By Abdul Tejan-Cole
On Saturday September 21, a group reported to be between 10 and 20 masked assailants armed with AK47s, 3G rifles, machine guns, grenades and bombs, and wearing ammunition belts broke into the partly Israeli-owned upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi and opened fire. Innocent civilians including Kenyans, diplomats and expatriate shoppers all ran for cover. In no time, the assailants overpowered and outnumbered the light security and took control of the mall. It was only on Tuesday, four days after the siege began, that Kenyan and foreign security forces were able to put the situation under control.
Latest reports indicate that 62 people perished in the attack and more than 60 others remain unaccounted for. Amongst those killed was Kofi Awoonor, 78, a respected Ghanaian poet and former ambassador to Brazil, Cuba and the United Nations. Like Teju Cole, Caroline Mutoko and Fatou Wurie, Awoonor was in Nairobi to speak at a four-day celebration of writing, the Storymoja Hay Festival at the Nairobi National Museum. Awoonor was at the mall with his son who survived the attack. Other casualties include popular Kenyan radio presenter, Ruhila Adatia-Sood, who was hosting a cooking competition in the mall, and Canadian diplomat Annemarie Desloges. Most of the dead were Kenyans but nationals from other Canada, Britain, France, South Africa, China, The Netherlands and USA were also reported killed. Close to 200 people were injured.
Initial reaction suggested it was a robbery but as the events unfolded it soon became clear that it was a well-orchestrated act of terror mimicking a similar terrorist attack in Mumbai, India in 2008. It did not take too long before the Al Qaeda linked Al-Shaabab claimed responsibility via twitter. The motive for the massacre was to punish Kenya for its incursions into Somalia in 2011 to curb the scourge of Al Shabaab’s kidnappings and killings in Kenya. Like Sierra Leone, Kenya also provides troops for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), as do Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Somalia and Uganda. AMISOM is mandated to conduct Peace Support Operations in Somalia and stabilize the situation in the country in order to create conditions for the conduct of humanitarian activities.
This is not the first time Kenya has been targeted by terrorists. On August 7, 1998 suicide bombers in trucks laden with explosives detonated their bombs outside the American embassy in the city centre of Nairobi and 212 persons were killed and an estimated 4,000 injured. A similar attack was conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on the same day almost simultaneously, while a third attempt was foiled in Kampala, Uganda. Since the 1998 attack, Kenya has been subjected to sporadic attacks in towns close to the Kenya/Somalia border and less than spectacular explosions in Nairobi.
As if that was not enough, Kenya has also suffered more than its quota of mishaps in the last couple of years. Just this week, the first of 22 crime-based witnesses, No 536, at the ICC trial of Vice President William Ruto took the stand to narrate the burning of the Kiambaa Church in Kenya's Rift Valley on January 1, 2008. An arson that killed 36 people during deadly ethnic violence following Kenya's 2007 elections. More than 1,200 people were killed and over half a million displaced. A few weeks ago, a mysterious fire destroyed the international arrivals unit at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
The easiest response from Kenyans is to target all Somalis. On social media, a few wayward Kenyans have demanded that all Somalis including those who are Kenyans “should be frog marched back to Mogadishu or whichever hell hole they crawled out of. Including those in the refugee camps. Then we build the tallest wall along the border. Let them kill each other in their own country and never set foot here again.” Such a response is totally unwarranted and is not shared by the majority of Kenyans. It may be counter-productive to alienate the many innocent Somalis who live in Nairobi, some of whom have had to endure civil war since 1991 and who engage in billions of dollars’ worth of trade in the Somali dominated neighbourhood of Eastleigh in Nairobi.
Kenyans will do well to work with the local Somali communities to identify and expose those within their communities who perpetrate and fund such dastardly acts. In addition, Kenya, the African Union and the rest of the international community must push harder to support the ‘New Deal’ for Somalia and support the current efforts to rebuild Somali’s economy. Al Shabaab thrived during the chaos in Somalia in the past two decades. It will find it more difficult to recruit followers if the country is functional once again.
Westgate and other acts of terror clearly illustrate the need for citizens not to take a back seat in matters affecting the security of their nation. Very few would have predicted that peace and stabilization operations into neighboring Somalia would have resulted in such a devastating act of terror. Had they predicted this, the voices of dissent would have been louder. In addition, the kind of vigilance observed amongst citizens in the US since 9/11 is totally lacking in many African states including Sierra Leone. Security remains largely the preserve of the security forces who often lack anti-terror training, bomb sniffing dogs and equipment such as bomb detectors and scanners. This is erroneous. Citizens remain at the vanguard of every security and intelligence apparatus. Vigilance on our part is crucial to aborting acts of terror. “If you see something, say something” is now a catchphrase in the West. In hindsight, Westgate was predictable and perhaps could have been averted with greater civilian vigilance. The security response mechanisms in Kenya and the continent as a whole need to be revamped in order to respond more effectively to the growing threat posed by groups such as Al Shabaab, Boko Haram and Al Qaeda. Mutual co-operation and legal assistance as envisaged by the African Convention on Combating Terrorism is critical particularly in the continent where most of our borders are porous.
The Westgate attack has shown that Al Shabaab attacks are becoming more sophisticated. They have sworn to retaliate against all countries they consider as enemies for contributing troops to AMISOM and have done so in Kenya and Uganda on a number of occasions. Though Kenya may prove easier to target than Sierra Leone because of its geographical proximity and Sierra Leone may be unattractive because of its paucity of expatriates, this should not be an excuse to do nothing. Concerted efforts between residents and security forces in Sierra Leone, as well as intelligence-sharing and cooperation particularly with neighbouring countries is essential. The time to tighten national security and develop a security culture is now.
Editor’s Note: Abdul Tejan-Cole writes from Dakar, Senegal. And Dateline Africa is a new regular column in POLITICO newspaper
© Politico 26/09/13
