling
in 2013 that put a stop to the push to relocate urban-based refugees
back to Dadaab in the name of national security, citing that there was
no correlation between the two.
FATTENING OF WALLETS
It
is completely disheartening that the CS who has been given the
responsibility to uphold the law not only brazenly flouts it, but goes
ahead to grievously infringe upon the constitutional mandate incumbent
upon government as regards the rights of citizens.
The
sum result of Usalama Watch thus far can be said to be the fattening of
wallets of corrupt policemen who took advantage of the operation to
arrest Kenyan citizens and demand bribes.
This is not
the first time that allegations of corruption during a serious security
crisis have emerged; in September 2013, during the Westgate siege, there
were several complaints that officers responding to the terror attack
at the mall were robbing victims, indeed a few policemen ended up inside
the docket on such charges as robbery during the terror attack.
Ultimately,
it appears that Mr Ole Lenku has no control over the police force or is
totally incapable of weeding out the corrupt elements such that his
activities seem to be consistently marred by the indiscipline of those
officers on the ground.
To his credit, Mr Ole Lenku is
not alone in his current situation. It is now clear that even among the
Muslim community, there is a total absence of sobriety and responsive
leadership.
STOICALLY SILENT
Interestingly
enough, there have been up to 84 terror attacks in Kenya since 2005 .
Whereas the majority of these attacks were centred in Eastleigh,
Garissa, Wajir and Mandera, the leadership in the Supreme Council of
Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) have been stoically silent, providing no real
insight or feedback, nor engaging the government in a forward and
visible manner despite being Islamic community leaders.
This
lack of correspondence on a public and visible level leaves both the
Muslim community feeling unheard and the greater non-Muslim community
feeling that they do not care about the situation, or that they are
hiding potential terrorists due to religious reasons.
It
does not help that during such a tense and volatile moment, we have
vocal, hot-headed activists publicly denouncing non-Muslims as “kafir”
as was the case with the late Abubakar Sharrif aka Makaburi. “Kafir” is
an Arabic term meaning a person who rejects the truth of religion.
An
emerging hypocrisy of radical preachers is to bypass the fact that
historically Islamic communities have always found it possible and
acceptable to live with other communities. The rejection of people based
on religious reasons is not only un-Islamic but also a sign of sheer
anti-social tendencies.
More importantly, the Muslim
community finds itself burdened with several emerging young politicians,
many of whom have no real grasp of the situation at the grassroots
level. Out of the entire Islamic population in Kenya, less than 2 to 4
per cent even agree on an intellectual level with much of the political
and radical religious leadership. The vast majority are moderate
Muslims, people who wish to live in peace and harmony with their fellow
citizens.
CIRCUMSPECT AND SENSIBLE
The
problems that lead to gangs and organized criminal groupings such as
Taliban, Mungiki, Chingororo, Bagdad boys, Al-Shabaab and Jeshi la Mzee
are still rife within the Kenyan societal framework. Al-Shabaab is not
necessarily a Somali problem, or a Muslim one. The factors that create
radicalized young men in Islam also create radicalized young men in the
Kikuyu community.
A moderate, circumspect and sensible
leadership will recognize this and find a long term strategy to deal
with it. It is proper leadership that is structured that can help guide
the greater republic away from inbuilt terror and criminal activities
and towards a more peaceful and cohesive nation.
As it
is, the well of money from extortion that Usalama Watch generated for
corrupt police officers is running dry. Each day more and more Kenyan
Somali are getting bolder and standing up to the incessant harassment.
At the end of the day, in terms of security, there is little to no
achievement. In terms of business in Eastleigh, the traders may have
taken a blow but are willing to rebuild themselves, and those who aren’t
are looking at Uganda, South Africa and Angola as an alternative place
to invest in.
However, the biggest blow has been dealt
to Kenya at the social level. There is an ever widening fragmentation of
communities and deepening mistrust that is volatile, tangible and
slowly being entrenched into the psyche of the ordinary person. It is
this fragmentation that true leadership needs to address, if we are to
ever begin to win the war against terror.
Twitter: @bettywaitherero
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