Why the Kenya-Somalia border wall is a bad idea

A couple of weeks ago, Kenya started building a 684-kilometre long wall.

The wall, which will consist of a barrier of fences, ditches and observation posts, will span the Kenya-Somalia border from the Coast to Mandera.

The government has talked about building such a ‘separation barrier’ for a while, but the project was given new impetus by the Garissa terrorist attack in early April in which 148 people lost their lives. The aim: to keep Al Shabaab terrorists and illegal migrants from crossing between the two countries.

The wall is an expensive undertaking to build and then maintain and man. It is also a bad idea.

First, history has shown us that determined people can get around, over or under such walls. For example, it is estimated that around 5,000 East Germans crossed the 12 foot high and 4 foot wide Berlin Wall between the early 1960s and 1989 when it was finally pulled down.

The Kenya-Somali wall will not be as high, thick, or well guarded, and terrorists are determined people who tend to have resources and connections. They will be able to get through, over, under or around the wall.

Indeed, they will be able to choose whether to bribe border guards, or tunnel under the wall, fly over it, sail around it and so the options go on and on. In short, the wall will not keep Somali Al Shabaab out of Kenya.

The wall will, however, make it much more difficult for ordinary people to cross the border. Pastoralists will no longer be able to move freely with their camels, relatives will find it more difficult to visit each other, and, in the instance of heightened insecurity in Somalia, those affected will face new obstacles (quite literally) in seeking refuge.

The latter will be particularly problematic if the government goes ahead with a pronounced commitment to quickly relocate hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees from Dadaab camp, which is another terrible idea, but one that I can discuss at another time.

The wall will quite literally separate people. This has serious implications for livelihoods, family connections, and humanitarian efforts, but also for how societies do, or do not interact.

Again, history – from apartheid South Africa to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Protestant-Catholic relations in northern Ireland — offers an important lesson: separation does not lead to better and more cohesive inter-communal relations, but tends to foster resentment, negative stereotypes, and hatred. Things that are unlikely to help improve Kenya-Somali relations in the medium to long run.

Third, the wall contributes to a sense that the problem is over there and that the solution is security. However, evidence suggests that the majority of terrorists involved in recent attacks have been Kenyan and have spent little, if any time, in Somalia. The relevant ‘other’ therefore does not lie across a state boundary and cannot be contained by a border wall.

WIN HEARTS AND MINDS

This understanding also distracts from the fact that an effective counter-terrorism strategy requires – in addition to enhanced security – the successful infiltration of terrorist cells and a concerted effort to win hearts and minds; areas where the government seems to be making little progress.

Indeed, heavy-handed crackdowns, which have included raids on mosques, the screening of ethnic Somalis, and closure of a number of Muslim human rights organisations, will likely further alienate those who might have provided intelligence and simultaneously strengthen historical narratives of exclusion, marginalisation and discrimination.

As the well known academic, Mahmood Mamdani has argued, the problem requires a political, rather than a military or security solution – the latter likely to only further fuel radicalisation and cycles of violence.

Finally, this physical boundary feeds into a burgeoning nationalist sentiment of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ and upholds a particular idea of state-led security provision, which can help delegitimise critical voices and justify governance by directives.

In this vein, people should be concerned that there have been no consultations with local communities over the construction over the wall, and no debate in Parliament; the wall potentially becoming an embodiment of the imposition of the state and security over local concerns, debates, and understandings.
In summary, the wall will not keep terrorists out.

It will likely further alienate Kenya Somalis and foster a sense of difference and competition along the border area. Finally, it is danger of becoming a symbol of governance by directives and of the securitisation of peace and development. For all of these reasons the wall is a bad idea, and I look forward to the day that it can be brought down.

Gabrielle Lynch is associate professor of comparative politics, University of Warwick, UK. [email protected]; @GabrielleLynch6