Tag Archives: gichangi

Kenya Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014

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Here is a pdf copy of the Kenya Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014.

The proposed amendments will, broadly speaking, curtail the freedom of speech and association, and limit media coverage of security related stories. They will also cut into the independence of the Kenya Police Service by granting the president the powers to appoint and fire the Inspector General of Police. Presently an independent commission picks a list of candidates from which the president chooses the IG. Lastly, the law promises to resurrect the position of the all powerful internal security minister with broad discretionary powers.

All in the name of keeping Kenyans safe from foreign terrorists, and themselves.

There are a few good things in the proposed law, including the sections that clarify the roles of the office of the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP); and those that limit judges’ discretion in the handling of cases involving terror suspects.

Despite the dubious constitutionality of some clauses in the bill, I bet a majority of Kenyans would support it in a poll. For that we have to thank the recent uptick in terror attacks and fatal communal conflicts. This year alone hundreds of Kenyans have died from such attacks.

That said, if you ask me the problem of insecurity in Kenya is not simply a result of restrictive laws that limit the government’s ability to pursue and prosecute criminals. It is a problem of a corrupt police force that takes bribes from petty criminals, poachers, drug dealers, and terrorists, alike. It is a problem of an increasingly unaccountable intelligence and military securocracy that is both fighting jihadists in Somalia and trafficking in charcoal and other goods, the proceeds of which benefit the same jihadists. It is a problem of an ineffectual intelligence service that instead of diligently doing its homework prefers to carry water for foreign agencies, regardless of the domestic consequences.

And finally, it is a problem of an elite political class that wants to have its cake and eat it. They want a criminal justice system that protects those who steal from public coffers but punishes chicken thieves. A system that protects poachers and drug dealers but nabs terrorists and armed robbers. At some point something will have to give.

Iko shida.

“Only four shooters at Kenya mall (Westgate) and they may have escaped alive, says NYPD”

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On Tuesday morning the NYPD issued a damning statement [full report here] that pointed fingers at the Kenyan government for its handling of the terrorist attack at the Westgate Mall in September. Dozens of people were killed in the attack.

According to the statement:

  • Despite conflicting reports from the Kenyan government, “evidence suggests that there were only four attackers, who may have escaped alive.”
  • The commander of the police tactical team that went to quell the siege was most likely killed by the KDF. “The police department tactical team entered the mall at 3 p.m., without police markings or identifications, and were fired on by Kenyan soldiers, killing the commander of the unit.”
  • The security team “had no idea what the mall looked like internally, and didn’t know they could access the closed circuit television system.”
  • The NYDP “didn’t know what had caused the mall to collapse,” but it is likely that “the Kenyan military may have used rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles on the building, and that heat from fires caused by the explosions may have weakened the poorly built structure.”
  • And lastly, “the Kenyan military may not have killed any of the attackers, there was “significant” physical and video evidence that they had looted the mall.”

[UPDATE: A reader, @ZiadFazel, just reminded me of the KTN documentary in October that questioned the official line about the attack. Back then the government dismissed the documentary as inaccurate and alarmist and even threatened to arrest KTN journalists. This new statement from the NYPD adds credibility to the evidence previously dismissed by the government]

Westgate is not just an indictment of the KDF (a force that has and continues to sacrifice a lot for regular Kenyans in the north east and in Somalia) but of the entire security apparatus in Kenya. For the longest time Kenyan civilian administrations have obsessed with issues of coup-proofing, maintenance of public order and the suppression of dissent over actual provision of security.* Urban crime, banditry in the north and pockets of rural areas even in the more governed south and latterly the threat of terrorism have exposed the underbelly of the Kenyan security system.

President Uhuru Kenyatta praised the KDF and the police following the botched operation at Westgate. Was this an attempt to boost the morale of the boys or was he simply continuing the tradition of appeasement with the aim of keeping the army in the barracks and the paramilitary GSU and police ever ready to “restore order” whenever necessary?

Whatever the case, it may be that President Kenyatta and his administration have found themselves in an unfamiliar territory. Kenya’s much touted bureaucratic-executive state may have worked well against internal dissent, but can it effectively deal with current security threats? Civilian control over the security apparatus demands for accountability and performance; and whenever there is failure, an attempt at correction. Is the Kenyan system capable of sustaining a civilian-military relationship that is responsive to the public and based on performance and accountability?

