There are many similiarities in the terror strikes in Mumbai, Paris and Nairobi, says Kenya’s Director of the National Counter Terrorism Centre, the agency that coordinates intelligence and operations on terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab. In Mumbai for a ‘Megacities Security’ conference, Ambassador Martin Kimani, a former diplomat spoke to Suhasini Haidar, where he pointed out that the violence of Islamist groups is not driven by the religion, but their religious interpretation is driven by their desire for violence.
Q: This is the week we mark the Mumbai 26/11 attacks. Do you see similiarities between the 26/11 attacks and the Westgate mall attack of 2013 where 67 people died including the Al-Shabaab attackers?
A: When 26/11 happened in Mumbai, all of Kenya was shocked. Normally, the model of terror we saw for an attack like that prior to that required years to plan. It would have needed sophisticated weaponry, explosives, and skill. But Mumbai, and then Nairobi were hit by attacks carried out by a few men with Ak-47s, basic weaponry. Their aim was to hit the economic hubs of India and Africa, and to target tourism destinations in particular with several nationalities. They were both small groups of attackers with no expectation of survival. And in both cases, they were sending out messages even during the attack, on twitter, on the phone, they would kill and then contact people, clearly aware of what they were doing. For us, that magnified their impact. And I feel it is this magnification of their message that is their real goal. In that sense, they achieved their missions in Mumbai, Nairobi, and now in Paris.
Q: Another similiarity is that the attacks were planned in a neighbouring country, in the Westgate case, the attackers came from Somalia…
A: Yes, that’s right, we have been fighting Al-Shabaab across Sub Saharan Africa, and Kenya in particular has this cross-border terror problem, where we cannot control the groups that are able to come in because they are based in Somalia. In 2011, the African Union had formed a cross-border mission, and Kenyan forces have gone over the border to attack Al Shabaab camps. We have been able to weaken Al-Shabaab by crushing their financing that came from the port city of Kisimayo after we launched an operations working with Kenyan defence forces there.
Q: How much has Al-Shabaab benefitted from the turmoil in Libya, after the ouster and killing of Muammar Gaddhafi?
A: Well, we have often asked the question if the NATO operation in Libya really achieved what they had hoped. To begin with, while Gaddafi was a dictator, I think it is clear that the atrocities and mass killings that NATO had feared under his regime turned out not to be real. Kenya, as a part of an African Union delegation sought to stop the NATO bombings, but we were all shouted down as a “club of dictators”. The rest is history. What we (African Union) had been warning about, a vaccum in Libya helping these (jihadist) groups has unfortunately turned out to be true. They (western countries) must understand that stability is not a dirty word, and their actions in the Middle east and Africa against leaders have turned out to be very destabilizing and dangerous.
Q: You have been Kenya’s envoy to the United Nations as well, do you feel then that there is a difference, a double standard in the way they look at terror in different parts of the world.
A: (Laughs) If you ask an African about a global double standard, you know what our answer will be…..The problem is that the same level of attention is not given to the same problem in different parts of the world. If they are so concerned about the refugee crisis in Europe, why did they not pay attention when the same refugees were pouring in through the horn of Africa? We say, don’t focus on one foe that you have identified, terror is a borderless problem, focus on it across the world.
Q: Do you believe the problem is now Islamist terror, or as some have made the case…is it the religious idealogy that is the biggest problem?
A: No. It is not the religion that drives the violence. When it comes to groups like Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda or IS, it is the violence that drives the interpretation of the text. These people want to change the world through violent means, that is the problem . We saw during the Rwanadan genocide, certain (Hutu) leaders who carried out (Tutsi) killings in the name of Christianity. But it wasn’t the religion or text that told them to. At the NCTC we have looked closely at the texts as I am sure counter-terror organisations in India have, and found very little to justify the actions of these Islamist groups. Having said that, I do believe that all of us and Muslim leaders of authority, teachers, scholars, Imams, must reinforce this understanding as well. They need to use every forum they have to say that we are all opposed to what these groups believe in.
Q: How is the NCTC dealing with deradicalising youth, and preventing others from joining IS or Al-Shabaab?
A: One of our big initiatives has been an amnesty programme, because we understood that quite a number of our youth were taken to Somalia on a false pretext. Quite a number were told they were part of a great cause to fight for Muslims but when they joined they found there was nothing Islamic about the force that regularly rapes women, Muslim women, that is murderous, uses drugs. They never signed up for this. We decided last year to try and bring back these misguided youth who were now disillusioned, and we have managed to bring back a little over 800. When they come back, there is a thorough process of debriefing, training with skills, surveillance before they can go and rejoin their families and be reintegrated. You’ve got to give them a way out, for those who haven’t killed people, and feel trapped by their wrong choices.
Q: After the Paris attacks, it seems like the world has cast a fresh eye on tackling this terrorism. But is it possible to defeat such groups, that are willing to cause such mayhem in cities, and don’t need much by way of resources? Do we need to start training citizens on how to fight?
A: We have to start with defining non-negotiables. Our non-negotiable is that we maintain our constitutional model, which is a democratic model. So victory to us looks like a continuation of that democracy. This is very important, because it tells us how far we can go. It means we keep trying to do our best to stop attacks, just as Indian forces are doing or French forces are doing. These people might still manage to attack, but what they would really like to destroy our political values and allow their ideology and view of the world to entrench itself. Operationally, there is no country that has mastered how to fight this kind of terror, and stopped every attack launched against them. The only way to have done that was to have put in some kind of totalitarian regime that issues identitity cards, ensures it keeps an eye on every citizen, makes them report, but that is not an option. We have seen that when faced with attacks even established Western democracies haven’t hesitated to shut down certain civil liberties. Kenya is a young democracy, but if we took some of the measures taken in western Europe we would have been called authoritarian. If you are a liberal democracy or aspiring to be one, then the answer is a constant and continuous debate on how muscular the state needs to be to defend a democracy. What’s the minimum? The emergency in France, internet restrictions in the world may be necessary, but they must be constantly questions and debated.
Q: What about the role of the media in Kenya? In India, the media came under severe criticism over coverage of the attacks, we have seen that in other ‘live’ attacks around the world, that the media is targeted for putting coverage ahead of what is defined as ‘national security’, and there are more curbs on what can be reported in Kenya as well.
A: Yes, in Kenya too we have similar fault-lines between the media and government. Especially after the Westgate mall attack, when there was a front page photograph of one of the victims covered in blood. Now it was possible that the family of the victim learned about it through that photograph and headlines, and this generated a lot of anger against the media. I do understand that the responsibilities of the media and the responsibilities of security forces are different. But this frequently leads to a breakdown of relations between the two, especially in a live situation. What’s needed is a continuous conversation between government and media, more of our own story, and the facts we have established. The other dialogue the government needs is with human rights agencies. The way HR groups have been built, they focus on holding the government to account. But about human rights with groups that are non-state but to aspire to governing in some way, whose entire model of operation is based on abusing human rights? Our HR colleagues, especially in the global south, where the state is not as ubiquitous as perhaps in the west, must look closer at this. Media coverage will say “violence is terrible” but then look to HR groups to find reasons why it is the state’s fault, or state’s inefficiency. I think all those conversations should shift.
