WERE THE KILLINGS DELIBERATE, OR AN ACT OF A HUMAN ERROR?

OPINION PAGE

By Adow Jubat - Senior Reporter/Media Consultant

Firstly, I send my heartfelt condolences, to the families of my in laws, who had their young human Angels, decimated in yesterdays aerial bombardments, allegedly carried out by our uniformed external defenders.

Before we condemn our military officers, for the painful killings, we must appreciate the facts that, Mandera County is facing a serious security threats from cannibals hiding on the other side of our porous border. 

These vampires are determined to rip our beautiful country into a shreds worse than what they did to our neigbouring country, Somalia.

Fighting this war, so as to get our county and country free from this ragtag, that has made our travelling on our roads between Mandera – Elwak – Wajir- Garissa – Nairobi equal to crossing a hell on earth, will understandably have some innocent casualties like the ones we had in El-Ram.

This is not to say that, the military or any other state security agency, should run berserk plundering properties, or murder innocent people in cold blood, under the aegis of engaging terrorists elements, but as Kenyans we must remain vigilant to the truth that, such collateral damages, is unavoidable occurrences during a conflict with a heavily armed enemy like al-Shabaab.

On their side, the state security machinery, must avoid their routine knee-jerk bombardments, whenever there is attack by our cowardly enemies and instead must invest heavily in local intelligent gathering to forestall any further incursion into the country to thwart any form of counter engagements, that would possibly led into civilians sufferings.

Any security reactions to respond to terror attacks, like ones in this week which has led to the butchery of five security officers scouting a passengers bus in Mandera and a driver of ambulance speeding to save a life in Hullgho in Garissa County, must be done carefully to eschew civilians casualties on both sides of the border.

And whenever, the inevitable erroneous human casualty occurs, the government must be quick to intervene and provide all humanly supports which the victims’ families may require. 

These should include but not limited to covering burial expenses, medical bills and generous compensation, where and when necessary.

Its in my suggestion that the government must recruit the local youth with clean records into police reservists and motivating them through healthy monthly stipends, so that they could be involved in 24 hours round the clock patrols along the border.

The local youth are more knowledgeable about the terrains in the area than any other person. They should also be made sufficiently mobile so that they could respond swiftly to confront wherever the presences of our enemies are reported.

The local populace in Mandera and their political leadership must support wholeheartedly any state approaches aimed at freeing their county from external jiggers, which are working tirelessly to defeat the gains they were expecting from devolved systems.

As a sovereignty country, we can’t live under the intimidation of foreign cowards and it is incumbent upon all Kenyans to jointly vanquish terror and their pipelines.