Anti-terror operation poised to reshape local politics

The Somali crisis has created “Little Mogadishus” – named after the Somali capital due to their large Somali population – existing over 13,000 kilometres apart.

One is the Cedar-Riverside, a neighbourhood in Minneapolis in Minnesota, United States. The state is home to at least 50,000 Somalis, one of the largest Somali communities in the Western world. The other is Nairobi’s Eastleigh suburb – home to many Kenyan Somalis.

The influx of Somali immigrants escaping the civil war after the fall of Mohamed Siad Bare in 1991 introduced in both Cedar-Riverside and Eastleigh a new trans-national terrorism of the Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group born in Somalia in 2006 and now linked to Al-Qaeda. There are unconfirmed claims in social media that two of the assailants at the Westgate mall were raised in Cedar-Riverside.

But the influx of Somali immigrants from Somalia into Eastleigh had its silver lining. Somali entrepreneurs invested over $1.5 billion in Eastleigh alone, transforming it into “the Dubai of Kenya” with business worth up to $100 million transacted each month, according to Hussein Guled, vice-chairman of the Eastleigh Business Association. And, as of September 2012, Eastleigh accounted for around 25 per cent of the defunct Nairobi City Council’s tax revenues.

Despite this, scholars decried what they saw as an emerging “war economy” in Eastleigh thriving on piracy off the Somali coast and trade in illegal arms and contraband.

However, Al-Shabaab’s real investment is its skilful harnessing of the flow of Somali refugees, illegal immigrants and jihadists from Somalia to turn Eastleigh into an epicentre of its radicalisation and terrorism enterprise.

As such, Eastleigh has borne the brunt of the 84 explosions that rocked the country between October 2011 and April 2014, killing 159 people and injuring 621 others.

Against this backdrop of spiralling insecurity and terrorism, the government rolled out the country’s largest security operation – codenamed Operation Usalama Watch – to weed out suspected terrorists, illegal immigrants and criminals.

But the operation has ignited a perfect storm over claims of ethnic marginalisation, collective criminalisation and profiling of ethnic Somalis in Eastleigh where the police have netted nearly 5,000 people and deported 82 others.

FOUR-FOLD ARGUMENT

The ensuing acrimonious debate is framed by a four-fold argument poised to shape politics on the road to 2017.

One is an ethnic argument that the Jubilee government is using the on-going anti-terrorist operation to collectively target and marginalise the Somali community.

But Kenya’s ethnic Somalis have come a long way since the 1980s when General Mahmoud Mohamed helped to foil the August 1, 1982 coup by the Air Force against President Daniel arap Moi.

In the post-March 2013 elections, Somalis have nearly 10 per cent of Cabinet positions in Kenya’s leanest Cabinet, ahead of the more populous Luhya, Luo and Kamba.

As Majority Leader in Parliament, Aden Duale, a Somali, is the third most powerful person in the land, while another Somali occupies the powerful docket of Foreign Affairs. And Somalis are opinion shapers in the Muslim constituency that now controls 32 per cent of Cabinet positions and a huge clout in Parliament.

In this context, the clarification by Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku that “the mop up of criminals is going on across the entire county of Nairobi and Mombasa, and will spread across the entire country to remove either illegal aliens or criminals in our country”, should calm the waters.

Second is the economic argument articulated by one Somali that their “(entrepreneurial) success has attracted heightened business rivalry with other parts of Nairobi ... and this may be the reason there is talk of illegal activities”.

As such, the anti-terror crackdown comes through as a design to destroy the Somali business based on the Eastleigh hub.

However, the exodus of non-Kenyan Somali investors has ripple effects on Kenyan Somalis although they are not the targets of the crackdown.

From late 2012, following alleged harassment by the police and public, Somali investors reportedly withdrew between Sh10 billion and Sh40 billion from their bank accounts to reinvest back home in Somalia, undermining Eastleigh’s real estate sector as landlords struggled to find other Kenyans able to afford the high rates of the apartments and shops Somalis had vacated.

Third is a faith argument that the anti-terrorist operation is a “collective criminalisation” of Muslim minorities.

Although the Muslim card has enabled the Kenyan Somali elite to mobilise disaffected non-Somali Muslims to swell their own ranks, more moderate Somalis and Muslim clergy are urging Kenyans to remain united as security forces continue with counter-terrorism.

Fourth is a human rights argument fuelled by a March 26 directive by Mr Lenku that “all refugees residing outside the designated refugee camps should return to their respective camps or face the law”. But complicating the crackdown, almost 90 per cent of the refugees residing in Kenya are from Somalia, which has brought in an ethnic slant to the refugee issue.

Moreover, the government is coming under sharp scrutiny by human rights lobbies and refugee agencies on how it is tackling the classic dilemma of balancing between national security and refugee rights in the fight against terrorism.

The clampdown is reviving the radical pan-Somali nationalism of the 1960s that triggered the Shifta War (1963-1967) and emboldening Al-Shabaab and Islamism.

Incipient pan-Somalism is also reshaping the Kenya-Somalia relations. Despite this, the government has vowed to continue with the operation to eliminate terrorism and restore security.

But ahead of the 2017 elections, the crackdown is radically changing the contours of power within the ranks of the ruling Jubilee. Duale’s threat to withdraw his support for the Jubilee government over the crackdown has affirmed him as the topmost Somali leader, and his United Republican Party as the likely party of choice for most Somalis.

But the meeting between President Uhuru Kenyatta and a delegation of Somali businessmen and 25 MPs marks a positive step towards healing in Eastleigh.

Prof Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute. [email protected]