Why Kenya Is Not At War

A version of this article was published by Aljazeera Online.

Kenya is at war. This mantra is repeated over and over ad infinitum by government officials and pro-establishment types. At a time of military conflict, we are told, peacetime rules and conventions do not apply and we should be prepared to give up some of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. But really, are we at war?

“We are in a war against terrorists in and outside our country,” declared President Uhuru Kenyatta in December. He was, of course, referring to the confrontation with the extremist and murderous terror group, Al Shabaab, which has killed hundreds of Kenyans in the last 4 years. Most of these deaths have come in the wake of the October 2011 invasion of Somalia, whose goal was initially proclaimed to be the pursuit of kidnappers and to push Al Shabaab away from our borders.

Despite the banner headlines at the time, there was no official declaration of war, either against Somalia or against Al Shabaab. In fact, there has since been no such declaration, which according to the constitution would have required the authorisation of Parliament.

But if Kenya is not exactly a de jure state at war, is it in a de facto state of war? There is no doubt, as the President has noted, that “our country and our people are under attack”. Since 2012, more than 600 people have been killed by the Al Shabaab, who continue to threaten to paint Kenyan cities red with blood.

However, it is far from clear that the country’s response to the terrorists could reasonably be characterized as a military conflict. The troops in Somalia, who neither caught up with the kidnappers nor succeeded in pushing Al Shabaab from our borders, quickly shifted goal posts and declared their objective to be the capture of the Somali port of Kismayo, which was achieved a year later. By then, the troops had been rehatted as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia and were, at least nominally, taking their orders from the Force Commander in Mogadishu and not the Ministry of Defence in Nairobi. Today, with a battalion having been withdrawn to make way for Sierra Leone, under 4000 troops remain in AMISOM.

Although the Kenya Defence Forces are today routinely deployed within Kenya, it is not always or even predominantly fighting against the Al Shabaab. In fact, in many instances, it has been deployed to quell internecine conflict between Kenyan communities. If deploying the KDF is an act of war, then Kenya is as much at war with itself as it is with Al Shabaab.

In truth, the battle against Al Shabaab has been much more a policing than a military action, though it is frequently described, as I have just done, in language from the latter. As a matter of fact, on two occasions –at Westgate where 68 people were slaughtered and most recently in Garissa where at least 148 perished- the deployment of the KDF to do a job the specialized police unit known as Recce Company should have been doing, was cited as a major failure. Reports on other terrorist incidents such as the June 2014 Mpeketoni attacks which left about 70 dead, mainly blamed problems within the police service not the military, from divided command to corruption, for poor responses.

In Somalia too, Kenya is not prosecuting a war against the Al Shabaab in Somalia. AMISOM, where Kenya is one of several principals, is. AMISOM’s objective is not, at least directly, to protect the Kenyan border, but rather to support and protect the government in Mogadishu. Sure AMISOM is mandated to eliminate Al Shabaab. But given the reports of the Kenyan contingent’s involvement in illicit trade that benefits Al Shabaab immensely such as the smuggling of charcoal and sugar, it is debatable whether they are particularly focussed on this objective.

Kenya is at war in the sense Australia or Canada are at war. Both nations have deployed troops abroad to fight as part of a coalition confronting extremists. Both have suffered terror attacks, though nowhere near what Kenya has experienced. Most would immediately see the incongruity of suggesting that Canadians and Australian accept "wartime" restrictions on their liberties (which is not to say such restriction is not attempted). But Kenya, with its much greater familiarity with terrorist attack is an easier target for the argument.

In the 1997 Barry Levinson movie, Wag The Dog, the US administration fabricates a war with Albania to distract the public from a sex scandal on the eve of an presidential election. Similarly, in Kenya today, the talk of war is intended to mask a multitude of sins on the part of the government and security agents. It is thus not unusual for officials to assert “operational security” to avoid public scrutiny. Or to hear that, as one commentator tweeted, “it is incongruous [to] deem it practical that counter-terrorist activities [be] governed by peacetime procedures/rules.”

The idea of a literal war on terrorism, and opposed to the figurative “wars” on corruption and drugs, is meant to generate a climate of fear and foster an unthinking and unquestioning patriotism. It is not only the carpet under which government seeks to sweep its failure to fundamentally reform and fix the country’s security system, but also provides justification for a clampdown on dissent.

Andrew Franklin, a Nairobi-based security analyst, notes: “Kenya is not at war. As archaic as it may sound, wars are declared and fought between states or coalitions of states. This is not mere sophistry since declarations of war justify extraordinary – and temporary – restrictions on all manner of normal domestic activities and curbs on many constitutionally protected freedoms. 

“This is why going to war is considered a big deal and not just a matter of semantics.”

