High risk of political violence around Kenya’s election? Of course, because violence worked well in 2007 and was ratified in 2013 and since.

 

Kenya 2007 PEV Make Peace Stop Violence

The value of violence to Kenya’s political competitors will be obvious to any of you who have read this blog over these years now since 2009.

Instrumental state violence with militia support was crucial to enforcing the 2007 “re-election” Kibaki assigned himself through control over the Electoral Commission of Kenya; instrumental violence on behalf of leaders in opposition was crucial to obtaining and sustaining international pressure on Kibaki to share a portion of power with the opposition after his “re-election” when the key hardliners in Kabaki’s political camp wanted to stand firm.

At the same time, the egregiousness of the worst of the violence in the Rift Valley may have overshot the mark and undercut possible initial international support for an examination of the election fraud witnessed by diplomats at the ECK and the bribery identified by donor nations before the vote. (See my War for History series for the details of what happened.)

So even with total impunity and immediate and future political gains to be had, burning people alive in the church in Kiambaa in particular, was arguably counterproductive in the short term from a strictly amoral perspective. But that is just my best sense of it and others closer to the situation may disagree.

Even five years ago, in 2017, the threat of violence was on the table: “Election Violence threat in Kenya–my thoughts on NDI’s new warning“.

Now, after the two UhuRuto elections, with the “coalition of the killing” in 2013 and the combined Jubilee Party re-election in 2017, we are faced with another contest where Uhuru and Ruto are on opposite sides, which has only happened once before, in that 2007 fight.  In 1992, 1997 (both marked by organized violence) and 2002 they were together just as they have been since early in Kibaki’s second administration until falling out in this race (When did Uhuru and Ruto fight? Why is the “Uhuruto” alliance allegedly so surprising?)

What will they decide on their terms of engagement this year?

UhuruRuto Kenya 2013 billboard Nairobi

 

 

 

New study on mediation to reduce likelihood of election violence

Dorina Bekoe and Stephanie Burchard of the U.S. Institute for Defense Analyses have published in African Affairs an interesting write up of their study of secret mediation processes as an additional tool, along with more conventional election support measures, to seek to prevent election violence in Ghana in the 2016 election.

“Keep Peace”graffitti on market scene children’s dresses Keep Peace graffiti art

Well worth your time with lots to think about regarding the interplay of violence prevention, election and other democracy assistance and the other diplomatic and outside involvement with election contests.

The study finds formal secret mediation between the competing camps to have been an important part of a robust and relatively successful violence prevention program.

Robust electoral violence prevention: An example from Ghana

Kenya Pre-Election Violence: with only 22 months until vote, were deadly clashes temporarily delayed by BBI process? What is next?

Sunday saw two deaths associated with clashes allegedly between factions within the ruling Jubilee Party.

The Presidential campaign of Deputy President William Ruto did a Sunday morning church and politics foray in Murang’a in what would be seen as President Kenyatta’s backyard. See the story from The Daily Nation on arrest orders from the IG of Police and a very strong warning from the National Cohesion and Integration Commission.

Uraia- Because Kenyans Have Rights

Circumstances are disputed between the supporters of the two politicians (Incumbent President Kenyatta and Incumbent Deputy President Ruto). It appears that government security forces were active and may have helped prevent worse violence—which could be encouraging—but that is just a superficial impression on my part from early reporting.

We are only 22 months away from a constitutionally mandated August 2022 General Election and violence in the campaign has been below what one would expect as the norm in the MultiParty Era. But the air seems pregnant with possibilities for both violence instigated by campaigns and for violent state repression. A constitutional crisis is afoot from the failure of the ruling party to effectuate the constitutional mandated gender balance in Parliament.

We are almost a year past the original release of a Building Bridges Initiative report. There is no clarity on exactly how long is to be allowed on what is now “overtime” on negotiating and agreeing on concrete steps to effectuate the changes to the basic bargain of governance in Kenya. The idea is to avoid the kind of competition we are seeing in the 2022 race as it stands now.

