Overland Samburu is OUTlawed

Overland Samburu is OUTlawed

Just as Russia’s leap into modernity created a powerful mafia, so it now appears that Kenya’s is doing the same. And for travelers this unfortunately means you can no longer travel overland north of Mt. Kenya.

I’ve found myself becoming peculiarly cautious in my golden years, so I reflect when I was a twenty-something year old gallivanting through Idi Amin’s very dangerous Uganda, or even daring to cross the Omo in the presence of desperate, armed thugs. So jungle on, you young’uns, but keep your eyes wide open.

And if you’re one of my clients, I’m afraid we’re staying clear. Of where? Of some of the finest wilderness left in Africa: Samburu and Laikipia, to be precise.

Now there’s still a very safe way to visit these places: fly in. If you fly into the reserve’s airstrip, I’m absolutely confident that you’ll be as safe as the Queen of England shopping at Harrods. But that spectacularly gorgeous drive off Mt. Kenya onto the Great Northern Frontier, or those amazing landscapes between Samburu and Laikipia seen only from the ground … it’s over. At least for the foreseeable future.

This past weekend saw one of the most spectacular, clearly well planned cattle raids ever seen in the history of Kenya. Seven people were killed and scores wounded and a thousand cattle whisked away.

It happened about 50 miles northeast of the Samburu National Park Archer’s Post gate, and about 35 miles north of the nearest lodge in Shaba National Park.

Now admittedly this particular raid is pretty far from tourist areas, but its size got me, and it’s one of a series of raids that’s been increasing in the area. Last year, for instance, there was a gun battle in broad daylight right on the bridge over the Ewaso Nyiro River at Archer’s Post.

This is the only way tourists can enter the area overland.

The weekend raid is about 20 miles from where Joy Adamson was killed by bandits more than three decades ago.

And that’s what gives me perspective. The “Northern Frontier” has always been a lawless land. It’s just too hard to patrol. I remember only 4 years ago having to charter an aircraft for a group of only 11 of us who wanted to drive all of 20 miles from Samburu to a lovely retreat in the Mathews Mountains, because bandits had been sighted on the road we were scheduled to drive.

But bandits stopping cars and taking an occasional goat are way different from what is being reported in today’s modernizing Kenya.

First of all, in order to steal 1000 head of cattle in a single raid, you’ve got to have someone who has a 1000 head of cattle to steal from. That never existed in the days of subsistence herding, where a man with 25 head was a royal chief.

Second, it’s rather hard to conceal 1000 cows. These guys had multiple trucks, using the new Chinese paved road built through the desert to whisk their booty into the markets down south.

According to the police commissioner of the area, law enforcement was outgunned. Shotguns against AK47s.

Recognizing this danger was coming, the Kenyan Government has been aggressively trying to disarm everyone in the area. But according to Member of Parliament from the area in which this giant raid occurred, Abdul Bahari (Isiolo South), “people in Samburu have not been disarmed and even if they have, we have not seen the effect as they seem to have guns during the raids.”

And playing to his constituency as I suppose he has to, a neighboring MP, Adan Keynan (Wajir West) continued during the press conference with a warning to the government.

“We’re giving them seven days, or else we’ll tell our people to protect themselves. We cannot be perpetually talking to a government that does not see, does not hear and does not sense the value of life,” said Mr Keynan.

The drought has something to do with this, of course. It makes the weak, weaker, and it makes the markets more ready to take on stolen goods.

And finally what concerns me most is that the old days’ criminals were very respectful of us tourists. Sometimes, it took a bribe, but nary a hair was mussed. I felt we were respected as distant foreigners interested in a distant land, and part of a movement that in the end everyone living in the area really gained from.

A thousand cattle is a hefty haul. You’d have to have a pretty good tourist season to reach that booty. So I just don’t want to be on that new Chinese road when these guys are in the midst of a heist.

Safety At Ground Level

Safety At Ground Level

The airline you’re going to fly next week isn’t considered among the safest? Should you cancel? And what was that report out this week?

There is enormous confusion over the report widely circulated in the media this week routinely labeled “The World’s Ten Safest Airlines.” The report is an annual one from the Geneva-based Transport Rating Agency (ATRA).

No, I’m not right away listing the ten “safest airlines” because I think for us average travelers it’s a bunch of malarkey. It might have some usefulness for large groups of travelers negotiating a corporate rate structure, or for potential mergers and acquisitions, but for Joes like you and me, forget it.

Here’s why. The analysis was done on only what ATRA calls the “100 most important airlines” without explaining what it meant by “important.”

According to Wikipedia, there are 5,663 airlines in the world. That means the analysis didn’t even consider 5,553. JetBlue, for example, wasn’t considered important enough.

The report is a for-sale report from a profit making consulting firm. It’s sort of like Americans for Progress rating the best Congressmen.

I don’t think ATRA is necessarily political, but it is interested only in the Big Guys. This is because their customers aren’t interested in Ryan Air or Kenya Airways. Or, for that matter, Qatar Airlines, one of the finest carriers in the world.

Click here for what I use to determine if an airline is good or not, the StarRanking. Now admittedly, the star ranking – or quality rank – theoretically doesn’t measure safety. But I think the correlation is obvious. Any business that invests enough to make it noticeably better than its competitors is likely to invest enough to preserve itself well.

A major difference between ATRA and StarRanking is that StarRanking applies no filter of “important airline” to its analysis. Can we even guess what ATRA’s definition of importance is?

In several examples snipped out of its expensive report it’s clear that LARGE means IMPORTANT. If you aren’t among the 100 biggest airlines in the world, you won’t even be considered.

It seems to me that if you want an indication of safety, you find out which airline has had the most crash fatalities. The list of the top 100 fatal airline crashes shows American Airlines right up there with 4 crashes and 55 fatalities, Delta and USAir each had a single crash with more than 130 fatalities, and Air France had two crashes with 358 fatalities.

All four of those airlines are in ATRA’s list of the top ten safest airlines.

OK, I’m playing with statistic a bit. The many airlines with no fatalities whatever are mostly smaller ones and just by that fact have a lower probability of disaster. But there are a few, like Air Jamaica (which has been in business since 1966), Air Seychelles (1985) and Virgin Atlantic (1984) which by both the standards of safety and service would probably win an individual travelers’ loyalty over any of the Big Guys.

The overall winner, by the way, is Pluna Airlines. This little Uruguay carrier has been flying since 1936. No fatalities.