Throwing The Book At Terrorists

Kenya's War On Terror Is No Solution To Insecurity

The past two weeks have been pretty horrid for President Uhuru Kenyatta. His decision, after Al Shabaab terrorists last weekend massacred 28 Kenyans in the north-eastern town of Mandera, not to cut short his official visit to the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix, backfired terribly. And when he did eventually return to face criticism for his administration’s seeming disregard for national security issues, his speech blaming the public for rising insecurity (and a mother for the rape of her baby) did not go down well.

Then on Tuesday morning, despite his deputy’s assurances that nearly 100 terrorists, including those who committed the bus attack, had been killed and their camp just across the border destroyed, Kenyans woke up to news of yet another massacre in the same area. This time, the victims were 36 quarry workers, killed in remarkably similar circumstances.

With public outrage and calls for heads, including his, to roll, reaching a crescendo, President Kenyatta finally decided to sacrifice the two people who, more than any other, were considered responsible for the security debacle. He prevailed upon the Inspector General of Police, David Kimaiyo, to resign and effectively fired his Interior Cabinet Secretary, Joseph ole Lenku.

For the moment, this seems to have sated the anger. However, there are more battles on the horizon and it is important that Kenyans do not lose focus.

In the Barry Levinson movie, Wag the Dog, a top-notch spin doctor, is brought in to take the public's attention away from a potentially disastrous presidential sex scandal just days to the election This is achieved by hiring a Hollywood film producer to construct a fake war with Albania. However, the fiction can only last for so long and, to keep the public eye focused away from scandal, has to be continually embellished till the election is won.

Over the last two years, Kenyatta has implemented his own version of this script. In the run up to the 2013 election, with an unsavoury charge of abetting and financing the mass murder of their countrymen hanging over his and his running mate’s heads, his hired guns manufactured a war. They latched on ill-advised warnings about the advisability of electing politicians indicted by the International Criminal Court, accusing the West of trying to dictate the outcome of the election. The duo rode the subsequent wave of faux-patriotism all the way into power (aided by suspiciously incompetent electoral commission and Supreme Court).

Once ensconced in State House, the duo have continued to embellish the tale, mixing both real and imagined fears -from the ICC to Western imperialism to Al Shabaab-  to create an cocktail of fear and an environment where questioning their motives or peering too closely is seen as a veritable act of treason.

On Tuesday, the President came out once again to remind us that Kenya is at war with terror. In a speech reminiscent of George Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress following the 9/11 attacks, Kenyatta declared that “a time has come for each and every one of us to decide and choose. Are you on the side of an open, free, democratic Kenya which respects the rule of law, sanctity of life and freedom of worship, or do you stand with repressive, intolerant and murderous extremists?” Bush had put it more succinctly, “either you are with us or with the terrorists.”

Now, it is understandable why the Global War on Terror trope is so appealing to an administration trying to rescue its flagging legitimacy in the face of constant reminders of its inability to protect its citizenry. It is also, however, deeply misleading.

The President appears to conflate the twin evils of ideologically driven terrorism and violent crime and to view both through the prism of the former. “Terrorism and violent crime are grave threats to our nation,” he avers and then goes on to declare that “we are in a war against terrorists in and outside our country.”

But terrorism does not explain why our women are afraid to walk the streets or ride in public transports for fear of being stripped and sexually assaulted by mobs of men. Or why the poachers exterminating the country’s wildlife are accorded government protection. It does not tell us why Kenya is rapidly becoming a hub for illicit money and illegal drugs, why inter-communal violence rages across the land and, perhaps most pertinently, why security agencies are unable to respond to timely intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks.

The fact is, his declaration of the War on Terror disguises and distracts from a broader and far more consequential breakdown in the country’s security system. It is this breakdown, not our democratic space as some have suggested, that the terrorists are exploiting. According to 2013 police statistics, the same ones the government uses to insist that crime rates have dropped by 8 percent, violent crime, including robberies, rapes and homicides, is actually significantly higher. 

However, the real story is the one that the statistics don’t tell. According to one survey, over 60 percent of crimes are not reported to the police, so their numbers probably severely understate the problem. Worse, police officers and security agents are regularly implicated in these crimes. Who can forget the scenes of looting at the Westgate Mall or the vandalised ATM's at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport following the fire?

Restoring the integrity of the security system is the most important challenge facing Kenyans and this will not be achieved by bombing Al Shabaab to smithereens. Neither is the departure of ole Lenku and Kimaiyo, while welcome, a panacea for endemic problems. In fact, it has proven that the Jubilee administration is amenable to public pressure and this must be kept up to ensure that comprehensive reform of the security sector is not swept under the War on Terror carpet.

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