Germany is on social media as a lead on some of the civil society and domestic observation group preparation of the type that has been a staple but the U.S. and U.K. are unusually quiet in public about election specific issues now. There has been no public break at all in the partnership between Jubilee and the increasingly repressive Chinese Communist Party. Kenyatta has just signed a big debt and infrastructure deal with France as it becomes more apparent that the Jubilee Government grossly overpaid and thus over-borrowed on the Chinese Standard Gauge Railroad deal—which remains substantially secret.

France was a conspicuous diplomatic critic of the 2007 election theft among the European democracies but seems to have adapted to the role of election hardware and software supplier to the Election Commission since 2012 and become a major investor over the years since the partially State-owned Danone food conglomerate purchased forty percent of the Kenyatta family’s Brookside Dairies business in 2014.

The U.S. sent diplomats to facilitate post-election negotiations in late 2017 that culminated in the March 2018 “handshake” and we gave diplomatic support and National Democratic Institute facilitation to the BBI process.

As recently as April 2019 Ambassador McCarter tweeted with a picture of a visit from IEBC Chairman Chebukati that he hoped to see a 2022 election that did not involve a dispute or litigation. Without a investment in reform, which we have not seen, that would require either (1) a landslide of the sort that we saw with NARC in 2002 that gave rise to the 2003-05 democratic interregnum or (2) a recognition and consolidation of Jubilee as KANU successor.

In Washington the overwhelming public messaging is complacency. Kenya is very important to us because we are there in some real magnitude compared to the rest of the region and we are there because Kenya is important to us. But it is too early to talk about governance and elections and political violence, if for no other reason than the war against al-Shabaab is still going on as it was in the run up to the 2007, 2013 and 2017 elections.

Extended: Let me note that NDI will be releasing public opinion polling about attitudes towards elections with the Uraia Trust by Zoom on Wednesday, October 7. (Register through the link.). Regular readers will remember that what to release from the USAID public opinion survey programs conducted by IRI in 2002-07 and NDI since has been a matter of “discussion” in some situations in the past. Public release is in general what is required by the stated purposes of these USAID democracy assistance programs vis what the State Department might do for itself. So let me recognize this positive step.

Addendum:

One of the most striking symbols of French financial penetration was the acquisition last year by one of France’s richest families of a major stake in Twiga Foods which aspires to be Africa’s biggest grocery supplier after being co-founded in Nairobi by a young American entrepreneur as a “social enterprise” with support from USAID and subsequent “philanthrocapital” and IFC investment. The dollars are inconsequential relative to the infrastructure deals but if this business does ultimately succeed in its ambitions the French will be indebted to American aid and we may have missed an opportunity to help finance and support African small business.

Kenya’s long awaited “Building Bridges Initiative” report published on-line

Following the post-election negotiations between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga during December 2017 – March 2018, culminating in the famous March 9, 2018 “handshake” between the two, Kenyans have witnessed a prolonged period of political stasis in which Kenyatta has run the Government as he sees fit without opposition and former Prime Minister Odinga and Deputy President Ruto and their factions have carried on their 2022 campaigns.

We now have a 150+ page published report from the Government of Kenya representing the work product of a dual team of insiders for the two “sides” (Raila/ODM and Uhuru) making various recommendations for political governance issues as are always “on the table” in “post-Colonial” Kenya.

Formally, this has been called the “Building Bridges Initiative” implemented by the “Building Bridges to Unity Advisory Taskforce” and has incorporated the usual process of donor supported public “input” sessions around the country to “popularize” the process, the teams of insiders and what they will agree on and eventually announce.

The adjustments proposed from the public comments and news so far appear to be relatively nondramatic and reflect what one would expect for an elite consensus process where the primary issue is the adjustment of interests among those at the table.

Here is the official website for the Building Bridges Initiative.

For background, here is my post from December 7, 2017, “Trump Administration’s top diplomat for Africa visits Nairobi, public statements adjusted to call for ‘national conversation’ as substitute for ‘national dialogue’“:

I was pleasantly surprised by the previous statements from the State Department both from Washington and in Nairobi, calling for “national dialogue” in the wake of Kenya’s fraught and objectionably violent environment in the wake of the boycotted October 26 presidential re-run.

