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Soko Mjinga: The Shamba System

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The public furore that followed in the wake of the announcement that farmers may be allowed to farm in forest areas is testimony to the dissonance that ails our understanding of our own natural heritage.

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Soko Mjinga: The Shamba System
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In some of his recent remarks, the Deputy President of Kenya, Rigathi Gachagua, mentioned the potential of working with farmers in forest areas to produce food and reverse our currently perilous food security situation. His political mettle was instantly tested by the volume (if not the technical content) of the protests that followed. As an environmental policy specialist, I was intrigued by the responses, but this soon gave way to despair as I realized that the vast majority of the commentary (and the most raucous) came from people who didn’t seem to have the faintest idea what they were talking about. Sadly, this included op-eds written in major news publications. This majority rightly lamented the low proportion of forest cover in Kenya (currently standing at 7.2 per cent) and how we couldn’t afford to lose any more of it. This emanated from a strange belief that the proposals were to cut down forests in order to create room for agriculture and the failure to understand that what they were discussing was actually a scheme for expansion of forest cover.

The language and tone also pointed to an urban, middle-class demographic that is psychologically far removed from nature, other than as a playground. Some even pointed to the excision of forests that occurred during the Daniel Moi presidency as an effect of the “shamba system”, rather than simple impunity. Never mind that the DP’s remarks were in reference to a scheme introduced in the Forest Act of 2005, after Moi left office. Because of my well-known opposition to foreign NGO control of our natural resources, I posed a public question on a social media platform suggesting that the presence of local forest users might be a deterrent to this kind of annexation. The comments this elicited ranged from outrage at my suggestion that people be allowed to use forests rather than be kept out, to open declarations that NGO annexation is a better outcome than forests “being grabbed” by locals. To me, the most startling aspect of the (non-factual) noise, however, was the absurdity of the elite visiting opprobrium on the proletariat for excesses perpetrated by the elite themselves.

This level of self-contradiction at a societal scale is typical of Kenyans’ thinking around natural heritage, because almost 60 years into our nationhood, we haven’t shaken off the romantic Western paradigm that designates our natural heritage as chattel. We are therefore unable to value these resources intrinsically or based on what they mean to us, as opposed to what a foreigner will pay to see, own or destroy them. What foreigners and their interests do is never questioned by this “passionate” elite. For instance, there is a radioactive materials dump in a fenced, labelled concrete structure in the forest right at the Naro Moru gate to Mt. Kenya National park. All the elite visitors to the park cannot miss it on their way in, but I have never once heard or read a word about it, other than what I have personally said and written.

There is a radioactive materials dump in a fenced, labelled concrete structure in the forest right at the Naro Moru gate to Mt. Kenya National park.

In over two decades’ experience in the conservation sector, I have visited all the different forest biomes in this country and one indisputable fact is the vast spectrum of biotic, edaphic, environmental and human factors around them. There is no single, one-size-fits-all policy or management action that is either applicable or not applicable across all forests. Yet, judging from the vast majority (and most strident) of voices against the so-called “shamba system”, the fortress conservation movement has successfully spread a single crisis story about the policy that has been taken up in its entirety by the lay population, including the false “corporate ownership” narrative.

The plaintive cry from elites for peasant farmers to keep out of “our” forests is bizarre in the way it perceives locals as interlopers and places the non-farming population in the exalted position of “ownership” as conservationists. As is the case in other fields, Kenyans have learned very well from the prejudiced forest management playbook written by the colonial government in the mid-20th century. Forests were to be used by tourists, hunters (before the change in law) and fly fishermen, but not those seeking fuelwood, food items, medicinal plants, etc. Basically elite lifestyle pursuits were given precedence over local livelihoods, a paradigm that remains unchanged over a century later. This policy position instantly criminalized forest-dependent or forest-resident communities like the Ogiek, Sengwer, and Ndorobo, a disadvantaged position that has persisted to this day. As a field biologist studying wildlife, my training always required that I be a keen observer of my environment for both professional and safety reasons. Having carried this into the policy field where I primarily work currently, it is obvious that Kenya’s natural heritage has become a “white space” where even the normally power-retentive Government of Kenya has strangely relinquished its authority to Western interests.

As is the case in other fields, Kenyans have learned very well from the prejudiced forest management playbook written by the colonial government in the mid-20th century.

