{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Standard Digital News - Kenya : Cry yes, but the hard questions won’t go away about Garissa University attack

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000157868/cry-yes-but-the-hard-questions-won-t-go-away-about-garissa-university-attack

Standard Digital News - Kenya : Cry yes, but the hard questions won't go away about Garissa University attack

NAIROBI: Pain and anger claw at my heart when I think of the final moments our children had in the hands of terrorists with blood-soaked hands inside that hostel 2It could make you angrier but we must confront this excruciating pain and even cry about it. This includes the extermination of our security forces whose only 'crime' was to be assigned the task of guarding the premises because of earlier threats. I can hear the wailing of the young children, old enough to be my sons and daughters as their colleagues were plucked from their side and either knifed or shot.

I am angry and I have a right to be, even though common-sense tells me that is exactly the fear Al-Shabaab villains want to strike in our hearts, but I can hear their cries and as a parent my heart shakes.

I get confused when I imagine the agony of the parents who may have sold a cow, goat or even land to take their children to university, which we believe is the ticket to self-reliance and support for the extended family.

Families have been hit so hard and traumatised, and as one father said, he would rather keep his other children at home than send them far away for what is called further studies.

As we console the bereaved, we must also turn the mirror on ourselves and ask the hard questions. I have since learned from the flippant Jubilee kingpin called Adan Duale that his flight to Garissa that morning was a private arrangement.

As to why it took long to deploy the Recce squad, that elite commando wing of the General Service Unit, the answer of the Leader of Majority in Parliament, a man who has 24-hour access to the President, was that we should ask the Inspector General of Police. But picture this; Joseph Nkaissery, a retired army general, who boasted when he was nominated to the Cabinet to replace Joseph ole Lenku, that the security docket requires serious minds, arrived in Garissa to set up a 'command centre' while there was no flight at the time for the Recce Unit. According to Mr Duale, the task of planning the unit's transport was the preserve of Joseph Boinett, the Inspector General.

It does not matter that they eventually flew to Garissa. As we all know how long it would take four terrorists to kill 148 students, every minute mattered. And for the record, I am not of the opinion that the Kenya Defence Forces did nothing; we must be eternally grateful to them that they at least boxed the terrorists to a corner, which stopped them from herding more students into their death chamber.

My problem is that, as Mr Nkaissery and Mr Boinett were joined by Mr Duale and other 'friends' of government outside the university, the killings were going on. There was of course the dilemma of storming in before assessing if there were booby traps such as explosives planted that would bring everyone down. But the choices, my friends, were limited and could not be discussed for seven to eight hours!

It is sad that we do not have a security response manual - or we have it but we ignore it - that spells out what each person in the command chain is to do when a situation like this happens. About 40 years ago, Idi Amin held some Israeli hostages at Entebbe Airport. Israeli commandos played a trick by creating a "fake Amin" visiting the airport while they struck.

Mind you they had flown all the way from Israel, stopping I think, to refuel in Kenya. They rescued their citizens, except an old lady, Dora, who had been taken out to hospital. Forty years later, terrorists know you capture an Israeli citizen and they will be with you in a short while, and if you kill they shall avenge with time.

When Al-Shabaab strike, as we have seen in the last two years when we have lost hundreds of Kenyans to their brazen attacks, they do so knowing they won't come out alive.

That is why response must be swift and brutal.

‎Then our leaders make the situation worse when, after making all manner of threats, it takes them days to even stand by the bedside of the shell-shocked survivors or even shake the hands of parents wading through the mortuary slabs trying to identify the remains of their children, and imagine with all that stench and excruciating pictures rolling through the mind.

No, we cannot call ourselves a civilised country when we do not raise the level of our thinking and action above that of the terrorist and his thirst for blood. We cannot also change anything and strike fear in the terrorists when we keep doing the same thing when they strike, while expecting different results.

No, I refuse to believe either KDF or Recce Unit is best suited for the job of confronting Al-Shabaab in a hostage situation; all must be able to do so. For, guys, we are in a war situation and as they say, if a snake gets into your room, even before you see how long it is, which means allowing it to come all the way, my friend hit it on the head even if with a torch.

Now guys at the top, we do not need a wall between us and Somalia because Al-Shabaab are already with us.

So unless someone is eager to supply cement, barbed wire and iron bars, it is no use bolting the kraal after the rustlers have emptied it of our cows.

Rest in peace, sons and daughters of Kenya.

Standard Digital News - Kenya : Cry yes, but the hard questions won't go away about Garissa University attack
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000157868/cry-yes-but-the-hard-questions-won-t-go-away-about-garissa-university-attack‎

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