Kenyans were told many tales following that tragic Saturday afternoon in September and the ensuing four day siege. But the more Secretary Ole Lenku spoke of “exploding mattresses” the more questions emerged. The NYPD report is yet another reminder that the security system failed Kenyans, and that the civilian administration was unable to stand up to those responsible and demand for accountability.

*Read E. S. Atieno-Odhiambo’s chapter on “Democracy and the Ideology of Order in Kenya” and Tamarkin’s “The Roots of Political Stability in Kenya.”

Will rampant corruption jeopardize Kenya’s ability to prevent future terror attacks?

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There is an interesting debate on this question over at the Guardian. Following the terror attack at Westgate Giles Foden made the following claim:

In Kenya crime and terrorism are deeply linked, not least by the failure of successive Kenyan governments to control either……… These attacks are part of a spectrum of banditry, with corruption at one end, terrorism at the other, and regular robbery in the middle. Some Kenyans will feel that the conditions in which the attacks have happened have arisen because of economic growth in a vacuum of governance. Money that should have been spent on security and other aspects of national infrastructure has been disappearing for generations.

Two days ago the Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Amina Mohamed, responded to Mr. Foden with a denial of the charge that corruption in the country was in any way related to the failure of security forces to thwart the attack at Westgate. She reminded readers that:

The disasters of 9/11 or the more recent Boston marathon in the US and 7/7 in the UK – both highly developed countries – could hardly be blamed on corruption, so why Kenya? We do not recall Foden blaming corruption within the security agencies involved.

So what is the relationship between corruption and the likelihood of successful future terror attacks in Kenya?

There is no denying the fact that corruption is a huge soft underbelly in the Kenyan state’s fight against al-Shabaab. As I have pointed out before, the attack at Westgate  showed Kenyans that AK-47s are not a menace only in the hands of cattle rustlers or carjackers. They can also be weapons of mass murder. So reports of police reservists renting out their AKs to criminals or being paid by the same criminals to look the other way do not inspire confidence in the government’s ability to prevent future attacks. Indeed last Friday Reuters reported that:

security officers, diplomats and experts describe a security apparatus that may be squandering skills built with the help of U.S., British and other trainers because suspects can buy their way through police checks and poor inter-agency coordination means dots are not joined up.

Add to this the fact that the country has about 600,000 light weapons and small arms in civilian hands (pdf) – including 127,000 illicit guns in Turkana County alone – and you begin to get the picture of why lax law enforcement, partly fueled by lack of funds and poor training and pay of regular police, but also by higher-ups’ venal proclivities, does not bode well for the likelihood of future Westgate-style attacks.

That said, to put terrorism on the same scale as carjacking would be a mistake, especially with regard to how the Kenyan state is likely to react to future threats of terrorism in the wake of Westgate. Obviously, due to entrenched interests and the administrative power (pdf) of the Civil Service the president cannot simply wish away corruption with a stroke of a pen. But he will be under tremendous pressure from the business community (which, in my view, is his number one constituency) to make sure that things that are singularly bad for business – like Westgate-style terror attacks – do not happen in the future.

Regularized murderous banditry in the less governed spaces in Kenya or carjackings in Kileleshwa are different from terror attacks in that the former are often localized “micro-events” on the national stage (even when they are of Baragoi or Tana River or Bungoma proportions) that rarely ever have systemic effects. Westgate, on the other hand, did have a systemic effect. And in a big way. As such I expect that the government will follow the trail and start closing loopholes wherever they are that might be exploited by terrorists in the future. This includes reforming the Kenya Police Service, to the extent that is necessary. It is hard for me to imagine that the president would risk failing to secure reelection just to keep a few corrupt officials happy.

So on balance Westgate might actually lead to a major push to rid critical state institutions of the scourge of corruption and to strengthen them with a view of increasing state capacity.

I could also be totally wrong.

There is a scenario in which the response to Westgate is al-Shabaab-focused and purely driven by the military (which presently has a huge PR problem with the Kenyan public and would want to save face) and other security agencies with little input from the political class. Such an eventuality would be a double bad because of the risk of erosion of civilian control of the military in Kenya (at least at the policy level) as well as a failure to reform critical domestic institutions to reduce the likelihood of future attacks (or attempts to bring back the bad old days…)

All this to say that on the off chance that someone asks you the question in the title of this post, the simple answer would be probably.