I have written extensively elsewhere about the reasons for this so in this instance, I will focus on the residual effects of this abdication on the Kenyan psyche. Indigenous Kenyans have been successfully deleted from the intellectual arena surrounding our natural heritage. The profiteering from Kenya’s natural heritage either through tourism investments or donor funds has therefore become inextricably anchored in the absence of black people, or the myth of “wilderness”. This was the basis of the creation of national parks by the colonial administration and the establishment of “protected areas” under various other guises in post-independence Kenya.

In order to have any sensible discourse on this issue, we must get on to the same page as per the definition of what we’re casually referring to as the “shamba system”. The official terminology used by the state authority is PELIS (Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme). Basically, this is a scheme introduced after enactment of the Forest Act of 2005, with implementation beginning in 2007. Local or “forest adjacent” communities are the primary beneficiaries of the scheme where they are temporarily allocated plots upon which they plant seedlings, tend them until they form a canopy while practicing agriculture on the allocated plots. The farming is done under the supervision of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and their officers, who also determine when the tenure of the allottees ends and they must move out, with reference to the growth of the trees.

Looking at the spirit of this law, it is a welcome acknowledgement that indigenous people in Kenya depend upon natural resources for their livelihoods, and this includes rangelands, wetlands and forests. The state conservation structures in Kenya that were contrived by the colonial government were based on the Victorian gamekeeper model, where natural heritage was reserved for the edification of the elite at the expense of the proletariat. Needless to say, in rural African societies, which had their own natural resource use norms, the application of this model required perpetual, slow-burning violence in the form of fences, strict laws, armed guards and assorted forms of retribution for those in breach. From the mid-19th century, Kenya adopted this system to establish tree plantations by means of cheap or totally free labour, in order to meet the demand for timber.

The initial “shamba system” was introduced as a way to press locals into providing labour to supply firewood in “exchange” for farms in the early 20th century, and persisted in that format for several decades. After independence the narrative was adjusted to include seeking to involve landless communities in forest conservation, and by the 1980s, problems associated with the system started emerging, particularly the encroachment of exotic monocultures of cypress, pine, and eucalyptus. These exotics were planted to supply timber, paper pulp, and other wood products. The thriving tea estates are notable drivers of plantations, because (eucalyptus) wood fires are still the only method used for curing tea.

Under the regime of Daniel arap Moi (1978-2002), there existed a situation where the executive had absolute power to excise and de-gazette forest lands at will, basically for agriculture and settlement. On paper, these were described as actions to settle the poor or landless people, but on the ground, forest land became political currency, used by the high and mighty to reward themselves and their cronies. Philosophically, it is vital to note here that the destruction of forests was driven, perpetrated and normalized by the elite, who accepted the tea estates, tourism and recreational facilities thus established. The proletariat were as always, kept away by means of state violence. Our society’s inability to mentally traverse the two decades and presidencies that have gone by between the Moi era and now, is partly due to our indolence and the manner in which the media is treating the issue. A notable example of this is a report by Citizen TV on 25th September 2022 headlined “DP Gachagua pledges return of Moi-era shamba system”. Mainstream media in Kenya has rarely been distinguished as a driver of sensible public discourse.

The advent of PELIS under the new Forest act of 2005 therefore was intended to mitigate the violence, restore the lost resource rights to a certain degree, and most importantly provide livelihoods and contribute to Kenya’s food security by structuring forest usage. The importance of a policy underpinning the use of forests cannot be overstated because food cultivation is only one facet of it. People use forests for non-timber products like honey, medicinal plants, fruits, vegetables, and pasture.

The nature of forests in Kenya is extremely varied, from the tropical rainforest in Kakamega, to montane forests in Mt. Kenya, dry highland forests in Samburu, coastal delta forests, and mangrove forests. Not all these forests are used by local communities in the same way, and the PELIS scheme is only applicable to the restoration of forests that have already suffered damage from illegal activities, and to plantation buffer zones that surround indigenous forests. It is inapplicable, for example, in the saltwater mangrove forests or the rocky dry highland forests. There are some forest like Giitune forest in Meru, or Kiagonga gia Agikuyu in Nyeri, which are recognized by both the state and communities as sacred and cannot be used for PELIS, regardless of government policy. There are also the dry highland forests in the arid North, which are more important as dry season pastures, rather than arable land because of the prevailing climate and wildlife populations therein. Sadly, though, most of the latter have been annexed by amorphous entities called “conservancies” which deny their owners access to these resources in favour of tourism investors and buccaneers involved in the global money-laundering scheme known as “carbon trade”.

