{UAH} Pojim/WBK: KENYA FALLS INTO SECURITY CRISIS | The Star

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/kenya-falls-security-crisis

KENYA FALLS INTO SECURITY CRISIS

This was easily the worst week for the Jubilee administration so far in terms of credibility and image. The climate of public opinion over insecurity and a disjointed government response shifted palpably, even without an opinion poll, and when the polls are finally in, as they must be soon, the regime will take a terrible drubbing even from its strongholds.

In matters off national security and defence, even more so than in politics, perception and image are everything. An electorate can live with a dysfunctional administration, for instance the Grand Coalition regime and all its near-incessant nusu mkate squabbling, but the impression that a regime is either hapless in the face of rampant insecurity or congenitally incompetent, is the stuff of which secessionisms and other extreme self-defensive measures are made of.

In the week beginning November 22, Kenyans got every impression and perception that the Jubilee administration's national security and defence systems and procedures are in no state of preparedness to offer them the most fundamental security guarantees and assurances they have received from all previous regimes, the British colonialists included.

Three iconic insecurity events in one week

The Mandera bus massacre on November 22 in which 28 perished, the extrajudicial execution by police in the capital city of two upcountry undergraduates who were up to nothing more sinister than following up on their education loans and escorting a colleague who did not know his way around Nairobi to overnight accommodations, the dumping of the bodies at the City Mortuary at 1am, and the disappearance of senior deputy commissioner of police Francis Okonya after inter-office confrontations with the nation's two top cops, all contributed to the atmosphere of a crashing national security establishment.

Millions of parents put themselves mentally in the shoes of the parents of the slain undergraduates and quietly shuddered. Millions of Kenyans, parents and not, recoiled when they wondered whether there really is no paperwork involved in the dumping of corpses riddled with police bullets in the capital city's biggest mortuary. Does this happen daily? Does the staff of the City Mortuary really ask no question of police officers, their guns still smoking, that bring bodies shredded by bullets into the facility around the clock, include in the very wee hours? Is there really no documentation, no capturing of the officers' names, ranks and serial numbers, particularly if the corpses allegedly bear no identification documents?

Memo to Safaricom, roll out a CCTV system ASAP at the City Mortuary and as many other morgues in urban Kenya as is practicable, including in the reception (or corpse-dumping-by-cops) areas.

In the meantime, how did the killer cops account for the use of the bullets issued to them that night the following morning at their police station(s)? Are there documentary records for the discharge of firearms kept by the Kenya Police Service anymore?

The implications of the undergraduates' slaying, including questions such as how did Kenya and its main city get to this pretty pass and when, are horrendous. Not even the colonial bureaucracy at the height of the Mau Mau insurgency, a full-fledged civil war complete with Royal Air Force bombings, displacements of populations into concentration camp villages and serial hangings, was so remiss in records keeping, particularly of civilian fatalities.

The Mandera Massacre was by no means the largest terror event of the last 18 months in terms of death toll and was smaller by far than the Westgate Mall horror and the Lamu massacres of mid-year. It beat only the Kapedo bandit slaughter of 21, of whom 19 were Administration Police officers, at the end of October. However, the bus massacre's effect was magnified many times by the government's slow response. President Uhuru Kenyatta's absence away in Abu Dhabi and Deputy President William Ruto's response in which he announced a retaliatory death toll that was the same figure as the reported number of al Shabaab marauders – 100 – were a public relations disaster of the first order.

The President's silence, including on his social media accounts of Facebook and Twitter, which were last updated on the Friday as he jetted out of JKIA to the UAE, and Ruto's too-tough-to-be-convincing address to the nation delivered from the Harambee House, the Office of the President, got everybody nervous, including the Jubilee faithful. If they had access to a crystal ball, the Digital Duo of the campaign trail would have been horrified by their Presidency's completely flatfooted response to the Mandera Massacre.

Mandera's benign neglect continues

The President and his Deputy were faulted on two factors basically by a thoroughly terrified populace. First of all, Uhuru was seen to react fast and furiously in the case of the Westgate, Lamu and Kapedo killings, leading massive multiagency responses and humanitarian interventions. In the face of Westgate, he actually cancelled his maiden United Nations Security Council address; while Lamu was still smouldering, he dispatched Ruto, a number of Cabinet ministers and security chiefs to the scene. In Kapedo, he flew to the scene in an Air Force helicopter and was accompanied by the police, military and intelligence top brass in their own choppers, a show of responsive strength and concern that Mandera has yet to see.

On all three occasions, he addressed the traumatised communities and the nation. In Kapedo, he gave a 24-hour ultimatum for the return of stolen AP uniforms, guns and ammunition and immediately deployed the KDF.

In the case of Mandera, a part of the Northeastern region that has for five decades decried what it calls its neglect by the government in Nairobi, the President was not only not heard from but the Deputy President responded in a fashion that gave many cause for pause. Ruto converted the government's response into a death toll scorecard, contriving to show that the KDF had killed many more than al Shabaab, citing a figure of 100, the same number as that of the attackers. KDF sought to back up the DP's assertions with a couple of colour photographs, one of them an aerial shot of a bombed militants' encampment inside Somalia and the other of the broken bodies of terrorists in the back of a truck.

Not only were the DP's remarks instantly disbelieved but there was quiet concern in media and diplomatic circles about the enthusiasm with which he, a man with an ongoing crimes against humanity case at the International Criminal Court, sought to announce a three-figure death toll in an unseemly shouting match with al Shabaab, which claimed responsibility for the Mandera massacre. Even if the Ruto and KDF assertions are true there remains the small matter of who actually got bombed, the bus attackers or complete innocents?

Failed security and communications strategies

The third most iconic insecurity event of the week that added to the atmosphere of mounting dread even among the ruling coalition's most ardent supporters was the disappearance of top cop Okonya, reportedly after two consecutive altercations the same morning, first with Deputy Inspector General of Police Grace Grace Kaindi and then Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo. Okonya was apparently objecting to finding the lock on his office at Vigilance House, Police Headquarters, changed and the space allocated to another officer when he stormed out of the IG's offices at Jogoo House and drove straight to the US Embassy in the diplomatic district of Muthaiga. Thereafter he vanished and all his digital communications have been offline.

There was panic and turmoil among top police officers at Okonya's disappearance and no comment whatever from the US Embassy. Media and diplomatic sources speculated that Okonya, one of the top investigators of the 2007-08 post-election violence, may be a prospective ICC witness on the side of the floundering prosecution. In underworld circles, however, it was rumoured that his disappearance had more to do with the ongoing extradition to the US of the Akasha brothers and two others on international drug-smuggling charges than his famed detailed dossiers on the PEV, which he long ago shared with other top cops.

Whatever the truth about Okonya's disappearance, the government has mishandled the issue completely in terms of PR and information. The petrified silence from both Vigilance House and Jogoo House speaks inscrutable volumes.

Failures of security have clearly been compounded by failures to keep the official narrative uninterrupted, credible, transparent and persuasive. A situation whereby both security and communications strategies have gone haywire does not generate public confidence. It constitutes a national security crisis of proportions that can only invite the most unforeseen backlashes.

Something has to give in this gruesome scenario – but what and when?

KENYA FALLS INTO SECURITY CRISIS | The Star

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/kenya-falls-security-crisis

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