In the latest release from Washington on December 4 the State Department said “the Acting Assistant Secretary will travel to Nairobi, Kenya from December 4-6, where he will meet with representatives of the Kenyan government, as well as with Kenyan civil society. The visit will encourage all sides in Kenya to participate in a national dialogue following the presidential election.” (emphasis added)

Today, however, following the talks, a new statement was issued–by the Ambassador–backing off from the language “national dialogue”. Instead, along with a call for Odinga drop a “people’s swearing in”, and a generic call for protesters to avoid violence and the Government’s security forces to avoid unnecessary killing and to investigate themselves on the outstanding accusations that they had been doing so, the State Department now recommends a “national conversation”.

Why is this different? Well, you would have to ask the Embassy or Main State Department and/or the White House why they changed the language, but “national dialogue” is a clear reference to the formal process resulting from the February 2008 settlement agreement between Kibaki and Raila leading to the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission Report (censored and held in abeyance by the Uhuruto Administration–an issue in the August election), the Kriegler Commission on the 2007 Election (leading to the buyout of the Kivuitu led ECK), the Waki Commission on the Post Election Violence (leading to the aborted ICC prosecutions) and constitutional reform process that led to the 2010 Referendum adopting the new Constitution which mandates the 2/3 gender rule (declined so far), diaspora voting (mostly declined so far), devolution (in process), and such. A “national conversation” is a nice notion and probably a good thing to do here in the United States as well as anywhere else culturally divisive politics.

See “Reformers vs. The Status Quo: Is it possible to have free and fair polls” by Eliud Kibii in The Elephant to put the current election disputes and contest in the complete post-Cold War context.

Update: Ambassador Godec’s tweet of Dec 11:

NASA’s decision yesterday is a positive step. We again call for a sustained, open, and transparent national conversation involving all Kenyans to build national unity and address long-standing issues.

US response to South Sudan corruption: a shoe drops

New action today on South Sudan corruption today, offering hope on the question from my last post “How quickly will the United States Government act in “analysis, evaluation and investigation” of The Sentry report on South Sudan?

Statement from The Sentry: “US Sanctions Al-Cardinal, Tycoon Named in Reports of The Sentry“:

October 11, 2019 (Washington D.C.) — Today, the United States placed sanctions on Ashraf Seed Ahmed Hussein Ali, widely known as Al-Cardinal, a tycoon with ties to the U.S., UK, and UAE.

Today’s action by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) target Al-Cardinal and his network of businesses, and come in the wake of two recent investigative reports by The Sentry “The Taking of South Sudan” and “Al-Cardinal: South Sudan’s Original Oligarch,” that detailed the business activities of Al-Cardinal, among others, and urged governments to sanction him and his networks.

. . . .

Joshua White, Director of Policy and Analysis at The Sentry, said: “The Sentry applauds today’s action by the Department of the Treasury, which should serve as a warning to the financial facilitators and commercial enablers of corrupt South Sudanese elites that they will lose access to the dollar unless they cease doing business that funds violence in the country. The United Kingdom and other European countries, as well as those in the region, should follow suit . . .

. . . .

The Sentry’s investigation found that Al-Cardinal has exploited opaque procurement processes, weak oversight institutions, and cozy relationships with South Sudan’s most powerful politicians to line his own pockets.

“A major enabler of corruption and violence for President Salva Kiir’s government,” according to the The Sentry’s reporting, Al-Cardinal has been embroiled in major procurement scandals, set up private businesses with ruthless military generals, imported military equipment during a bloody civil war and landed lucrative contracts linked to the implementation of the peace deal in South Sudan.

Read the full report “Al Cardinal: South Sudan’s Original Oligarch”: https://eno.ug/al-
Read the full report “The Taking of South Sudan”: https://eno.ug/

Reuters: “US imposes sanctions on two South Sudanese businessmen for fraud, bribery“:

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on two South Sudanese businessmen, Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal and Kur Ajing Ater, for their involvement in bribery, kickbacks and procurement fraud with senior government officials, the Treasury Department said on Friday.