Under the regime of Daniel arap Moi, there existed a situation where the executive had absolute power to excise and de-gazette forest lands at will.

PELIS is far from universally applicable in all forests but its importance (apart from enhancing food security) cannot be overstated as a policy platform on which forest-adjacent communities can negotiate and build their user rights. The ongoing furore has also laid bare the abject failure of KFS to educate the wider public about the details and provisions of this crucial policy. On the surface this may look like basic negligence, but it may also be a deliberate political effort to roll the policy back in favour of the elites and NGOs who are the primary beneficiaries of unutilized forests and who have a strong foothold in the KFS management. Whatever the case, this studious silence is unacceptable from a taxpayer-funded state authority.

Kenya is currently in the process of transition to a new government, and this may well be an opportunity for us citizens to revisit the way in which we relate to our natural resources and embrace the complexity thereof. We aren’t tenants here; we are the owners of this heritage. Neither are we immigrants, because Kenya is widely acknowledged to be the cradle of mankind. We must disabuse ourselves of the Western notion that “Africa is a village” with uniform problems that require universally applicable external solutions. Even at country level, Kenya’s forests, landscapes and ecosystems are extremely varied, requiring a more sophisticated management approach than the simplistic tools that were imposed by exploitative foreigners a century ago. The reason why our natural resource management is so costly is because the methods we employ are largely unsustainable and exogenous. This is why the boards of the state authorities in charge of our natural heritage are never free from the consumers of the said resources and are so reluctant to speak on the rights of local users. Hopefully, the state authorities will also become agile enough to take considered positions on policy implementation and take responsibility for changing or modifying these positions as and when necessary.

The ongoing furore has also laid bare the abject failure of KFS to educate the wider public about the details and provisions of this crucial policy.

There is a famous market near Kinale on the Nairobi-Naivasha highway named “Soko Mjinga” because of the prices of produce there that used to be ridiculously low. What’s undeniable is the quality and quantity of fruits and vegetables on sale there, in addition to the substantial amount that is transported daily for sale at Wakulima Market in Nairobi. It is a favourite shopping stop for Nairobi elites who drive along that road with their families. This urban elite group have been the most vociferous in opposing peasant farming around forests, yet at least 70 of  per cent of the produce they so love to buy at Soko Mjinga is produced under the PELIS programme in the Kereita and Kieni forests. You’d be hard pressed to find a more elegant snapshot of the dissonance that ails our understanding of our own natural heritage.

This article is part of The Elephant Food Edition Series done in collaboration with Route to Food Initiative (RTFI). Views expressed in the article are not necessarily those of the RTFI.

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Mordecai Ogada is a carnivore ecologist from Kenya and co-author of The Big Conservation Lie.

Politics

The Dictatorship of the Church

From the enormously influential megachurches of Walter Magaya and Emmanuel Makandiwa to smaller ‘startups,’ the church in Zimbabwe has frightening, nearly despotic authority.

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The Dictatorship of the Church
Photo: Aaron Burden on Unsplash.
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In Zimbabwe, the most powerful dictatorship is not the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. Despite the party’s 40 year history of ruthlessly cracking down on opposition parties, sowing fear into the minds of the country’s political aspirants, despite the party’s overseeing of catastrophic policies such as the failed land reform, and despite the precarious position of the social landscape of the country today, neither former president Robert Mugabe, nor the current president Emmerson Mnangagwa, nor any of their associates pose as significant an existential threat to Zimbabweans as the most influential dictatorship at play in the country: the church.The church has frightening, near despotic authority which it uses to wield the balance of human rights within its palms. It wields authority from enormously influential megachurches like those of Walter Magaya and Emmanuel Makandiwa, to the smaller startup churches that operate from the depths of the highest-density suburbs of the metropolitan provinces of Bulawayo and Harare. Modern day totalitarian regimes brandish the power of the military over their subjects. In the same way, the church wields the threat of eternal damnation against those who fail to follow its commands. With the advent of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020, for example, Emmanuel Makandiwa vocally declared that the vaccine was the biblical “mark of the beast.” In line with the promises of the book of Revelations, he declared that receiving it would damn one to eternal punishment.

