Changing civil-military relations in Kenya

Since Kenya attained independence in 1963, successive regimes have adopted a policy of separating the military from civilian institutions as a means of ensuring civilian rule and avoiding the participation of military or paramilitary units in the machinations of governance. This was designed to prevent regime change by military officials as was the case in many African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Somalia which were plagued by military coups. At that time, Kenya was an ‘island of peace is a sea of conflict’.

The 2007-08 post-election violence was a tipping point for civil-military relations in Kenya. Heavily armed paramilitary units clamped down on citizens exercising their right to peaceful protest. The Commission of Inquiry into the Post Election Violence noted that the use of force by the police and paramilitary units was disproportionate. There were several cases of citizens being shot from the back as they fled from the paramilitary GSU in Mathare and Kibera. There were also several victims of rear gunshot wounds, including children, in Kisumu and Kakamega.

With the advent of the Jubilee administration, which came to power in 2013 after a hotly disputed general election, there has been a concerted effort to gain legitimacy through professional imaging, social media and political control of key territories, particularly where there is perceived potential for oil and gas exploration. The President’s recent visit to Archers Post to unveil the East Africa Standby Brigade, fully clad in military fatigues, is symbolic of changing civil-military relations in Kenya and the region. Previous presidents shied away from donning military attire.

This comes in the wake of the revival of the provincial administration. There are paramilitary units attached to and at the service of the County Commissioners contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution of Kenya 2010. Other significant symbols of changing civil-military relations are the proposed Nyumba Kumi initiative and the Nairobi metropolitan brigade. These would rely heavily on the old provincial administration’s architecture and the deployment of the GSU. The Jubilee administration has attempted to justify these measures using rising insecurity citing the violence in Tana River, Lamu and the Westgate terror attack, none of which have been independently and comprehensively investigated and the findings made public.

The proposed government initiatives appear to be heading towards the militarisation of the state in many forms. The National Youth Service was recently provided with uniforms resembling military combat fatigues and has been deployed to beef up security in key conflict areas, border points and other potential terror targets. In the meantime, the police remain ill-equipped, poorly paid and living in squalid conditions. Recommendations on police reforms, including better working conditions, recommended by the Ransley Commission and other task forces have never been implemented. There is a greater emphasis on improving resources for paramilitary units to engage in civic space rather than improving policing in Kenya.

During the Kibaki administration, this was exacerbated by the Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector programme which pumped a lot of money into security sector reform. Some of these resources were ironically deployed to purchase heavy military and anti-riot gear which was used to clamp down on citizens and to forcefully hijack the Chair of the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya to swear in the president elect without receiving adequate results in 2007. This event contributed to the outbreak of violence in areas dominated by opposition supporters. Skewed resource prioritization in the Security Sector can therefore have damaging effects on fragile states and impact on civil -military relations.

The National Intelligence Service in Kenya has also come under great scrutiny following the killings in Lamu and the Westgate Mall attack. It has been reported that key intelligence reports from the NIS were not acted upon by state security agencies including the military and police leading to the resignation of NIS chief Major General Michael Gichangi. The manner in which the Kenya Defence Forces, which is not trained for urban warfare, handled the Westgate mall attack has also come into sharp focus. The foreign trained Special Forces known as the Recce Unit appeared to be making headway only to be foiled by the Kenya Defence Forces in a calamitous battle for control leading to looting and robbery of the mall under the control of the armed forces while the suspects were never apprehended.

This power struggle between the military and police, coupled with skewed resource allocation to both military and paramilitary units points to the growing militarization of the state and changing civil-military relations in Kenya. During the last years of the Moi regime, the NIS had been professionalised despite being headed by former senior military personnel. The civilian component of the NIS had advanced significantly with professional staff from all sectors. Since Westgate, there appears to be a reversal in the gains made with more emphasis on military components and personnel. Both the military and the state have routinely ignored intelligence reports from the NIS leading to loss of lives. The current regime appears to favour the military aspects of security at the expense of civilian protection agencies. This will have an effect on civil-military relations in Kenya as the political regime evolves.

These observations cannot pass without the context of Kenya’s growing role in galvanizing the East African Community, African Union and other regional blocs against perceived foreign interference in state sovereignty through the accountability process of the International Criminal Court. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda for close to 28 years with significant nostalgia for his military background, has been a close ally of Kenya’s present administration and has played a key role in several state functions such as the promulgation of the new constitution in 2010 and the swearing in of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, both indicted by the ICC, as President and Deputy President. Museveni has played a key role in castigating the West during these functions in Kenya. Uganda is a highly militarized state and Museveni is proud of his military background often donning military combat fatigues and carrying his favorite AK47 rifle publicly which represents potent symbolism around political power and territorial control.

Museveni has been a key ally to the Jubilee administration, galvanizing the African Union and other regional actors against the advances of the International Criminal Court and other international calls for accountability in Kenya. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame has played a more silent but effective role in this regard. Kagame also invokes public displays of his military affiliation sometimes donning army fatigues. Interestingly, the trio of Kagame, Museveni and Uhuru, have all been subjected to some level of scrutiny for atrocity crimes. Kagame has often been linked to proxy wars against Hutu groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The investigations into UPDF atrocities in Northern Uganda while prosecuting the LRA have unsettled Museveni while Uhuru Kenyatta was charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

The militarization of the state is often characterized by a desire by the central government to control the regions, including peripheral territories and contested borders. This was seen during Idi Amin’s reign when he made reference to territories of Western Kenya as belonging to Uganda. During the one party dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi, there was a clamp down on Northern Kenya where atrocities were committed by the military and other state security agencies during the ‘Shifta Wars’ as documented by the Truth Commission report. State militarization is also coupled with potent military symbolism by its leaders, aggressive foreign policy standpoints and strategic alliances with transactional hegemonic states like China which do not impose human rights standards as a part of the conditions attendant to foreign aid. Potent military symbolism is a critical feature of these changing civil military relations.

* James Gondi is a human rights lawyer and comments on issues of public concern. This article was previously published by The Star newspaper in Kenya.

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