The real victims of terrorism are almost invariably not the targets but bystanders, such as the people of Kenya. As a result of apparently compelling intelligence of an imminent Al-Qaeda attack, the British have suspended indefinitely the operation of UK commercial aircraft, to and from Kenya. They have also, along with Washington, issued a tough travel advisory telling their nationals to leave and avoid the country.
This is a major blow to already impoverished and corrupt Kenya, which with a new reform government, is struggling to put its economic and political houses in order. Each year, over 100,0000 Britons fly to Kenya for safari or beach-side holidays, by far the largest component of the country’s important tourist industry.
Officially, tourism contributes some 12 percent of GDP but economists estimate this figure is actually much higher. Already reeling from the bombing attack last year on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, the new move by London and Washington is likely to bring tourist revenues to a juddering halt.
The new administration of veteran politician Mwai Kibaki, whose National Rainbow Coalition won an emphatic victory in the December 2002 elections over the corrupt outgoing government of Daniel arap Moi, has problems enough without this economic disaster. Understandably, some of his ministers have been hugely critical of the British move, but they are wrong.
The sad fact is that on the same day last year that the Mombasa hotel was bombed, an attempt was also made to use a hand-held ground-to-air missile to bring down an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport. The new intelligence reports apparently suggest that a fresh attempt was to be made, this time on a British plane, using the same kind of weaponry.
No responsible government could avoid taking the action that London has done. Nevertheless, neither should any responsible government expect a poor country in such straitened circumstances as Kenya to bear all by itself, the economic consequences of such a body blow to its main foreign currency earnings. Some form of special economic assistance is called for and should be announced in the coming days. In the past aid donors have given up on Kenya because it became under the Moi presidency a notorious sink of corruption. Despite his best efforts, President Kibaki is unlikely to have yet made much of an inroad into a system of dishonesty that had become institutionalised in his country.
Nevertheless, financial assistance, as targeted as possible, must be given to the Kenyan government. Such a swift and generous provision will be an important part of George W. Bush’s war on terrorism, because it will show other nations that may be caught in the same bind as Kenya, that they have nothing to lose from supporting the international authorities in their global campaign.
If however Kenya is treated shoddily and ungenerously, the wrong message will go out to other poor countries that may in time become a battleground against Al-Qaeda.