Additionally, in just the same way that dictators stifle discourse through the control of the media, the church suppresses change by controlling the political landscape and making themselves indispensable stakeholders in electoral periods. The impact of this is enormous: since independence, there has been no meaningful political discourse on human rights questions. These questions include same-sex marriage and the right to access abortions as well as other reproductive health services. The church’s role in this situation has been to lead an onslaught of attacks on any institution, political or not, that dares to bring such questions for public consideration. But importantly, only through such consideration can policy substantively change. When people enter into conversation, they gain the opportunity to find middle grounds for their seemingly irreconcilable positions. Such middle-grounds may be the difference between life and death for many disadvantaged groups in Zimbabwe and across the world at large. The influence of the church impedes any attempt at locating this middle ground.

Additionally, because the church influences so many Zimbabweans, political actors do not dare oppose the church’s declarations. They fear being condemned and losing the support of their electorate. The church rarely faces criticism for its positions. It is not held accountable for the sentiments its leaders express by virtue of the veil of righteousness protecting it.

Furthermore, and uniquely so, the church serves the function of propping up the ZANU-PF party. The ZANU-PF mainly holds conservative ideals. These ideals align with those of the traditionalist Zimbabwean church. In short, the church in Zimbabwe stands as a hurdle to the crucial regime change necessary to bring the country to success. With a crucial election slated for the coming months, this hurdle looms more threatening than at any other time in the country’s history.

The impact of the church’s dictatorship on humans is immeasurable. Queer people, for example, are enormously vulnerable to violence and othering from their communities. They are also particularly vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and infections due to the absence of healthcare for them. The church meets the attempts of organizations such as the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe to push for protection with cries that often devolve into scapegoating. These cries from the church reference moral decadence, a supposed decline in family values, and in the worst of cases, mental illness.

Similarly, the church meets civil society’s attempts at codifying and protecting sexual and reproductive rights with vehement disapproval. In 2021, for example, 22 civil society organizations petitioned Parliament to lower the consent age for accessing sexual and reproductive health servicesCritics of the petition described it as “deeply antithetical to the public morality of Zimbabwe” that is grounded in “good old cultural and Christian values.”

Reporting on its consultations with religious leaders, a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee tasked with considering this petition described Christianity as “the solution” to the problem posed by the petition. This Committee viewed the petition as a gateway to issues such as “child exploitation … rights without responsibility … and spiritual bondages.” The petition disappeared into the annals of parliamentary bureaucracy. A year later, the Constitutional Court unanimously voted to increase the age of consent to 18.

A more horrifying instance of this unholy alliance between the church and the state in Zimbabwe is a recently unearthed money laundering scheme that has occurred under the watchful eye of the government. Under the stewardship of self-proclaimed Prophet Uebert Angel, the Ambassador-at-Large for the Government of Zimbabwe, millions of dollars were laundered by the Zimbabwean government. Here, as revealed by Al Jazeera in a four-part docuseries, Ambassador Angel served as a middleman for the government, facilitating the laundering of millions of dollars and the smuggling of scores of refined gold bars to the United Arab Emirates. He did this using his plenipotentiary ambassadorial status to vault through loopholes in the government’s security systems.

Importantly, Prophet Angel was appointed in 2021 as part of a frenetic series of ambassadorial appointments. President Mnangagwa handed out these appointments to specifically high-profile church leaders known for their glamorous lifestyle and their preaching of the prosperity gospel. Through these appointments, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government earned itself a permanent stamp of approval from the church and access to a multi-million member base of voting Christians in the country. Mnangagwa’s gained access to freedom from accountability arising from the power of the endorsements by “men-of-God,” one of whom’s prophetic realm includes predicting English Premier League (EPL) football scores and guessing the color of congregants’ undergarments.

In exchange, Prophet Angel has earned himself a decently large sum of money. He has also earned the same freedom from critique and accountability as Zimbabwe’s government. To date, there is no evidence of Angel ever having faced any consequences for his action. The most popular response is simple: the majority of the Christian community chooses either to defend him or to turn a blind eye to his sins. The Christian community’s response to Prophet Angel’s actions, and to the role of the church in abortion and LGBTQ discourse is predictable. The community also responds simply to similar instances when the church acts as a dialogical actor and absolves itself of accountability and critique

Amidst all this, it is easy to denounce the church as a failed actor. However, the church’s political presence has not been exclusively negative. The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, for example, was the first organization to formally acknowledge Gukurahundi, a genocide that happened between 1982 and 1987 and killed thousands of Ndebele people. The Commission did this through a detailed report documenting what it termed as disturbances in the western regions of the country. Doing so sparked essential conversations about accountability and culpability over this forgotten genocide in Zimbabwe.

