Kidnapping that sparked a war

Kiwayu, 75 kilometres north of Lamu by speed boat, is a remote and unblemished island where time seemingly stands still.

It has the whitest sand you will ever see and the blue colour of the Indian Ocean around it creates a seamless intersection with the sky.

If you have ever dreamt of being cast away on a remote island, this is the place to be. But this beauty masks the terror within and dangers about.

Before 2011, the island was a haven for tourists that had been ranked by numerous magazines as one of the places to visit in the world.

One of its hotels, the Kiwayu Safari Lodge that overlooked the Kiunga Marine Park, cost a minimum of Sh35,000 per person per night.

That changed overnight.

On September 10, 2011, British publisher David Tebbutt and his wife Judith, who had been on a tour of the Maasai Mara, visited Lamu.

It was a dry tourism season when they checked in, ending up as the only guests that day.

“I wasn’t on duty. The owner released five guards, although there were police officers nearby,” Mohamed Malor, a guard, told the Nation.

Group informed

Unbeknown to the visitors and staff, suspected Al-Shabaab militants had been informed about the presence of the tourists. Although Al-Shabaab had started hijacking ships on the shores of Somalia in the Indian Ocean as early as 2006, they had not kidnapped anyone on Kenyan soil.

Tell-tale signs of a spill-over of the insecurity posed by the terror group into Kenya had, however, began in 2010 after Somali gunmen attacked a hotel in Kiwayu and made away with several items.

Karisa Bukaro, a boat rider who has been in the business for over two decades and who witnessed the incident, said: “People were ordered to lie down and recite verses of the Quran. Those who could not were beaten up. Officers from the Kenya Wildlife Service camp nearby arrived on the scene more than two hours after the attackers had left. Luckily, no one was killed.”

After this, things cooled down but the government did nothing to enhance security. Hotels were simply advised to hire officers to beef up security.

Then things changed dramatically when the Tebbutts arrived.

After dinner, they retired to their banda, which was on the farthest end of the hotel, just next to the ocean shore.

“We just got straight into bed. We normally started off sleeping holding hands; we always did that,” Judith would later tell the court. “The next thing I was aware of was David. I remember him shouting.”

It was about midnight and they had been attacked. Her husband was dragged out of the banda by a number of men who were holding AK47 rifles.

“I got pulled out of bed. One man was holding the tops of my arms tightly and pulling me towards the door. I remember shouting ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’ and I could still see David and the next thing I knew I was out of the door,” said Judith.

After being pulled out of bed, Judith was marched to the shore, forced into a speed boat and driven to Kismayu in Somalia. Her kidnapping, which lasted six months, started a chain of events that eventually led to Kenya’s invasion of Somalia.

In about six weeks, Kenya will be entering its 10th year since the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) crossed the border. At the time, KDF troops were out to rescue Ms Tebbutt and two other Europeans kidnapped from Dadaab.

Until the job is done.

This prompted Kenya to consider the creation of a buffer zone that would make it difficult for Al-Shabaab to cross over. The aim was to form a friendly government in Jubaland, an idea championed by then-Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula. After four months of battle, KDF joined the Africa Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) which transferred the cost of the war from the taxpayers to the UN, thus entrenching Kenya into a deeper international war.

It’s almost 10 years now and there are no signs of KDF leaving Somalia soon, or Al-Shabaab abandoning their fight.

The war has cost billions of shillings but the sad reality is that the human cost may never be known. It was impossible for us to ascertain the exact number of Kenyans killed.

But the war will continue “until the job is done”. “In pursuance of this objective and that of the international community, our troops will continue being part of Amisom until such a time that this objective has been achieved,” said President Uhuru Kenyatta last year.

Behind the tough talk, however, the Nation’s investigations desk understands that Kenya already has a withdrawal plan, brought about by a slow and gradual return of stability in Somalia. The stability of Jubaland, a semi-autonomous state of Somalia that shares a border with Kenya, is however paramount. A stable Jubaland will guarantee growth in Kenya’s tourism industry, access to the Kismayo port and influence over oil and gas deposits in a maritime zone contested by both countries.

Wealthy region

Apart from sharing a 684km-long border with Kenya, Jubaland is one of Somalia’s wealthiest regions. It has abundant rainfall, fertile land and possibly huge offshore oil and gas deposits.