After the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Benjamin Bol Mel, a key adviser to the South Sudanese president, in 2017, Mel used an account in the name of the companies of Al-Cardinal to evade sanctions and store personal funds, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

In early 2019, the South Sudanese government paid millions of dollars to a company owned by Al-Cardinal ostensibly for food, but that in fact was routed to senior South Sudanese government officials, the Treasury Department said. . . .

South Sudan: new Salva Kiir—Rannenberger Foreign Agent filing shows $1.2M non-refundable retainer “already paid” and $3.7M flat fee (contra Reuters)

  1. COMPENSATION

6. The Consultant will charge the Client a flat fee of $3.7 million dollars for the services (the “Compensation”) for this two-year Contract.

7. The parties acknowledge that $1.2 million dollar’s of the Compensation has already been paid to the Consultant as ofthe date hereof, as a non-refundable retainer. The Consultant will invoice Client quarterly for amounts due.

Here is the May 7 filing with the Justice Department, by Gainful Solutions with a new “Exhibit AB” which includes both a letter purportedly canceling the April agreement, dated May 2, and the substitute agreement dated May 5.

The widely-reprinted Reuters story from my update to my previous post indicated that the new agreement did not mention compensation.

On May 2 Gainful Solutions filed a “Short Form” Foreign Agent registration act for Ambassador Timothy Towell as an additional lobbyist and business agent with the title of “consultant” at compensation “to be determined” to go with the previous filings for Ranneberger, Soheil Nazari-Kangarlou and Constance Berry Newman.

Note: The Justice Department has these filings incorrectly posted on its FARA.gov database under “Sudan” instead of “The Republic of South Sudan”.

Update: Politico reported on the contract change here in their “Influencers” newsletter, noting the compensation and identifying dropping reference to the hybrid court as the main change.

And read: “EDITORIAL: Cry havoc, and let slip the U.S. ex-diplomats” in The East African.

Amb. To Kenya Michael Ranneberger with late Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat, defending Kiplagat’s controversial appointment by President Kibaki to head Kenyan TJRC

U.S. Coast Guard support for maritime security in Africa; looking for news on Kenyan Coast Guard Service

U.S. Coast Guard’s Mission to Africa from U.S. Naval Institute Press, by

Thetis departed Key West for Africa in late February, making it the first Coast Guard cutter to deploy in support of U.S Africa Command since 2012 and the first to participate in an African maritime exercise since 2011, according to Coast Guard news releases. Thetis participated in exercise Obangame Express and made port calls in Nigeria, São Tome and Principe and Cote d’Ivoire, among other work during the deployment.

U.S. military engagement with African nations is critical to protecting U.S. interests and helping stabilize governments on the continent, Adm. James Foggo, the commander of U.S. Forces Africa, explained during a recent edition of his podcast.

Having the U.S. Coast Guard deploy to Africa is useful, Foggo said, because the U.S. Coast Guard’s maritime law enforcement mission aligns with what he said African nations frequently cite as their most significant needs: enhancing their maritime security operations to protect fishing rights, stop smuggling and interdict human and drug trafficking.

For many of the nations, Chong said their navies perform missions similar to those of the U.S. Coast Guard. For the most part, the African navies and coast guards protect their fisheries resources from illegal fishing, search for smugglers and and combat the region’s ongoing piracy problems.

In many cases, the African nations use equipment very similar to what the U.S. Coast Guard employs. Smaller nations have patrol boats similar to those used by the U.S. Coast Guard, Chong said. Larger nations have frigates which are the same size as the U.S. Coast Guard’s national security cutters.

“The technology is very comparable to us as far as doing those type of boardings off a smaller platform or off a frigate,” Chong said.

In the case of Nigeria, Chong said Thetis operated with a former U.S. Coast Guard cutter. Current Nigerian navy frigate NNS Thunder (F90) is the former Hamilton-class high endurance cutter USCGC Chase(WHEC-718). Chase was transferred to Nigeria after being decommissioned in 2011.

