Conict in Somalia and crime in Kenya: Understanding the trans-territoriality of crime

African and Asian Studies

Volumn 4, Issue 1-2, 2005, Pages 137-162

  Murunga, Godwin Rapando ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BORDER REGION; CRIME; ETHNIC CONFLICT; POLITICAL CONFLICT; POLITICAL RELATIONS; SECURITY; TERRITORIALITY;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; KENYA; SOMALIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WORLD;

SOMALIA;

EID: 25844508365     PISSN: 15692094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/1569209054547319     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. The idea for this article began with a CODESRIA Multi-National Working Group on Beyond Territoriality. I wish to thank members of the working group for their suggestions and criticisms. I particularly benefited from the contributions of Guy Martin, Rokhaya Fall and Michel Ben Arrous. Also acknowledged are the suggestions of Prof. Ali A. Mazrui and Cyril Obi, the valuable suggestions and editorial assistance of my colleague Mshai Mwangola and the superb research assistance of Alfred Anangwe. The usual caveats apply.
2. V. Glenday quoted in E.R. Turton, 'The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya,' in African Affairs, 73 (July 1974), 325.
3. Jeffrey Clark, 'Debacle in Somalia: Failure of the Collective Response,' in Lori Fisler Damrosch (ed.) Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), 207-208.
4. President Daniel arap Moi quoted in The East African Standard (Nairobi), 29 May 2001.
5. Colonialists partitioned the ethnic Somali into Italian Somaliland (now Eritrea plus Southern Somaliland), British controlled Northern Frontier District of Kenya, French Somaliland (now Republic of Djibouti) and Region Five of Ethiopia. At independence, the divisive boundaries were retained as part of the Organization of African Unity policy on national territories. Ethnic Somali were divided into Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and later Eritrea. This article focuses on ethnic Somali of Somalia and Kenyan citizenship. Unless otherwise stated, the former will be referred to as Somalians or Somali refugees and the latter as Kenyan Somali. In places where ethnicity rather than citizenship is in focus, Somali will be used. The point is that there are Somali who are not citizens of Somalia.
6. See, for instance, Virginia Luling, 'Come Back Somalia? Questioning a Collapsed State,' Third World Quarterly, 18/2 (1997);
7. Anna Simons, Somalia: Networks of Dissolution (Boulder: Westview, 1995);
8. Ismail I. Ahmed and Reginald Herbold Green, 'The Heritage of War and State Collapse in Somalia and Somaliland: Local Level Effects, External Interventions and Reconstruction,' in Third World Quarterly, 20/1 (1999).
9. Achille Mbembe, 'At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa,' in Public Culture, 12/1 (2000), 263.
10. Also published under the same title in CODESRIA Bulletin, 3-4 (1999), 5-16
11. and in Arjun Appadurai (ed.) Globalization (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001), 22-51.
12. William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998), 9.
13. For a more historically sensitive study of the state in Africa, see Bruce Berman, "Structure and Process in the Bureaucratic States of Colonial Africa," Development and Change, 15 (1984) on the colonial state
14. and Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996) for a critical reflection on the state-society paradigm in African studies.
15. See Michel Ben Arrous, Beyond Territoriality: A Geography of Africa from Below (Dakar, CODESRIA, 1996) and 'Mapping Contemporary Africa: A Geography from Below Perspective,' forthcoming, 3.
16. Julius O. Ihonvbere, Africa and the New World Order (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 71.
17. Ihonvbere, Africa and the New World Order, 91.
18. See Ali A. Mazrui, 'Crisis in Somalia: From Tyranny to Anarchy,' in Hussein M. Adam and Richard Ford (eds.), Mending Rips in the Sky: Options for Somali Communities in the 21st Century (Lawrenceville, NJ and Asmara: Red Sea Press, 1997), 9.
19. The classic statement on this is associated with Bjorn Beckman who argued that "it is resistance to SAP, not SAP itself, that breeds the democratic forces." But in some cases, these forces coalesce into marauding factions that instigate war and crime. In Africa, Eboe Hutchful argues that reform "inflamed political conflict and stressed fragile legitimacies."
20. See Bjorn Beckman, 'Empowerment or Repression? The World Bank and the Politics of African Adjustment,' in P. Gibbon, et al. (eds.) Authoritarianism, Democracy and Adjustment: The Politics of Economic Reform in Africa (Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1992), 102
21. and Eboe Hutchful, 'Adjustment in Africa and Fifty Years of Bretton Woods Institutions: Change or Consolidation?' in Canadian Journal of Development Studies, XVI/3 (1995), 394.
22. During a visit to Somalia in 1974, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere remarked that '[t]he Somalis are practicing what we in Tanzania preach.' Quoted in Hussein M. Adam, 'Somalia: Personal Rule, Military Rule and Militarism,' in Eboe Hutchful and Abdoulaye Bathily (eds.), The Military and Militarism in Africa (Dakar: CODESRIA Book Series, 1998), 368.
