The Westgate Paradox

A week ago, bloodthirsty gun totting terrorists descended on Kenya’s premier upmarket shopping mall, The Westgate and for four solid days ,made it their battlefield, holding dozens of Kenyans hostage and leaving 67 innocent Kenyans, among them women and children, lying lifeless in their wake.

They belong to hellfire. They are devil’s agents.

However, as the dust finally settles, as those slain in the horrific attack are finally laid to eternal rest,(May their soul rest in peace) and as forensic experts comb the crime scene looking for evidence, the attack has  opened a fray of questions from any quarters , which sadly, no one is answering.

The experts are said to have sealed off the place to the media, a move that has left tongues wagging, and questions flying left right and centre, as speculations heighten over the identity of the terrorists, and as to what really transpired inside the besieged building.

Below is a raft of questions that this writer is grappling with, all of them coming from the members of the public. Here we go.

1.     Was there a  confusion between the police, the General Service Unit Recce Company, and the Armed forces, thus giving the terrorists time to organize themselves?

A local media house stated that at the initial stages minutes after the attack, certified gun holders around the Westgate, together with armed security forces engaged the terrorists In a fierce gun battle, and set the tempo giving the terrorists no time to reorganize their line of attack.

However, this was altered when the police came in, and the security men had to be pulled aside,giving the terrorists a lifeline.

Minutes later, The G.S.U are said to have pulled out the  police thus creating a gap before they started  engaging the terrorists again.

The fete was repeated when Kenya Defence Forces came into the scene.

This is when the terrorists got the much needed breather and launched a lethal attack, their snipers killing six of the KDF soldiers in a blazing gunfire, local newspapers reported.

2.    What happened to the hostages and the terrorists after the government claimed it had taken control of all the floors of the building? Did they shoot them?. If Yes, how come there are no more bodies which have been found since Tuesday?

Before Tuesday there were definitely an unknown number of people in the mall. However, the government through the interior ministry maintained that the forces had taken control of the mall, yet no more was said of the people who were inside at that particular time.

3.    Did the Kenyan forces shoot indiscriminately, killing their own civilians? And possibly covering it up by well coordinated efforts to ward off the media from the scene, terming it a scene of crime?

4.    Why is the government monopolizing information coming from the mall and go ahead to urge everyone to believe only what is coming from the government?

5.    Who were those soldiers who were white/European who rescued people 45 minutes after the attack?

A rescued hostage narrated how people were afraid after seeing te white soldiers, so afraid that some refused to come out of the building fearing for their lives, thinking that those too were terrorists.

6. Why were killed terrorists not paraded at least to the media?

7. The government claimed to have rescued several hostages Tuesday. What happened       to the rescued hostages, where did they go? Who saw them?

8.What is the official death toll? Why are the government, the police  and the Red Cross giving contradicting information with regard to the numbers of those killed and those still missing?

9. Who set the vehicles on fire and why?

10.  Are claims of looting true? Who did it?

11. Why did the building cave in?

12. Were chemical weapons used by the Kenyans forces? Why is it that there is no more bodies recovered after the Kenya Army claimed full control of the building?

13. Was there a female terrorist in there?

14. Why couldn’t they use other means to neutralize the terrorists?

For instance, use a mixture of tear gas, irritating water, or even hire the witchdoctor who allegedly controls bees.

I hear bees could have neutralized them in a minute, prompting them to drop their guns.

Here, the damned terrorists could have been arrested while the hostages could have been taken to hospitals, suffering from only multiple bee stings rather than gun shots. Sometimes it simplicity that carries the day.

15. Were there intelligence reports on the attack weeks before it happened, and who was napping on his job?

16. Where are the terrorists, dead or alive? could they possibly have disappeared disguising themselves as civilians?

For instance, one rescued victim narrated to a local media house how one of the attackers was dressed:

A blue pair of jeans,a black T-shirt and a scarf. Simply saying,  without a gun, there was no  way one could have established that he was one of the attackers.

How could he have escaped? By just removing the scarf, throwing down the heavy riffle and walking to his freedom.

Unconfirmed reports show that at least one of the attackers moved out with the victims and though one of the victims who saw him raised the matter with the security forces, nothing came out of it.

So, why didn’t the government ensure that everyone who came out of the building  were  thoroughly vetted to check on any irregularity?

17. Is the government trying to cover up something? Say a major security lapse?

These questions come from worried Kenyans who are requesting immediate answers, or at least information related to the above.

Even though the matter is under investigation, the more the silence, the more the questions.

Someone tell Kenyans!

Coming to terms with the ‘White Widow’

Her name has been floated since the Westgate attack. Some claim that she might have been involved, others say she was a financier, while others just mention her name not knowing the role she played or even whether she was involved.

Samantha Lewthwaite is her name. She is also known as Sherafiya Lewthwaite or the “White Widow”.

And why the White Widow? Some may ask.

