How to handle the new wave of terrorism without helping terrorist achieve their political objectives
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On Tuesday, terrorists struck again exploding bombs that killed three innocent bystanders (may their souls RIP) and three people carrying the bombs. The initial suspicion was that these were suicide bombers. But a close study of the videos suggests the contrary. Those carrying bombs did not seek to maximise their impact by killing as many people (or as many police officers) as possible – as is custom among such terrorists. They made no effort to move closer to their points. Instead, both exploded their bombs in the middle of the road and while they were in motion – one walking, the other riding a motorbike. This suggests that those carrying the bombs may not have been the ones who detonated them.
But first we need to understand the logic and drivers of
terrorism as a strategy to pursue political aims. Terrorism is a weapon of the
weak who recognise that they cannot confront the power of the state directly.
What makes it distinctive is that terrorism does not seek its goals through its
own actions but through the response of the government to its acts. Thus, where
military or revolutionary violence is used to achieve a physical result,
terrorism seeks to achieve a psychological one. By using terror to spread fear,
it can force the government to take extremely repressive measures to combat
terrorists that alienate it from the population.
Therefore, the terrorist’s strategy is to give the
government in power a rope with which to hang itself. The response to terrorism
has thus to go beyond technology (investing in CCTV cameras to apprehend the
terrorists) and the criminal justice system (prosecuting offenders) to the
political and philosophical basis of terror. Terrorism as a strategy will win
or lose depending on how a sitting government responds to its provocations.
Terrorism wins only when a government responds in the way the terrorist wants
it to. Should a government choose not to respond or respond in a way the
terrorist does not desire or expect, then terrorism faces a crisis. So, the
choice is always with the government, and that is the weakness of terrorism as
a strategy for political struggle. A government can avoid doing what terrorists
want it to do, and if it does that, terrorism fails.
This brings us to the specific case of ADF’s terrorism. The
government of President Yoweri Museveni has a lot of experience in fighting
counter insurgencies and terrorism. This will most likely give them a decisive
advantage in the struggle to contain this new wave. Museveni personally and his
security apparatus generally see terrorism as mainly a political problem than a
mere criminal one. And that is a very good beginning point. While in the
short-term they will seek to hunt individual criminals by infiltrating their
underground cells, their long-term strategy is most likely going to focus on
the political factors that can bring support to these terrorists. We are
therefore likely to see many of their leaders being coopted through bribery,
blackmail, persuasion and other tactics.
Most critically, the ADF terrorism begins with a serious
disadvantage in its search for popular support among the Ugandan populace.
Ideologically, it presents itself as a radical Islamic movement pursuing a
religious agenda. But it is doing this in a country where Muslims form only
12-14% of the population. This religious foundation would have given it some
reasonable basis for political agitation. However, it is difficult to argue
that Muslims in Uganda are so badly discriminated against that they need a
radical movement using terror to promote their cause. Even among the Muslim
community, and except for a tiny fringe faction, the claim that government of
Uganda is anti-Islam will be hard to sell.
Organisationally, ADF has associated itself with ISIL, the
global jihad group seeking to recreate an Islamic Caliphate. This group has a
very bad reputation among very many Ugandans including the vast majority of
Muslims. It is therefore unlikely to attract significant sympathy necessary for
it to transform from the terrorist movement into a serious military and
political threat. Except for a small fringe, the vast masses of Uganda’s poor
and unemployed youths in ghettos will find it hard to accept ADF’s methods.
This is also the reason I suspect the terrorists used unsuspecting people to
carry their bombs and then detonated them from a distance.
ADF used to have military bases and conduct military
operations in Uganda in the mid to late 1990s up to about 2000. Since then, it
suffered considerable atrophy and retreated to Eastern DRC. It found a home
because of the absence of any meaningful state in that region. This may explain
why it decided to associate with ISIL; instead of being an isolated nuisance,
association with an organisation with a global reach can give it both access to
money and international bragging rights. But this has been achieved at the cost
of its domestic regional and national agenda. At the very best, ADF can only
maximize its nuisance value but it cannot threaten the power of the state.
To make matters worse, ADF terrorist activities combined
with its association with ISIL are going to make Western powers ally with
Museveni to quash it. Once Uganda becomes the center of the fight against
radical Islamic extremism, Museveni will sleep soundly knowing that Western
countries will become careful in how they criticise his human rights and other
anti-democratic practices. Without him doing much diplomatic footwork, ADF is
helping Museveni, in the eyes of the Western world, reinvent himself as the
guarantor of security in this region. For a president who was being pushed to
the wall over political reform, ADF’s terror will give him a renewed diplomatic
lifeline.
The opposition will now need to reposition themselves. They
should avoid making statements that make them seem like being tolerant of the
terror. They will need to act with skill and circumspection. This means they
condemn the terror in clear and categorical terms and only question strategies
employed to contain it. I also hope that government of Uganda and the wider
public avoid panicking and acting out of proportion to the real threat. This is
a movement on its deathbed. The only glimmer of hope is government running amok
and beginning to hunt young innocent Muslims, jailing and torturing them. Then
ADF will have achieved its aim of causing the state to do its campaign of
recruiting young Muslims into its ranks.
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amwenda@independent.co.ug
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