Border Incursions & Proxy Wars
I am surprised that this story about a couple of Italian nuns who were abducted from El-Wak in northeastern province, is not on the front pages of the Kenyan dailies (continuously).
What these Somali Islamist group did is very dangerous. They essentially crossed the border into Kenya, abducted these nuns and took them back to Somalia. Now, the government has issued an ultimatum: return the nuns or else (or else what?) — is the Kenyan army going to cross the border into Somalia and confront these Islamist groups?
I’m going to make an assumption here that the army is getting a lot of help from the Americans, who are still trying to contain the growth of terrorist groups like Al-Shahab, but I’m still not sure if the army has what it takes to fight these Somali’s (even with American help). The Ethiopians are currently in Somalia (with lots of help and encouragement from the Americans) and they are losing despite the fact the Ethiopian army has war time fighting experience (remember? they’ve been fighting the Eritreans for 30 years). If the Ethiopians, with their battle hardened soldiers can’t do it, how on earth will the Kenyan army succeed when it’s never in it’s history fought a fully fledged war? Very dangerous.
I’ve never understood why the government refused to put up a permanent military base in northeastern province. That section of the country has been lawless ever since Kenya gained independence and if the Kenyan Somali’s are now helping their clans-men across the border, it could create major problems for the Kenya’s security. Al-Shahab is already on a path to controlling most of Somalia and with it, imposing it’s brand of radical islam all over the country. The spillover is going to hit Kenya. It’s inevitable.
Now, I want to move on to the other war in the news this week and it’s the conflict in the Eastern Congo. This conflict in the Eastern Congo has Paul Kagame’s name written all over it. The Rwandese Tutsi have complained for years, that the Congolese government has allowed Hutu militamen (who were responsible for the genocide) to operate freely in that region where they have launched cross border raids into Rwanda.
I’m sure Kagame had warned Kabila about this, but Kabila is a weak and ineffectual president who has been unable to control that vast and lawless country. Some people may not know this, but the Congo is a huge country. It is the size of Western Europe and it has virtually no infrastructure to speak of. Kabila has never had control of that country and the only reason he’s been able to survive (quite literally), is because of the protection he has received from foreign armies, the main one being the Angolans. If it were not for the Angolans, Kabila junior would have ended up like his father: dead.
The Congoloese “army” has never been known for anything other than it’s plunderous ways. They are drunkards, they are disorganized and undisciplined and all they do is rape women and rampage through towns. They are no match for the disciplined and tough Tutsi soldiers. I talked about these Tutsi Inkontanyi fighters in a previous post here. Basically, you don’t want to mess with these guys because they’ll get you (as Kabila will soon find out).
I keep hearing these news reports about African leaders and the UN meeting in Nairobi to try and resolve this crisis in the Congo, but that meeting is pointless. Why? because if Kabila cannot control those Hutu milita groups in the Eastern part of his country, Kagame is going to do it for him. The UN has failed to appreciate how paranoid these Tutsi’s have become ever since the genocide. They are not going to allow anyone to attack them and kill them again and if it means invading a country and fighting, they are going to do just that and this is heart of the issue in the Congo.
And while I’m on this topic of the Congo, let’s for a minute examine who this man Joseph Kabila is. This guy was hanging out in Tanzania where he was born and raised, while his father run around Africa trying to become a marxist and fighting a series of failed wars against Mobutu. When Kabila senior was finally killed (by one of his own soliders), Kabila junior was quickly moved into the Congo — to a country, he had never really known. A country where he spoke neither of the two dominant languages of French and Lingala (Kabila speaks English and Swahili). Many have speculated that the Angolans put him there because they wanted to be continue to have access to their mining and business interests. In other words, they needed a proxy and now this untrained proxy is being forced to go up against a seasoned and experienced soldier in Kagame. The question is, how long can the Angolans keep protecting Kabila? At some point, you need to be able to run your own country or someone else will do it for you.
The answer is simple. Our Military is brutal and somalis on the mention of kenyan army must shake on their boots. Kenya Military simply fagia the place. There better be no village hidding any islamist militia coz it can simply be flattened.
Kenya is unable to deal with Somalia decisively because Kenyans associate ALL Somali militia with Islamists. And of course, Kenya being a God-fearing Christian nation, nobody wants to hear anything to do with Islam.