23. Adam, 'Somalia: Personal Rule,' 369.
24. See Turton, 'The Isaq Somali Diaspora,' 325-326
25. and Adam, 'Somalia: Personal Rule,' 358-361.
26. Adam, 'Somalia: Personal Rule,' 372-3.
27. According to Adam, military expenditure rose at the rate of 10 per cent per year between 1963 and 1973 while the Gross National Product grew at the rate of as little as 3 per cent. The military took about 27 per cent of the total government expenditure between 1972 and 1977, 37.1 per cent in 1978 and 39 per cent in 1979.
28. See Adam, 'Somalia: Personal Rule,' 375.
29. On the US geostrategic interests in Bab-el-Mandeb straits in Somalia and the fiasco of America's Operation Restore Hope, see David N. Gibbs, 'Realpolitik and Humanitarian Intervention: The Case of Somalia,' in International Politics, 37 (March 2000), 41-55.
30. Huseein M. Adam, 'Somalia: A Terrible Beauty Being Born?' in I. William Zartman (ed.) Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 75.
31. Mazrui, 'Crisis in Somalia,' 8.
32. Quoted in Julius O. Ihonvbere, 'Beyond Warlords and Clans: The African Crisis and the Somali Situation,' in International Third World Studies Journal and Review, 6 (1994), 7.
33. Abdi Ismail Samatar, 'Leadership and Ethnicity in the Making of African State Models: Botswana and Somalia,' in Third World Quarterly, 18/4, 697-698.
34. See the experience of Somalia women refugee in Celia McMichael, '"Everywhere is Allah's Place": Islam and the Everyday Life of Somali Women in Melbourne, Australia,' in Journal of Refugee Studies, 15/2 (2002), 171-188.
35. Ihonvbere, 'Beyond Warlords and Clans,' 7.
36. Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 29 July 2001, 1.
37. For a study on this, see A.I. Asiwaju (ed.) Partitioned Africans: Ethnic Relations Across Africa's International Boundaries, 1884-1984 (Lagos, University of Lagos Press, 1985).
38. Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos, 'Elections among the Kenya Somali: A Conservative but Marginalised Vote,' in Marcel Rutten, et al. (eds.) Out for the Count: The 1997 General Elections and Prospects for Democracy in Kenya (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2001), 303.
39. Neal Sobania, 'Pastoralist Migration and Colonial Policy: A Case Study from Northern Kenya,' in D. Johnson and D. Anderson (eds.), The Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988).
40. This remark was made in response to the colonial state's inability to control the Somali. see letters in Kenya National Archive (KNA) AG/19/ 12, Government Policy in Respect of Somalis - General, 1930.
41. Turton, 'The Isaq Somali Diaspora,' 337.
42. Said S. Samatar, 'The Somali Dilemma: Nation in Search of a State,' A.I. Asiwaju, Partitioned Africans: Ethnic Relations Across Africa's International Boundaries, 1884-1984 (Lagos, University of Lagos Press, 1985), 175.
43. For a perspective on the tension between self-determination and territorial integrity, see Samuel Makinda, 'Kenya's Role in the Somali-Ethiopian Conflict,' Working Paper No. 55 Strategic and Defense Studies Centre, Australian National University, Aug. 1982.
44. Shifta is a Somali term for bandit. For instance, see a report in The Nairobi Times, 5 Feb. 1978 which claimed that "there have been cases involving government officers who outwardly purport to be behind the Kenya government but who engage in clandestine activities intended to aid the enemy and enhance the shifta menace. Such people have assisted in sending supplies across the border as well as sowing seeds of discord amongst the population they are supposed to rally behind the Kenya government."
45. Following intensified acts of physical aggression launched against Kenya within and from Somalia in support of irredentism, Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta requested the Governor-General to declare a state of emergency in NFD (then called Northeastern Region) on 25 Dec. 1963. According to Kenyatta, this action was made necessary by "a mounting wave of terrorism and banditry" in the region. Kenyatta was referring to the shifta attacks that had began in 13th Nov. 1963 and resulted in a total of 33 attacks using firearms. He further disclosed that 2,000 bandits were operating from Somalia while about 700 were based in Northeastern Region.
46. There are several factors that explain the end of the Shifta problem. First, there was the growing disillusionment among some Kenyan-Somali in NEP with the activities of the shifta. It is argued that "[t]he morale of the Somali populations in these areas [Northeastern Province] was low, and they gradually ceased to provide the shifta with the local support they needed.' About 5,000 Somali had lost their lives in the shifta attacks between 1963 and 1967. See Korwa G. Adar, Kenyan Foreign Policy Behavior Towards Somalia, 1963-1983 (New York: University Press of America, 1994), 77. There was also unanimous support for the Kenyan government by most elected Somali leaders in the district which brought some calm in the 1970s and 1980s. The second reason was the reduced Somalian support to the bandits. Somalia under Barre moved from consistent support of secessionism to commitment to good neighbourliness. Barre softened public opinion at home in relation to Pan-Somalism because of his dictatorial rule. Lastly, Barre's dictatorship also made Somalia less attractive as a destination for the Kenyan Somali. The conflict that followed his rule reversed the attractiveness of Somalia and made Kenya attractive for fleeing refugees.