Similarly, the Zimbabwe Bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission has been involved in data collection that is sparking discourse about violence and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. In doing so, the Commission is challenging Zimbabweans to think more critically about what constructive politics can look like in the country. Such work is hugely instrumental in driving social justice work forward in the country. What uniquely identifies the church’s involvement in both of these issues, however, is that neither touches on matters of Christian dogma. Instead, the Commission responds to general questions about the future of both God and Zimbabwe’s people in ways that make it easy for the church to enter into conversation with a critical and informed lens.

The conclusion from this is simple: if Zimbabwe is to shift into more progressive, dialogical politics, the church’s role must change with it. It is unlikely that the church will ever be a wholly apolitical actor in any country. However, the political integration of the church into the politics of Zimbabwe must be a full one. It must be led by the enhanced accountability of Zimbabwean religious leaders. In the same way that other political actors are taken to task over their opinions, the church must be held accountable for its rhetoric in the political space.

A growing population has, thus far, been involved in driving this shift. Social media has taken on a central role in this. For example, social media platforms such as Twitter thoroughly criticized megachurch pastor Emmanuel Makandiwa for his sentiments regarding vaccinations. This and other factors led him to backtrack on his expressed views on inoculation. However, social media is not as available in rural areas. There, the influence of the religion is stronger than elsewhere in the country. Therefore investments must be made in educating people about the roles of the church and the confines of its authority. This will be instrumental in giving people the courage to cut against the very rough grain of religious dogma. Presently, few such educational opportunities exist. To spark this much-needed change, it will be useful to have incentivizing opportunities for dialogue in religious sects.

More than anything else, the people for whom and through whom the church exists must drive any shift in the church’s role. The people of Tunisia stripped President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of his authority during the Jasmine Revolution of January 2011. The women of Iran continue to tear at the walls that surround the extremist Islamic Republic. In just the same way, the people of Zimbabwe have the power to disrobe the church of the veil of righteousness that protects it from criticism and accountability.

In anticipation of the upcoming election, the critical issues emerging necessitate this excoriation even more. This will open up political spaces for Zimbabweans to consider a wider pool of contentious issues when they take to the polls in a few months. Above all, the people of Zimbabwe must start viewing the church for what it is: an institution, just like any other, with vested interests in the country’s affairs. As with any other institution, we must begin to challenge, question, and criticize the church for its own good and for the good of the people of Zimbabwe.

This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

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Politics

Pattern of Life and Death: Camp Simba and the US War on Terror

The US has become addicted to private military contractors mainly because they provide “plausible deniability” in the so-called war on terror.

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Pattern of Life and Death: Camp Simba and the US War on Terror
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Though it claimed the lives of three Americans, not 2,403, some liken the January 2020 al-Shabaab attack at Manda Bay, Kenya, to Pearl Harbour. The US would go on to unleash massive airstrikes against al-Shabaab in Somalia.

“We Americans hate being caught out,” a spy-plane pilot and contractor recently told me. “We should have killed them before they even planned it.”

Both the Manda Bay and Pearl Harbour attacks revealed the vulnerability of US personnel and forces. One brought the US into the Second World War. The other has brought Kenya into the global–and seemingly endless–War on Terror.

Months before launching the assault, members of the Al Qaeda-linked faction bivouacked in mangrove swamp and scrubland along this stretch of the northeast Kenyan coast. Unseen, they observed the base and Magagoni airfield. The airfield was poorly secured to begin with. They managed not to trip the sensors and made their way past the guard towers and the “kill zone” without being noticed.

At 5.20 a.m. on 5 January, pilots and contractors for L3Harris Technologies, which conducts airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) for the Pentagon, were about to take off from the airfield in a Beechcraft King Air b350. The twin engine plane was laden with sensors, cameras, and other high tech video equipment. Seeing thermal images of what they thought were hyenas scurrying across the runway, the pilots eased back on the engines. By the time they realized that a force of committed, disciplined and well-armed al-Shabaab fighters had breached Magagoni’s perimeter, past the guard towers, it was too late.

Simultaneously, a mile away, other al-Shabaab fighters attacked Camp Simba, an annex to Manda Bay where US forces and contractors are housed. Al-Shabaab fired into the camp to distract personnel and delay the US response to the targeted attack at the airfield.

