Is Kenya About to Suffer Another Terrorist Attack?

[Onyango Oloo]

Onyango Oloo Opens His Big Mouth to Ask Some Loud Questions

Sometimes the real news is overshadowed by the screaming headlines.

Right now referendum talk is drowning out almost every other story.

In July, the United States issued a travel advisory for East Africa.

Earlier this evening, I went over to an official US government site and this is what I saw:

travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_923.html

Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520

This information is current as of today, Thu Oct 06 2005 08:38:58 GMT-0400 (EDT).
KENYA
July 01, 2005

This Travel Warning is being issued to remind American citizens to consider carefully the risks of travel to Kenya at this time due to ongoing safety and security concerns. This supersedes the Travel Warning of November 29, 2004.

The Department recommends that private American citizens in Kenya evaluate their personal security situation in light of continuing terrorist threats and the limited ability of the Kenyan authorities to detect and deter such acts. The U.S. Government continues to receive indications of terrorist threats in Kenya and elsewhere in eastern Africa aimed at U.S. and Western interests. Terrorist actions may include suicide operations, bombings, kidnappings, or attacks on civil aviation. U.S. citizens should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in public places including tourist sites and locations where Westerners are known to congregate, as well as commercial operations associated with U.S. or other Western interests.

American citizens in Kenya should remain vigilant, particularly in public places frequented by foreigners such as clubs, hotels, resorts, Western-oriented shopping centers, restaurants, and places of worship. Americans should also remain vigilant in residential areas, schools, and outdoor recreational events, and should avoid demonstrations and large crowds. In particular, there is a continuing threat against Westerners in the capital, Nairobi, and some locales in the coastal region. In addition to the terrorist threat, there are increasing incidents of criminal activity, including carjacking, robbery, and other violent crime, especially after dark.

This travel advisory was updated on September 23rd by a terror alert issued from the US State Department:

news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/24/content_3537930.htm

Recently the American ambassador to Nairobi clarified that their warning was in good faith;


allafrica.com/stories/200510040698.html


Perhaps in the spirit of intra-imperialist one upmanship, the French government has gone out of its way to say IT IS NOT imposing a travel ban on Kenya:

www.capitalfm.co.ke/html/capAllContent.asp?pcat=NEWS&cat=BREAKINGNEWS&sid=2117

But for whatever reason, promptly launched into a joint military exercise with the Kenyan Navy:

news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/05/content_3583337.htm

The thing about the United States and their alerts around terror- there are observers who find them rather self-serving, but even more chillingly, rather self-fulfilling leading conspiracy theorists the world over to posit Uncle Sam's hidden hands in the very terrorist plots.

Of course, one is often skating on rather thin ice, but as with the London bombings there are people who have built rather credible and persuasive cases pointing to insider jobs catering to certain political agendas sympathetic to the interests of George Bush and Co.

Tonight I do not even want to go there.

Rather I want to take the US terror alerts LITERALLY and SERIOUSLY to ask a few direct questions of our own government.

If we assume for a second that the world's most powerful state has the capacity and capability of detecting serious threats to their global and regional security; if we assume further that Al Qaeda having been fingered in Kenya TWICE- 1998 and 2002- are certainly not averse at making it a bloody hat trick; if we take for granted that those 3 or 4 East Africans (all with a Kenyan connection) listed among the 22 Most Wanted Terrorists may or may not have their associates and proteges in our own country; if we assume additionally that the Government of the Republic of Somaliland has uncovered and crushed a functioning terrorist cell in their unrecognized state- if we assume that the quality of the information the United States relied on in repeating their latest terror warning is from impeccable sources and that therefore there is a high likelihood that there will IN FACT BE AN ACTUAL TERRORIST ATTACK in either Nairobi, Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, Tanga, Dar es Salaam or Zanzibar within the NEXT TWO MONTHS,

HERE are my MASWALI to the Government of His Excellency President Mwai Kibaki:

1.When is NARC planning to tell the people of the Greater Nairobi Area and the Coast Province that dozens if not hundreds of innocent Wabara na Wapwani are about to snuffed out by a terrorist attack? 2.What information does the Government of Kenya itself have regarding these terror concerns? 3.What concrete steps are being taken to ensure that these threats if they exist are nipped in the bud? 4.To what extent is the Government taking steps to ensure that local Muslims will not be racially and relgiously profiled as the “usual suspects” in the eventuality that an attack does take place? 5. Is the Kenyan government cooperating with the Somaliland authorities in sharing information and coming up with a joint response? 6.What is the level of priority that the government has given these terrorist threats? 7.Is it possible that the Kenyan government KNOWS an attack is coming but is looking the other way HOPING that this attack can help it in deflecting public attention from their upcoming defeat at the referendum?