47. I.M. Lewis, Understanding Somalia: Guide to Culture, History and Social Institutions (London: HAAN Associates, 1993), 63.
48. See Jan Kamenju, et al. Terrorized Citizens: Profiling Small Arms and Insecurity in the North Rift Region of Kenya, Nairobi: Security Research and Information Centre, 2003.
49. Kamenju, et al. Terrorized Citizens, p. 49
50. and Daily Nation, 29th July 2004, p. 11.
51. See Mbembe, 'At the Edge of the World,' p. 263 for a detailed discussion of endogenous conceptions of space and its co-existence with colonial notions of territory.
52. A good glimpse into the racial politics that led to the founding of Eastleigh is found in Zarina Patel, Challenge to Colonialism: The Struggle of Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee for Equal Rights in Kenya, Nairobi: Publishers Distribution Services, 1997.
53. Mary Parker, "Political and Social Aspects of the Development of Municipal Government in Kenya, with Special Reference to Nairobi," (London: Colonial Office Library, 1959), 71.
54. The Poll Tax agitation was provoked by the insistence of the Somali that they could not pay tax at the same low rate as 'natives' whom they thought racially inferior. The Somali hoped to demonstrate their superiority by paying higher taxes. The poll tax agitation was meant to press the colonial government to take higher taxes from the Somali as racial superiors to Africans. see Turton, 'The Isaq Somali Diaspora,' 324 and 338.
55. UNHCR "Kenya Annual Statistical Report," Table III, February 2002 quoted in Human Rights Watch, Hidden in Plain View: Refugees Living Without Protection in Nairobi and Kampala, New York, 2002. The report can be accessed at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/kenyugan/.
56. Human Rights Watch, Hidden in Plain View: Refugees Living Without Protection in Nairobi and Kampala (New York, Human Rights Watch, 2002), 19-20. Report can be accessed at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/ kenyugan/.
57. Human Rights Watch, Hidden in Plain View, 20.
58. Human Rights Watch, Hidden in Plain View, 161.
59. On crime trends in Nairobi, see David Anderson. 'Vigilantes, Violence and the Politics of Public Order in Kenya,' in African Affairs, 101 (2002), 543-7
60. and Edwin A. Gimode, "An Anatomy of Violent Crime and Insecurity in Kenya: The Case of Nairobi, 1985-1999," in Africa Development, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 1 & 2, 2001, 295-336.
61. Liisa H. Malki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 155.
62. Human Rights Watch, Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002), 14.
63. Human Rights Watch, Playing with Fire, 14.
64. Sunday Nation (Nairobi), 29 July 2001, 1
65. and Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 29 July 2001, 1.
66. Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos and Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, 'Refugee Camps or Cities? The Socio-Economic Dynamics of the Dadaab and Kakuma Camps in Northern Kenya,' in Journal of Refugee Studies, 13/2 (2000), 213.
67. It will be recalled that the initial coastal location of the refugee camps was moved to the present location in NEP (Kakuma and Dadaab) because refugee camps at the coast had become centers of economic activity selling untaxed imported items. This robbed some Mombasa traders off viable business thus eliciting complaints that forced the government to relocate the refugees. It is no wonder that in late 1980's a similar complain came from NEP. With the relocation from Mombasa to NEP, traders in Eastleigh have continued to benefit from supply of untaxed items from Somalia.
68. de Montclos and Kagwanja, 'Refugee Camps or Cities?' 212.
69. See Edwin A. Gimode, 'An Anatomy of Violent Crime and Insecurity in Kenya: The Case of Nairobi in the last Quarter of the Twentieth Century,' Paper presented to the Conference on 'The Urban Experience in Eastern Africa, Organised by the British Institute of Eastern Africa,' Nairobi July 2001.
70. See Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 7 Nov. 1999, 16.
71. Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 7 Nov. 1999, 16.
72. See East African Standard (Nairobi), 16 Dec. 2000.
73. See Daily Nation (Nairobi), 18 Aug. 2000. It is instructive that from the Kenyan side, those involved in the syndicate of issuing passports included immigration officers, a politician from Nairobi and some officers of the Criminal Investigation Department.
74. See The Weekly Review (Nairobi), 17 Nov. 1989, 16 and 8 Dec. 1989, 16.
75. Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 7 Nov. 1999, 16.
76. A recent complaint by Samira Waithira Najim who lost her handbag together with her identity card marks out the corrupt nature of police interest in Eastleigh during their patrols. Najim is half Kikuyu and half Indian Kenyan though she looks like an Ethiopian. She complained that after she lost her identity card she had been in trouble because she had 'to deal with the police who roam the Eastleigh area, and who think I'm a refugee. They want nothing but money, which I don't have.' See Sunday Nation (Nairobi), 22 July 2001, 10.