So unless you’re a Fortune 500 or traveler who’s rarely at home, forget about this report. There are better ways to figure this one out.

Uganda is Dying

Uganda is Dying


Nairobi's GADO says it best: Museveni is like Idi Amin.

Yesterday the Ugandan Wildlife Authority drastically reduced the fee for visiting mountain gorillas. Yesterday 6th term president Yoweri Museveni lambasted the police for being too soft on demonstrators. Get the connection?

I don’t think people realize how bad it’s getting in Uganda. This is in large part because of the clever dictator’s successfully distracting the world’s media by the admittedly draconian “Kill the Gays Bill”. But this has drawn all the attention away from the much greater and more serious human rights violations affected on all Ugandans, increasingly brutal every day.

For travelers heading there now, don’t be too alarmed. Proceed with caution. Keep your eyes on the “Kill the Gay’s Bill” that like flotsam on a dying reservoir won’t go away. See if Museveni actually imprisons all of his opponents, and keep your attention on that rebel rouser, Kizza Besigye.

And especially, keep reading one of the best blogs in Uganda, Mark Jordahl’s Wild Thoughts from Uganda. And hope that Mark isn’t imprisoned like a lot of other journalists.

Today, Jordahl notes:
“Why does a sitting president, who is no longer a member of the active military, wear fatigues to a swearing in ceremony for Members of Parliament? … Does he want to remind people that he can come down on them, at any time, with the full force of the military?”

For tour companies like EWT, and if as an individual you’re now beginning to plan a safari for the future, scratch Uganda off the list.

The Hide is a great camp in what was one of the best wildlife parks on earth, Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. EWT still carries a credit from that camp from our last safari into Zimbabwe in 1999. I’m afraid 2011 has seen our last safari in Uganda.

I can’t remember exactly the straw that broke Zimbabwe’s back for EWT, but I do recall a series of events including growing police brutality that displaced Africa’s beautiful sunsets with red flags: First there was the harassment of journalists. And then the emasculation of other branches of government, starting with Zimbabwe’s until then flamboyant parliament and ultimately killing the judiciary.

And that’s exactly what’s happening, today, in Uganda. It’s a methodically slow and miserable decline.

And the decade which followed EWT’s decision to stop safaris in Zimbabwe didn’t result in any real danger or injury to tourists who still went. But it became increasingly uncomfortable.

At this stage – NOW in Uganda – expect bloody demonstrations, road blocks, crazed police.

And then as the population is subdued the country’s suffering infuses society like lupus: the growing bellies of malnutrition to the long lines of cars at gas stations. For tourists it’s the possibility that gas for your transfer to the airport won’t be available and brunch will be canceled.

Ultimately tourist attractions do suffer. The boreholes so essential to Hwange and other national parks were neglected. Soldiers shot the animals.

We know well how tourists are immune to internal troubles, whether that be Tibet, Nepal or Madagascar. No sides in an internal conflict want to discourage tourists. In fact, tourists become an indication that “everything’s OK.”

And I’ve always believed that travelers should go wherever they want to, wherever their own clever devices can get them. Whether that be Cuba for an American in the 1990s or South Africa under apartheid.

But go with your eyes wide open. Travelers in the future won’t be going to Uganda to see mountain gorillas. They’ll be going to explore a once great society cut to its knees by a maniac dictator.

As Mark warns today to all of us who still love that place: “Uganda needs to be watched closely.”

The Sun Rises on Egypt

The Sun Rises on Egypt


If you’re interested in a good deal in Egypt, time is running out. Good times in Egypt are on the march. But good deals are coming to an end.

Following a press release from Europe’s largest tour company, KUONI, on Friday it rescinded several of its deals in Egypt over the weekend.

KUONI stopped offering multiple night incentives and cash discounts on many of its upmarket properties and cruises in Egypt. Many of these are still available for mid- and down-market products, but top ranked hotels and cruise ships are now back to rack rates.

This and many other indications suggest that unless there’s some serious reversal in the political situation in Egypt, good deals there may be ending.

Tourism is a great barometer – a leading indicator – of a society’s perceived tranquility. I say “perceived” because as tourism skyrocketed in China, it would be hard to argue that areas of Tibet were “tranquil” or that progressive movements were being liberated.

And it’s perception, rather than reality, which drives tourism.

Take the current civil violence between Muslims and Christians in Egypt which broke out, again, this weekend. And last weekend was worse: 12 Copts were killed following a peculiar rumor that they were trying to force a Muslim woman to convert. (There were an estimated 65,000 tourists in Egypt last week.)

But on Christmas Eve before the revolution, 22 Copts were killed in the same type of religious violence. This was the highest of high tourist seasons in Egypt. An estimated one million tourists were in Egypt at the time, and that news story didn’t effect travel there one iota.

Coptic/Muslim violence has been ongoing in Egypt literally for millennia, but the story has rarely percolated into the world press. But Egypt is in the news, now – as it should be. Coptic oppression, like the oppression of women and Muslim activists, will make world headlines, now. And perhaps this new spotlight on problems the country has suffered for a long time will hasten resolution.

I think tourists know this. And the growing numbers of tourism to Egypt suggest it.

Egypt is just a bit smaller than South Africa. Last year’s hosting of the World Cup in South Africa help to boost its annual tourist figures to nearly 9 million. Before the revolution, Egypt welcomed around 12 million visitors annually.

This year South Africa will likely reach 9 million again, and Egypt will fall back to around 6-7 million.

That’s a lot of tourists! A lot LOT more than was expected only a few months, ago. And it’s likely a harbinger of good times to come.

On April 28 the U.S. State Department dropped its travel warning to Egypt, replacing it with a milder travel alert.

The U.S. move followed by about a month similar moves by most European countries.

Is tourism to Egypt as safe, now, as it was last year before the revolution? I think so, particularly if we speak of the main tourist areas like the Nile between Luxor and Aswan. But it’s extremely important to understand the caveat that I’m speaking of reality, not of perception. No, Egypt is not yet perceived as safe a destination by tourists as before the reveolution, even though it may, in fact, be.

But given the numbers trend, it may not be too long before that par, too, is reached.

Is it Safe to Travel Now?

Is it Safe to Travel Now?

Is it safe to travel to Africa, now? Here’s the answer, and it’s not what you really wanted to ask.

I’m on my way to Africa, and just before I left I got besieged by emails and phone calls asking, “Is it safe for us to go to Africa, now?”

