Kenya's Complex Legal Heritage

While it doesn't quite live up to State of California v. O.J. Simpson, Kenya has just witnessed a remarkable bit of judicial theatre with the conviction and sentencing of a scion of one of the country's most controversial white families. Thomas Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley) has just been given an eight-month sentence, on top of three years already served, for the killing of a poacher on his family's estate in the Rift Valley.

The 12,000 square miles of the Rift Valley highlands were systematically appropriated by a group of white farmers in the post-WWII era, and have remained to some extent in the hands of families like Cholmondeley's. That makes it difficult to tell whether the light sentence was bought by influence, or was a recognition of the real threat that poachers pose to the life and limb of law-abiding farmers, no matter what their color. The fact that Cholmondeley had a previous indictment for the accidental killing of a game warden overturned seems to have had no influence over the presiding judge. Nor, presumably, did the offer by Cholmondeley to compensate the family of the deceased poacher.

This trial may represent some kind of transcendence of the racial issue in Kenya, but it certainly does nothing to transcend the persistent issue of class. The black elite have as much to fear from -- and are as resentful of -- the underclass as the Cholomondeleys of the land do, and many Kenyans see a real double standard being applied in this case. Many have commented on the fact that a shoplifter is likely to get a harsher sentence than a twice-indicted killer.

When Kenya became independent, its first indigenous leader, Jomo Kenyatta, made a valiant effort to prevent retaliation against the whites who, in the wake of the Mau-Mau rebellion, had engaged in one of the most brutal colonial pogroms in African history. Despite that bloody legacy, including several thousand Kenyan dissidents hung by British colonial courts in the run-up to independence, Kenyatta said, "We do not forget the assistance and guidance we have received through the years from people of British stock. . . . Our laws are founded on British principles and justice."

Cholmondeley should be grateful that the judge in his case seems to have taken more inspiration from Kenya's African, as opposed to its British, legal heritage.

(First published May 15th, 2009 in the World Politics Review)

Kenya's Somalia Dilemma

As the world was riveted to the events in Iran last week, the beleaguered government of Somalia put out an S.O.S. for international military support in its deteriorating fight against al Shabab guerrillas and other radical opposition forces. Thus far, only Kenyan government officials have publicly responded with threats of military intervention.

But there remains the possibility that troops from Ethiopia, Djibouti, the Sudan and Uganda might be deployed in a combined warmaking/peacekeeping operation under the banner of the African Union and other international and regional organizations. More than 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are currently deployed to protect government operations in and around Mogadishu, but in recent days they have been targeted by anti-government militants who refuse to recognize their neutral status.

The response from Kenya seems to suggest that the profile of the intervention would shift from peacekeeping to combat operations against al Shabab. In response, a spokesman for al Shabab said that any foreign troops "would be sent home in coffins."

Kenya has many reasons to try to deal with the chaos on its border. The primary one is al Shabab's close ties with al-Qaida, which put Kenya in the crosshairs of international jihadists. Both the U.S. embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998 as well as the subsequent Paradise Hotel bombing in Kikambala were coordinated by al-Qaida-backed operatives coming across Kenya's long and virtually unpoliced border with Somalia. Kenya also has problems with its own homegrown militants, many of whom train and get both financing and weapons from Somali brethren.

Another reason for Kenyan concern is the rapid increase in recent weeks in the number of Internally Displaced Persons arriving at border towns along the Kenya-Ethiopia border. There are already 160,000 Somali refugees in the Dadaab camps on the Kenyan side of the border, most of whom have been living there since the early 1990s.

A further deterioration in the situation in Somalia will send tens of thousands more fleeing towards the borders, and only an enormous commitment by the international aid community will prevent another humanitarian debacle. In the meantime, aid agencies are bickering with the Kenyan government over land and construction issues, despite the fact that the number of refugees will likely double by year's end.

This is a developing situation that the Europeans and Americans should pay careful attention to. The recent "World War" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which troops from multiple foreign countries ran riot for several years in the name of stabilization, led to millions of civilian deaths. Somalia has far fewer riches than the Congo to plunder, but no matter what happens, civilians are likely to bear the brunt of the fighting. And any survey of Somali history suggests that nothing radicalizes the population like an invasion of foreigners.

Kenya's offer to help with the mess next door is laudable, but this is a job that Kenya can't do alone. Unfortunately, the "Black Hawk Down" debacle has not only soured U.S. strategists from lending a hand, it has also demonstrated that Somali fighters will always exceed expectations when it comes to violence and durability.

For Kenya and Somalia's other neighbors, that can only be a bad thing.

(First published in World Politics Review June 22, 2009)