Back at the Magagoni airfield, al-Shabaab fighters launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the King Air. “They took it right in the schnauzer,” an aircraft mechanic at Camp Simba who survived the attack recently recalled to me. Hit in the nose, the plane burst into flames. Pilots Bruce Triplett, 64, and Dustin Harrison, 47, both contractors employed by L3Harris, died instantly. The L3Harris contractor working the surveillance and reconnaissance equipment aft managed to crawl out, badly burned.  US Army Specialist Henry J Mayfield, 23, who was in a truck clearing the tarmac, was also killed.

The attack on Camp Simba was not the first al-Shabaab action carried out in Kenya. But it was the first in the country to target US personnel. And it was wildly successful.

AFRICOM initially reported that six contractor-operated civilian aircraft had been damaged. However, drone footage released by al-Shabaab’s media wing showed that within a few minutes, the fighters had destroyed six surveillance aircraft, medical evacuation helicopters on the ground, several vehicles, and a fuel storage area. US and Kenyan forces engaged al-Shabaab for “several hours”.

Included in the destroyed aircraft was a secretive US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) military de Havilland Dash-8 twin-engine turboprop configured for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. A report released by United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in March 2022 acknowledges that the attackers “achieved a degree of success in their plan.”

Teams working for another air-surveillance company survived the attack because their aircraft were in the air, preparing to land at Magagoni. Seeing what was happening on the ground, the crew diverted to Mombasa and subsequently to Entebbe, Uganda, where they stayed for months while Manda Bay underwent measures for force protection.

I had the chance to meet some of the contractors from that ISR flight. Occasionally, these guys—some call themselves paramilitary contractors—escape Camp Simba to hang out at various watering holes in and around Lamu, the coastal town where I live. On one recent afternoon, they commandeered a bar’s sound system, replacing Kenyan easy listening with boisterous Southern rock from the States.

Sweet home Alabama! 

An ISR operator and I struck up an acquaintance. Black-eyed, thickly built, he’s also a self-confessed borderline sociopath. My own guess would be more an on-the-spectrum disorder. Formerly an operator with Delta Force, he was a “door kicker” and would often—in counter-terror parlance—“fix and finish” terror suspects. Abundant ink on his solid arms immortalizes scenes of battle from Iraq and Afghanistan. In his fifties, with a puffy white beard, he’s now an ISR contractor, an “eye in the sky”. His workday is spent “finding and fixing” targets for the Pentagon.

Occasionally, these guys—some call themselves paramilitary contractors—escape Camp Simba to hang out at various watering holes in and around Lamu.

He tells me about his missions—ten hours in a King Air, most of that time above Somalia, draped over cameras and video equipment. He gathers sensitive data for “pattern of life” analysis. He tells me that on the morning of the attack he was in the King Air about to land at the Magagoni airstrip.

We talked about a lot of things but when I probed him about “pattern of life” intel, the ISR operator told me not a lot except that al-Shabaab had been observing Camp Simba and the airstrip for a pattern of life study.

What I could learn online is that a pattern of life study is the documentation of the habits of an individual subject or of the population of an area. Generally done without the consent of the subject, it is carried out for purposes including security, profit, scientific research, regular censuses, and traffic analysis. So, pattern-of-life analysis is a fancy term for spying on people en masse. Seemingly boring.

Less so as applied to the forever war on terror. The operator pointed out the irony of how the mile or so of scrubland between the base and the Indian Ocean coastline had been crawling with militant spies in the months preceding the attack at Camp Simba. Typically, the ISR specialist says, his job is to find an al-Shabaab suspect and study his daily behaviours—his “pattern of life.”

ISR and Pattern of Life are inextricably linked

King Airs perform specialized missions; the planes are equipped with cameras and communications equipment suitable for military surveillance. Radar systems gaze through foliage, rain, darkness, dust storms or atmospheric haze to provide real time, high quality tactical ground imagery anytime it is needed, day or night. What my operator acquaintance collects goes to the Pentagon where it is analysed to determine whether anything observed is “actionable”. In many instances, action that proceeds includes airstrikes. But as a private military contractor ISR operator cannot “pull the trigger”.

In the six weeks following the attack at Magagoni and Camp Simba, AFRICOM launched 13 airstrikes against al-Shabaab’s network. That was a high share of the total of 42 carried out in 2020.

Airstrikes spiked under the Trump administration, totalling more than 275 reported, compared with 60 over the eight years of the Barack Obama administration. It is no great mystery that the Manda Bay-Magagoni attack occurred during Trump’s time in office.