It’s an inadequate question, because it’s not what any of those asking really meant. Because the answer to that is a straight-forward “YES”. What people really mean is, “With all the planning and money I’ve spent on this, and with the great importance of getting home as planned but equally of enjoying this as a respite from my daily life, is the trip going to be disrupted?”

Or, more simply, “Is it wise to travel to Africa, now?”

That’s the real question, a very important one, and one that I’ll try to answer below with hints as to how you can insure you’re trip is wise, now and in the future. But first, bear with me as we get rid of the superfluous question, “Is it safe?”

Eight Americans were killed and 21 injured in Egypt in the most recent incident there to tourists: a bus crash near Aswan in December.

There were likely more than a half million tourists in Egypt during the recent disturbances, during the highest tourist period of the year. There was not one visiting tourist reported injured much less killed.

Those are the facts. It’s important not just to remember them, not just to discard them as obvious, but to embrace them so that you can really get to the important question you’re asking.

Sp bear with me a little bit more:

Every year from 1992 through 2007 tourists were attacked and killed in Egypt, a total of 252 tourists murdered plus more than 500 others seriously injured for life. The Egyptian government cracked down so heavily after 71 were killed in 1997 (including 61 gunned down while sightseeing in Luxor), deploying police at virtually every tourist crossing, that there were no tourist killings or injuries for nearly six years from 1998 through 2003.

But in 2004, 34 tourists were murdered and more than 120 injured; in 2005, 90 tourists were killed and more than 200 injured, and in 2006; 23 tourists were murdered and more than 40 seriously injured.

A total of 252 tourists were killed by militants in Egypt between 1992 and 2007, plus more than 500 seriously injured.

(I’ve found slightly different figures from different sources. The above was compiled by a tourism company from Reuters reports.)

The total deaths represent 30 separate incidents. Every one got worldwide attention. Every one was front page news and headlined nightly news casts in America. In more than half of these incidents, Americans were among those dead.

And during this long period, tourism exploded. (Pun, seriously intended.)

In the 18 years from 1993 to 2010 between 70 and 90 million tourists visited Egypt. The last official numbers were for the first half of 2010, which was 6.9 million. There was a decline during the mid 1990s, but otherwise, it’s been a steady rise.

The odds of being killed as a tourist in Egypt during this latest 18-year period for which we have statistics (about a quarter of a life time) is about 1 in a quarter million.

According to about.com, the chances of an American dying are significantly greater from heart disease, a car or motorcycle crash, cancer, stroke, falling or slipping, armed robbery, as a pedestrian in an accident, drowning, even suicide, plus a thousand other causes.

And not just by a little. The least likely of the list above is a car accident. Our odds are 1 in 1020 of being killed in a car accident during our life time. That is roughly 1000 times more likely than being as a tourist in Egypt.

As an American you’re 100,000 times more likely to be killed falling in an accident than as a tourist in Egypt.

The odds of being killed in Egypt as a tourist are higher than being a tourist at the Grand Ole Opry. They are higher than being a tourist in most of Europe, but not necessarily on London’s tube and metropolitan transport system during periods of IRA bombings, or in many sections of the New York subway from random acts of violence. In 1995, there was a greater percentage of tourists killed in Florida than Egypt during a “rash of attacks” the caused tourism to plummet in Florida and provoked the state to withdraw its international advertising for tourism.

Similar statistics exist for “serious injury.”

So it’s just not even remotely possible to imagine a “NO” answer to the pure question is it safe now to travel to Africa (Egypt being the denominator).

What people really mean, “Is it wise.”

We’re in a much better position to tackle that question once we grasp the folly of concern for personal safety. That isn’t an issue.

The issue is that this is a vacation. A vacation is an earned reward, intended to relieve you of all the daily responsibilities of not being on vacation, a time to relax and have fun. And hopefully, to learn something, too. That’s what a good vacation is all about.

Can you travel to Africa – or Egypt, now – and have a good vacation? Is it wise?

That’s a much harder question. There are no statistics for this. It depends upon how much actual disruption your threshold for a decent vacation has. Did you, for example, check on the on-time performance of your air carriers to make sure that the chances of your flights being significantly delayed aren’t serious?

Did you, for example, consult the weather carefully, to know exactly how hot and humid it was going to be? Did you read enough accounts of other tourists to know if they were harassed in stores or regularly pickpocketed? Did you closely review the menus on your Nile cruise? Are you absolutely sure that your guide isn’t little more than a scam artist to bring you to his cousin’s perfume shop?

Did you check to see how difficult it would be to replace lost medications? Did you know about schistosomiasis? How contagious is elephantitis? Do the windows in your room open?

Frankly, I hope you didn’t check any of this, because all you should do is find the right tour group or company that you can trust to manifest idiosyncracies of the sort the questions above suggest.

But what tour company – what airline – for that matter, what State Department division is going to give you an honest forward appraisal of the political and social status quo?

Probably none. And that’s not because anyone is trying to fool you. It’s because if you’ve bought your travel correctly, you’ve bought it from an expert that knows a lot more about the situation than you could ever know. Increased knowledge normally mitigates presumptions of “disruption”.

A life long resident of New York not only feels safer, but really is safer, using the subway than a first-time visitor from Tokyo.

“What stuns me,” writes the heavily read travel blogger, Anouk Zijlma, on January 28 as the streets of Cairo were ablaze, the internet had been disabled and the Egyptian army was rolling tanks into Tahrir Square, “is that the US State Department has not yet issued an official travel warning or even a travel alert” for Egypt.

Ms. Zijlma went on to point out as many of us have how State Department warnings were levied wholesale on countries like Kenya which have been peaceful for years. Clearly, State Department warnings are political pawns in a complicated global game, and it’s just too bad that you as the traveler are rolled up into that.

Since most travel insurance that repays you if you cancel for “terrorism” or other types of civil disruption is triggered by State Department travel warnings, this effectively means that component of the insurance is worthless.

For me personally, there is hardly anything as valuable as travel, and the more foreign the travel is, the more valuable it is. Naturally, the more foreign it is the greater the risk exists at any time of disruption to the point of it being “unwise.”

So my standard ought not be yours. And to know your standard fairly is not something that I should be expected to automatically understand.

Ultimately, you must decide. You must be the one to undertake due diligence regarding your own components of wise traveling.

OK, so let’s say you do that. Then, what.

