Attack in Nairobi Masks Kenya’s Slaughter of Somalis

Since October 2011, when Kenyan military forces were deployed in Somalia, there have been dozens of terrorist attacks in Kenya: shootings, grenades, explosives. More than a hundred people have been killed and hundreds more injured. In the most recent attack, on the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, at least 61 people were killed, hundreds were injured and 71 are still missing. As usual, workers are caught in the middle and we grieve with all those who lost families and friends. As in the World Trade Center attack in September 2011, the Westgate assault was directed at symbols of wealth but took the lives of many working-class people.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media has remained silent about the plundering of Somalia. The capitalist ruling classes have been using violence against workers on a daily basis all over North Africa. Three months after the invasion of Somalia in October 2011, the Kenyan military reportedly slaughtered 700 Somali militants.  Since 2007, as many as 3,000 African Union peacekeeping troops have been killed. The Somalis that somehow make it to Kenya face severe hardships. There are also concerns that the Somali community in Minnesota will be targeted in the wake of the Westgate attack (New York Times, 9/28).
On November 19, 2012, Kenyan police unleashed a wave of violence and torture against Somali and Ethiopian refugees in the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh. These abuses are nothing new. Since 2009, Human Rights Watch has repeatedly reported Kenyan security force torture, rape and inflict other violence. The authorities have yet to prosecute anyone for these crimes. The racist character of this officially sanctioned brutality was revealed when the report quoted local police as saying “All Somalis are terrorists.”
While the bosses’ newspapers analyze the Shabab, the terrorist group claiming responsibility for the Westgate attack, it’s important to point out that the capitalist rulers are the biggest terrorists of all. The ruling class uses its military to carry out mass murder. The president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. We should never see this type of violence as any more acceptable than terrorist attacks.