Keep calm and carry on

Posted by: Helen


Note: just warning the International Politicos amongst you that I’ll be simplifying a lot of the complicated transborder geo-political shenanigans going on here to keep things brief...forgive me.


This post has been prompted by the UK media reporting an increased terror threat in Nairobi, after the UK Foreign Office warned Brits to take extra care in light of a ‘potentially imminent terror attack’ in Nairobi.  Thank you to the many people who have been in touch to pass on this warning, and just check we’re still alive and stuff.  If I can find a positive in the situation of Kenya being under threat in its own ‘war on terror’, it’s that we are feeling much love from our friends and family in the UK.

So it’s time to blog about it, because you lucky people have correspondents on the ground in Nairobi, telling you what it’s really like.  If anyone has journalist contacts, just send them this link; I think I’d enjoy being that ‘anonymous blogger in a war zone’.  I’m kidding of course, because Nairobi is not a war zone.  Let me explain why the sudden terror alert reported by the UK media (and repeated by our loving friends and family) came as such a surprise.


A quick comment before we move on:  I'm about to talk about the security challenges in Nairobi, but please bear in mind that we could live in a city with pick-pockets, muggings, recent large scale terrorist attacks and a rioting public.  Or, London, as it's called.  Please remember that anywhere can sound scary if all you read is the security advice. 


So, what's been really going on out here?  Read on to find out...



The trouble with Somalia

In mid-October 2011, 3 months after we arrived, Kenya launched a military incursion into Southern Somalia, the country with whom it shares its Eastern border.  September had seen kidnappings of two Spanish aid workers from the Dadaab refugee camp by the Islamic extremist group Al Shabaab.  Kenya had for too long tolerated attacks from Somali terrorists and has struggled to host hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees, fleeing insecurity in their home country.  Somalia doesn’t really have a working government or much infrastructure, so weakened is it by decades of ethnic violence and this militant terrorist group that controls much of Southern and Central Somalia, imposing their own brand of strict Sharia law.  The Kenyan military engaged in military action on foreign soil for the first time in 20 years (and were soon joined by the Somalian, Ethiopian, French and allegedly US military): Operation Linda Nchi (Protect the Country) in pursuit of members of Al-Shabaab.


So who is Al Shabaab?  Meaning ‘The Youth’ or ‘The Boys’ in Arabic, Al Shabaab emerged as the radical youth wing of Somalia's now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts in 2006.  Now comprising over 14,000 militants, these are mainly illiterate young men, ruled over by a leadership who have been linked to Al Qaeda. The group describes itself as waging war against the ‘enemies of Islam’, by which brushstroke it paints all foreign organisations, including those delivering famine relief and humanitarian aid.  Organisations like the UN and Medicin Sans Frontiere have been targeted by Al Shabaab for both condemnation and violence.  As a result, it is too dangerous for expats to work there and these foreign agencies work through local relief workers.  Dan and I know a woman who manages the humanitarian aid to Somalia for Irish development agency Concern, but has yet to be allowed into the Somalian capital Mogadishu.  We met her because she has to be based in Nairobi, 300 miles from the Somali border. 

Nairobi under threat

A week after Kenya’s government announced it had sent troops into Somalia, on 24th October 2011, a grenade was hurled into a nightclub in Nairobi’s downtown on a Sunday night, and another at a matatu stage just round the corner, the day after.  Kenyan Al Shabaab recruit Elgive Bwire took responsibility for both attacks when he was arrested the next day, and sentenced to life in prison, following Kenya’s first criminal case to be concluded in 72 hours.

An obvious reaction to Kenyan troops marching into Somalia, these Al Shabaab-ordered attacks in Nairobi brought the whole situation closer to home, and several things happened at once:

• VSO called every Nairobi volunteer after the grenade attacks to check our whereabouts, were we alive?
• The British and US foreign office changed their advice to offer strict instructions against being in crowds, busy public places like bus stations or bars/restaurants frequented by foreigners. 
• There were suggestions that we should cancel any Christmas travel plans and sit in a concrete bunker for 2 weeks.
• With no CCTV in public places, security checks appeared very suddenly in front of every shopping mall, supermarket, office block, bar, club and bus.  Show the contents of your bag, and walk through a metal detector.
• Ordinary Kenyans suddenly felt the threat more personally.  The bombs did not target foreigners, they targeted a downtown club and a matatu stage. Egive Bwire had hoped to harm the local Kenyan population.
• Dan and I thought for the first time about our movements.  We often pass the matatu stage that was bombed, sometimes at night and sometimes alone.  It’s unavoidable, it’s the bus route to town!  We promised each other to be cautious without panicking.