Why am I asking all these questions?

Well, for one, BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS DOING SO IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Two, I believe that PREVENTION is better than cure.

Three, I firmly believe that long term counter-terrorist strategies in Kenya must be built on a firm DEMOCRATIC foundation of transparency and accountability which means moving away from this dastardly attitude of Big Brother Serikali knows everything to National Security is every Kenyan's CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY. If we make that quantum shift, Kenyans will start feeling like PARTNERS in counter-terrorism policies rather THAN TARGETS OF INVASIVE SURVEILLANCE.

Why is it that every American (actually ANYONE) with internet access can go to a US government site the way I did and find updated information about these ongoing threats in KENYA and yet our own government will not even admit that such a threat is lurking?

I mean I have seen our government more anxious to PROVE to those oh ever so precious TOURIST darlings that they have NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT because more and more Americans and Westerners are visiting our country as watalii!

This is not only incredible- it is ridiculous!

Now I am NOT saying that our serikali should keep us permanently frightened about the Big Bad Wolf- all I am saying is that Kenyan lives are just as VALUABLE as those Western tourists who seem to be the only people our government is anxious to reassure. Yet who have been the PRIMARY VICTIMS of terrorism in Kenya? The ordinary wananchi! And we know that a couple of months ago, some of them were forced to go on strike to bring attention to the fact that they are still waiting to be assisted for the injuries they sustained over seven years ago!

As I write these lines, I have in mind a similar cavalier attitude from Thailand- whose government SUPPRESSED their advance warnings about the tsunami because they did not want to scare away the tourists! Can you imagine that? How many tourists are lolling on Thai beaches this year as compared to last year?

I have decided to BREAK the TABOO of discussing these “sensitive” Security Matters because I am really concerned that innocent Kenyans who might have been prepared better to thwart a terror attack may actually die because no one told them that their own Kenyan government may have known of the impending attack MONTHS IN ADVANCE!

Speaking of homegrown threats to national security, what is with the lightning commando raid on a presumed Mungiki hideout?

jukwaa.proboards58.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1128635025&page=1

Is there more to this story than meets the eye?

Is this the work of diligent intelligence and security sleuths moving fast to foreclose a looming tragedy or is it on the contrary, the NAK cabal moving to crush their would be Referendum Secret Weapon and storm troopers because the Mungiki leadership has REJECTED any sinister agendas to be used against the Orange team?

For over a year and a half, I have been one of those Kenyans who has been inviting Kenyans to entertain the possibility that there are TWO Mungikis-one a Gikuyu Nationalist Cultural and Religious NON-VIOLENT sect with massive following among the lumpenproletariat in some of the Central Kenyan towns and villages and a PSEUDO-Mungiki who are actually TRAINED INTERHAMWE like killers who may or may not have been recruited from the ORIGINAL Mungiki.

Where does the truth lie (ha ha ha for those who detect the obvious pun)?

Some people have fingered NAK insiders like Dr. Chris Murungaru as among the secret Godfathers of Mungiki- pointing to the fact that the known leaders of Mungiki- Maina Njenga, Ndura Waruinge et al- live very posh lifestyles in plain sight and have never really been arrested, tried and convicted despite graphic front page stories about the alleged activities of Mungiki.

Is this true or just bar-room gossip?

And we know that towards the end of the Moi dictatorship, there were allegations that the banned sect had been used by KANU to campaign for the Uhuru Project. High profile killings in Nakuru were linked to KANU politician David Manyara who was later acquitted after spending almost two years in police custody.

What is the truth to these persistent claims of Mungiki's ties to the Kenyan government of the day?

And what are we to say about the equally strident denials by actual Mungiki members of these links pointing instead to a nefarious government plot to crush them through a pincer movement of arrests, pseudo gangs, cooptation and demonization?

Will the real Mungiki please stand up?

Anyways here is a link to news stories stored on one website that has dedicated itself to covering the Mungiki movement:

www.cesnur.org/2004/mungiki.htm

Let me pen off here.

Onyango Oloo
Montreal

[miguna]

Oloo,

Good stuff, this one is.

According to Kamale's comrades at the NIS in Nairobi, our friend Uhuru was one of the original funders of Mungiki. All the current banana bigwigs know a thing or 2 about how it was conceived, funded and protected, firstly under Moi/KANU and then under Kibaki/NAK. As for Waruinge, he is supposed to have converted, trained and is now a preacher somewhere in the Eastlands...Dandora or Umoja or thereabouts.

Are you there Kamau? Can you give us more insight on these things, please...

