Wall on Somalia border not a solution to insecurity

The adage “Good fences make good neighbours” is highlighted in Robert Frost’s Mending Wall contemplative poem.
It is based on an activity in which Frost goes out with his neighbour every spring to mend the stonewall dividing their properties. While Frost dislikes the wall and finds it is unnecessary, unfriendly and outdated, the other man sees it as an enhancer of good neighbourliness.
The neighbour believes that the two can have better relations if their boundaries are clearly marked. This, he reasons, would eliminate potential conflicts over ownership of properties like trees.
The neighbour feels that the fence would also define the territorial span of their responsibilities and behaviours.
Frost penned the poem to disagree with his neighbour. He saw the wall as shielding or keeping away something dangerous. He reasoned that this could become a source of curiosity and suspicion that could sour good relations.
This seems to be the situation Kenya and Somalia find themselves in. As a response to persistent terrorist attacks, the government has announced that it will build a border security wall to stop Al-Shabaab terrorists from sneaking into the country and killing more Kenyans as they did recently in Garissa.
Director of Immigration Services Gordon Kihalangwa believes a physical barrier would enable his department “to know who is entering Kenya and where they access the country from”.
The fence will run from Border Point 29 Kiunga, in Lamu County, to Border Point One, the tri-point junction of the Kenya-Somalia-Ethiopia border at River Dawa in Mandera County.
National Youth Service personnel under the security provided by the Kenya Defence Forces, the Rural Border Patrol Unit and other agencies will carry out the construction.
After it is completed, security and immigration officers will be stationed at strategic points to collect biometric data of all those entering Kenya. The points will also have police posts, Kenya Revenue Authority and other government offices.

The government has provided few details about the wall. The public has only been told that it will comprise a concrete barrier with listening posts, surveillance stations and CCTV cameras.

No information has been shared on its cost, the construction duration and the study that informed the decision to build it.

The wall is certainly going to be an enormous financial burden to Kenyans. A steel wall barrier that includes cameras, radar and motion detectors that runs on the 394-kilometre border between Israel and Egypt took three years to construct, at an estimated cost of $450 million (Sh40.95 billion).

ISRAELIS

Going by these numbers, and bearing in mind that the Israelis are providing technical advice and technology, it can be estimated that Kenya’s 682-kilometre border wall with Somalia will take not less than five years to construct at a cost of $779 million (Sh71 billion).

There are about 47 border walls and fences in the world today. Most of them are aimed at keeping out terrorists and illegal immigrants.

Africa has five border walls and fences: the one separating Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Melilla; the electric fence on the Botswana-Zimbabwe border; the “sand wall” made of trenches, barbed wire, and land mines on the Morocco and Western Sahara border; the metal, concrete and barbed wire barrier separating Egypt and the Gaza Strip; and the South Africa-Mozambique security fence.

Botswana built an electric fence on the rationale that it would prevent the transmission of cattle foot and mouth disease across its border with Zimbabwe. But the fence turned out to be a source of tension between the two countries since Zimbabwe argues that it was aimed at keeping its citizens out of Botswana.

It is surprising and awkward that Kenya is the sixth African country to build a border wall when the African Union is pursuing a policy of creating a borderless continent.

The government is rushing into building this wall without answering hard questions and drawing lessons from other countries.
For instance, South Africa has a fence on its northeast border to keep off Zimbabweans fleeing economic hardships.

The fence, erected a few hundred metres from the international border, has three lines of razor wire with an electric fence between. The voltage is calibrated from deadly to the uncomfortable electric tingle.

The 250-kilometre fence has echo stations placed at 10-kilometre intervals. The stations have brick and mortar buildings with sleeping quarters for 10 men, and computers that monitor and control the electricity range when the fence is switched on.

Sensors are used to monitor the precise locations where the fence has been tampered with. The areas between the echo stations are patrolled by detachments of seven soldiers who begin their work at sunset by setting up listening posts to locate smuggling routes and those illegally crossing the border.

It costs South Africa Sh325 million a year to maintain this border security system. This means if Kenya adopts a similar system, it will require at least Sh887 million a year to maintain the fence on the border with Somalia.

Despite installing this technology and deploying special forces, only about 15 per cent of undocumented migrants are usually caught. Patrolling the border with Zimbabwe is a major challenge since people smugglers have devised ways of locating and monitoring troops on patrol.

The US-Mexico border wall is one of the most sophisticated and probably the costliest fence in the world. It has cost the US taxpayers more than $50 billion (Sh4.5 trillion) to build and maintain it.

But it is infamous for dividing the ancestral lands of the Amerindians. There are also numerous cases of drugs and immigrants being smuggled across this border in tunnels, drones, catapults and other ingenious methods.

Just like Latin Americans have frequently penetrated the high-tech border to get into the US, Kenyan authorities will find it equally impossible to completely block illegal immigrants from going through, under, over or around the wall.

China built a wall that today serves as a tourist attraction in the same way the Berlin Wall does. Both walls were erected for security reasons and to control immigration.