Typically, the ISR specialist says, his job is to find an al-Shabaab suspect and study his daily behaviours—his “pattern of life.”

Several al-Shabaab leaders behind the attack are believed to have been killed in such airstrikes. The US first launched airstrikes against al-Shabab in Somalia in 2007 and increased them in 2016, according to data collected and analysed by UK-based non-profit Airwars.

Controversy arises from the fact that, as precise as these strikes are thought to be, there are always civilian casualties.

“The US uses pattern of life, in part, to identify ways to reduce the risk of innocent civilian casualties (CIVCAS) (when/where are targets by themselves or with family) whereas obviously Shabaab does not distinguish as such and uses it for different purposes,” a Department of Defense official familiar with the matter of drone operations told me.

The Biden administration resumed airstrikes in Somalia in August 2021. AFRICOM claimed it killed 13 al-Shabaab militants and that no civilians were killed.

According to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Mustaf ‘Ato is a senior Amniyat official responsible for coordinating and conducting al-Shabaab attacks in Somalia and Kenya and has helped plan attacks on Kenyan targets and US military compounds in Kenya. It is not clear, however, if this target has been fixed and killed.

A few days after the second anniversary of the Manda Bay attack, the US offered a US$10 million bounty.

The American public know very little about private military contractors. Yet the US has become addicted to contractors mainly because they provide “plausible deniability”.  “Americans don’t care about contractors coming home in body bags,” says Sean McFate, a defense and national security analyst.

These airstrikes, targeted with the help of the operators and pilots in the King Airs flying out of Magagoni, would furnish a strong motive for al-Shabaab’s move on 5 January 2020.

The Pentagon carried out 15 air strikes in 2022 on the al-Qaeda-linked group, according to the Long War Journal tracker. Africom said the strikes killed at least 107 al-Shabaab fighters. There are no armed drones as such based at Camp Simba but armed gray-coloured single-engine Pilatus aircraft called Draco (Latin for “Dragon”) are sometimes used to kill targets in Somalia, a well-placed source told me.

The US has become addicted to contractors mainly because they provide “plausible deniability”.

The contractor I got to know somewhat brushes off the why of the attack. It is all too contextual for public consumption, and probably part of army indoctrination not to encourage meaningful discussion. He had, however, made the dry observation about the al-Shabaab affiliates out in the bush near the airfield, doing “pattern of life” reconnaissance.

The strike on Magagoni was closely timed and fully coordinated. And it appears that the primary aim was to take out ISR planes and their crews. It was private contractors, not US soldiers, in those planes. I pointed out to the operator that those targets would serve al-Shabaab’s aims both of vengeance and deterrence or prevention. His response: “Who cares why they attacked us? Al-Shabaab are booger-eaters.”

With that he cranks up the sound, singing along off-key:

And this bird, you cannot change

Lord help me, I can’t change….

Won’t you fly high, free bird, yeah.

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Politics

Breaking the Chains of Indifference

The significance of ending the ongoing war in Sudan cannot be overstated, and represents more than just an end to violence. It provides a critical moment for the international community to follow the lead of the Sudanese people.

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Breaking the Chains of Indifference
Photo by Musnany on Unsplash.
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They say that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

As someone from the diaspora, every time I visited Sudan, I noticed that many of the houses had small problems like broken door knobs, cracked mirrors or crooked toilet seats that never seemed to get fixed over the years. Around Khartoum, you saw bumps and manholes on sand-covered, uneven roads. You saw buildings standing for years like unfinished skeletons. They had tons of building material in front of them: homeless families asleep in their shade, lying there, motionless, like collateral damage. This has always been the norm. Still, it is a microcosm of a much broader reality. Inadequate healthcare, a crumbling educational system, and a lack of essential services also became the norm for the Sudanese people.

This would be different, of course, if the ruling party owned the facility you were in, with the paved roads leading up to their meticulously maintained mansions. This stark contrast fuelled resentment among the people, leading them to label the government and its associates as “them.” These houses were symbols of the vast divide between the ruling elite and the everyday citizens longing for change. As the stark divide between “them” and “us” deepened, people yearned to change everything at once, to rid themselves of the oppressive grip of “them.”

