Full compensation of bomb victims difficult, says US envoy

Outgoing US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger has admitted that his country could never adequately compensate victims of the 1998 bombing.

Mr Ranneberger said that the US has done a lot to help victims of the bombings in Nairobi and Kikambala but “but in a situation like that, you can never do enough to be quite frank about it".

Mr Ranneberger, who fielded questions with the British envoy Rob Macaire over the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden Monday said that his death would “render justice” to all who suffered in attacks.

“Today is a great day for justice. It has been rendered to Osama bin Laden. This is a great time to reflect on what Al-Qaeda has done over the years under the leadership of Bin Laden.”

He acknowledged that the impact of Al-Qaeda was a “tragedy that we shared in common".

British High commissioner Mr Macaire on his part said the death of bin Laden should be a success to be reckoned. “I think we should have a wild celebration about his death because it brings to an end a long and painful journey.”

Below is their response to questions from journalists:

Q Mr Ranneberger, some of the victims of the 1998 bombing in Nairobi say that while killing of Osama was important, they still feel the American government has not compensated them enough. Are we going to see any further compensation to those who died or got injured here in Nairobi?

I said earlier, I don’t think justice in closure can ever be fully done in a situation like that. But I would say that the US provided over $40 million in assistance to the victims of that bombing. That included medical care, reconstruction of buildings and scholarships for students. We have some fact sheet on that which is available through the embassy but with enormous amount of detailed support. So, I would say we tried to be responsive to the victims. But in a situation like that, you can never do enough, to be quite frank about it. And I think the victims deserve all the respect and assistance that they can possibly get.

Q In an event that Osama Bin Laden would have been captured alive, where would he have been tried?

Well, I am not going to speculate on that because he was not captured alive. Let’s just know that he’s no more.

Q Another Al-Qaeda operative by the name Saleh Ali Nabhan was killed by US forces in Somalia in September 2009. However, his family claims that they have never received his body to bury. Where is his body?

He was also buried at sea. Basically, the United States and President Obama, President Bush before him and even Clinton before them have made one thing clear: That we will go anywhere, and do anything possible to track down terrorists.

And we will render justice and so, there are a number of actions we have taken to get terrorists around the world including Somalia and we will continue to do all that we need to do to fight the terrorist threat on the international scene.

Q Is this a new policy to bury killed terrorist suspects at sea?

No, there is no such policy. Everything we do is based on the situation at hand.

To Rob Macaire:

Q Mr Macaire, Osama never personally bombed any of these places even though he masterminded them. Now that he’s dead, how is the fight against terrorism going to be affected?

I think there are still many terrorists, many people who were misled by ideologies that lead them astray .But I do think that the world has made a lot of progress over the years in trying to bring up an understanding between truth and falsehood and trying to deal with the false notions that stirred up people to commit some of those violent acts that killed many innocent women and children.

Q Speaking of ideologies, one of the most common is that of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The notion is that the West is biased and favours Israel against Palestine. Would this war against terrorism be fought over if you approached the conflict without favouring any side?

If you look at efforts that governments including that of Britain have made to try to bring peace in the Middle East, they have been actually relentless over the years. It is a tragic situation that the conflict still exists in the Middle East and the peace process has lived long. It has got both optimistic and pessimistic times but it is fundamentally mistaken to attribute the source of violence and terrorism that we have seen from Osama Bin Laden and the people linked to him to a political process like that.

If you look at what Osama Bin Laden himself was preaching and writing about in the early days when he was starting his ideological campaigns, it wasn’t even about the Israeli-Palestine situation. I think it is very easy to find excuses to build up all sorts of conflicts and that is what extremists do.

If any us has given sympathy to that because everyone is able to see that the conflict in the Middle East ended and peace brought to Israel and Palestine. That is not something that is a justifiable course for terrorism.

Q What is this that brought forth Al-Qaeda that has been difficult to finish?

There is a lot that has been written about this by governments, academics, investigative journalists and there are a number of reasons given to that. In deed there have been ideological reasons, geopolitical and also economic and social causes that have been underlying causes that led to this extremism.

Ultimately, the actual thing that takes people into committing murder for reasons like the terrorists like the Al-Qaeda is that  a small number of people who have effectively distorted religious and ideological ideas to create the perception of a just conflict when in fact all religions teach that killing innocent people for a political course in never justifiable.

Q Why are we seeing the rise in number of extremist leaders all over the world including the West?

I don’t think that’s right, what we are seeing is that a lot more thought is going into debates and discussions on religious issues that didn’t happen before. In the UK, there have been a lot of inter-religious discussions about how religion and religious views are separate from ideological and extremist violent views.

Muslim communities in the UK have distanced themselves very severely from the extremists. I would say that the high water mark for that kind of extremism has passed. The world is coming to terms with how destructive extremism is and how we need to look at constructive ideas.

Q Al-Qaeda has continued to recruit members from the West despite the improvement of security after the 9/11 attacks. What would you attribute this to?

Well, extremism still exists and we live in a world which is vulnerable to terrorism because we have a small number of people who can still commit very serious crimes. I think the world needs to do more on security and action to deal with these criminal acts. We also need to have a serious debate about issues and the identity questions about why people become radicalised. That is what we have been seeing in my country and around the world as people come to talk about these issues.

Q Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and that shows that there could be more of his followers still hiding there. Would you advise your citizens to visit Pakistan?

We have a large number of British citizens who are also Pakistanis. So there is a huge British Pakistani community that could of course travel between the two countries. Our travel advice is quite strict on Pakistan affecting this good situation between our countries. But currently there are not many British citizens traveling to Pakistan.

Q Is there any other way of fighting terrorism apart from bombarding terrorists?

Of course fighting terrorism consists of dealing with the underlying causes and grievances. It consists of education, dealing with some of the socio-economic causes but also proper human-rights compliant law enforcement and intelligence action. That is what we need to have to fight terrorism effectively.