SOMALI YOUTH FOR PEACE

Friday, November 23, 2012

KDF rubbishes Garissa harassment claims

Standard Digital

Kenya

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Updated Thursday, November 22 2012 at 09:31 GMT+3

By Cyrus Ombati
GARISSA, KENYA, Nov. 22 -
The Kenya Defence Forces have denied claims they harassed residents of Garissa and burnt property while hunting down assailants who had killed three soldiers.
Spokesman Col Cyrus Oguna said soldiers were not involved in the operation to hunt down the gang that had killed the three soldiers on November 19.

Col Oguna gave the chronology of events that led to the incident saying a communication gadget was recovered during the operation.
“We wish to point out that these accusations are malicious in nature and are lies crafted to taint the credibility of KDF,” said Oguna.
He said at about 12.30 pm five KDF soldiers were attacked by a group of unknown gunmen at a tyre repair point.
The five were part of a KDF contingent at the Garissa military camp on transit to Sector Two in Somalia for AMISOM duties.
The gunmen attacked the soldiers while they were in the process of unbolting the punctured tyre, shooting dead three KDF personnel. The other two could not fight back to avoid collateral damage since people had started scampering for safety following the gunshots, he said.
Oguna said upon the incident being reported at the camp, a platoon was dispatched to go and secure the vehicle and bodies of the fallen soldiers.
During this period information was received from the locals that the assailants had fled into a village called Bula Mzuri, necessitating a joint operation between Kenya police and KDF in hot pursuit of the fleeing criminals.
“A second platoon was dispatched to assist in that search; however it’s important to note that KDF surrounded the village while the police carried out the actual search,” said Oguna in a statement.
The search recovered a communication device and at 4.30 pm the exercise was called off and by 5.00 pm all KDF soldiers were back in camp.
“Following the killing of the soldiers and subsequently the hot pursuit of the gunmen mayhem broke out with locals engaging security agencies through violence, prompting the police to fire teargas to control the irate crowd.”
He added later in the evening information was received that a hotel, which is located far from the tyre repair point and the village where KDF had surrounded had been set ablaze and the fire had extended to other buildings.
The following day, Garissa military camp was fired at by unknown gunmen at about 9.30 am and military personnel did not return fire but moved to secure the camp and the airstrip.
On the same day a convoy heading to Wajir encountered a makeshift stones roadblock.
“Soldiers dismounted from the vehicles to clear stones off the road and it is at this point that unruly youth pelted them with stones forcing them to shoot in the air to disperse them and continue on their journey,” he said.
Oguna said the military has been deployed in Garissa and other locations in the country since independence.

“KDF was therefore not deployed in Garissa for they were already there. In the meantime the KDF is preparing a detailed report on the subject.”

Somalia: How Al Shabaab Is Losing the Battle, but Maybe Winning the War

By Abdi Aynte, 21 November 2012

analysis

The Somali militant group al-Shabaab is currently losing ferocious battles against Kenyan troops in Southern Somalia - part of an African Union peacekeeping mission. However, they are winning a strategic war back in Kenya; this is the battle for hearts and minds.
On Sunday, a blast likely carried out by al-Shabaab sleeper cells in Nairobi killed seven Kenyans on a minibus. Soon after, a machete-wielding mob of angry Kenyans descended on the capital's Eastleigh or "Little Mogadishu" neighborhood. They pillaged shops, burned cars and left dozens of people injured.
In Garissa, near the boarder with Somalia, the scenes were much uglier. After unknown assailants killed three Kenyan soldiers, the Kenyan Defense Force (KDF), using brute force, went on the rampage, setting the local market on fire. In doing so, they deprived the local community of their main source of living.
Members of the Kenyan parliament, who represent Garrisa constituencies, even allege that the KDF forces have raped some women and tortured many innocent people in the area following the pandemonium. Livid, and feeling profoundly insulted, they're now calling for an urgent investigation, and even suggesting that international help is needed for their protection.
Ethnic Somalis, irrespective of which passport they carry, have become a target for armed thugs across Kenya. Fear, guilt by association and a sense of 'otherness' have now enveloped the millions of Somalis living in the country, all of which is good news for al-Shabaab.
This hysteria is playing right into the militant's playbook. As the Kenyan columnist Macharia Gaitho has aptly observed, "lashing out indiscriminately at Somalis is as foolish as it is self-defeating. The mad bombers must be laughing themselves silly having succeeded in turning Kenyan against Kenyan."
Having lost the conventional war, the al-Qaeda-linked fighters are now on a mission to engage in a different kind of battle - one that requires no guns but plenty of highly manipulative techniques.
The Kenyan government appears woefully unprepared and frighteningly fragile. Just four months away from a national election that could see the country finally shed the memory its 2007/2008 post election violence, it can't afford to marginalize one of its largest minorities. Come March next year, the Somali vote could prove decisive. Unlike their war-weary cousins in Somalia, Somali-Kenyans are highly educated and invariably sophisticated. They won't accept being treated as second-class citizens.
As a frequent visitor to Kenya, I often notice how the country is institutionally pre-occupied with an intense competition over who succeeds President Mwai Kibaki. Rival tribes are jostling for power, which would've been fine if the security apparatus had the capacity to untangle itself from politics.
The events of the last few days could prove to be a turning point for Kenya. While the country has been able to decimate al-Shabaab fighters in southern Somalia, its shocking failure to protect its own ethnic Somalis (and Somali refugees) constitutes a defeat in the strategic war on hearts and minds. Al-Shabaab has in the past exploited the Somali people when they have felt most victimized. Already, the Shabaab's effective propaganda machine is hard at work, trying to turn a largely unsuspecting community into a hostile unit.
If Kenya fails to turn the tables against the Shabaab by fiercely protecting the Somali community from the mob justice that befell it, then it's hard to see how Kenya can ultimately win this developing war within.
Abdi Aynte is a journalist researcher.