Well, I’d venture to say that in today’s quickly changing world, a foreign trip most anywhere is rife with the risks of being considered “unwise”, but that’s just not a reason for you not to plan it. What you should do is plan it simultaneously with an abort plan.

Insurance. And not just the ordinary insurance, since that doesn’t work.

“Cancellation for any reason” insurance.

It’s going to cost you around 10% of what you want to cover yourself for, and if you ultimately invoke the trigger you’re going to lose about a quarter of what you paid. But this wonderful insurance, offered by a number of insurance companies
let’s you decide at the last minute usually, if it’s “wise” to go.

There’s no other solution. Basically what I’m saying is that no answer from any expert will be satisfying enough if you don’t have this option available.

No one should take a “vacation” filled with so much anxiety that the wonders of the trip are lost. If you decide to commit to a foreign vacation, you’ve already been convinced that whatever you don’t at that point know isn’t worrisome enough to warrant missing the benefits of the trip. In sum, it’s worth the risk.

But you pay long before you go.

Yes, it’s perfectly safe to travel to Egypt, now. In fact, based on the statistics, it’s safer to travel during a revolution than after a period of prolonged stability! But is it wise?

Only you can answer that. And you’ll never know how you really feel without having that special insurance in your pocket.

It’s a very wise decision.

Egypt Picture Hard to Read

Egypt Picture Hard to Read

Because there are so many tourists in Egypt, and because there’s no legal requirement that tour companies honestly reveal the scope of their operations, it’s very difficult to get an accurate picture of tourists and tourism right now. But here’s my best try.

Before the trouble last week, the U.S. State Department reported there were about 50,000 Americans in the country, of which 3-5000 were tourists. Since January 25, probably 6-7000 of those have left, of which 1500 may be tourists. That leaves around 3500 tourists and 43,500 nontourist Americans in Egypt right now.

And I venture to say they will not be hurt. No one likes what’s happening in Tahrir Square, now, but the violence in the country is localized. Savvy tourists will remain safe.

About a third of the 6-7000 Americans who have been able to leave did so aboard U.S. government supplied evacuation charters. But most of the travelers on the U.S. government charters were not tourists; they were government workers and U.S. residents living in Egypt.

Two-thirds of the Americans who have evacuated seemed to have done so on commercial flights.

Since 2800 Americans had previously registered with the U.S. State Department as intending to visit Egypt now, I estimate there were about 5000 American tourists there when the trouble started last week.

Tourist registration with foreign consulates is a service all countries provide, but in recent times it’s mostly large tour companies that register their clients, rather than individuals, and it’s usually hardly a third to a half of the actual tourists who travel.

In the best of times true tourist numbers are very hard to get. This is because no U.S. or foreign agency reports the numbers of people entering or leaving a country in real-time. The U.S. is the best for reporting inbound tourists on a quarterly basis. But Egypt, for example, reports suspicious statistics only once annually.

What irritates me is that in the absence of being able to get this hard information, media turns to professional tour companies. This is a terrible mistake, because most tour companies (especially American ones) grossly inflate their actual production and often to the great pleasure of host countries.

Yesterday, for instance, in a single dispatch from Moscow reported in Britain’s Daily Mail the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported a ridiculous 45,000 Russians touring in the country at the moment. In virtually the same paragraph, Konstantin Shvartser of the Pegas Touristik said there were only 18,000. And in a continuation of the numbers folly, he then claimed only 18 Russians altogether want to leave the country, now.

USAToday reports on tourism by surveying well-known American tour companies like Abercrombie & Kent and Grand Circle.

But those (good) companies won’t reveal their numbers, and the fact is that the majority of American tourists traveling to Egypt these days don’t use established tour companies like these, so what’s happening to their customers is really rather insignificant to the bigger picture.

Most travelers to Egypt, today, book through the internet often directly with Egyptian companies. It’s likely, in fact, that as many Americans book Nile cruises with British companies as with American companies.

In trying to gauge the “real situation” imagine being a resident of Washington, D.C. or Watts in L.A. during the riots of the 1960s. The longer the crisis continues, the more basic services become strained of course. But unless you actually walk into the midst of the trouble, until strained services reach a critical point, you’re probably going to be OK.

Officially, most foreign nations have advised their citizens to avoid central Cairo and Alexandria. But many European countries, including Britain, have advised tourists who find themselves elsewhere (such as Sharm el-Sheik or Luxor) to remain until travel to international airports becomes easier and safer.

Most Nile cruises have stopped sailing, although we also know that large companies like Sonesta (which owns 5 ships), Sofitel and Hilton are continuing to provide services (food, shelter) to passengers who were onboard when the trouble broke out.

“Living conditions in Cairo and the risks to foreigners are not quite as bad as they may appear in the media,” writes the only excellent coverage I’ve so far found, in today’s Huffington Post.

So the bottom line is that the vast majority of foreigners, including tourists, remain in the country and have had enough time to position themselves in a safe way. Commercial flights continue to operate at the Cairo airport.

I am no expert on the MidEast, and I have been wrong in predictions before. But as one experienced traveler voice, I don’t see what’s happening in Egypt right now as dangerous for the tourists or foreign residents who unfortunately find themselves there.

Govt Shoots, People Listen, Part II

Govt Shoots, People Listen, Part II

Fiance of opposition candidate, Wilbrod Slaa, challenges police in Arusha.
It happened all too quickly. Tanzania’s second largest city erupted in violence Wednesday, three people killed and scores injured. The push for democracy and transparency in Tanzania has exploded faster than even I expected.

See my blog of only three days ago.

Right now Arusha is calm. EWT, in fact, had clients who were in the town today. But the situation remains tense, and the government of Tanzania is acting only in ways that will make it worse.

The Tanzanian government is trying to suppress all news about the affair. Click here for a manual link to YouTube about the demonstration. The reporter, who I can’t identify and doesn’t want to be identified, has requested that YouTube remove all embedding code that would allow it to be dispersed more easily through blogs like these.

The video captures much of the chaos over most of Wednesday afternoon. It has a clip of the fiance of defeated opposition presidential candidate Wilbrod Slaa, her face bloodied.

The violence began when federal police used tear gas on a rally called to criticize the current government.

The initial battle with tear gas occurred at a large open field where Chadema’s rally (the opposition party) was just starting.

A large anti-riot police vehicle equipped with its tear-gas throwers disturbed the crowd, who had assembled with a police permit. The police claimed the vehicle was there to prevent marchers who were arriving from the central city to join the rally, because while police had granted a permit for the rally, they had denied a permit for the march to the rally.