“We’re helping a lot of these countries and their navies and coast guards to do boarding and security type functions,” Chong told USNI News. “We’re working with them jointly in their own maritime security zones.”

The US Coast Guard has been providing joint training for six Kenyan agencies involved in maritime/waterfront security for some years, and Kenya announced that was forming its own Coast Guard back in 1999, but did not pass legislation to do so until 2018. The Kenya Coast Guard Service was then “launched by the President last November in Mombasa:

Based at the Liwatoni Fisheries Complex in Mombasa, where the ceremony was held [commissioning of Offshore Patrol Vessel purchased from Bangladeshi shipyard as first vessel], the KCGS is tasked with protecting fisheries, enforcing maritime security and safety, preventing smuggling, protecting the maritime ecosystems, search and rescue, and supporting the military in times of war.

See the Ministry of Defense announcement here.

The Kenya Coast Guard Service was established under the Kenya Coast Guard Service Act 2018 and was operationalized on 22 October 2018. The Service, which will be commanded by a Director General, a position currently held by Kenya Navy’s Brigadier Vincent Loonena, has a role of ensuring safety in Kenya’s territorial waters, safeguarding Kenya’s ports and prevention of dumping of harmful wastes and pollutants in Kenya’s waters. It will also offer search and rescue services and prevent illegal commercial activities like fishing on Kenya’s waters. The service shall have its headquarter at Liwatoni, Mombasa and will operate mainly in Mombasa, Kisumu and Lamu.

The launch takes place only a week before the first Global Blue Economy Conference to be held in Nairobi in which over 8000 participants are expected to turn up.

News has been scarce since the Commissioning so I would be pleased to hear from anyone with an update.

Helpful reading on why al-Shabaab has gained support in Kenya – and remembering Garissa University attack (updated)

UPDATE April 4: A timely new report came out today on this topic from the International Crisis Group, “The Hidden Cost of al-Shabaab’s Campaign in North-eastern Kenya.”

To follow up on my last post addressing U.S. strategy in the war with al-Shabaab in Somalia, here is a helpful March article from TRT World magazine on “Why is al-Shabaab making inroads in Kenya?

Also recommended is a January report to the UK Parliament “The Threat of al-Shabaab in Kenya: the Kenyan Government’s Counterterrorism Approach“.

And a January overview from Ilya Gridneff in World Politics Review, Despite Reforms Across the Horn of Africa, al-Shabab Continues a Deadly Campaign“.

And relatedly, today Nairobi’s Star features a Central Bank of Kenya report that “51% of Kenyans Live Hand-to-Mouth” (up from 34.3% in 2016).

The attack on Garissa University killing 147 Kenyans, primarily Christian students, was four years ago this week. It is sad to recognize the degree to which this type of threat may have grown in some important respects rather than reduced since that time.

USIP issues special report on “Community Policing and Violent Extremism in Tanzania”

Excerpts From Lillian Dang, “Community Policing and Violent Extremisn in Tanzania” USIP Special Report no. 442, March 2019

ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNITY POLICING IN PRACTICE

The strengths include the expansion of police presence in local communities, the establishment of regular communication channels between police and local government leaders, and official endorsement of the establishment of civilian security groups. Unfortunately, the community policing approach has been stunted by a lack of resources, inconsistent application, and an overemphasis on intelligence gathering.

Rather than use the [Tanzanian Police Force] TPF’s community policing structure as a means of building trust between police and citizens and improving the delivery of policing services to local communities, community policing in practice focuses primarily on intelligence gathering from local communities.

Local communities view the police ambivalently—as a provider of security but also as a driver of insecurity. A common theme across the three regions was a lack of trust in police among local communities due to police corruption, abuse of authority, and excessive use of force. . . . CSO representatives appear to have more positive working relationships with the police than the general public because of their interest in solving the same problems.

