Find way out of the killing fields of Turkana

On July 4, 1976, a crack team of Israeli commandos landed at Entebbe and stormed the terminal building, in a dramatic raid to save more than 100 hostages held by pro-Palestinian hijackers at Entebbe Airport.

Of the operation, Web-based Wikipedia writes: They flew over 4,000km to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes and 102 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the commander, Lt-Col Jonathan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages, and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and 30 Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda Air Force were destroyed. A fourth hostage was murdered by Uganda Army officers at a nearby hospital.”

In a twist of fate, 2011, 36 years on, it is Uganda Army soldiers scouring Mogadishu to stop Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda-inspired militia from visiting death and destruction in the streets of Uganda.

The Americans never forgot.

When French-Israeli Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit was captured on in June 2006 by Hamas, Israel and the Palestinians have been on an almost permanent war footing since. No talks are complete without some direct or veiled reference to Shalit’s whereabouts.

Missile destroyer

In February 1993, the World Trade Centre was bombed, when a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in New York.

On August 7, 1998, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed by terrorists, leaving 258 people dead and more than 5,000 people injured. Particularly, one Senior Intelligence analyst with the CIA’s anti-terror taskforce was to be remembered.

Again, the Americans kept their eyes peeled for the perpetrators. And please believe it, their presence in Somalia must have a lot to do with the killing of its soldiers in Mogadishu, many unforgotten year ago.

In October 2000, what has become known as The USS Cole Bombing, or the USS Cole Incident, saw 17 people dead and 39 injured in a suicide attack against the United States Navy guided missile destroyer, USS Cole, in Aden harbour.

On September 11, 2001, hijackers flew aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon in the worst terrorist attack on US soil.

Often referred to as September 11 or 9/11, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners for this purpose, killing everyone on board and thousands of workers in the buildings.

Both towers collapsed, leaving 3,000 victims and the hijackers. Most of the dead were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries.

In May, raiders from Merille tribe – also known as the Dassenech –killed at least 19 people in Turkana District after duping them to cross into Ethiopia to collect relief food.

A ‘high-level’ meeting between Internal Security minister George Saitoti and his Ethiopian counterparts was followed by one by their respective presidents. A ceasefire of sorts was struck.

Three days ago, Merille raiders mowed down 30 Kenyan villagers, mostly women and children in Todonyang. And as usual, a Rapid Response Unit was dispatched after them. And the rest is predictable.

The DCs of both sides of the border will convene a peace meeting. Elders will squint under the acacia tree shade, swear to talk to their hot-blooded warrior youths; journalists who will have been flown into the meeting will dutifully record the proceedings, and a new batch of ‘peace-makers’ would be unveiled.

Then, as day follows night and night follows day, in another weekmore Merille gunmen will cross the border and pick off a few more Kenyan Turkana villagers.

Question is, why do other nations take not just the loss of several lives, but that of one citizen to be sacrosanct and mobilise Search and Rescue (and at times, Seek and Destry) missions? Why did the US not rest until they had tracked down Osama bin Laden? They have turned up every rock, blasted every cranny, and renditioned every last person suspected to know  who the enemies of America are.

Ditto Israel. Uganda is fast learning to take the fight to the aggressor.

Ethiopian rifle

What will it take to jolt the Kenyan Government out of its reverie and train its sights on the fundamental right to life and protection from injury? Is it not enough that the people of northern Kenya long stopped looking like fellow Kenyans due to neglect by successive governments that they are now staring from the wrong end of an Ethiopian rifle barrel?

It does not take rocket science to accurately predict that the US will pursue the Taliban commanders who brought down two helicopters in Afghanistan two days ago killing 30 US soldiers. The million-dollar question is, what will the Kenyans do about the killing fields of Todonyang?