“Police keep away, this is an official meeting and we have permission to gather here,” shouted Wilbrod Slaa, the defeated Chadema candidate for president of Tanzania who was at the time addressing the rally.

As marchers appeared, the tear gas went off and chaos errupted. Police arrested a number of the leaders in the front of the march, including Godbless Lema, the wildly popular and newly elected MP from Arusha, and (opposition party) Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe.

As the two high profile politicians were being driven away with 47 others arrested, the crowd exploded: scores of people raced towards the police vehicle throwing rocks. The police responded with more tear gas.

Crowds then formed throughout the city trying to converge on the police station, where it was presumed the leaders were being held. Police used live ammunition against the crowd, there, and the afternoon became one of continuous pitched battles throughout the city between police and demonstrators.

Police confirmed 2 dead and 9 injured but area hospitals suggested 3 dead and injured closer to 100.

Arusha opposition MP Lema is a rebel rouser, and this is not his first brush with the law. He has been in jail twice before during his campaign for Parliament, which he won in the national election the end of November.

The specific issue that ignited yesterday’s violence was a federal government move over the weekend that stacked the Arusha city council with government supporters allowed to vote for mayor, but who did not actually reside in the city.

The real city councilors had boycotted the meeting and claim, therefore, that there was not a quorum sufficient to elect a mayor. But the government ordered the election to continue, and the result is that at least officially, Arusha now has a mayor allied to the government ruling party, a mayor overlording a city that is hugely in the opposition’s camp.

This does not happy days make.

But there were other issues to be discussed at the rally which was never completed: that the presidential election last November was unfair, that the government is corrupt, and a host of lingering accusations that during the November national election campaign the government suppressed all opposition.

I’m not sure how far this is going to go. The opposition in Arusha is incredibly strong and has support from several other larger communities in northern Tanzania like Karatu. But other important areas in northern Tanzania like Moshi, Monduli and Mto-wa-Mbu are firmly on the government’s side.

The blogosphere is cautious, I fear worried that the government is looking over their shoulders. There are numerous references to what has happened in Arusha is like Tiananmen Square, protests in Berlin before the wall went down, and demonstrations in Kenya that led to more transparent government.

Without doubt the police acted wrongly. It remains to be seen if they acted on their own, or are following in lock-step the darkening oligarchy in Dar.

Nairobi Bus Station Bombing

Nairobi Bus Station Bombing

How sad that I must discuss the bomb blast in Nairobi yesterday during the holiday season, and yet I fear this will be the norm in the years to come. Over many years terrorists have established that disruption during the Christian holiday is a signature they prefer.

As terrorist incidents go, this was not devastating as have been some. Directed so obviously to local African holiday makers, the bombing was outside an overnight bus scheduled to leave from Nairobi to Kampala at 8 p.m., Monday night.

Bus security actually saved many lives. Four were killed and 41 were injured, but the bus was packed, with more than 30 people aboard. Security was checking the luggage as is the routine outside the bus, which alarmed one of the last passengers boarding the bus which intentionally (or not, we aren’t sure) resulted in his small carry-on exploding.

That bomber was killed. In the mayhem that followed, his companion traveler left the bus and escaped.

During the day, Monday, Uganda issued a special security alert that warns travelers in the country during Christmas to be on the look-out for Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists. In July Uganda suffered its worst terrorist bombing ever: 79 people were killed in two separate bars as they watched the World Cup.

Uganda has been an avowed special target of Al-Qaeda for some time, as there are more Ugandan soldiers in peace-keeping roles in Mogadishu, Somali, than from any other African country. Al-Shabab (Al-Qaeda in Somali) currently controls about a third of the country and is fighting hard to gain control of Mogadishu.

So it’s unclear whether the two bombers and their packages were intended to explode in Kenya, or were simply transporting weaponry into Uganda when Nairobi security personnel foiled the plot prematurely.

Nairobi’s central bus station is isolated from the city’s tourist hotels. This was clearly not an attack intended against tourists in Kenya.

Don’t Visit Zimbabwe

Don’t Visit Zimbabwe

Contrary to very strange suggestions I’m reading in the travel press, it’s still too dangerous to safari in Zimbabwe. Tourists are being murdered. And not by political thugs, either.

Zimbabwe’s economy is recovering from a hole some of us feared would spew forth the lava from the center of the earth. And the opposition democrat and power-sharing Morgan Tsvangirai is getting more attention as he jaunts around the world. And for these two reasons Zimbabwe watchers say things are getting better, in particular, safer and more welcoming for tourists.

They are DEAD wrong.

Zimbabwe’s modern story is one of the most remarkable in the world. In a few short months the dictator Robert Mugabe will tie Africa’s previously second-longest serving African dictator, Mobuto Sese Seko, who was in power for 32 years.

(As far as I know there will be no colorful fetes.)

Number One is Omar Bongo, president of Gabon, who held control for 42 years, a record few believe aging Mugabe can reach alive.

In all three cases, the leader ruined the country while amassing unimaginable personal wealth.

Zimbabwe, though, is remarkable because the other two were installed by foreign powers’ secret maneuvering. I think it’s quite fair to say that France is directly responsible for the bad situation in Gabon, and that the U.S. and Belgium are directly responsible for the bad situation in The Congo.

In Zimbabwe, Zimbabweans are directly responsible for the bad situation in Zimbabwe.

And that’s probably why nothing is going to happen to make things better, even after Mugabe dies.

On the political front, Tsvangirai is a huge disappointment. It seems clear to me that this masochistic egotist had little more than a Mercedes Benz in mind when he let himself be beaten to a pulp numerous times before being invited to join the government.

Like a piece of tough meat, the Mugabe regime has tenderized him. He’s useless. Useless, that is, to the people of Zimbabwe. He’s become prime rib for the regime, who hauls him out on a plate each time they’re criticized from abroad.

So the country has continued to go down the tube.

Yes, there may be less street violence, a result of Tsvangirai’s unending marination. The economy like virtually every economy in the developing world is on the up, but nowhere near at the pace of its neighbors or near a teeny weeny fraction of its potential.

So fuel for vehicles needed to transfer tourists from place to place is still scarce, and new white faces are more often presumed the feared leaving than visitors arriving.

But here’s the worst indicator:

A lot of animals are killing a lot of tourists.

