AGLI - Report from Kenya - October 17, 2011
Kenya has invaded Somalia and plans to control the 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the country closest to Kenya.
Yesterday, when I was writing my report on the US troops in Uganda, I was aware that war cries were being heard here in Kenya; but I thought I should stick to the topic of Uganda. In regards to Somalia I wrote, "Kenya and Tanzania are also allies, but take a low military profile in the region. These two countries have decided to remain on the sidelines in the issue of Somalia (read War on Terror) because they are afraid, quite rightly I think, that any public involvement would lead to large security issues for them."
Therefore this is a complete about face for Kenya. The provocations were the September death of a British tourist and the kidnapping of his wife and the kidnapping of a French tourist on Oct 1 - both from near Lamu on the Coast; and on Oct 13 the kidnapping of two Spanish relief workers from the large Dadaab refugee camp for Somali (at 575, 000 people the third largest "city" in Kenya). These incidents have attacked the the tourist trade in Kenya which is the largest foreign exchange money earner in the country.
Kenya is in bad shape economically with the value of the Kenyan shilling declining by 30% since the beginning of the year. While the discussion in the papers talk mostly of technical aspects of finance and capital, I think that the root cause is that people - investors, local Kenyans with access to foreign currency, and the international community - are pulling whatever money they can out because they are afraid of violence during the next election. The politics of the country have hardly changed even with the new constitution and the reforms it promised - reforms that the current government and members of parliament are trying to sabotage in every way they can. Money flees. The only antidote to this flight is more money coming in. Tourism is a big foreign exchange income generating earner. If it collapses, the country will be in even more dire economic straights than it is now.
Kenya has invaded up and down the long border with Somalia using tanks, helicopter gunships, and foot soldiers. Kenya claims that they are attacking al Shaabab, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia. The military is attempting to create a large buffer zone in Somalia so that al Shaabab are not near enough to the border to enter Kenya. Yet when the British and French women were kidnapped, the talk then was that they were kidnapped for ransom by Somali pirates. As it was becoming more difficult to hijack ocean liners, the hijackers turned to easier targets - tourists vacationing close to the Somali border.
The attack is with a show of military might - reminding me of the "secret" US invasion of Somalia in 1993 in the glare of media cameras; and we know how that turned out. Last year, according to the Daily Nation, Kenya was the fourth largest purchaser of military hardware on the continent. They, a country that was begging the international community for famine relief, spent 27 billion shillings or $337 million dollars. It has also been reported that Al Shaabab cells have been attacked by gunships but, it is not clear if they were Kenyan gunships or American gunships from the American base in Djibouti. In the last few years the United States has attacked suspected al Shaabab/al-Qaeda training camps.
One of the major rules of war is that no one can predict what will happen. Uganda and Burundi have about 7,000 troops (paid for by the US)in Mogadishu, the capital o Somalia, supporting the Transitional Federal Government which controls little of the country outside the capital. Al Shaabab retaliated last year by bombing a sports club in Kampala where people were watching the soccer World Cup finals; 74 people were killed.
This is the danger that Kenya now faces as it changes from a quiet stance to an active participant in the Somali conflict. There are many Somali in Kenya, both those who are Kenyan citizens and those who have more recently fled Somali - like those in the Dabaab refugee camp. In 1998 the US Embassy in Nairobi was bombed by al Qaeda and later in 2002 a hotel on the coast was bombed and an Israeli plane shot at. To counter these possible terrorist attacks, Kenya is going to tighten its internal security and, if it follows the lead of many other countries including the United States, will become more repressive. Will this then be used to block any forward momentum in implementing the new Constitution passed in 2010?
In another aspect, the invasion is self-defeating. Tourists don't come to a country "at war." There are so many other places they can go - Tanzania, South Africa, etc. So the attack that is supposed to be saving the golden egg of tourism may in reality be killing tourism.
If, in fact, these kidnappings were the work of Somali pirates who are looking for ransom, then this is only a "Bay of Tonkin" excuse for the Kenyan military supported, no doubt, by the Americans, Ugandans, Burundians, Ethiopians, and the other actors in this conflict. The Somali first secretary at the United Nations claimed that the attack is a violation of Somalia's sovereignty - an interesting observation since that government does not control the area being invaded. In 2007 to 2008 Ethiopia invaded Somalia at the behest of the US Government. It got burned and withdrew. Will the same thing happen to Kenyans?
Gladys and I live in western Kenya which is about as far away from the Somali border as one can get. So we are in no danger.
Peace,
Dave
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David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams
P. O. Box 189, Kipkarren River 50241 Kenya
Phone in Kenya: 254 (0)726 590 783 in US: 301/765-4098
Office in US:1001 Park Avenue, St Louis, MO 63104 USA 314/647-1287
Email: Dave@aglifpt.org Webpage: www.aglifpt.org