[kamalet]

Miguna,

I am sure you can elicit a response from me without baiting me with the NSIS nonsense.

What is fashionable today is to use all sorts of excuses when trying to get out of trouble by associating oneself with the orange campaign! Interestingly though the orange campaign does not seem to mind being joined by these matyrs to be - it can only help the campaign. Take the case of Taib. A corruption enquiry commissioned by him reports about corruption that stops on the Mayor's doorstep. Calls are made for him to step down and Kombo to dissolve the council. A week later the man "defects" to the orange camp and is warmly welcomed and now he is talking of threats!

Mr. Njenga, he of Mungiki fame is busted and now claims that he is being harrassed for not joining the banana camp!

Perhaps Mungiki is something that people struggle to understand, and it becomes easy to pin labels on people who may not even have a linkage with Mungiki. When I was involved in the Uhuru campaign, the leading lights of that campaign were working with Njenga very closely and were actually funding the organisation. These people had the right connections in the Moi government which explained why they could get away with impunity when they committed crimes.

It is true that Njenga was working with the Orange camp, and the same criteria used in 2002 to work with him is not any different to the thinking today. Njenga controls a huge following of unemployed kikuyu youths who are given oaths of allegiance to him. Njenga fell out with Ndura Waruinge soon after the NARC govt took over since the protection they enjoyed had ceased. There was a glimmer of hope when Dave Mwangi - then PS for internal security held that office that they could survive. Dave Mwangi was a Kanu man from Moi's days, but his retention and promotion by the system is what leads the likes of Oloo to link Mungiki with Murungaru.

Today Uhuru's linkman with Mungiki is Dave Murathe, and the former Central MP linked with visits to the mansion in Kitengela. You can be sure the Banana men will be reminding Uhuru (and by extension the Orange camp) of this association with Mungiki.

The use of the GSU commandoes was premised on previous history of Mungiki being armed by the Moi government, and they were not sure if these thugs were armed.

Miguna,

This information is in the public domain, and you only need to have the right contacts!

[roughrider]

Quoting kamale: Take the case of Taib. A corruption enquiry commissioned by him reports about corruption that stops on the Mayor's doorstep. Calls are made for him to step down and Kombo to dissolve the council. A week later the man "defects" to the orange camp and is warmly welcomed and now he is talking of threats!

Your facts are wrong:

behind the scenes overtures were made by Taib long before the corruption report came out. In fact, even before the time some councilors were threatening to remove him and then things changed drastically. In any case if Taib were afraid of the corruption allegations he would have stuck with NAK because that is where he can get protection from prosecution might come. Do your homework, sir. And I will give you a free tip kamale so that you stop the wild goose chase. Coast politics particularly the Arab variety is largely controlled by three influential forces. 1) The wealthy Arabic families 2) Imams and other influential religious leaders and 3) Wealthy charities based in the Middle East. It is to these three forces that you should look to unravel the interesting regrouping of all major arabic politicians under the same camp.

My comment on Mungiki:

Mungiki is a dangerous sect. Nobody fully understands exactly what its objectives are or how they were formed. But there are things IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN that suggest this government has tolerated Mungiki even as it beheaded people in Nairobi and carried a reign of terror. In fact the likes of Koigi wa Wamwere and others have publicly snuffed herbs and danced with Mungiki, in full glare of cameras. The credible theory is that Mungiki was formed when Moi was in power by people who were getting frustrated with Moi’s continued stay. It was to be a militia for this disgruntled lot had Moi made it again but then he cahnged the equation when he selected young Uhuru to succeed him. How then were Mungiki to fight one of their own tribesmen? At this time it should be recalled that Njenga Karume and a slew Kikuyu politicians were crowding to KANU to buttress Uhuru's bid...

The blame for this sects continued existence however falls squarely at the feet of His Excellency the president because he swore an oath of allegiance to protect this country.

What is also clear is that Mungiki and other religio-cultural groupings will have their own courts under the Wako draft. The current case for instance would have to be referred to a religious Mungiki court.

I think it is grossly unfair to say “Mungiki is something people struggle to understand, and it becomes easy to pin labels on people who may not even have a linkage with Mungiki..” and then go ahead to link people – politicians – with the same sect without providing an iota of evidence.

Having said all this we need to conclude by saying that the Wako draft, in many ways will allow groups like Mungiki to flourish. It will not provide local communities with the power to provide economic and social safety nets for unemployed youth. By maintaining a winner takes all system it allows room for tribal resentment that we know only too well.

I am glad that Mungiki youth might opt to reject this Wako constitution because we can then collectively address the frustrations that force them tom form such retrogressive groups. If Mungiki youth vote against the Wako draft, they will be doing the good and responsible thing for a change.

