Hiiraan Online

Kasarani Police vehicle ferrying people picked during a swoop at Eastleigh estate in Nairobi , April 7, 2014. PHOTO: BILLY MUTAI/NATION

What Al-Shabaab has been perpetrating in Kenya, Somalia and Uganda is clearly terrorism which should not just be condemned strongly, but all possible — but legal — means should be used to bring the perpetrators to justice. For terrorism is an egregious violation of the law, claiming innocent lives and leaving victims and survivors with lifelong scars and wounds.

It is crucial that this violation of the law is fought using the law, or there could be no difference between the state and terrorist.

States can also perpetrate terrorism by using the same lawless tactics as groups like Al Qaeda and Al Shabaab, targeting innocent civilians, or communities in order to instill terror and fear. This is what Libya was accused of with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

But states can also take other tactics calculated to instill fear and intimidation. Arguably the tactics of the British colonial regime during the Mau Mau uprising could fall into this category, as it killed, tortured and detained alleged Mau Mau sympathisers with impunity, fully intending to cause fear and despondency.

These tactics included the blanket punishment of Kikuyu peasants. The infamous Operation Anvil is instructive here, as every African in Nairobi was rounded up and forced into enclosed barbed wire camps. The non-Kikuyu were then released before all Kikuyus were “screened” in an effort to separate loyalists from alleged Mau Mau supporters.

The screening was done by hand-picked and masked informants, and their word was enough to send anyone into detention without trial, or worse, summary death. Peter Muigai Kenyatta, first son of Jomo Kenyatta, was one of the more prominent screeners.

And now the Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto regime has come full circle, repeating the same tactics as the British colonial regime, this time focusing on the Somali and Muslims in a blanket condemnation of two entire communities. These tactics in supposed reaction to the ongoing terror attacks border dangerously close to state terror.

No matter how noble the intentions of the regime, the net effect of rounding up people simply for how they look, dress and speak, is to create fear and despondency among whole communities. It is akin to saying that if someone speaks Somali, looks Somali, and is dressed like a Somali then he is a terrorist, or at least a potential terrorist. And it is a smokescreen for an ineffective, corrupt and outdated police force, trying to turn the focus upside down.

Make no mistake: This approach of assassinations and mass round-ups is counter-productive. Mass punishment outside the law has always boomeranged, as the Americans can attest.

Guantanamo Bay and the indiscriminate use of drones has weakened, rather than strengthened, America’s standing in the world depriving it of significant soft power that was its strongest asset globally.

And it creates a sense of victimhood and marginalisation; you can be sure that for many Muslims and Somalis, there is going to be a hardening of attitudes and increased contempt, for they have become victims of terrorist and state violence. Aden Duale, formerly the cheerleader-in-chief of the regime, is the perfect example.

We can rag on Duale for many things but on mass and indiscriminate punishment, he is right. For this assumes that the Somali and Muslims are guilty until proven innocent. Or, at least, until they can bribe their way out of the police dragnets for few things are as lucrative to corrupt police as these sweeps and round-ups.

And isn’t it ironic that the very people who have screamed themselves hoarse about being innocent until proven guilty for crimes against humanity, including mass killings, forced displacement and rape, can treat communities as guilty until proven innocent?

This article was originally published in the Daily Nation