——–

Reporting from regional workshops hosted by local CSOs with communities and with local police

ZANZIBAR

Zanzibar is a challenging environment for an Islamist VEO because of the comparatively high level of scrutiny by community members to outside actors, en- trenched and highly competitive political parties, and well-established Muslim groups and clerics. For example, the Office of the Mufti in Zanzibar has been particularly concerned with the arrival of Salafist preachers since 2016 on the islands, and the propagation of what is viewed as an extremist—and potentially competitive—interpretation of Islam. The Office of the Mufti is regulating madrassa teachers and curricula to prevent the spread of extremist religious teaching. Further, while political competition in Zanzibar (and Tanzania more generally) has resulted in violence, it continues to provide an agreed-upon means for individuals to gain and wield power. Within this environment, it would be difficult for an Islamist VEO to recruit from among the population, particularly for high-level operators, most of whom are likely already devoted to one of the political parties.

TANGA

Bordering Kenya to the north, with a vast eastern coastline, the Tanga Region is a transit point for transnational narcotic trafficking, illegal migration, and human trafficking. According to community stakeholders, economic motivations related to poverty, family breakdown, homelessness, drug dependency, and unemployment push young men into illicit smuggling activities, including drug trafficking within the country. heroin addiction among the youth population is a major driver of criminality. Family breakdown and conflicts related to land are the other major sources of insecurity.

Violent extremism was a more prominent theme in the Tanga workshops and interviews than in the Zanzibar meetings.

Notwithstanding concerns about violent extremism, community stakeholders still ranked drug use, family breakdowns, and land conflicts above violent extremism as the major drivers of insecurity in Tanga. Despite the low priority assigned to violent extremism by community stakeholders, the assessment team found the presence of violent extremism risks to be more pronounced in Tanga than in Zanzibar or Morogoro. . . .

In contrast to Zanzibar’s Muslim community, where the close monitoring of outside actors helps to identify and isolate Islamist VEOs before they take root, Tanga may be less resilient to this form of violent extremism. As a porous border region, Tanga is vulnerable to the undetected entrance of new actors and groups, including potential VEOs. With a mixed Christian and Muslim population, there is no overarching religious institution that is regulating the entrance and ac- tivities of religious-based . . . . Although interfaith dialogues have helped ease interreligious tensions that have flared between Muslim and Christian communities in Tanga in recent years, mainstream Christian and Muslim leaders have limited influence among fundamentalist religious groups, some of whom have been associated with violence. Given these factors, Tanga is a region more vulnerable to Islamist VEOs than the neighboring islands of Zanzibar.

MOROGORO

In the inland Morogoro Region, stakeholders from local communities and police representatives agreed that land conflicts are the major driver of violence and insecurity.

Corrupt local government leaders contribute to land conflicts by taking bribes to favor one party over another in disputes and to facilitate land usurpation by wealthy and well-connected investors. A number of community stakeholders cited corruption in ward land tribunals as a driver of conflict.

Interviews conducted outside of the workshop did identify violent extremism risks, however. . . . These risks were associated with the training in weapons, explosives, and martial arts that boys and young men receive in mosques and madrassas. Religious leaders also discussed potential recruitment by unknown VEOs inside some mosques of the Ansār Sunna. One Muslim community leader stated that a group he referred to pejoratively as “al-Shabaab” supports violent jihad and recruits from Ansār Sunna mosques. However, according to another Muslim leader when discussing the group in the same interview, “They have select mosques that they go to. It depends on the leaders of the mosque. They don’t disclose their mission.” The use of the term “al-Shabaab” suggests that the local community sees the group as associated with violent extremism rather than a mainstream political agenda.

A police representative confirmed these views, stating that terrorism suspects have been detected in Morogoro, although such information is not disclosed to the public. . . . A recent report by the International Crisis Group identified Morogoro as a region where militants have reportedly planted sleeper cells.

It is difficult to determine the risk of violent extremism in Morogoro given the hesitancy of community stakeholders and police representatives to discuss matters pertaining to violent extremism and terrorism openly. Even so, community stakeholders seem not to be aware of violent extremism risks; their major security concerns are quite different, focusing on land conflicts, criminality, and gender-based violence.