Impunity is at the heart of the Westgate mall attack

In Summary

• Reports of the looting and drinking by security forces in control of Westgate, the “friendly fire” that killed the commanding officer of the Recce Squad, the fact that the higher-ups knew or should have known about the impending attack and did zilch, makes it all the more depressing.
• There is no question that the fact that Kenya is led by two ICC indictees has far reaching consequences across the country.

By Maina Kiai
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Loss of life is never easy, and it is even more painful when it is as arbitrary as it was at the Westgate mall.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones, those who were injured, those whose loved ones are missing, and those who witnessed horrors beyond belief.

For many in the Nairobi middle class, there is a sense of “there but for the Grace of God go I.”

We went through what ordinary people in Tana River, Samburu, Turkana, Moyale, and Mandera go through often, unsure when bullets will rain on them and reduce their lives to shells.

This is a taste of Kiambaa, Naivasha and Kisumu in 2008.

BIG SCREW-UP

The reports of the looting and drinking by security forces in control of Westgate, the “friendly fire” that killed the commanding officer of the Recce Squad, the fact that the higher-ups knew or should have known about the impending attack and did zilch, makes it all the more depressing.

Yes terror attacks can happen anywhere in the world. But what is crucial is how they are handled.

And no matter how we gloss over it, no matter how much we want, and need, our security forces to come out smelling of roses, we can’t escape the fact that there was a big screw-up with Westgate.

How could this happen? How can some of those who have volunteered themselves to protect and defend us, and are paid by us to do so, make us so vulnerable and exposed?

Does the fact that impunity is now officially state-sanctioned at the highest levels have anything to do with it?

There is no question that the fact that Kenya is led by two ICC indictees has far reaching consequences across the country.

POLITICISED ICC CASES

The two indictees have their hands full with the cases and are clearly distracted, no matter what they want us to believe.

Who wouldn’t facing such serious charges and in the glare of international scrutiny?

And instead of waiting for the cases to take off at The Hague and prove their innocence, their supporters have politicised the cases, looked for scapegoats, and taken the approach that popularity equals innocence!

It is always baffling when this line that 'Kenyans voted against the ICC in the March elections' is thrust out as a reason to end the cases.

And it is small-minded and counter-productive for we know that Hitler was massively popular in Germany during the Holocaust, as was Juvenal Habyrimana in Rwanda before the genocide in 1994.

The attempts to get out of the cases politically rather than legally, as Henry Kosgey and General Hussein Ali did, have sent a message that if you have power, influence and popularity, you should never be questioned.

Imagine if an ordinary Kenyan tried using similar arguments to fend off criminal charges in our courts!

CAUGHT RED-HANDED

This is the foundation of impunity. That if you have enough wealth, power, influence or popularity, you can do whatever you can to ensure that you are never questioned, never held accountable.

And this is the message that our security forces seemingly internalised, no matter their half-hearted and very late tweets, that they were “repatriating” cash from the business to protect them.

They have been caught with their hands in the till and rather than be accountable, they play with our intelligence.

Of course the dumbing down of our media has helped this impunity, with the media happy to take orders not to ruffle feathers or ask difficult questions.

They have become cheerleaders rather than those who question and challenge power.

There have been no questions about how our army performed in Somalia with our media jubilant to have been embedded with the troops.

And we have forgotten the massive corruption in the Anglo Leasing scandals that were mostly related to security contracts? Despite the deepest rhetoric, impunity has continued around Anglo Leasing.

NO ACTION TAKEN

Remember the fishing boat-cum-naval vessel that took eight years to be brought to us from some shipyard in Spain? Or the telecommunication equipment for the police that never came?

Or the Chinese military trucks that overturned with ease on our roads? Or the second hand jet fighters from Jordan that were overpriced?

No action has ever been taken, and junior officers in security have seen their bosses get rich and wealthy from corruption and get away with it. So why not them?

But there are rays of hope and light: The Kenya Red Cross, a civil society organisation, has been wonderful, doing what they do efficiently and transparently.

We are lucky for the leadership of Abbas Gullet and his team. And then there are the private citizens who went in again and again to rescue people in the mall, risking their lives, just because they could. These are the real Kenyan patriots.