Walking down 1st Avenue and 14th street, in the heart of Eastleigh, one senses fear in the air. People hurriedly walk down the untarmaced road. It is sunset and the muaddhins’ call to prayer from nearby mosques echo each other. I stop a young lady to talk, but she has no time, I could see the nervousness in her face. This road has suffered more than a dozen terror attacks in one year and is now undergoing a police crackdown which begun as a hunt for terrorists but has morphed into a harassment of Somalis in their own homes.
The heightened tension has spread to Somalis in South B and C where the crackdown has been tinged with outrageous demands for bribes, regardless of citizenship. Khadija Malik, a single mother of three retells of a loud banging at her gate. “They came in at about 12:00 am reeking of alcohol. There were five who walked in and demanded to see our papers. We showed them. Then I asked if they wanted to see my house-help’s documents and they replied, ‘That one is ok’. My house-help is not Somali. They made us pay KES. 5,000 before they left.” The frustration wells up her eyes as she rummages in her bag and hands me her Kenyan Identification. “I was born in Kenya. This is my country and this is how they treat us,” she says.
The next morning, I visit the South C neighborhood where the eerie silence of the streets is an ominous sign of the nightly police visits. At a kiosk near Five-Star Estate, Mama Njeri, the shopkeeper tells of stories she has heard from residents in the vicinity. “People are not happy. The Police treat them like ATMs. It must be hard being a Somali. They are my customers and they are just innocent. We don’t have problems with them here and they are being punished for nothing,” she says. Swaleh Abdi who pops in to buy a loaf of bread and a pint of milk retorts, when asked about the nocturnal police visits: “We are suffering walahi. My grandparents suffered like this in Somalia. There is nowhere safe for Somalis, even if you are born here.” Swaleh is distraught when he tells me that he is a student at the University of Nairobi and has ambitions like everyone else. It is clear that the acute marginalization of Kenyan Somalis feel will do little but foster resentment.
Amongst the unfortunate Somalis who have been rounded up and held at the Kasarani Stadium is the son of Ismail Osman, a 63 year old Kenyan citizen who is an ethnic Somali. He says that police officers in his neighborhood had arrested his 32-year-old son who has a mental illness and was not carrying identification. “We don’t know where he is,” Mr. Osman said tearfully, showing his son’s Kenyan citizenship papers. “The process is confusing.” The camp internment of Somalis at the Kasarani Stadium is carried out without any form of trial or hearing for the Kenyans, refugees, asylum seekers or illegal immigrants. In April, Tana River Senator Ali Abdi Bule was close to spending his night at the ‘camp’ when was arrested as he was driving on Juja Road with his two children and a bodyguard on board. He was charged with being in the country illegally. The humiliation dragged on for hours at the police station after his identification was at first dismissed as being fake. He was eventually released when the police acceded to its validity.
Since the invasion of Somalia by the Kenya Defence Forces, there have been 84 bombs and grenade attacks around the country, not to mention the Westgate tragedy. Although there have been few convictions of any suspects and Al-Shabaab itself has not taken any credit for many of the attacks, the onus is on the police to prove that it is a Somali problem. Even though many of the suspects are non-Somalis, the entire Somali community in Kenya has been tried and found guilty by a growing number of the Kenyan public. Former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga released a statement on April 9 regarding the misdirected and ill-informed nature of the crackdown, “We have seen in the past that it was not just Somalis who are involved in acts of terrorism. We saw some young people from the Luo, Luhya, Kikuyu and other communities arraigned in court on suspicion of engaging in acts of terrorism,” he said.
Finding people with strong anti- Somali opinions is not a hard task on social media where anonymous bravado fuelled hate speech is the norm. We caught up with people working in various places in town to hear their views face-to-face. Karen Thimba, a store owner says, “I think the government is doing a good job. These outsiders are destroying our country. If you are not guilty, why are you afraid of being searched? It was Otieno Kajwang who created this Somali terrorist problem by opening Kenyan citizenship to illegal Somali terrorists. They should go back and build their motherland instead of buying fake papers and bringing us bombs and terrorists.” When we ask of the human rights violations against the Somalis, she tells us, “What about the thousands of lives lost and hundreds of hostages held by Somalis in Somalia? Why don’t you talk about that? Who are doing all those nasty things in Somalia and making the country unbearable for anyone to live in including Somalis! Somalis! And now they are bringing it to us.”
