How new wars are feeding myth of Kenya as a ‘military state’

The allegation by the opposition and allied civil society stalwarts that Kenya is becoming a “military state” reveals serious policy dilemmas posed by a new worldwide threat of asymmetric wars.

Kenya is in the vortex of these “new wars” waged by terrorist networks, religious extremists, heavily armed ethnic or clan militias, bandits and criminal gangs operating within and across national borders.

These asymmetrical threats expose the soft underbelly of globalisation and are now the nastiest and most potent security threat to modern states, especially in Africa.

Because they are waged by unconventional forces of “faceless enemies” rather than conventional armies of nations, the involvement of militaries in combating these threats has stirred controversy.

In Kenya, this controversy has resurfaced following the move by the Government to dispatch the Kenya Defence Forces to reinforce the beleaguered police force to recover guns, ammunition, uniforms and apprehend the Pokot gunmen and bandits who massacred 19 police officers and three civilians in Kapedo on the Turkana-Baringo border on November 1.

But the ensuing debate is turning into the biblical Tower of Babel or the proverbial dialogue of the deaf.

What kind of thinking is driving the “military state” thesis? Clearly, proponents of this argument are ideologically driven by a puritanical view of human rights and lack a firm intellectual grip on the dire impact of these asymmetric threats to national and regional security.

OPERATION IN KAPEDO

As such, they have adopted a “heads I win, tails you lose” approach that opposes any role by the military in draining the swamps of insecurity in Kenya’s “arc of insecurity” — stretching across the dozen counties of West Pokot, Elgeyo-Marakwet, Baringo, Turkana, Samburu, Isiolo, Marsabit, Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Lamu and Tana River.

In recent months, they have pushed for the withdrawal of KDF from Somalia and condemned its role in disarming warring clans and ethnic groups in Isiolo, Marsabit, Mandera and Wajir, and now the operation in Kapedo.

Although Kenya’s men and women in uniform have regularly participated in peace-keeping initiatives across the world, KDF was ridiculed across the region as a “ceremonial” force that only stepped out of the barracks during national celebrations.

This image has since changed. This year, Kenya is ranked sixth in the league of 10 African countries with the highest military strength and firepower.

Since October 2011, when KDF launched “Operation Linda Nchi” against the al-Shabaab in Somalia, the force has become one of the extremely few African militaries with practical experience and capacity to confront the asymmetric threats to national and regional security in the 21st century.

It is now a classic modern day “praetorian guard” of our democratic age, protecting lives and property in a highly volatile region.

However, the Kenyan military – army, navy and air force – carries the birthmark of the country’s liberal democratic tenets anchored on the principle of civilian control of the military.

As such, article 241 of the 2010 Constitution and the Kenya Defence Forces Act of 2012 subordinate the military to civilian oversight, with a democratically elected President as its Commander-in-Chief.

In the wake of “Operation Kapedo”, the military faces a new ideological challenge in the form of the “military state” thesis. Proponents of this thesis come in three clusters of interests.

The first cluster is the opposition, which has stridently turned insecurity into the pivot of its 2017 campaign strategy. Inadvertently, the military is caught up in the tornado path of the ensuing supremacy wars. Recently, Senate Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula led the pack in declaring in the Senate that the deployment of KDF to Kapedo was “illegal and unconstitutional”.

Wetang’ula depicts Kenya as becoming a “military state” because of President Kenyatta’s “new-found love for military fatigues” with Senator James Orengo adding the rider that: “If you wear military uniform, you lose the principle that the military is under civilian control”.

However, there is absolutely nothing in the principle of civilian control of the military that prohibits a civilian supreme commander of the armed forces from donning military uniforms and insignia.

The second cluster of interests are the externally funded civil society groups who are yet to come to terms with the changing nature of security threats in Africa and strike a healthy balance between human rights advocacy and the hard reality of insecurity.

'ETHNIC ARISTOCRACIES'

On November 11, while speaking at the opening of the Fourth Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Nairobi, John Githongo, a board member of the Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog), pushed the semantics of Kenya as a “military state”, accusing President Kenyatta of “converting Kenya into a military state”.

Suffice it to say that until General Julius Karangi and his men and women in uniform decide to overthrow the principle of civilian oversight of the military and institute a “military government” or dictatorship, descriptions of Kenya as a military state is a myth that reveals the stereotyped sloganeering that now underpins civil society’s approach to discourses.

The last cluster of interests is the Pokot power elite. In a sense, the Pokot elite echoes what Frantz Fanon theorised as “ethnic aristocracies” in African politics atop an embryonic “militarised state” within the Kenyan state defending a “war economy” based on rustling, banditry and criminality. They have accused the disarmament process of looting, destroying property and abridging the human rights of residents.

Ultimately, proponents of the “military state” thesis must now move beyond rhetoric and proffer a viable alternative paradigm to restore law and order in areas facing asymmetric threats.

Prof Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute and former Government Adviser.