By WardheerNews

On Thursday, April 2^nd, 2015, a cowardly and deliberately instigated incident that shocked the world happened in Garissa town, in northern Kenya. Located in a semi-arid desert, Garissa is the headquarter of Garissa County. At about 5:00 AM, at the campus of Garissa University, a branch of Moi University in Eldoret in western Kenya, Christian and Muslim students of the university were performing their morning prayers. Strange as it was, hell broke loose when several heavily-armed men from the radical Al Shabab terror group started shooting indiscriminately at the student prayer gatherings.

Al Shabab, a religious group fighting in Somalia, is known to follow a strict version of Islam. Since the time of the attack corresponded to the Fajar or Dawn Muslim prayer, one could doubt if these attackers who claimed to profess the Islamic faith, ever performed the obligatory Dawn prayer. Whatever their version of Islam is, the time the attackers blasted through the gates of this educational institution of higher learning, ought to have been a time for meditation and contemplation, and an hour of solace and peace.

The famished young men who ambushed Garissa University were spotted around the premises of the university days before the dreaded attack, perhaps taking high-level reconnaissance of the entire university. They were well-armed with light weapons such as AK 47; add that to the pouches of bullets that would last for well over 24-hours even though some students narrated how the attackers ran out of ammunition after having done much damage then resorting to using knives to slaughter their young victims. The attackers had tossable hand grenades; some wore suicide belts. These young suicide bombers were well-organized, had knowledge of the terrain and understood the local Kiswahili dialect spoken in Kenya’s educational institutions.

Even before the sun rose over the horizon on that particular day, the unsuspecting gunmen shot their way through the university security gate killing the guards instantly. Minutes later, there was a complete pandemonium that sent over 800 students scampering for safety. By the time the operation was over, medics reported the deaths of 147 aspiring students including the security guards, three policemen and three soldiers.

Sensing the severity of the bloody Garissa incident, President Kenyatta mobilized his top national security advisors and placed the entire nation on hight alert. In neighboring Uganda, the same measures were adapted. Both nations have in the past suffered attacks by al-Shabab and have peacekeeping troops under the mandate of the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Al-Shabab claims they carried out spate of attacks inside Kenya and Uganda to force these two African nations to withdraw their troops from Somali soil. However, al-Shabab has been adamant to harm neighboring Ethiopia that has been embroiled in Somali affairs for a long time and has a sizable number of troops inside Somalia.

In the aftermath of the long ordeal that lasted over twenty-four hours, student brain fragments scattered on the floors, human blood flowed profusely from injured body parts, corpses lay unattended and the world media exploded with breaking news.

Garissa, founded as a settlement in 1936 and named after an elderly Pokomo farmer whose real name was Karisa, captured the world attention. World leaders including Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Barak Obama, President of the U.S. and Pope Francis of the Catholic Church, condemned in the strongest terms, the inhuman massacre of innocent students at Garissa University.

Kenya, a nation stained by pathetic corruption, has a strong military presence in southern Somalia-an act seen by Al-Shabab as an outright violation of Somali sovereignty. Kenya officials were criticized for downplaying eminent attacks from Al Shabab, at the expense of tourism industry. The violence has impacted Kenya’s tourism industry which contributes more than $1 billion in revenue, only second to Tea industry, the largest revenue generating sector.

Recently, Western countries, particularly Kenya’s former colony Britain, issued travel warnings for its citizens. This angered President Uhuru who recently told visiting Kenyans from the Diaspora “I have not heard the British issue travel advisories against Paris where terrorists attacked the headquarters of a satirical magazine in January. I have not heard the British issue travel advisories against other European capitals”.

Rather than sending the paramilitary police force known as General Service Unit (GSU) trained to tackle terrorists attacks, the two highest figures responsible for Kenya’s security-two formidable Josephs-Joseph Nkaissery, Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government, and Joseph Boinnet, Inspector General of Kenya Police, hopped on a helicopter from Nairobi to Garissa without a tangible plan and strategy to safe lives and secure the university. Shockingly, the two high profile securiy leaders convened meetings that took several hours in Garissa while the attackers continued with their slaughter unobstructed. Mockingly, there was shortage of helicopters to ferry the GSU commandos to Garissa. There was lack total of coordination, collaboration and cooperation in the entire rescue operation.

Garissa and its sister towns, Wajir and Mandera, have been in the spotlight since Kenya proclaimed independence from England in 1963. Since then, the spate of repression and massacres committed against innocent civilians by the state has not been resolved.

Leaders in Nairobi have flouted the construction of a thick, wide, and towering 682km wall that will snake along Kenya-Somalia porous border. The massive construction of this wall is expected to be completed before the end of this year. If building walls have any significance, we could borrow a leaf from the past. History is replete with the massive construction of such walls in the past. The world has seen the construction of the winding Great Wall of China that was intended to ward off the marauding Mongols, the Hadrian Wall that traversed the Roman province of Brittania from coast to coast and was meant to protect the Romans from the Scotts, and the Berlin Wall that divided East and West Germany. The money intended for this projected wall could instead be used in enhancing security, increase surveillance, and improve the living conditions of the people of the northern regions.

The West Gate Mall attack exposed the vulnerability and lack of training of Kenya security force. Thus, Kenya needs comprehensive security strategies to improve the coordination of security apparatus and intelligence gathering, the lack of which has undermined its ability to deal with the threat posed by militants such the one we witnessed in Garissa.

It beats logic that the president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, has not visited Garissa until now. The former North Eastern Province (NEP) has always been in a mess politically, socially, and economically. The people of this region have been marginalized for a long time. Poor infrastructure, declining education, poverty, lawlessness, and a plethora of ills have been afflicting this region for over half a century. If there is to be peace and stability in this region, it’s time to reclaim it and bring an everlasting peace.

Acts of Al-Shabab terror like the one in Garissa, cannot be dealt with mere military response, a construction of a wall that separates and restricts the local nomad inhabitants or the repatriation of refugees, many whom fled the very same group that is waging attacks in Kenya. The underlying causes of this phenomenon should be sufficiently addressed like systemic government corruption, youth alienation, Muslim marginalization and lack of economic opportunities. Only then will the terrorists be deprived the grounds for further recruitment of unemployed and disenfranchised youth.

WardheerNews
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WardheerNews Media Group
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