Willis Omondi, a matatu conductor at the Odeon stage tells us the solution to the Somali ‘issue’. “If you Somalis could save your energies to resolve the issues in your country all your problems will be 75 percent solved. Kenyan Somalis have failed us in allowing terrorist to thrive and flourish amidst them and we are paying for it. It is time to bring back peace and security back to the country by all means necessary.” On the question of whether human violations against Somalis is justified, he answers: “That is the only language they understand.”
A by-stander who was listening to the conversation, later just identified as Mwaura piped in emphatically: “Kenyans are only fed up and it’s high time for the government did something before it’s too late. Even people in South Africa are fed up with them.” Sensing rising temperatures, I quickly moved away and walked on to Moi Avenue where I met Phyllis Makau an attendant at a perfume shop. We speak of the Police operations. “You know many of these people send money back to al-Shabaab”, she said hesitantly, “and then the al-Shabaab hide amongst them when they are here. I don’t trust any of them.” When asked about if she had any proof, she was adamant, “people know these things. Where else does this terrorism problem come from?” When asked why there wasn’t a terrorist problem in Kenya’s history before, she admits, “I don’t know. But it’s here now and it came from Somalis. Look at their country, now they are bringing war here.”
The blind prejudice against an entire community reminds one of the run up to the 1984 Wagalla massacre which is yet to be fully addressed by the previous Kenyatta government and subsequent regimes.
After enduring dreadful conditions at the unsanitary Kasarani caged stadium area, a woman died while in custody from what the police reported as a ‘common cold’ as she awaite deportation. Her ailment was agitated by the lack of blankets, adequate food and medication. Al-Amin Kimathi, social justice activist and human rights defender together with officials from the Kenya Human Rights Commission, were the first to be let into the Kasarani Police Station where those rounded up were being held before they were taken to the Kasarani Stadium. The footage of their visit showed Somali men, women and children, many of whom had their Identification Cards At hand. Al-Amin tells us that it was a question of money. “We spoke to people in the cells who told us that the Police were demanding KES 20,000. Later on, the bribe was reduced to KES. 5,000 but there were still people who could not afford that.”
Despite the laws protecting all immigrants, security officials seem to be going about their business of deportation with a hand of impunity. While human rights are clearly being abused, many Kenyans we spoke to are okay with this, so long as security is restored. Probably the worst outcome of the whole affair is an escalation of violence on both sides; police on the one hand continuing a ‘shock and awe’ approach to crackdowns and terrorists on the other, hell-bent on revenge.
The legality of police operations
• The forced entry into the homes of any person requires a warrant under the penal code, which has not been issued to the Police conducting the operations.
• There is no system of monitoring how many people in total have been arrested and their specific charges, how many have been released and how many are still at the Stadium.
• Detention for more than 24 hours is unlawful as per Kenyan and international law. The Terrorism Act does permit the Police to apply for an extension of the 24 hours but none have been applied for. There are people who have been detained since April 5.
• Persons detained are in an open stadium with no protection from the elements, they are not allowed to use the facilities such as the toilets and they are all mixed together, children, men and women. This goes against a wide array of domestic and international laws against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
• On 10 November 2013, a tripartite agreement was signed between the governments of Somalia and Kenya and the UNHCR, following months of negotiations. The agreement establishes the framework governing the voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees over the next three years. A pilot phase will take place from January to June 2014. The current forced repatriations go against Kenya’s pledge.
• The repatriations are also a contravention of the non-refoulement principle enshrined in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of which Kenya is a signatory. The principle ensures that a refugee cannot be returned to the dangerous place from where they fled. This includes all illegal immigrants because they have 40 days to apply for refugee status as soon as they are detected by authorities.
By Amal Mohamed
http://www.upnairobi.com/dt_portfolio/the-rise-and-rise-of-xenophobia-in-kenya/