A week ago Saturday five lions brutally killed a tourist near the country’s main national park, Mana Pools. Last month a man was trampled to death by an elephant in Matusadona national park. A veteran conservationist on anti-poaching control in the same place was gored to death by a buffalo a few days earlier.

And even outside the national parks, a resident biking near Kariba was tusked by an elephant.

Animal attacks aren’t unknown, of course, in Africa, but these recent incidents are not normal.

“We appeal to everyone to exercise extreme caution. Animals have become extremely unpredictable,” said Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force head Johnny Rodrigues. Rodrigues explains that uncontrolled hunting – even in the national parks and often by Mugabe regime sportsmen – has “traumatized” the animals.

Every safari traveler needs to exercise caution inside a national park, but unlike Geoff Blythe who was tusked near his home in Kariba, certainly this is not a regular need outside a wilderness.

And the “extreme” caution that Rodrigues advises is simply below the threshold of a vacation’s safety.

So forget about any plans to visit Zimbabwe.

When Will It Ever End

When Will It Ever End

Americans are just as tribal as Africans. This week’s elections prove it. But while Americans may curse and protest, our visceral feelings don’t manifest into actual bloodshed. That’s the difference with much of Africa.

A good friend and 25-year old Africaphile who recently completed a stint with the Peace Corps in Guinea where ethnic violence is now erupting sent me the dispatch below. His heartfelt concerns built by nearly two years of working in an isolated village, learning the language and customs and making friends, now seem swept away by his inability to explain what’s happening, now.

Conor’s angst if anger is the same that drives ethnic violence. Those of us who have “fallen in love” (Conor’s words) with distant places and peoples come remarkably close to adopting aspects of that foreign society that attract us. We touch the same sphere of that complex culture as those who were born into it.

But we’re on the outside. We can sit on the sphere and enjoy something, then remove ourselves perhaps when something turns ugly. We both might feel the same thing. It’s just that we aren’t contained within the sphere like they are. We can release our grip and float away.

Conor puts it this way (excerpted from below):
I do not understand the fear of isolation in the same way, the fear or being shut out of the network that I owe my history and existence to. Therefore I do not understand the surge of belonging that electrifies every contact with those on the outside of the fence.

From my distant perspective, it’s the same awful panic that drives the old Delaware widow to elect someone who wants to privatize social security. Or the right-thinking Libertarian who stamps his foot on the head of someone who disagrees with him. These are puerile, unintellectual feelings. They lead to my loving Norwegian Methodist aunt hating her Jewish landlords.

Conor writes (excerpted from below):
I thought I understood ethnic identity….I thought I understood what the potential for violence smelled like, what it looked like in schools, and what it felt like when you walked through the market or hitch hiked a motorcycle ride to the next town…..

I obviously do not.

The main difference between Conor Godfrey and his Guinean friends is that he isn’t Guinean. He is not forced into the ultimate defense: attack the other, go on the offense.

Click here for a YouTube video of the current violence, then read the rest of Connor’s dispatch:

* * * * * * * * * *
Every day hundreds if not thousands of Fulani flee their homes in upper-Guinea for the safety of Fouta Jallon, the heartland of the Fulani people. They are both victims and victimizers of the neighboring Mandingo with whom they had lived peacefully for some time.

Guinea’s electoral crisis has resulted in a standoff between two remaining candidates representing these two largest ethnic groups in Guinea. Ethnic fault lines, previously well concealed beneath a web of inter-marriage, common faith, and necessary interaction, have reemerged into yawning chasms across which none save the artist or truly pious dare cross.

I left Guinea a year ago last week. As soon as my plane landed in the U.S. I began to mock the so-called experts who, I felt, read from outdated West African script as they warned of impending implosion in Guinea.

Did they know Modi M’Biliri Barry, my host father? Had they met Ousmane Diallo, my polyglot Peace Corps trainer who never had a bad word for anyone , or the Nene (mother) in Fataco that sold cassava dipped in hot pepper at recess in the courtyard, or seen Fulani and Mandingo students share benches in school, or chase the same girls on the beach in Conakry?

Because if they had—they would not, could not, suggest that Guinea shared anything more than a border with countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone, whose blood soaked late 90s have come to define ethnic barbarism.

How many people like me have fallen in love with diverse, integrated peoples in far away corners of the world, only to look back with horror as dormant identities in those same friends surge from obscurity, thousands of times more potent than peace time associations?

After a U.S. friend with his Kenyan wife visited Rwanda’s genocide museum in 2006, they both expressed to me wonder at the intensity of feeling that could drive human beings to leave all empathy behind. But as violence then gripped Kenya a few months later that same woman’s facebook page was inciting violence in her home country from an ocean away, urging people to round up Luo and “do away with them.”

The educated Guinean ex-pats I now speak with in The States rarely seem any better. The same family that opened up their homes to their diverse neighbors last year is now a dues paying member of the their group’s most intolerant fringe, cum sudden majority, willing to believe all manner of nonsense about certain members of their community.

The exceptions are beautiful. Grand Imams in most major Guinean cities have issued stern and touching warnings against reprisals and generally appealed for peace and reason. Some of the most prominent musicians from all over West Africa recently got together to put this song together; it asks, in stirring and beautiful verse, and in all the right languages, for peace and unity in Guinea.

I also know that individual Guineans, of all groups, in Labe and in Kankan, in New York, Paris and Montreal, and all over West Africa, are praying for Peace….but my impression is that they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

The collective unconscious I belong to does not go nearly as deep, nor nearly as far back as the Mandingo or Fulani communities, but it should go deep enough to remember European’s genocide inducing arrival to the new world, or our subsequent enslavement of millions of souls, or the other countless atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of constructed identities by people of every race, creed, and color…..yet I don’t.

I am watching, from afar, the subversion and transformation of Guinean society as if this has never happened elsewhere, somehow unfazed by the stunning regularity with which this process unfolds across time and geography.

Delta Force not Safe in Kenya

Delta Force not Safe in Kenya

Who looks tougher?
The U.S. still doesn’t think Kenya is safe enough to fly a plane into. And it’s probably right if it’s an American plane.

There was an enormous brouhaha in Kenya this week as Delta Airlines began service into its sixth African city, Monrovia (Liberia). Tempers are still flared from last year’s debacle when Delta canceled service into Nairobi two hours before the inaugural flight was set to take-off from Atlanta.

Delta canceled when the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) exercised its veto authority over Delta’s FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) license to operate into Kenya.

