The war in Somalia

KENYA SHOULD SUPPORT WHOEVER WILL CREATE A STABLE, PROSPEROUS SOMALIA

By Kang’ethe Mungai

No matter which way political events unfolding in neighboring Somalia go, the result is likely to affect us in Kenya in profound ways. If peace, stability and economic prosperity are finally achieved in Somalia, Sudan, Northern Uganda and the Congo DRC, it will be a big shot in the arm for our economy because vast opportunities for commerce will open up.

We therefore need to follow the events closely, not only in terms of intelligence gathering but also public information and awareness raising through the media so that we can strategically position ourselves and influence government policy towards directions that will bear sustainable benefits Kenya in the long run.

Almost all the reports we get in our daily press on events taking place in Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and other countries in our region are from Reuters, Associated Press, CNN, BBC, VOA and other foreign news agencies. This raises the question why our mainstream media houses with the requisite resources cannot not have enough correspondents in these countries to give us the news from a Kenyan perspective. News from neighboring countries in our East Africa, Great Lakes or the Horn of Africa region is of great interest to Kenyans because many of us do business in the area, have relatives and friends there or have one other connection to the area. By these areas being so near us, what happens there is likely to affect us. There would therefore be no justification for giving Somali news the same treatment as news from Sri Lanka.

News of events taking place in Somalia, Uganda, the Sudan or Congo is important because if the crises in these areas are resolved, Kenya stands to gain more than any other country in the region, especially in terms of commerce and enhanced security. Kenya is a regional economic powerhouse. The reconstruction in these countries will rely heavily on Kenyan industry and when stability and economic development finally come, the countries would be lucrative markets for Kenyan consumer and other goods.

A little patriotic thinking will show the need to give Kenyans accurate information on what is happening in the region in their daily press to enable them prepare in good time so that we do not miss the opportunities that might open up in these areas as peace and stability return. CNN and other western media houses are giving the current Middle East crisis around the clock coverage chiefly because the events taking place there are likely to affect world petroleum supplies and prices with profound effects on the western industrialized societies that heavily depend on the Middle East for much of their energy supplies.

I radically disagree with views expressed by one senior writer in a local daily late last month in one of the first attempts by the Kenya media to interpret events taking place in Somalia. The writer said that if the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) takes over Somalia, then it means that Kenya will be more prone to terrorist attacks.

The writer did not mention the potential benefits to Kenya if stability and economic prosperity came back to Somalia. The ICU is the only entity at present with the military, political and organizational capability to pacify and restore a modicum of stability in the country if there is no interference from foreign countries. The writer that suggested even if elections were held and the ICU was voted into office, we should stop the ICU from ruling Somalia, by military means if necessary. These dangerous suggestions are out of fashion in a modern, free democratic world where our first duty as humanity is to ensure that freedom rings everywhere and that all people are able to choose the government they deem best for themselves without interference from anywhere.

The reality is that the ICU in Somalia, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Hamas in Palestine or the Hezbollah in Lebanon are not the problem in these areas. They are only the symptoms of a problem. In fact all these organizations are created as an attempt by the affected people to solve the problem. The duty of all who would like to see global peace prevail is to identify the real problem and formulate sustainable solutions.

When we talk about Kenya being vulnerable to international terrorism, we should remember that indigenous Kenyan interests have not been targets of international terrorist attacks. If indigenous Kenyan interests like our parliament, ministry headquarters or the office of the president were targets, we all know how easy it would be to attack them. It is the heavily guarded US and Israeli interests in Kenya that have been the main targets of such attacks. We have suffered as collateral damage, as Paul Muite puts it, for merely being their hosts. The groups who target the US and Israel have a bone to pick with the policies of these two countries in the Middle East and other places on the globe. Kenya itself has had to wage a spirited campaign to resist the US policy of arm-twisting us in its efforts at sabotaging the International Criminal Court. Unfortunately, Kenyans are mostly shown only one side of the coin because our predominantly western news sources give us the western perspective that portrays those fighting the west as unreasoning, cold-blooded savages.

A good example of policy that gives rise to so-called terrorist organizations is the current war in Lebanon that has resulted in deaths and untold suffering to hundreds of Lebanese and Israeli civilians as well as of people from other nations. The war broke out when Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers and abducted two on July 12, 2006. Israel responded to a military action from Hezbollah by killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians and destroying the infrastructure in large parts of south Lebanon in what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said makes Israel guilty of war crimes. The mistaken Israeli policy (supported by the US) of heavy indiscriminate bombing that has created a humanitarian nightmare in south Lebanon has strengthened and not weakened or destroyed Hezbollah as intended.

It is important for Kenya to place itself in the forefront of those nations trying to use the United Nations to encourage dialogue across the board and to make the US and Israel change their policies in the Middle East to give peace a chance. This is the sustainable way to stop terrorism. Terrorism is a response of the aggrieved weak to oppression by a militarily superior power. Nobody just wakes up one day and decides to risk life and hurt others by being a terrorist.

It is dangerous and reckless to suggest that Kenya should intervene by use of force, if necessary, to stop Islamic radicals from taking power in Somalia. This prescription flies in the face of Kenya’s national interests and traditionally decent diplomatic role in the region and in the world. We must not see reality through American, Israeli or anyone else’s geopolitical lenses. The Americans and allied powers have their policies in the Middle East guided by a desire to control the region’s vast oilfields to safeguard energy supplies for their industry. In Kenya, we certainly have different priorities, chief among which are regional stability ad economic prosperity.

As a neighboring country, our primary interest in Somalia should be the attainment of peace, stable government, prosperity and the Somali people’s capacity to be in charge of their own affairs as a sovereign state. The sprawling lawless, stateless wilderness that the country is today is of no benefit to Kenya. Somalia is today much more of a terrorists’ paradise than if any type of government was firmly in control there. When there is a government fully in charge, you can always open up negotiations through diplomatic channels to advance the mutual interests of the two neighboring states and the region. But you cannot negotiate with bands of armed bandits where nobody is in general control and only the machine gun rules pockets of clan chieftainships.

Like a gaping, festering wound on Kenya’s belly side, the lawless jungle that Somalia has been in the last 15 years is one of the single greatest threats to the security of our nation. Absence of central government there has made it a paradise for all manner of lawless elements who have easily closed our long, sparsely populated and largely unguarded border to bring in and sell illicit arms to criminals in Kenya. It is estimated that there are 50,000 illegal arms in Kenya today. The arms are used to rape, rob, maim and kill daily. There is hardly an adult person in Nairobi, for instance, who does not know of a relative or friend who was hurt, robbed, raped or murdered by criminals using these illegal arms. Even as I write this on August 9, 2006, I have just buried a nephew shot dead by carjackers in Kabete.

Kenya has so far played a positive role in fostering peace in the region. We have refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of other nations. This has made us a respected member of the international community. We stand to gain immensely from a stable, prosperous Eastern Africa through regional cooperation and making the area more secure to improve the quality of life by controlling the illegitimate proliferation of small arms and light weapons. These are the principal considerations that should guide our foreign policy on Somalia and the rest of the region.

For our own good as a country, we need to resist being a satellite of American, Israeli or anyone else’s geopolitical interests except where such interests coincide with our own. We should at all times avoid the unnecessary sacrifice of putting Kenya on the firing line by making ourselves legitimate military targets of those fighting America and other powers they have a bone to pick with. The main reason for doing so is that we are weak and highly vulnerable. We do not have the financial, skilled human or technological resources that America, Israel, Britain or Russia have to protect ourselves.

Kang’ethe Mungai

Consultant

Human Rights and Governance

P O Box 5399-00100

Nairobi