[roughrider]

Kibaki is no longer governing this country too protect and develop it. No. He has abdicated that responsibility in favor of something else.

All his major decisions and those of his ministers are geared at one thing: Bribing Kenyans to pass the Wako draft.

Do you think Mwai has the time to bother about things like possibility of terrorist attack? Hiyo ni upumbavu. Mavi ya kuku nyinyi. Certainly not when he can spend time choosing the architectural designs for a new palace at state house…

Don’t you realize that when Wambui visits it becomes such a tiresome balancing act? What with Lucy’s sharp eyes and suspicious nose. We need a new palace as a matter of national importance. [It does not matter that there is hunger in Ukambani… they can ask Kalonzo and Ngilu to feed them]

Did I hear you mutter something about the Harambee house office for the president? Oloo, you are truly a ‘pumbavu’ Kenyan just like all the rest. Kibaki is a president who spends a lot of time at state house reading the Wako draft… he does not go to the office every morning

Mpumb... err sorry, Mtumishi Oloo, the key phrase in Kibaki's government is 'Misplaced Priorities'

[abdulmote]

OO,

On going through your post above, you left me with a big chunk of unfulfilled expectations this time! In saying that, I appreciate that you rightfully raised some very valid and pertinent questions which perhaps need to be asked. But at the same time, I feel as if you did not touch on some of the very obvious questions with regards to the causes of the aforementioned terrorism concern, and its distasteful attributes which have only led Kenyans to become its secondary ‘victims by association’, undesirably and unjustifiably so!

One thing that I am convinced at this stage regarding the said terrorism activities, alerts, etc, is that it is about time when we should as a matter of fact, learn to recognise its perpetual existence, and that terrorism as we know of may remain with us for a long time to come. Our wishful thinking that these alerts, alarms, or what have you are periodical, unnecessary and undesirable, should be a foregone conclusion in the minds of sober and objective analysts.

Why do I say so?

In answering this question, I find it hard to observe that many people tend to portray or imagine that the so called Muslim extremists’ terrorism, as almost some kind of freaky consequences, out of some freaky and perhaps completely irrational behaviour or response by those involved! But for me that is not to say I am justifying that behaviour or I am trying to give it some sort of legitimacy, on the contrary far from that.

In actual fact, what I am trying to observe here is the fact that the terrorism as we know of today, has some genuine root causes which have America and its foreign policy at the heart of it all. And without going into details of what I think those causes are, perhaps I can correctly imagine that we are all aware of those harmful and selfish policies which we have talked of so many times before.

The Palestinian/Israeli issue is one. Iraq and Afghanistan are some of the others. But more than that and on the whole, America’s entire foreign policy towards the Islamic Middle East is certainly one of the major causes of the established repulsion and animosity by the Muslims against it!

Why the indiscriminate and random terror against the innocent then?

The fact is the Muslim Umma is generally unhappy with America’s behaviour and its input towards the many miseries experienced by their Muslim ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ around the Islamic world.

The fact also is, that although not significant many will be ready to unleash indiscriminate terror upon the many innocent as we know of as a retaliatory gesture against ‘their enemy’, there will be others who will be ready to do just that, be they in their minority, justifiably or not, all in the name of fighting against such a powerful and imposing, selfish and ruthless nation as one is prepared to imagine.

Why are Kenyans finding themselves as even the worst victims than the ‘actual target’, and how should Kenyans try to distance themselves from such a reckless and sad exposure of unwarranted terror and at what costs to the nation?

What would it honestly take to try and bring sanity in this disturbed world considering what is going on that we may all live in relative as well as reasonable peace?

These and many more are some of the questions that need to be objectively and courageously answered, in order that we may address those pertinent and obvious issues as posed by the challenge discussed herein.

Having said all that, I must emphasis in my opinion that the war on terror cannot and will not be won without the satisfactory inclusion of Muslims to fight against it! But it follows that and with the same strength, in order to do just that, there will be a need to address, appropriately and specifically, all those issues of concern which have been serving as the causes of agitation for America’s repulsion in the Islamic world, and so encourage the necessary vigilance against the so called extremists, if they may still remain after that.

[Onyango Oloo]

I agree that I did not delve into the root causes of terrorism- simply because it was not my focus.

I wanted to raise a public debate about how accountable is our government in informing us about potential terrorist attacks and what can be done proactively and pre-emptively to forestall such tragedies...

i may repost a link to one of my earler essays later on in this thread...

by the way, ramadhan karim na poleni na saumu- usijifanye kobe ujifiche kama mhabesha ujibanze kwa mkahawa ya maetrea kula injera nani...

oo
mtl