Delta wants to fly to Nairobi. It has been expanding rapidly into Africa and had scheduled service to begin to Nairobi on June 2, 2009. The champagne was stacked on tables, officials were planning to line up on the tarmac, Delta had given 26 free seats to a seventh grade choral group from Atlanta, and an entire Delta business with offices and employees had been set up in Nairobi.

Today the airline flies to seven cities in Africa: Liberia (Monrovia), Accra (Ghana), Abuja and Lagos (Nigeria), Cairo (Egypt) and Johannesburg (South Africa).

But the inaugural flight into Monrovia last week dumped a keg of petrol on the simmering emotions. Liberia is less than ten years out of a near apocalyptic civil war that slaughtered millions. Its leader at the time, Charles Taylor, is currently on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity.

One of East Africa’s most respected blogs yesterday quoted an unnamed Kenyan government official as saying, “Did Obama’s father not come from here? What issues does he have with us? We even gave him a special paternal home attraction near Kisumu and for what – that we can be pushed around by them?”

But the fact remains – and I hate to say it – Nairobi airport security isn’t good, and there’s not going to be any flight from America until it is.

Nairobi is an essential market for European airlines, but passengers on British Airways and KLM actually march through security twice before boarding the plane. Both BA and KLM bring down their own machinery and security personnel from Europe, and all passengers after passing through the normal gate security supplied by Kenyan airport personnel, then pass through the individual airline security.

Those second levels are good. The irony, of course, is that this diminishes even further the quality of the Nairobi security. The Kenyan security personnel know it doesn’t matter what they do, that the real security comes later. And these folks rotate between the many other airlines in the airport, carrying their laissez-fare attitude with them.

So it’s sort of a death knoll repeated time and again as far as Delta is concerned. TSA will not accept the airline’s own efforts, as authorities in Britain and the Netherlands obviously do.

But there’s another angle to the story worth considering. I’ve talked to a few people in Kenya who believe despite the posturing, Kenyan officials are quite relieved Delta isn’t going to fly in. They argue that America is so hated in the Muslim world right now, and they point out that Kenya is on the edge of all the controversies.

Delta might attract terrorism in a way British Airways or KLM don’t.

Be that as it may, TSA played the trump. And TSA is only concerned with at-the-airport security. Homeland Security and the FAA are the agencies that could nix the deal for those more global issues. And right now, they have both given a pass to Delta to fly.

I wouldn’t expect a flight from America to Nairobi for a long, long time.

War on Security

War on Security

Is it safe to travel in Uganda, now?
As we were traveling from the Entebbe (Uganda) airport late last night, the first topic we discussed was “security.” Security against a catastrophic 9-11 is better in Africa than at home.

My first clients, the Pomerantz family, (Roger and Cathy Colt and son, Daniel) remarked first that they had recently been to Egypt where it seemed like security was nonexistent. And I told them a very funny story that just happened to me in Nairobi.

I was at Gate 3 of the Jomo Kenyata? airport, the basement gate, which sends off 3 or 4 late night flights more or less at once, so in a waiting area that is always jammed. To get into this waiting area you have to pass through “security” – a metal detector.

A novice traveler to be sure, a very small (possibly Twa) Ugandan dressed in finest Sunday clothes was having great difficulty getting through the metal detector and to everyone’s irritation was holding up the line.

Each time he tried to go through, the red light beeped and security officials ordered him to return and try, again. He’d empty his pockets. Beep. He took off his belt. Beep. He removed what looked like a medicine ID tag. Beep.

Finally, the security official pointed to his highly, thin-toed black polished shoes. He took them off. Beep.

This time we knew why. He took them off, but he held them in his hands as he walked through for the upteenth time, and of course the detector beeped. The other items he had removed he had carefully placed in several of the big pockets of his Sunday dress coat. Which he didn’t remove. Beep.

The security official, finally realizing only moments after the rest of us did what was going on, laughed uncontrollably and waved the gentleman through. Beep. Last beep, though. No enforced retry.

No threat, either. Some of us get through when we don’t beep. Others – like this gentleman – when it’s just obvious he’s no threat.

Until this month, there was little to terrorize in poverty-stricken, weather forsaken, economically oppressed Africa.

A decade ago it was different. I was in Nairobi on August 10, 1998, when the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar were blown to smithereens. But every American embassy in Africa is now a fortress of unbelievable magnitude. Can’t bomb it, now.

So terrorizing sufficient numbers of westerners has become problematic. And … until recently .. there was no point in terrorizing nonwesterners.

A couple weeks ago more than 70 people were killed in the Kampala bomb blasts. That’s where I am at this moment as I write. But the bombs were meant for westerners. Al-Shabaab (Al-Qaeda in Somalia) expressly said it was targeting Ugandans.

Things have changed.

The Ugandans were targeted because they are the lead in an OAU military peace-keeping force in Somalia that Al-Shabaab is fighting.

The OAU military force is being exclusively outfitted by the U.S. and the UK.

Clever Obama. Our proxy wars have begun, again.

Huge and terrible wars, with thousands and thousands of casualties and untold destruction occurred during the Reagan years in proxy wars between Ethiopia (Russia) and the Somalia (U.S.).

Russia, despite all its other misfortunes and missteps, has bowed out of these miserable controversies. Our adversary is no longer a Super Power. It’s a terrorism organization. “Cold War” is now the “War on Terror”.

Terror only works when the recipient can be terrified. The Twa walking through the metal detector creates humor. Our military-industrial complex descending on Somali – oh so cleverly – creates terror.

‘NO’ for Violence in Kenya

‘NO’ for Violence in Kenya

Criminal politicians and an old dictator support NO rallies in Kenya.
There’s going to be trouble in Kenya on August 4 and for a few days afterwards, but not as serious as in 2007. Continue on safari, but be vigilant.

A week from Wednesday Kenyans go to the polls for the first time since the violent election of December, 2007. This time they aren’t electing anyone. They’re deciding either YES or NO to a proposed new constitution.

But this time, unlike last time, modern Kenyans and their astute politicians are taking extraordinary preparations to keep peace.

A special commission has been set up by the government to monitor the country’s temperature in the run-up to the referendum.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission has been active, independent and very useful. They’re also a little bit worried.

Commission member Alice Nderitu yesterday said that the “threat of violence is real.” But she hastened to add, “It’s tense but manageable.”

And this time the Kenyan government is buoyed by a Coalition of the World that includes the U.S., the UN and a beautifully created internal Kenyan coalition called “Uwaino.”