Its port city of Kismayo is one of Somalia’s most prized assets.

But there’s a problem. Somalia sued Kenya at the International Court of Justice in 2014, seeking to have the maritime border redrawn in an area about 100,000km of sea. Kenya has always seen the case as a form of betrayal since it played a big part in the restoration of peace in Somalia.

This is partly the motivation behind Kenya’s push to have a strong and stable Jubaland.

However, Al-Shabaab militants still have a strong presence in the region. Even Mogadishu, which is safer than it was 10 years ago, suffers frequent attacks. This means that KDF won’t be coming home soon.

But how did Kenya find itself in this mess? Since independence, Nairobi maintained a low-risk, non-interventionist approach to peace building in a volatile region.

Somalia’s problems began as early as 1970 when dictator Mohammed Siad Barre ruled the nation with an iron fist.

These problems got amplified on January 27, 1991 when Barre fled Mogadishu under pressure from armed groups.

Power war

His fall fuelled existing clan differences, which sparked an all-out war for power.

The UN, African Union, and European Union sponsored almost 20 peace conferences and processes to re-establish a central government in Somalia but failed.

The origins of Al-Shabaab was the al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI, or “Unity of Islam”), a militant Salafi group that started in the 1990s. “AIAI’s core was a band of Middle East–educated Somali extremists that was partly funded and armed by al-Qaeda’s chief, Osama bin Laden,” says American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

After a decade, AIAI splintered into two after its older leaders created a political front. The younger members who wanted to establish Islamic rule jumped ship and joined hands with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) as its militia wing.

ICU took over Mogadishu in 2006, creating fear in neighbouring Ethiopia about a possible spill-over of violence into its territory. Ethiopia sent its military to Mogadishu on the request of Somalia’s transitional government.

As the ICU died, Al-Shabaab retreated to the south, seizing most of the areas.

All this while Kenya maintained its policy of non-intervention, but things would start changing in 2008 when the idea of a military intervention was born.

Amisom, which had been in Somalia from February 2007, had only managed to bring some level of sanity in the capital. The Southern part of the country, which borders Kenya, was still on fire.

“In 2009, Kenya lobbied heavily to gain support for an initiative to establish a buffer zone in a proposed Jubaland comprising of Middle Jubba, Lower Jubba and Gedo in Somalia through military proxies and a friendly administration, but with little success,” said security think tank Crisis Group in its 2012 Africa report.

Without enough financial muscle to send its troops to a war whose end was not guaranteed, Kenya pushed back the thought of invading Somalia for a few years.

Despite failing to convince its allies to support it, Kenya continued with preparations in the background.

Meanwhile, Al-Shaabab ramped up its activities in Kenya, targeting foreigners whom it kidnapped for a ransom.

At risk

Somali piracy on the Indian Ocean was on the increase too and the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor project, which had just been conceived, was at risk.

As the kidnappings increased, the tourism industry suffered. The last straw appeared to be when two Spanish aid workers, Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut, were kidnapped on October 13, 2011 during a lunchtime raid at Ifo2 in Dadaab. Two days later, KDF crossed over into Somalia. The final decision was made by a small group of government officials.

Defence Minister Yusuf Haji, his Interior counterpart George Saitoti, Chief of Defence Forces Gen Julius Karangi, Head of Intelligence Michael Gichangi and Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere played a key role. President Mwai Kibaki was hesitant and only gave the order after lobbying by Haji and Saitoti.

To effectively beat Al-Shabaab, Kenya trained militia groups, such as the Ras Kamboni brigade led by former Al-Shabaab member Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Islam Madobe, the Isiolo militia and the Somali military.

Hold talks

But since these groups were also fighting for power, the tussle created Nairobi’s first complication with Mogadishu, which forced Mr Wetang’ula and Mr Haji to hold talks with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.

Mr Wetang’ula also travelled to Addis Ababa to seek the support of Ethiopia President Meles Zenawi and AU chairman Jean Ping.

“However, it appears that Ethiopian officials were less than enthusiastic about Kenya’s venture,” said the Crisis Group about the situation.

“Kenya’s Western allies were also reportedly surprised, questioned the operation’s feasibility. Despite pleas for direct military assistance, several key allies, including the US, UK and France only modest logistical and intelligence help.”

At the time, Kenya was spending an average of Sh210 million per month in personnel costs alone to keep KDF in Somalia.