KDF has silenced the doubters and done the continent proud in Somalia

Sunday
October 14,  2012

Opinion

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By MURITHI MUTIGA
Posted  Saturday, October 13  2012 at  16:28

In Summary

• The success of the Kenyans, Ugandans, Burundians and their Somali allies given all this history must rank as one of the most important feats by any African military since independence.
• The KDF brass must feel a sense of vindication when they read stories such as one which appeared in the Washington Post on Friday, stating that the US was looking to the African Union model in Somalia to tackle the crisis in Mali.
• Obama’s chief bureaucrat on African affairs Johnnie Carson was quoted as saying that whatever is done in Mali must be “well planned, well organised and well financed”, something he said was true of the Somalia mission.

For understandable reasons, American media outlets were the most vocal sceptics and doubters when the Kenya Defence Forces moved into Somalia one year ago this week.

The world’s most powerful military, after all, had a very unhappy experience when they went in there in the early 1990s.

The disaster, which was capped by the Black Hawk Down episode, had lasting consequences on American foreign policy under Bill Clinton.

Mr Clinton and his top officials thoroughly soured on the concept of humanitarian intervention. One year after the debacle in Mogadishu, the genocide began in Rwanda.

Clinton was strongly determined not to intervene, even banning his top officials from using the word “genocide” to refer to the calamity.

The disaster

The disaster in Somalia meant that Clinton was never going to lead an international effort to save a country which was of little geostrategic importance to the US.

At the end of it, one million people were slaughtered, a disaster that could arguably have been averted if it wasn’t for the Somalia debacle.

The success of the Kenyans, Ugandans, Burundians and their Somali allies given all this history must rank as one of the most important feats by any African military since independence.

The KDF brass must feel a sense of vindication when they read stories such as one which appeared in the Washington Post on Friday, stating that the US was looking to the African Union model in Somalia to tackle the crisis in Mali.

Obama’s chief bureaucrat on African affairs Johnnie Carson was quoted as saying that whatever is done in Mali must be “well planned, well organised and well financed”, something he said was true of the Somalia mission.

The report strongly magnified the role of the US in backing the AU in Somalia, but then media houses everywhere put on the cloak of patriotism when reporting on military affairs. We should explore what broader lessons society can learn from the success of the KDF.

I spent a few days with the soldiers at their forward operating base in Afmadhow in June and came away with great admiration for these troops. It’s hard to explain what a harsh environment they have been living in for the last few months.

When we arrived near some knot of acacia trees where the top officers at the front were gathered, one Major welcomed us with a pale grey liquid I assumed to be coconut juice.

“Greetings! Have some Afmadhow water! It is straight from the borehole and has a lot of minerals!” We thought he was joking and you could see the wince on the journalists’ faces when they realised this was actually the water soldiers drank at the front.

Bed was a hole in the ground resembling a shallow grave known as a handaki to avoid Shabaab missiles at night.

Remain warm

What happens when it rains? I asked Major Emmanuel Kaliakamur. Simple, don’t turn and the sleeping bag will remain warm. If you turn you will get very wet.

(Sleep, though, was not easy to come by after listening to two lieutenants merrily discussing how a long, black mamba had got into a fellow soldiers’ sleeping bag at night to enjoy his body warmth, then slithered out in the morning).

Yet the most impressive thing about the military, especially at the level below Generals, is that it is our one, genuine, multi-ethnic institution, a great example of how Kenyans from all over the country can work together for a common cause.

Maybe, then, one option to tackle our extreme tribalism is to restore the National Youth Service and make it compulsory for everyone when they leave high school to try and instil a sense of patriotism?