OPINION: Opposition Leaders Erred in Asking for KDF Pull-Out from Somalia

This is the latest in a series of terrorist attacks that in Kenya that started with an attack in 1975 and have over the years included the bombing of the Starlight Nightclub and a bus station in Nairobi; and an attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi, which before the Garissa attack was viewed as the most atrocious.

In fact since 1975 Kenya has suffered over 250 terrorist attacks, with several thousand people killed, or wounded.

The terrorist attack in Garissa, like the one in Westgate in 2013; or the recent one in France; or the ones in London, Canada, Australia, or China … or like the madness we have witnessed in Syria; or the heinous murders in Nigeria; and the 911 attacks in America; are all driven by one intention only; to shock, cause fear and anxiety, and develop frustration and despair in the respective government’s capacity to protect their own people.

The people behind each attack leverage the internal realities of the respective countries, to pursue an agenda that knows no borders.

According to opposition leaders the reason the attacks on Kenyan soil happen is because Kenya Defense Forces are in Somalia.

The little fact that these attacks started before Kenyan troops went to Somalia notwithstanding.

My immediate reaction to this assertion; which the opposition leaders have kept repeating every time there is a loss of innocent Kenyan lives at the hands of these violent extremists; is to wonder which country Nigeria has deployed troops in, to ‘justify’ the loss of over 20,000 of its own citizens to an Al-Shabaab look-alike called Boko Haram.

Maybe the opposition should also tell us which country’s interests ISIS represents in their slaughter of innocents in Syria or which country does Al Qaeda represent?

The opposition is basically arguing that Al Shabaab have a legitimate reason to kill, maim and destroy Kenyans at will, because what they are actually doing is to fight against Kenya’s ‘invasion’ of Somalia.

It is telling the Kenyans who have lost loved ones that they have suffered this loss because Kenya ‘occupies’ Somalia, a position not even the Somalia government itself has ever expressed.

What are they telling us; that Al Shabaab is a special force of Somalia? What cheek!

So, when Kenya was attacked before we went to Somalia, what were those attacks about?

It was George W. Bush who, after the 911 attack, indicated that when faced with the madness of terrorism, there cannot be a middle ground.

You are either with us, or against us.

PRESIDENT'S SPEECH

Back to the President’s speech on the Garissa attack, when he said that we need to be honest and admit that the radicalisation that breeds terrorism does not happen in the bush, he put words to the thoughts of millions of Kenyan Christians around the country.

When Wajir North MP Ibrahim Saney recently admitted that the Somali community must take a share of the blame of these attacks because they have allowed terrorists to live and travel within their midst without informing the authorities, or when lawyer Ahmednassir Abdullahi linked the attacks to internal politics within the Somali community, he confirmed the authenticity of these words.

We must all ask hard questions even as we admit that some mad outsiders are pursuing the Muslim caliphate agenda in Kenya, and despite our genuinely acknowledgement that Islam is a peaceful religion.

My first question is; where are the socio-political leaders who represent the communities that these terrorists are operating from? Why are they silent… until after an attack happens?

Ngunjiri is a Director of Change Associates, a Political Think Tank