Kenyan Somalis | AFRICOMMONS

Another must read is from Cedric Barnes at the International Crisis Group: Losing Hearts and Minds in Kenya. Horne argues that the roundups specifically contradict the unity messaging offered by the Kenyan government after Westgate and are likely to backfire by promoting marginalization and thus increasing the persuasive power of extremists. The operations highlight the extremely slow pace of security reforms in Kenya; the going rate to avoid getting arrested if you are of Somali ethnic background is 5000 KSh. Horne also points out that Kenyans of Somali ethnicity and those from the historically marginalized regions in the eastern and northeastern part of the country have always had difficulty getting identity documents from the authorities in the Kenyan government.

Here is Muthoni Wanyeki in The East African : Usalama Watch–State is Fracturing Kenyan Society: “A journalist in discussion with a senior Anti-Terrorism Police Unit officer tells of the ATPU’s alleged frustration with the whole operation — for breaking down its intelligence networks, having nothing to do with counter-terrorism and the likelihood of blowback.”

And Andrew Franklin in Business Daily: Let’s Change Our Tactics in Fighting Terrorism:

Kenyans of Somali origin have also been detained as potential terrorists, making citizenship no bar to this programme of racial profiling.There is no indication that any useful intelligence leading to the apprehension of the café bombing Al-Shabaab terrorists has been obtained although at least 82 “illegals” have been deported to Somalia.The reality is that if the deportees are genuine hardcore Al-Shabaab operators, they will soon return to Nairobi via Kenya’s undefended porous border.

The obvious question about all this: why? At least one opposition politician has suggested that the operations are intended to curry favor with the West or the U. S. in particular for some reason. Admittedly I am not objective as an American but I tend to think that the roundups are obviously enough counterproductive (e.g., they increase rather than decrease net terrorism risk) that the Kenyatta administration would not find any serious encouragement for this from Western governments. Maybe I am naive, but its worth noting that the International Crisis Group is a firmly Western Establishment voice.

The U.S. Institute for Defense Analyses in the latest issue of Africa Watch features an article by Alexander Noyes entitled Kenya: Mass Arrests Counterproductive and Undermine Security Reform Pledge:

Kenya’s vulnerability to Islamist militant attacks should not be downplayed, as tragically illustrated by the Westgate mall massacre last September. That said, the government’s heavy-handed counterterrorism response is troubling and counterproductive on a number of fronts. First, as warned by the KNCHR and highlighted in the April 3 edition of Africa

Watch, such indiscriminate policies fuel a “cycle of violence” that risks further alienating and radicalizing Kenya’s Somali and Muslim communities. Second, the crackdown undermines President Kenyatta’s recent pledge to overhaul Kenya’s security agencies. As the author has argued elsewhere, Kenya’s previous power-sharing government was able to achieve real, if halting and incomplete, institutional security reform successes, including legislative and constitutional changes.The recent mass arrests and troubling allegations against security forces suggest that the Kenyatta administration is more interested in building up the capacity of the security agencies to fight terrorism—fostering the perception of security—than in consolidating any of Kenya’s fragile institutional gains on security reform.

Kenyans going for water

AFRICOMMONS

Ken Flottman’s Blog on Democracy in Kenya, East Africa and the United States

Tag Archives: Kenyan Somalis

More on the Somali roundups in Kenya

Like this:

Key Reading on Kenya Police Action: Mass Arrests “Counterproductive”

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: