Kenya’s government was warned by Muslim clerics about the radicalisation and recruitment of youths by Al-Shabaab six years ago but did not take action, says Sheikh Ahmed, a management committee member of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya.

The state, he told IPS, dismissed the reports as a rift between Muslim clerics and failed to arrest senior preachers who openly give sermons calling on youths to fight believers of other religions and attack places of worship.

“At the beginning it was our problem but not now. This group [of extremists] has taken over the management of mosques. In Mombasa, the police are helping us repossess two mosques seized by the radical agents of violence,” said Ahmed.

On Wednesday Apr. 23, four people, including two policemen, died in a terror attack on Kenya when bombers drove a vehicle into a police station in the capital, Nairobi."This operation strategy is counter productive. The government’s decision to take this route has provoked anger." -- Nuur Sheikh, conflict expert

It was the latest in a spate of terror attacks in this East African nation. Last September, Kenya experienced the worst terror attack in years when gunmen from the Somali extremist group, Al-Shabaab, attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people.

But the Apr. 23 attack was seen as retaliation against the ongoing countrywide crackdown on illegal immigrants and refugees suspected of being affiliated with Al-Shabaab.

Nuur Sheikh, an expert on conflict in the Horn of Africa, believes harassment and forced repatriation is likely to incite acute hatred against Kenya and entice more youth to join the Al-Qaeda-linked extremist group.

“This operation strategy is counter-productive. The government’s decision to take this route has provoked anger. Somalis, whether from Kenya or from Somalia, and the Muslim community have suffered brutal police actions.

“This suits Al-Shabaab propaganda and alienates a community that can help fight terrorism,” Sheikh said in a phone interview with IPS.

Tensions have flared between Kenya and Somalia after Kenyan police arrested a Somali diplomat on Friday, Apr. 25. Somalia’s Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed said in a statement that his government was concerned about the arrest of law-abiding Somalis. Somalia has reportedly recalled its ambassador to Kenya.

According to local reports, police have arrested more than 4,000 Somalis and deported some 200 illegal immigrants. On Apr. 9 the first group of arrestees, consisting of 82 Somalis without legal refugee status, were deported. Last week, 91 more Somalis without valid documents were repatriated.

Executive director of the Muslim for Human Rights Forum, Al-Amin Kimathi, told IPS that the current operation was discriminatory and punished communities who have suffered the brunt of Al-Shabaab’s terrorism. He said it disrupted livelihoods, instilled fear and demonised the Somali and Muslim communities.

Police spokesperson Masood Mwinyi denied this.

“Its wrong and misleading to suggest only one community or one religious group is being targeted, we have also arrested Pakistani, Chinese and Indians and other illegal aliens from neighbouring states,” Mwinyi told IPS.

Ahmed Mohamed, secretary general of the Eastleigh business community, told IPS more than 75 percent of major businesses selling textiles, electronics, money transactions, restaurants and guest houses have been closed. The operation is mostly focused on Nairobi’s Eastleigh suburb, where a large population of Somalis reside.

An official from the Ethiopia Ogaden Refugees Association said on condition of anonymity that 14 people from Ogaden region in Ethiopia have been deported.

They all requested deportation to Somalia and not Ethiopia. Since the 1991 fall from power of Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ogaden National Liberation Front  intellectuals have fought for an independent state there and tensions remain between the Ogaden and Ethiopia.

“We must be exempted, our case, our status is different. We are Somalis but from Ethiopia. Any Ogaden deported to Ethiopia will be killed. No doubt, repatriating our people to a foreign country is terrible, wrong,” he said in an interview with IPS.

An Ethiopian who escaped his country after a series of arrests and threats on his life vowed he would never return home or to the camps of Somali refugees.

“We have suffered, we have been harassed here by police, the camps are not safe for us either. We are always threatened because Ethiopia’s troops are in Somalia and they are blamed for killing innocent Somalis,” he told IPS on the condition of anonymity.

The Kenya National Human Rights commission said the government acts constituted a serious violation of the constitution and of international human rights standards. Commissioner Suzanne Chivusia said in a statement that hundreds of detainees have been held under inhuman and deplorable conditions and with limited access to basic provision like food, water and sanitation.

Mwinyi called on civilians with claims of human rights violations by the police force to record their cases with the police.

“We are ready, looking forward to receive and investigate and punish any officer who will be implicated in any illegal act in the operation,” he said.

Independent Police Oversight Authority chairman Macharia Njeru said in a statement that the body has launched investigations over claims of illegal detentions, ethnic profiling and the holding of suspects incommunicado.

Meanwhile, the association of Muslims Organisation in Kenya chairperson, Fazul Mohamed, told IPS that his organisation would pursue an ideological approach to counter misleading interpretations of the Koran by clerics allied to terrorists. He said the organisation has enlisted a strong team of clerics, scholars, politicians and experts to do this. He called it a genuine Jihad or religious war against a section of religious leaders who are undermining Islam and posing a threat to national cohesion.

“We have set the stage for a radical, multifaceted approach that explores all avenues of countering the radicalisation of youths in Kenya, including community policing and rehabilitation of youths who deserted the group or are willing to abandon Al-Shabaab,” Mohamed told IPS.

Dima Wario from Rupa, a village in Merti division, northern Kenya, has moved away from pastoralism and become a farmer in the country’s semi-arid region. Credit: Noor Ali/IPS

By Noor Ali
ISIOLO COUNTY, Kenya, Apr 9 2014 (IPS)

For more than a decade Dima Wario from Rupa, a village in Merti division, northern Kenya, escaped death and watched helplessly as many in his community died in a spate of fatal clashes over receding resources.

“We were attacked from all sides, as different communities battled over water points and pasture. I survived many attacks and raids, lost almost all my animals to raids for them to only be wiped out by drought four years ago,” Wario told IPS.

Merti division lies in Isiolo County, in Kenya’s Eastern Province which stretches all the way to the country’s northern border with Ethiopia.

Kenya’s underdeveloped, vast and semi-arid north is plagued by prolonged and recurrent violent conflicts over resources, deadly cattle raids, and increased incidents of natural disasters like droughts and floods.“Now have enough food. Relief food is forbidden in our house.” -- farmer Amina Wario

The African Development Bank’s Kenya’s Country Strategy Paper 2014 to 2018 indicates the region is the poorest in the country, with more than 74 percent of the population living in a desperate state of poverty.

“First we believed the El Niño phenomenon, flash floods, Rift valley fever and severe droughts [from the 1980s through to 2009] were a curse. Our people conducted rituals to prevent similar phenomena but it became more rampant,” Wario said. Emergency food aid offered little relief.

Although traditionally communities in Kenya’s arid regions have been pastoralists, over the years “the impacts of climate change have combined with other environmental, economic and political factors to create a situation of increasing vulnerability for poor and marginalised households,” says a report by CARE International.

But Wario and his household can no longer be classified as vulnerable. He’s moved away from the livelihood of his forefathers and is currently one of a new generation of successful crop farmers in this far-flung, remote village in Merti division some 300 km north of the nearest established town of Isiolo.

His only regret is that he took so long to switch from pastoralism.

His first wife, Amina Wario, told IPS this change was thanks to the Merti Integrated Development Programme (MIDP), an NGO in the region which educates pastoralists and livestock owners on climate change resilience and sustainable livelihoods.

“We grow enough food for our family, relatives, traders and local residents. This farm produces watermelons, paw paws, onions, tomatoes, maize, and tobacco for us for sell to those with livestock and earn an average profit of Ksh 50,000 [581 dollars] a month,” Amina Wario told IPS.

The Wario family farm is partitioned by trenches of flowing water from the nearby Ewaso Ng’iro River, which is drawn by a pump.

Five years ago, the MIDP began teaching 200 families who had lost all their livestock to drought about alternative livelihoods.

Now, more than 2,000 families across Merti division, a region where people are predominantly pastoralists, are part of the programme.

At Bisan Biliku, a settlement 20km from Merti town, many wealthy former livestock owners are now farmers.

Khadija Shade, chairperson of the Bismillahi Women’s self-help group, said the community’s departure from pastoralism has empowered and emancipated people in Bisan Biliku.

Women are now innovators and the main breadwinners in their families, she said. The women’s group grows a wide variety of crops and also purchases livestock from locals, all of which is sold to a chain of clients in Isiolo County, central Kenya and the country’s capital, Nairobi.

She also runs an exclusive shop that sells women’s and children’s clothes, and perfumes.

“[Now] we have enough money but nowhere to keep the money safe. We need banking facilities. At the moment we travel far to use mobile phone banking,” she added. This is because there is no mobile network coverage in Bisan Biliku and locals are forced to travel to an area with coverage.

A respected clan elder in Bisan Biliku, who requested not to be identified, told IPS that after attending a series of seminars by the MIDP a few years ago, he sold some of his livestock, bought a truck and built two house in Isiolo town, the capital of Isiolo County. He rents out the houses and earns an additional income.

“From the seminars I learnt how to reduce risks and increase my income and lead a better life. Now I am obviously not at risk of being a poor man,” he said.

Abdullahi Jillo Shade from the MIDP told IPS that the project “has been embraced by many families in Merti [town], and the neighbouring settlements of Bisan Bilku, Mrara and Bulesa and Korbesa.”

“Our people are proud farmers and traders. They have changed the tidal wave. These days we have more trucks transporting food to the market in Isiolo town than trucks with relief food…” he said.

Others too are adapting to the changing climate in their own way.

Isiolo legislator Abdullahi Tadicha says decades of deliberate marginalisation and punitive policies have denied those in northern Kenya development funding and subjected communities to displacement, massive losses of wealth, and severe poverty.

However, money has now been set aside to assist communities.

“The Isiolo south constituency development fund committee has identified, prioritised and allocated funds to address food insecurity and disaster management, and to support families rendered poor by past drought, floods and conflicts,” he told IPS.

The constituency fund, he said, helped start the Malkadaka irrigation scheme on 400 hectares of land in Isiolo south in August. It supports 200 families whose livestock were wiped out by successive droughts and floods.

Yussuf Godana from the Waso River Users Empowerment Platform, a community-based organisation, told IPS that locals suffered the most during the recurrent droughts but said education has helped people accept that erratic and harsh weather trends are not a curse but a global crisis.

He said thanks to the community diversifying its livelihood and the reduced conflicts over resources, “this whole place is now covered with a green carpet of crops – it’s an oasis.”

Partners For Resilience (PFR) is an alliance of various associations including Netherlands Red Cross (lead agency) and CARE Netherlands. It is working in partnership with Kenya to empower communities, with a focus on educating people about disaster prevention and management, and strengthening the resilience of at-risk communities.

Abdi Malik, a PFR official working with the Kenya Red Cross, told IPS that the various adaptation programmes in the region have created relief-free food zones and recorded significant decreases in families seeking food and assistance with school fees.

These programmes, said Malik, have also changed how the Kenya Red Cross engages with the local communities. Now people only visit their office to seek support for various projects, unlike in the past when they camped outside for days waiting for relief food.

Amina Wario is optimistic that her family will never need aid again.

“Our family is now respected, from the proceeds from this farm we have constructed a house … and educated our children.

“Now have enough food. Relief food is forbidden in our house,” she said happily.