But seriously though: the problem in Mandera has nothing to do with Islam, Al-Shabaab and the like. There was a conflict over land and political issues between two Somali clans. Now, the Somalis in Kenya have relatives across the border. When the conflict started, clansmen from Somalia came to fight on behalf of their kinsfolk. But our government assumed that Kenya had been invaded by Islamic militia and went there to, as Noni puts it above, fagia the place. People were beaten, women raped and houses burnt by our very own military.
The laughable thing is that when the Italian nuns were kidnapped by bandits and taken to Somalia, guess who our government called for assistance? The Kibaki government called Somali elders from Mandera to go talk in Somalia on its behalf. The Somali elders said, “Hell No!” I mean, one week after you’ve chapad them and then you expect them to help you?
Kenyans should be able to look at Somalia rationally without confusing every Somali to be an Islamic terrorist. Somalia is a big country with many complex problems most of which have nothing to do with terrorism.
But why kidnap the Nuns?
And why do the Nuns help people who will not protect them?
This is not the first time that outpost known as El-Wak has been invaded by Somali bandits.
Kenya needs to act decisively to discourage the bandits.
They are so thoughtless.
Somalis had better really get their act together and ressurrect their country from the dead. Their behaviour is totally childish.
Godfrey:
If what you have said is true, then the Kenyan army, in many ways, mirros the Congolese army — mainly in terms of it’s penchant for alcohol, rampage and rape and that is not a good thing. It is not a good thing for Kenya because if those soliders did in fact rape women, that community will absolutely not give them any support and without that support, they will not be able to successfully confront Al-Shahab. Not smart.
The similarities between Somalia and Afghanistan are quite striking to me.
These two countries have both endured years and years of civil war. Amidst this chaos of war, a radical, religious group emerges and promises to restore order (based on their fundamental religious beliefs). This is how both the Taliban and Al-shahab have emerged — they are couching their brutality in religious terms and this brutality is bringing about some sense of order. Once order is imposed, the two groups then begin to enjoy popular support. Today, Al-Shahab, is more popular than the interim government, just as the Taliban was in Afghanistan.
These religious groups eventually succeed militarily in taking over their countries, but realize that they’ll need money to stay in power. So, what do they do? They declare a pure islamic state in order to attract money from the oil rich gulf states. This is how Bin Laden managed to stay in Afghanistan — he literally paid off the Taliban and this is what will happen to Al-Shahab in Somalia — someone from the gulf will start paying them off.
The only difference I can think of between these two groups is that the Taliban enjoyed additional support from the Pakistani intelligence services. Al-Shahab does not have support from any particular government that I know of.
Noni:
Do not over rate the Kenyan army. The Ethiopians, who are quite tough, are in Somalia currently and they are losing and I don’t think the Ethiopians are any less brutal than the Kenyans.
The whole theory of Kabila being a proxy of Angola could have some truth to it a couple of years ago. Today it isn’t anymore. Since the election in 2006 Kabila is the elected president of Congo. The fact that the army of Kabila is weak and the army of Kagame is strong and disciplined does not increase the legitimacy of any rebelmovement inside the Congo. We keep hearing of hutu militia, but how many of those are there inside the Congo? But even if they are still there, defining them as root cause of the problem over the last 15 years has not brought us closer to a solution. It has brought us 5 million dead. Why haven’t we heard of the installation of a International Congo tribunal yet? Why are opponents to Kagame’s rule put in prison or assasinated? Why have 40 RPF officers been found guilty of crimes against humanity? This war, as Kagame very well knows, does not play out only in north-Kivu.
Kenya can just stop exporting miraa and the militias will be brought to heel.
Mantary
NO. You are wrong!!! The militias are Islamist..They will BAN the Khat business once in power…….
The only people who will be brought to their heels are The MERUS….
Lord, you do not understand Somalis and Khat culture. Even the Islamists are chewers and grinders. It is in the blood.
Manta Ray:
Kenyans will never stop selling miraa — there’s too much money there and the only thing kenyans love more than money is their beer. I’m also sure that a lot of that miraa money is used to bribe politicians. It’s a revolving door.
I know a couple of kenyan pilots who fly miraa into somalia and I asked them once if they were ever afraid of getting shot down. Their answer was that a Somali will never shoot down a plane if he knows it’s carrying miraa. Never, ever.
I think a Somali would give up food before he gave up miraa.
Actually… some group banned miraa after they gained control… They did not stay in control for long….!!!
Merus should pray to Ngai daily to ensure the somalis have a prosperous life…
All
This is a very interesting solution – the miraa solution.
