By Isaac Massaquoi
Kenya is a good eight hours from Sierra Leone by air. But the devastating attack on a shopping mall in that country by the Somali terrorist outfit Al-Shabaab killing and injuring scores has left many here asking a lot of questions about the ability of our security agencies to protect our lives and properties if the same rebel group were to make good their threat to attack Sierra Leone for contributing troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia, AMISOM.
AMISOM is the only group standing between Al-Shabbab and political power in that troubled country with all the consequences of that for the Horn of Africa and the continent at large. In the days following that attack in Kenya, Sierra Leoneans started talking with much more seriousness and intensity about the possibility of an Al-Shabaab attack on Sierra Leone, something the government downplayed in a blaze of propaganda and spin at the time of the troop deployment, arguing that Sierra Leonean troops were serving the cause of world peace.
Kenyans have been having this kind of debate for a long time. It intensified after Al-Shabaab attacked and killed many Ugandans in Kampala to punish that country for leading AMISOM. So there’s a pattern to the actions of the terrorist group – first Ethiopia, then Uganda and now Kenya. It is realistic to say that their next targets would be either Burundi or Sierra Leone. So let’s discuss the issues and not pretend as if our security forces have all the answers to the threat posed by Al-Shabaab. And let’s also not assume we are too far away from the theatre of war. Like an object in the mirror, the terrorists are closer than they appear.
As investigations into the Kenya attack unfold, we will learn more about the characters involved in the attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall. The attacks on New York and London revealed that there were strong local elements actively collaborating with foreign terrorists to attack their own countries. To conclude therefore that the people who might be inclined to attack this country would come from Asia or East Africa would be the most puerile thing to do if your primary responsibility was to ensure that Sierra Leone remained free from terrorist attacks.
I have to say from the outset that this threat is real and the authorities should communicate honestly, clearly and in a timely manner with the people of Sierra Leone without creating panic or using this threat as cover for some other political objectives and sacrificing the civil liberties of Sierra Leoneans and foreigners living in our country.
I was totally opposed to our troops joining AMISOM and I stated my reasons in an article published in this paper last year (http://politicosl.com/2012/04/the-debate-should-sierra-leone-send-peacekeepers-to-somalia/).
For the records, let me re-state this point: there is no peace to keep in Somalia. Our troops are there to enforce peace. In a classic peacekeeping situation, the protagonists would have signed a peace treaty and the peacekeepers would only be brought in to help to secure the peace and help both sides complete the political process.
This is not the situation in Somalia. Until the very existence of Al-Shabbab is threatened enough to bring them to the table to genuinely talk peace, let nobody try to convince me the RSLAF are peacekeepers. They are not!
I still hold this position but it is the conventional thing to avoid all such arguments once the troops are deployed, particularly to a mission as dangerous as Somalia. Our soldiers are professionals and I wish them well.
When I first wrote the article I referred to earlier calling on our politicians not to send our troops to Somalia, the reactions that came from the government and sections of the media normally sympathetic to State House, argued that because Sierra Leone benefitted from UN peace-keeping efforts during our war, we should never hesitate to “pay back”. Minister of Defence, Paolo Conteh also made the same point during a recent program with AMISOM officials in Freetown. I clearly understand the angle they are coming from but as I have already said elsewhere in this piece, I will not now re-state all the issues I raised to justify my position at the time because the troops are already on the ground in Somalia and it will be a totally unproductive to continue banging on about why they should never have been sent there.
I think instead of making romantic arguments about the rationale for joining AMISOM, the government ought to have done the kind of things they are attempting to do now – like opening up the debate and assuring the nation of its safety while our troops try to keep the peace in another man’s country. As far as I know, the deployment was never debated in parliament, therefore the people did not have even an indirect say on the issue. At this point, we must make a conscious effort to rally the nation behind the troops and their mission in Somalia and the likely consequences for our civil liberties back home. It is never late for parliament to discuss a motion expressing confidence in the work of our troops in Somalia.
In more recent times I have heard a lot from government spokespeople and the police on the possibility of Al-Shabaab carrying out its threat to attack Sierra Leone. Frankly, these people should stop trying to spin and score political points in the same way they behave when some foreign agriculture company takes over burial grounds and secret society bushes from our people in the name of foreign investment. The Al-Shabaab question is very serious.
The Ugandans and the Kenyans went into Somalia to try and stabilise a very sick African nation only for an Al-Qaeda affiliate to turn their guns on very soft targets in those countries, wasting hundreds of precious lives. This is no time for the usual partisan politics that destroys every serious national conversation in Sierra Leone. It’s time for clear-thinking and honest discussions about putting the nation in the mood to defend itself against any terrorist threat, foreign or home-grown.
The world has experienced terrorism for a long time now but the game changed when the American homeland was attacked by Osama Bin Laden and his band of killers. That was followed by the attacks on London and Madrid with the same motive – to kill many ordinary people and spread terror around the world. America’s response has had tremendous consequences for every citizen of the world.
I believe that like the Americans, Sierra Leone must take another look at what we call the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With its current budget, quality of staff, office and equipment, I need to be convinced as an ordinary Sierra Leonean that they are able to face the kind of challenge Al-Shabaab and their Nigeria franchise Boko Haram pose to our sub-region. I don’t have all the answers but I think this country can signal its intention to robustly defend itself against terrorism by doing something very special to that ministry to enable it do what the Department of Homeland Security is doing in America.
There are problem areas like the complaints over the Big Brother approach to information gathering for ordinary Americans but the fact that the country has effectively dealt with other terrorist threats in a much more organised and successful way is a credit to the Department of Homeland Security in particular and the whole political establishment in a general sense.
Take a look at the buildings housing our ministries and tell me how secured you feel from even the most rookie of Al-Qaeda operatives looking to hurt Sierra Leone. Things are so casual that while on the one hand we congratulate ourselves for moving so quickly from the war mentality that gripped Sierra Leone not so long ago, on the other hand we must definitely ask why we believe everybody that comes here saying they want to invest in this and that or they love our beaches are true friends.
In 2006, Dubai Ports World was on the verge of taking over the running of six American port terminals in New York, Newark, Baltimore and Miami. The outcry that followed that deal forced the company to turn it over to their American partners. The Americans couldn’t understand how a foreign company from an area like the Middle-east was going to be allowed to run facilities as important as those terminals. Apart from that, the security implications around those containers that would have landed in America under the supervision of Dubai Ports World were just too profound to play around with and too serious to risk.
In Sierra Leone, we talk too much about investors. We have people in this country whose only job is to facilitate the movements of all sorts of people they call investors, by-passing security checks and helping them get political recognition at high levels in return for a few thousand US dollars, enough only for a new SUV and some nights with friends at Lumley beach.
I have nothing against people wanting to invest in Sierra Leone but like the Americans in the Dubai Ports World issue, we should never put our prestige and security at risk while trying to attract foreign investors to our country.
© Politico 03/10/13