Over the years, I understood why a pervasive sense of indifference had taken hold. The people of Sudan grew indifferent towards a government that remained unchanged. It showed no willingness to address the needs of its citizens unless it directly benefited those in power. For three decades, drastic change eluded the Sudanese people. They woke up each day to a different price for the dollar and a different cost for survival. The weight of this enduring status quo bore down upon them, rendering them mere spectators of their own lives. However, as it always does, a moment of reckoning finally arrived—the revolution.

Returning home after the 2019 revolution in Sudan, what stood out in contrast to the indifference was the hashtag #hanabnihu, which from Arabic translates to “we will build it.” #Hanabnihu echoed throughout Sudanese conversations taking place on and off the internet, symbolizing our determination to build our nation. To build our nation, we needed to commit to change beyond any single group’s fall, or any particular faction’s victory. Our spirits were high as everyone felt we had enough muscle memory to remember what happened in the region. We remembered how many of “them” came back to power. With the military still in power, the revolution was incomplete. Yet it still served as a rallying cry for the Sudanese people. It was a collective expression of their determination to no longer accept the unfinished state of their nation.

Many Sudanese people from the diaspora returned to Sudan. They helped the people of Suean create spaces of hope and resilience, everyone working tirelessly to build a new Sudan. They initiated remarkable projects and breathed life into the half-built houses they now prioritized to turn into homes. We had yearned for a time when broken door knobs and crooked toilet seats would be fixed, and for a time when the government would smooth out the bumps on the road. For four years following the revolution, people marched, protested, and fought for a Sudan they envisioned. They fought in opposition to the military, whose two factions thought that a massacre or even a coup might bring the people back to the state of indifference that they once lived in.

Remarkably, the protests became ingrained in the weekly schedule of the Sudanese people. It became part of their routine, a testament to their unwavering dedication and the persistence of their aspirations. But soon, the people found themselves normalized to these protests. This was partly due to the fact that it was organized by the only body fighting against the return of this indifference: the neighborhood’s resistance committees. These horizontally structured, self-organized member groups regularly convened to organize everything from planning the weekly protests and discussing economic policy to trash pickup, and the way corruption lowered the quality of the bread from the local bakery.

The international media celebrated the resistance committees for their innovation in resistance and commitment to nonviolence. But as we, the Sudanese, watched the news on our resistance fade, it was clear that the normalization of indifference extended beyond Sudan’s borders. The international community turned a blind eye to justice, equality, and progress in the celebrated principles of the peaceful 2019 revolution. In a desperate attempt to establish fake stability in Sudan, the international community continued their conversations with the military. Their international sponsors mentioned no  retribution against the military for their actions.

During my recent visit to Sudan, the sense of anticipation was palpable. It was just two months before the outbreak of war between the army and the paramilitary group. The protests had intensified and the economy was faltering. The nation stood at the precipice as the activism continued and the tensions between “us” and “them” had begun to grow once again.

Now, as war engulfs the nation, many Sudanese find themselves torn. At the same time, they hope for the victory of the Sudanese Army. Despite the army’s flaws, Sudanese people hope the army will win against “them” while recognizing that this war remains primarily between different factions of “them.” We wake up every day with a little less hope. We watch them bomb Khartoum and the little infrastructure that existed turn to dust. We watch as the resistance committees continue to do the army’s job for them. They work fiercely to deliver medicine, evacuate people and collect the nameless bodies on the sides of the streets next to the burnt buildings that were almost starting to be completed.

Another battle takes place online. On Sudanese social media, people challenge the negative mood of the war. Sudanese architects and designers work from their rented flats in Cairo or Addis, posting juxtaposed images that place the grainy, rashly captured photos of the latest burnt-down building in Khartoum next to different rendered perspectives. These perspectives reimagine the same building in a rebuilt Sudan. They thus instantly force a glimpse of hope in what now looks like a far-fetched reality to most people.

Just as these young visionaries attempt to defy the odds, international intervention and support are pivotal to help Sudan escape the clutches of this devastating conflict. Let Sudan serve as a catalyst for the change that was meant to be. Diplomatic engagement, humanitarian aid, and assistance in facilitating peaceful negotiations can all contribute.

The significance of ending the ongoing war in Sudan cannot be overstated. It represents more than just a cessation of violence. It provides a critical moment for the international community to follow the lead of the Sudanese people. The international community should dismantle the prevailing state of indifference worldwide. The fight against indifference extends far beyond the borders of Sudan. It is a fight that demands our attention and commitment on a global scale of solidarity. We must challenge the systems that perpetuate indifference and inequality in our own societies. We must stand up against injustice and apathy wherever we find it.

This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

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