Kenya at ‘war’

When we arrived in July last year, I would have perhaps described Somalia as ‘Kenya’s naughty neighbour’, but after the kidnappings, military incursion and bombings since we arrived, Somalia has become enemy No. 1 in the eyes of most Kenyans.  The ‘war’ is incredibly popular here; not only because the local population are scared of being blown up, but also because Kenya’s service sector contributes a whopping 63% to its Gross National Product, and it’s dominated by Tourism.  Kenyans know how badly the tourist industry was affected after the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, and they know that both locals and foreigners need to be kept safe for the country to thrive.

The popularity of Operation Linda Nchi has been boosted by almost wholesale flag-waving by even the most critical media outlets.  It’s difficult to find out how the incursion is actually going, because this positive white-wash seems to come straight from the military’s own reports.  I know the importance of at-home propaganda to a military action on foreign soil, but the RELENTLESS reports of progress, success, lack of casualties and how well the whole thing is managed, rather jars with the usual healthy interrogation of government policy.




It is because of the Al-Shabaab


We haven’t blogged about all this before, because as the news had clearly not reached UK shores, there seemed to be no reason to worry our nearest and dearest when there was really nothing wrong.  But this month the UK media showed renewed interest in the story, when Londoner Jermaine Grant was arrested and charged in the coastal Kenyan town of Mombasa for possessing illegal explosive-making material and plotting to explode a bomb.  To our great surprise the terror attacks, war and threats to Nairobi were reported as if it had all just happened.


So with the UK media talking about a big fat terror threat, it's time to reassure you that really, we're fine.

Nairobi is the same.  The same jammed-packed, crazy, smelly and pot-holed city as it was before.  We got used to the security checks very quickly, although they seem cursory at best and if there’s only no female security guard available, I get waved right through.  My colleagues still grumble about high food prices, corrupt government officials and errant teenage children exactly like they did before.  But when events are cancelled, or traffic slows behind a police check, there is now a universal answer: It is because of the Al Shabaab.

I think the most difficult thing is that Nairobi was already a place with a base level of insecurity, so when we’re told to be even more cautious, we ask: how?  It’s become second nature to ignore the friendly men trying to rob us, to grip our belongings in the street, and to try and stay clear of big crowds in case they get violent.  How else are we expected to behave?

 

VSO passed on police advice that we should minimise the time spent in public places, avoid Nairobi’s downtown and don’t go to the bus station.  We asked: how are we supposed to get to work without taking the bus?  I imagine the average ex-pat can follow that advice, but not us - we’re trying to integrate, remember?  And this gig doesn’t come with private transport.  The security advice has now evolved into being cautious in areas frequented by expats – malls, restaurants, wealthy western neighbourhoods, so most of the time we feel much safer in our little Kenyan neighbourhood. 


So while we are exercising customary caution in Nairobi, nothing can detract from the amazing people and beautiful landscapes of this country, and to prove the point friends and family are piling on the Jonchard bandwagon, making plans to visit us in the next 6 months before we return to the UK.  This includes my Mum and Dad, who we look forward to seeing in March.


The security situation here in Nairobi is interesting, but it's really not terrifying.  VSO has 50 years of experience in yanking volunteers out of countries with true insecurity, and if there was anything to truly worry about - we'd no longer be here.


There are some real victims in this ‘war on terror’, and they’re are not us: they are the dead, the injured, the soldiers on the front line.  And most of all the people of Somalia whose lives are held hostage by decades of insecurity, a lack of goverment and Islamic extremists who won’t let them live in peace.  In comparison, Kenya is a stable, well-governed and brilliant place to be, and we feel very lucky to be here.