State must renounce covert Islamophobic crusades

Police guard a church on April 2, 2014 following the killing of Abubakar Shariff, alias Makaburi. PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA

What you need to know:

  • Civic duty: The obligation of Muslims to the country is not lessened by the unfairness that surrounds them

The killing of Abubakar Shariff, alias Makaburi, by unknown assailants, is the latest occurrence in an incident-filled month that has revealed new levels of terrorism-induced insecurity.

The month also saw two attacks––in Likoni, Mombasa, and in Eastleigh, Nairobi––that killed more than 10 people and injured several others, including the baby boy, Satrine Osinya, in whose skull a terrorist’s bullet that killed his mother then lodged.

At the beginning of the month, there had been violence at the fateful Masjid Musa, invaded by police who claimed that a jihadist convention was underway there, a claim that was not seriously disputed. What has been disputed is the fate of Hemed Salim Hemed, arrested by police during the incident and missing since. Police claims that he escaped from their custody are denied by other sources.

Just before these events, police had intercepted a truck-load of explosives in Mombasa, claimed to be intended for use in what would have been a devastating terrorist attack in the coastal city.

While the police have pledged they will find the killers of Makaburi, it is safe to assume that the assailants may not be found because police are yet to find those who killed fellow Muslim clerics, Sheikh Aboud Rogo and Sheikh Ibrahim Omar, separately gunned down in the same fashion.

The leadership of the Muslim community holds the Kenyan state responsible for all these killings, a claim the government denies but is unable to convincingly deflect since it has not found the killers.

At the same time, the split among adherents of Islam, between those that accept the extremist teachings of Rogo and Makaburi and those who reject them in favour of moderation, has become more publicised as evidenced by the brutal knife-attack by suspected extremist Muslim youths on Sheikh Ali Bahero, a moderate, who preached at Masjid Rahma.

Like Rogo, with whom he collaborated, including as the producer of the hate-filled CDs of recordings of Rogo’s preaching, Makaburi openly supported the use of violence to achieve religious ends and had endorsed the Westgate attack, as an act of jihad.

The discovery of the Mombasa terrorist arsenal is a rare act of pre-emptive counter-terrorism work for which the police deserve commendation. However, if their excellent detective work, coupled with the barbarism in the Likoni church attack, served to place the authorities on higher moral ground against terrorists, this was immediately undermined by the violent killing of Makaburi and the aggressive message by Deputy President, William Ruto to kill terrorists on sight.

INSTANT DEATH

The killing of Makaburi, who could easily have been prosecuted for his public remarks about Westgate, justifies a widely felt grievance that the fate of Muslim preachers whose messages the State does not approve of is instant death rather than prosecution, as would be required in a rule-of-law regime. (READ: Duale threatens to ditch Jubilee over crackdown)

Although Ruto’s speech was supposed to be a display of strength to reassure a panicking public in the face of the recent goings on at the Coast, the unexplained killing of Makaburi that followed and which the Muslim community has blamed on the government, ends up looking like the implementation of Ruto’s orders to shoot terrorists on sight.

In all this, the monumental problem is that Makaburi who, like Rogo before him, openly and actively supported terrorism, was never brought to justice, but instead was killed in violent and lawless circumstances that are indistinguishable from the terrorism which he promoted.

In the fight against terrorism, there exists clear high moral ground which the government can occupy but has so far shunned. This would denude the terrorists of excuses that they invent to justify their actions, many of which are grievances around counter-terrorism efforts. The existing situation is unlikely to improve the image of government before the Muslim community.

The known facts leave little doubt that Makaburi and Rogo were hardly the image of upright citizens. However, this was not widely known when these men lived. The bad press they have received only came after their deaths, as if to explain why they were killed.

A more balanced portrayal of these men while they were alive would have been useful. When they lived, both men easily represented law enforcement efforts against them as Islamophobic high-handedness.

Accurate information about their methods would have challenged this false portrayal and would have undercut their influence, reducing the damage which they are accused of having caused.

A public communication strategy by law enforcement, which seeks to put out counter-balancing information, would be an invaluable asset in the fight against terrorism. Currently, the police do not bother to explain their side of the story or give information that would make the public understand why they act the way they do.

Secondly, a competent law enforcement strategy, not only against terrorism but also against the killers of the clerics, would bring much balance to the debate. That would, of course, exclude extra-judicial execution, reportedly sanctioned by the Deputy President, and which the Muslim community claims has been pursued against their clerics.

Thirdly, it is noted that Muslims are now standing up and speaking out against terrorism. They must continue to do so and should not waver because sometimes they feel hard done by because of unsupportive official conduct. They must remember that other sections of Kenyan society periodically receive capricious official treatment. Their civic duty to the country is not lessened by the unfairness that surrounds them.