A year later, Kenyans still don’t know what actually happened at Westgate

Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet next to a plaque bearing the names of those who lost their lives in Westgate Terror Attack during the first anniversary at Karura Forest on September 21,2014. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The Westgate and Mpeketoni attacks were not just shocking in the scale of their barbarity, but also because they illustrated in a deep and tragic way how flawed and incompetent our security forces are.
  • Kenyans have never felt safe since Westgate and Mpeketoni, not because of Al Shabaab, but because they have lost faith in the people who have been entrusted to defend them.
  • Westgate and Mpeketoni showed Kenyans that they are on their own when it comes to their own security.

We do not know how to remember our dead. I am not talking of funerals, where bulls are slaughtered for mourners and where the sounds of wailing fill the air.

I am talking about ensuring that when someone dies, his or her memory stays alive, for example in books, paintings, poems and memorials, not just for a year or two, but for generations.

It took Kenya 50 years to build a statue in memory of the slain Mau Mau freedom fighter, Dedan Kimathi. We have yet to name a place after J. M. Kariuki or Dr Robert Ouko.

So it will not surprise me if, in a few years, we will have forgetten those who died in the Westgate mall terror attack exactly a year ago, or in the Mpeketoni massacre this year. Their names and their memories will fade as quickly as the stars that disappear as soon as the sun rises.

However, while the State appears to be encouraging this amnesia, ordinary citizens and writers gathered at the Storymoja Festival in Nairobi last week to remember all those who died in the Westgate mall tragedy.

An exhibition titled Our Nairobi: A Westgate Memorial, and a theatrical tribute called “Stories from the Mall”, elicited a range of emotional responses, from shock at the barbarity of the attack to disgust at the way the security apparatus responded.

This year’s festival was dedicated to Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, whose life was cut short by the terrorists who raided the mall.

The Westgate and Mpeketoni attacks were not just shocking in the scale of their barbarity, but also because they illustrated in a deep and tragic way how flawed and incompetent our security forces are.

For most Kenyans, including survivors who were interviewed by British filmmaker Dan Reed who produced the documentary Terror in the Mall, the scale of the Westgate tragedy could have been much smaller if the security forces had acted on time and in a coordinated manner.

Many survivors spoke of lying in their own pool of blood for hours and watching their loved ones die because nobody had come to rescue them in time.

If it wasn’t for the plainclothes police officers and civilians who entered the mall voluntarily to help people escape and to ward off the terrorists, the scale of the tragedy may have been much larger.

In Mpeketoni, there appeared to be a deliberate attempt by the authorities to allow the massacre to take place. No one came to the rescue of those who were being slaughtered.

UNDISCIPLINED FORCES

The looting that took place in the Westgate mall only added insult to injury. The fact that no commission of inquiry was ordered by the President means that one year later, we still don’t know what transpired in the mall when the (un)disciplined forces took over.

Obvious questions have not been answered, such as why it took more than three hours for the security forces to respond to the attack or why they all disappeared from the mall 90 minutes after entering it, as shown in the Terror in the Mall documentary.

Did the terrorists not suffer from sleep deprivation during the three or four days they spent in the mall before they were killed?

If, indeed, as some reports have suggested, the terrorists had either fled or been killed on the first day of the attack, then what were the Kenyan forces doing in the mall the rest of the days?

I may appear to be unnecessarily harsh towards the security forces. I certainly do not wish to condemn every security officer in the country.

No doubt there are many able Kenyan police and military officers who are honest, competent, disciplined and brave, and who carry out their jobs professionally.

However, what happened at Westgate and Mpeketoni revealed the gaping fault lines in our security and intelligence systems.

Kenyans have never felt safe since Westgate and Mpeketoni, not because of Al Shabaab, but because they have lost faith in the people who have been entrusted to defend them.

Westgate and Mpeketoni showed Kenyans that they are on their own when it comes to their own security.