The phrase in Swahili used mostly in cooking roughly means blending together, or combining diverse components into something sweet and good.

But the main function of the new organization is to allow Kenyans from around the country to anonymously text any indications of election violence brewing.

Based on nearly 5,000 messages received this weekend, the coalition identified certain areas of the country where tempers are rising.

Those areas are in the west and north, pretty far away from Nairobi and not near any popular tourist areas.

Western and northwestern Kenya are analogous to America’s deep south. Divided ethnically from the rest of Kenya in a similar way that southerners felt disenfranchised from American power centers in the last century, western Kenyans are fearful that their rural, less worldly lifeways will be oppressed by the heavy hand of modern Kenya.

Less educated and less likely to enjoy the benefits of a modern Kenya, people living in places like Kisumu, Kericho up to Eldoret are being ginned up by old leaders like the former President Daniel arap Moi.

Moi, who barely escaped a national tribunal that was going to charge him with a multitude of crimes during his 21-year dictatorship, has been holding NO rallies and focusing on really very small parts of the new constitution that are hot button issues to a less educated electorate.

Abortion and roads, in particular. The new constitution explicitly allows abortion in cases where the mother’s health is in jeopardy (it goes no further; that will be up to subsequent legislatures). And the devolution of power reducing the new President’s powers means that a guy like Moi can’t come in and direct that all new road building be around his home town.

Like at home in America where the real issue (growing health care costs) get subverted by sound-bite absurdities (death panels), Moi is telling his constituents they won’t get any new roads and there will be none to travel to heaven, either.

Ah, democracy by sound-bite.

Uwiano has also identified causes as well. A number of text messages received last weekend identified a little known hate radio broadcast linked to two Members of Parliament, Kiema Kilonzo and Waweru Mburu, both of whom are likely to lose their jobs in a restructured electoral map under the new constitution.

Meanwhile, the government has hired an additional 15,000 national police (who aren’t always themselves the best peacemakers, by the way) and deployed them into areas expecting trouble.

And the U.S. has spent some serious diplomatic capital in this referendum. Vice President Joe Biden was in town last week promoting a “peaceful vote” and the very active U.S. Ambassador Michael Ranneberger has if not crossed the line of neutrality come really close in supporting the YES campaign.

All polling shows the YES will take the day pretty easily. Even the powerful Christian church alliance, which had campaigned for a NO vote, this weekend started to break apart with some very respected clerics coming out full swing for YES.

And notably, the only political leaders supporting the NO vote are those who we now think were responsible for the last round of violence, and who are likely to be prosecuted by the World Court for those crimes. (Education Minister, William Ruto, leads the pack.)

These are powerful men back in their rural constituencies. The fact that Moi is even free is an indication of the power he still wields.

So I doubt this is going to go over as quietly as an election for a Chicago mayor. But I don’t think it will be very disruptive, either.

Bombings in Kampala

Bombings in Kampala

More than 60 people were killed yesterday in two separate bomb attacks in Kampala, a signature Al-Qaeda attack. Curiously, the terrorist organization has not claimed responsibility.

I’ve increasingly written about Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in Somalia, and their increasing power and influence in East Africa. With last week’s peaceful elections in the southern third of Somali known as Somaliland, the Al-Shabaab is consolidating its control of the north-western third outside Mogadishu. Ironically, violence in Somalia is slightly down.

But if the fighting for turf is subsidizing, the fighting for hearts and minds is only growing. The blasts in Kampala, at an Ethiopian bar and the Rugby Sports Club (both packed with guests watching the World Cup), carry all the characteristics of a terrorist organization trying to make a point.

Their point: get out of Somalia.

Uganda and Burundi are the only East African countries that have military forces in Somalia fighting Al-Shabaab. They are a part of a joint UN/African Union force that is doing poorly and has suffered numerous casualties for peace-keepers. The Uganda media is becoming increasingly hostile with the government’s war effort, there.

So all the pointers suggest a premeditated, coordinated attack by Al-Shabaab to get East African forces out of Mogadishu.

Why, then, have they not taken full responsibility?

(1) The nature of terrorism is such that Al-Shabaab may have planted agents in Uganda but without fully knowing their plans. They may simply be waiting for their own confirmation.

(2) The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, is standing for re-election later this year. He has become increasingly authoritarian and has been imprisoning a number of opponents. The biggest attack was at the Rugby Club, frequented almost exclusively by educated and many dissident Ugandans. Regardless of who actually did it, will most certainly quiet to some extent Museveni’s public critics.

(3) Shortly the southern Sudan will be voting for independence from the Republic of Sudan, and the situation just north of Uganda is growing tense. Uganda has been an advocate for southern Sudanese independence. (Uganda President) Museveni has told the Republic of Sudan that if its president comes to Kampala next month for the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting, he’ll be arrested. (There is an international warrant on Omar al Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.) Sudan harbors Al-Shabaab.

The horror of what has happened suggests some absurdity in focusing on the perpetrators, but we have been fairly fortunate in the last several years in East Africa to not have suffered these incidents. With some clarity in the days ahead, we may have a clearer understanding if anything new is developing.

Right now, I don’t think so. The evidence is pointing to Al-Shabaab, specifically against Uganda for its soldiers in Somalia, a mission that because of its low international interest has attracted less international security. Thus, more easily accomplished.

Kenya ‘Gets it’ too

Kenya ‘Gets it’ too

Nairobi demonstrators aroused by al-Faisal.
The Times Square Bomber says his radical Muslim cleric “gets it.” So does Kenya.

NPR reported this morning that Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, attributed his radicalization to Abdullah Al-Faisal, a convicted felon in the UK who Kenya recently deported to Jamaica.

I wrote earlier about the Al-Faisal controversy in Kenya and how Kenya stood alone among dozens of African countries by arresting then deporting Al-Faisal, who had fled into Africa to preach radical jihad.

Apparently, Al-Faisal made the gross mistake of trying to sneak into Kenya (the only easy way to get to Somalia, his obvious destination). A score of other African countries through which Al-Faisal passed did nothing, despite warrants for the man’s arrest and requests by Interpol to question him.

In fact he had become something of a celebrity in South Africa, where he was received widespread public attention and even some support from the South African government.

But the moment al-Faisal stepped into Kenya, he was arrested.

Today the leaked investigative report that NPR aired shows not just the power of internet clerics, but the obvious side of the so-called War on Terror embraced by Kenya.