Samantha was married to Germaine Lindsay, a 7/7 suicide bomber who bombed a train in London killing 26 civilians.

Samantha, who converted to Islam at the age of 17, is said to have condemned her husband’s move, claiming that he was mislead by a few  extremists since he was a new convert.

And the White widow is not new to controversy. She is reported to have sold a story to the Sun for $30,000, a story claiming that she did not know her husband was involved in such acts of terror.

Forensic investigators into the incidence are said to have implicated her to the bombings saying she planned with the attackers’ way before the bombings.

Lewthwaite is also said to have been very serious about Islam after she converted.

She was so serious that she started isolating herself from others students and donning full length Islamic attire. She became an introvert, BBC reports.

Born in Banbridge, County Down to a former British soldier, Samantha was raised as a disciplined child, and her parents’ marriage was in constant problems, she is said to have been affected by that, thus seeking solace from their Muslim neighbors where she thought she could find peace, before converting to Islam.

Their parents finally separated and Samantha moved to Aylesbury,Buckinghamshire.

She met Lindsay in an Islam internet chat room and they consecrated their marriage months later in an elaborate Muslim wedding.

Lewthwaite is now believed to be a fugitive running from justice in Kenya, where she is accused to have been behind last year’s Mombasa bombing, where hundreds were attacked were watching the Euro 2012 tournament in a bar.

Media and security reports have linked Miss Lewthwaite to the September 21 attack of Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi.

She is 28.

Is this the return of Baba Yao?

As Nairobians wait with baited breath for the court ruling on whether city governor Evans Kidero’s win was legit, or there were glaring irregularities as former Embakasi Member of Parliament Ferdinand Waititu spectacularly claimed in his petition following his defeat six months ago, trouble seems to have pitched tent in the former’s hood.

First  came the city workers, up in arms over their dues, they chanted Waititu’s name claiming he could have solved their problems.

Then came a women Representative who claimed that the governor had spectacularly slapped her in the full glare of Television cameras.

And just when the governor was enveloped by a thick mist that the incident brought, the election court announced that it will deliver the ruling on the petition today.

What a terrible run of affairs it was.

Here are the possible scenarios that could come out of today’s verdict.

Ferdinand Waititu’s case might have convinced the judges that he did not lose fairly and that there were massive irregularities and therefore declare the election illegitimate.

Or, they might see that there were the irregularities, but not substantial enough to make the election null and void and thus throw out the petition.

Or, they might order a recount of votes and declare whoever wins as the duly elected governor,

Or none of the above.*

Whatever the outcome, we must say it was a tough week for Mr.Kidero.

In what many of the latter’s ardent fans describe as the return of Baba Yao, Waititu’s pseudo name, the question that needlessly bothers Nairobians is, Is this the return of Baba Yao?

*Let the courts decide lest we be hauled in for contempt of court.

Vanity as M.Ps plan to pull Kenyan cases out of I.C.C

Vanity of vanities. It is all vanity.

As Kenya’s top echelons of power depart for the Hague, Netherlands to fight charges of crime against humanity leveled against them by the International Criminal Court, Members of Parliament are running helter skelter, passing motions and preparing bills to stop the cases, in a last minute bid to withdraw from the international court.

It is gainsaid to say that their efforts are mere vanity and will not hold.

A law scolar intimated to this writer that despite the efforts to withdraw from the Rome statute, the legal provision that makes countries to be parties to the International Criminal Court, the cases at hand must continue to full trial, and their efforts can only be used to forestall any future contact with the Hague based court.

So, my million Dollar question goes;”What about the victims?”

Kenyan president and his deputy together with Radio journalist Joshua Sang, are facing charges of crimes against humanity and their cases have gone to full trial.

The International Criminal Court had given the trio a lifeline to be tried by Kenyan courts, and although the move was defeated in parliament where majority voted that the cases be heard at the Hague. It remains a surprise that the M.Ps now want to pull out three year later.

Perhaps reality has just given them a slap on the face and awoken them from their slumber, now that the full trial has started.

However, M.Ps allied to former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement have vowed to reject, and rally some M.Ps allied to The Natianal Alliance side, the party that boasts of a majority in Parliament to support their causes in rejecting te bill on the floor of the house.

Pulling out of the international court raises serious questions on what will happen in future when the local courts fail to prosecute wrongdoers in case of a repeat of the 2007 post election violence, which claimed the lives of around 1000Kenyansand left hundreds of thousands of others displaced.

Kenya remains a highly polarized country and the events of 2007 can recur in an instant over a barrage of contentious issues dogging the population, from ethnicity to division of resources to nepotism and corruption, just what might happen in future in case one of these factors lead Kenyans to slit each other’s throats?

As we await the answers to the above questions, we hope that the trials will run smoothly and that justice for the more than 500,000 people who were displaced, and the blood of all those who were slain will be avenged, and that justice will be done, or will be seen to be done.

I rest my case.