Let’s not forget the invisible wall between Somalia and Kenya

In today’s world there are visible and invisible walls. The xenophobic attacks in South Africa are an ugly, high invisible wall. It was put up by economic hardship, envy and hatred.

There are also visible walls. The Great Wall of China was designed to prevent incursions from barbarian nomads into the Empire. Modern calculations place its cost as the equivalent of US$360 billion. During the Ming dynasty, nearly one million soldiers manned it.

Undeniably, the Great Wall served as an efficient military defence for centuries. But it was only when the ruling dynasty had weakened from within that intrusion from outside was able to advance and succeed.  This is why the wall had a more psychological than military effect. It remains a powerful symbol of the country’s enduring strength.

An example closer to our times is the Berlin Wall. The official purpose was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from the backward, poor and subdued East to the West.

This 12-foot-tall, four-foot-wide mass of reinforced concrete was topped with an enormous pipe that made climbing over nearly impossible. Behind the wall on the East German side was a so-called “Death Strip”: a gauntlet of soft sand, floodlights, vicious dogs, trip-wire machine guns and patrolling soldiers with orders to shoot escapees on sight.

There is also a wall between Mexico and the southern United States. It aims at reducing illegal immigration. So far US$2.5 billion has been invested in the project.

This wall is heavily manned and has caused a significant decline in the number of illegal immigrants. In spite of this, tunnels have been dug and illegal traffic has increased in non-walled areas.

'BARBED WIRE FENCES'

A more controversial wall is the Israel-West Bank barrier. It is 700 kilometres long in total, similar to Kenya’s, though only 440 km of it has been completed.

According to Israel, the West Bank barrier has been effective given that, in the three years before it was built, suicide bombers killed 293 of their citizens; in the three years after it went up, that number dropped to 64. This would seem like a dwindling number.

The Israel-West Bank barrier cost an estimated $2m per kilometre to construct. This brings the cost to $1.4 billion while maintenance is $260 million per year.

In 2011, The Economist described the Indo-Pakistani border as “the world’s most dangerous border,” an assessment difficult to deny. But India’s 4023-kilometer (2,500-mile) border with Bangladesh is perilous as well.

The Indo-Bangladeshi boundary is in some respects more barricaded than that between India and Pakistan. Half of the border is already fenced; most sections consist of parallel barbed-wire fences, some of which are electrified. In theory, India is fencing off its entire extent. But the $1.2 billion project, originally scheduled for completion two years ago, has become bogged down.

The situation is complex. Boundary walls require permanent surveillance and maintenance. People risk their lives to cross over or even under them.

For instance, the US-Mexico border barrier is still porous, with people scaling it on a daily basis.  About 5000 Mexicans have died in the last 13 years trying to cross the border via scaling the wall or trekking the desert.

RECURRENT COSTS

Patrolling the US- Mexico border requires 20,000 foot soldiers. There is also the question of the patrolling rules. For example, Indian guards at the Indo-Bangladeshi border operate on a shoot-to-kill policy. From the year 2000 to 2010, Indian forces killed 1000 Bangladeshis along the border, some of them children. 

I asked the young and thoughtful Imani Jaoko, Valery Wandugu and Cecil Abungu for their opinion. They all originally thought that the wall decision was a knee-jerk choice. After further reflection they saw some pros and cons.

The Somali-Kenyan wall will be the sixth boundary wall in Africa. Assuming the wall will be an ordinary separation wall built by NYS, we could estimate its cost at Sh10.2 billion, assuming the materials are available on site.

This will increase substantially with the component of a yearly recurrent cost, if we consider that they intend to put solar-powered CCTV cameras and a control centre manned by border patrols.

A 2.5m high-wall would need at least 19.2 million pieces of stone, 25,000 tons of cement and 100,000 tons of sand and a combined total workforce of over 2.6 million man hours for masons, porters and supervisors. With the same number of stones used for this wall, the government could build 3,400 houses for Sh3 million each.

By building this wall, the country is making a huge effort to make visible the need for separation, law, order and peace. Kenya is putting up a visible wall. This may be part of the solution, but is not the whole of it.

THINKING TOGETHER

The most important wall is the invisible one. Our security challenge is not just an infrastructure problem. Radicalisation, al-Shabaab, extremism and terrorism will not be automatically kept outside the wall. Success on this delicate fight is anchored on policing issues.

The police should be better paid, trained and treated. We should also think of devolving an important chunk of the security function to the county, making counties run their own policing services under the watchful eye of the national intelligence. We should start thinking of “contextualised policing”.

Most importantly, President Kenyatta needs the good will of everyone to succeed. The security issue should not be politicised. The contest between the government and opposition must be turned into a “thinking together” for the good of all, for we are not dealing here with ordinary crime.

We are dealing with a pervasive and invading malignant cancer that is eroding and destroying friends, families, villages and entire societies.  

One of the greatest concerns of today’s lifestyle is superficiality, lack of deep thinking. We have a tendency to give simplistic, quick and easily saleable and packaged solutions to complex problems.

The visible wall may be an option, but the invisible wall is a must. We need to look into deeper issues. After all, no matter how high the visible wall is, “if people want to get in, they will find a way to get in”, whether in board daylight or at night. And at night, all cats look grey!

Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected], Twitter: @lgfranceschi