Other famous border walls include the 118-kilometre Hadrian’s Wall built in 122 AD to separate the Romans from Barbarians (Scottish tribes).

FUTURE BOUNDARY

This wall is now a relic but there are chances it could form a future boundary between England and Scotland if the two separate.
Due to the close cultural, historical and economic ties between the two nations, such separation would not be symbolised by a border wall like the one Kenya is erecting.

As Kenya embarks on this ill-advised venture, it needs to critically consider a number of factors.

First, it should be aware that this border would dismember and deny Somalis who live on it their traditional and historical rights of visiting relatives on either side of the borderline.

Second, the project would contravene the AU’s objective of creating a borderless Africa. How would Kenya justify its credentials as an emerging Pan-Africanist leader if it built walls that undermined regional and continental integration?

Third, it will not be possible to completely block Somalis from crossing the border. Even if the fence is extended to cover part of its border with Ethiopia and in the Indian Ocean, Somalis determined to enter Kenya will go under, over, through, or around the wall.

Fourth, it is common knowledge that the government has a poor record of adopting and applying technology to secure the country. It is not clear how and where it has acquired the billions it is using to acquire the technology to “secure the border.”

Most likely, Parliament and the Auditor-General will ask questions on procurement and budgetary allocations for this project. Kenyans do not believe government officials will use the new technology properly, bearing in mind its incapability to use the current technology, like security cameras to prevent crime or catch criminals.

Fifth, the government is saying that the wall would demarcate the Kenya-Somalia border. This is not possible since it is not following the common practice of constructing such a wall, as has been pointed out in the case of the South Africa.

An expert has averred that demarcating a border requires two countries to work together. From media reports, it appears that the Uhuru Kenyatta government has neither consulted nor sought the co-operation of the Somalia government.

There is likely going to be serious border disputes if the wall is built exactly on the co-ordinates unilaterally determined by Kenya.

Already, there is mumbling from Somalia that the fence was being built on territory Kenya has encroached on. It is most likely that Somalia will raise legal objections to Kenya’s action; which could land the Kenya government in the International Court of Justice on another territorial claim charge.

Has the government considered that it stands to lose billions of shillings by erecting a wall that could be torn down if it is later found out that it had infringed on Somalia territory?

Sixth, the wall will not prevent Al-Shabaab militants from infiltrating the country and raining terror on Kenyans. Neither will it block the proliferation of small arms into the country nor prevent the illegal entry of immigrants into Kenya.

With the knowledge that the youth who massacred innocent students at Garissa University College were Kenyans, it is baffling that we are building a border fence to prevent future attacks on Kenyans by fellow citizens.

I do not see a border blocking internet communication from Somalia or preventing corrupt police, customs and immigration officials from facilitating movement of terrorists and weapons across the border. I honestly do not understand how this wall would stem radicalisation and recruitment of Kenyan youths into violent groups.

Seven, our emotional reaction has blinded us from vigorously interrogating the utility and ramifications of this wall. We seem to be overlooking the fact that it will harm movement of the people who depend on water and pasture across the border.

Somalis have been moving their animals across the borders for hundreds of years. Unless corridors and entry points are created that allow animals to move across the border when there is drought on one side, we should brave ourselves for severe pastoralist conflict over scarce pasture and water.

Only the government can tell us how it would guarantee the rights of these border populations to pasture and water for their animals and share the findings of the environmental impact assessment that evaluated the potential impacts of the wall on sensitive resources in the areas it is being constructed.

Eighth, it appears the construction of the wall is a rushed initiative that has not been thoroughly thought through. For instance, will its militarisation include electrifying the fence, planting landmines along the border, installing monitoring stations, deploying drones and using satellites to monitor movement of people?

CORRUPTION

How will the integrity of the technology be guaranteed in view of the fact that the borders are rife with high level of corruption? Since high government officials and police stationed on the borders have openly admitted that border personnel easily facilitate the entry of terrorists into the country, why is the government investing billions in a solution that is guaranteed to fail?

Ninth, our border insecurity is partly caused by a lack of a national security strategy. The draft national security policy calls for development of concrete and comprehensive strategies to deal with threats to Kenya’s national security.

Among the identified threats are terrorism, tribalism, corruption and criminal groups. Government agencies are expected to develop specific strategies to prevent and combat terrorism, de-ethnicise government, fight corruption and deal with criminal groups. So far none of these strategies has been designed.

This leads to a question: What is directing the current efforts including construction of a border wall? Any action carried out without a strategy is guaranteed to fail.

Any decision carried out without well-researched information would be futile. If the government has no strategies to deal with threats to Kenya’s security, it would be best advised to design them before engaging in reactive actions that are counter-productive.

A plan like the one to construct a wall on the border should be based on a cost-benefit analysis and undertaken within comprehensive solutions.

The decision should also be informed by realities like its impact on communities, maintenance cost, cooperation of Somalia Government and Kenya’s international and regional commitments. Obviously, the border fence will neither enhance our national security nor good neighbourliness.

Prof Ng’ulia is a security expert. [email protected]