I think it would work. If Kenya bans miraa export indefinitely, the nuns will be returned pronto.
Josh:
The issue in Somalia right now is not about miraa. It’s about religious fundamentalism. The Al-Shahab are a group of islamic extremists and banning the sale of miraa will not stop them.
Is Kenya the only country nearby that grows miraa?
Seriously though, if Kenya is to deal with Somalia, it should establish a cordon sanitaire along the Somalia border for 5 miles inland and declare it a no go zone for anybody except the military. Any unauthorized person found there will be shot on sight. Border crossings will only be through recognized border points.
Similarly, the Somali militia should be advised to keep at least 5 kms away from the Kenya border and have the Air force enforce that declaration. It does not matter that Somalia is a sovereign nation. The fact is that it is controlled by ruthless gangsters who will not hesitate to take advantage of the slightest hint of weakness on Kenya’s part. Kenya must make it clear to them it is not worth it, especially in these times when death is served by these servants of Al Qaeda in the name of religion.
Time for softly softly coddling these imps is over. It is the same naive and stupid procrastination that gave rise to the RV militia to rise up and murder with impunity.
ColoredOpinions:
There’s a reason why I have repeatedly said here that Africa is not ready for democracy and the case in the Congo is a good example of this. Even though there was an “election”, Kabila is really the mayor of Kinshasa. He has never had military control over that country primarily because he never formed a unified army. The Angolans and other foreign armies have done the fighting for him.
This is in stark contrast to what Kagame did in Rwanda. After the genocide, Kagame actually formed an army of Tutsi rebels, who’d been with him in Uganda. These were guys who’d spent 13 years in the bush with museveni, fighting. They were disciplined, committed and unified. So, when they finally invaded in 1994, they knew how to fight and even the French helicopter gunships, which were used against them in the forest, did not deter them.
After kagame took over the country, he then had to spend the next 4 years fighting to gain control of it militarily. Contrary to popular belief, Rwanda did not “settle” down immediately after the genocide was over. It took years of hard core fighting, both in Rwanda and in the Eastern Congo for Kagame to finally dilute the threat from the Hutu’s.
Joseph Kabila has never done this in the Congo. This guy was just plucked from obscurity in Tanzania and told to go and rule over a country he had barely lived in.
That election in the Congo was meaningless and it’s another example about the naivette of the United Nations when it comes to providing advice to African countries on this issue of “democracy”.
Sometimes it puzzle me when Norther kenya is reffered as part of kenya. While in reality it is only through the demarcation of the boundary that gives the kenyan govt the legitimacy to govern it.
It is sad that the province acts as a buffer zone to the harsh reality of insecurity so as to deflate the attention of the day to day suffering of mwananchi. that is why you do not need an I.D while going to that forgotten place. but it dawns on you when you decide to come back to the true kenya as you will be required to produce all sort of identification.
Despite the fact that you never crossed the border is not an excuse to avoid the search, A near place like Garissa has 5 times more road block than Lokichogio.
It is quite normal for verification to happen at the point of entry or exit for that matter. but since time immemorial, our point of entry/exit is in Garissa.
So guys, lets face it, the hulla baloo is just because the abducted Nuns are foreigners.
Just like somalia, lawlessness, insecurity, poverty is a daily dose to the residents, and that northern kenyan can well go as a somali province more than it being a kenyan province.
Security to kenyans is very paramount. By the way, the army baracks were long established. the Isiolo baracks is strategically placed bodering Wajir district. and that by the time the ”’TERRORISTS”’ cross over, they will be intercepted at the no mans land that is the north eastern province.
my fellow kenyans sleep peacefully knowing very well that everything is under control. and stop bothering urself with that buffer zone.
Have you ever wondered why they never fought over that rigged election, after all it was a kenyan election……. The kenyan government was so generous and intelligent as to provide the forgotten lot with a president that it was unnecessary to fight over botched election. Did i say a president who lives in Kile, dines at fairmont, protected by the GSU?
Kuza si kazi, Kazi ni kumlea mwanaaaa,,,,,
The problem with Somalia now is the people of Somalia themselves. If for the time they have lived abroad as refugees they still cant figure out how to make their country stand is a serious problem. For the Kenyan military it ought to do something to deter the islamists from any further cross border attacks, but in mind they are the only fighter of a country with nothing to loose. But for the nuns where abouts we need answers, can you kenyan.