By Dr. Wairimu Mukuria *
“In Uganda, I do not believe in free press…” That was what General Muhoozi, Chief of Uganda’s military,wrote on the social media platform before mobilizing the military to launch a pre-dawn siege that resulted in at least six media houses going off air. All of this happened although the Ugandan constitution states that the armed forces should be no-partisan and subordinate to civil authority.
As I followed the headlines, I was reminded that, in Kenya, the military is similarly deemed constitutionally apolitical and non-partisan under Article 239 (3) of our constitution. However, every president since independence has automatically assumed the role of commander in chief. Considering the harm this institutional dissonance is propagating, it is time to examine the myth of apolitical militaries and to acknowledge that perpetuating this myth simply allows elected leaders to evade responsibility for overtly political actions.
The reality is that not only are the appointments of military generals a manifestation of political decisions made by politicians, their active duty service is at the prerogative of the commander in chief. In the event of the declaration of war, for example, the final decision of a military operation lies with the commander in chief and parliament. War is therefore a political decision whose budget even during peace times is determined by legislators.
The apolitical myth is further confirmed by the constitutional liberties that soldiers have to vote for their politician of choice, contribute to their preferred party and attend political rallies. The incongruence of separating the military from politics is further demonstrated when the top down command of military operations is met with outcomes that can only be remedied by political responsibility and accountability. This includes; care to duty of military families, engaging in an idiotic war, loss of soldiers’ lives, soldiers missing in action, sanity and limitations in functionality for veterans. Any bottom up activity seeking to attain resolution is often shunned as activism and codified under sedition and treason.
The Official Secrets Act censors veterans even further. Retired generals who bask under this apolitical myth and comply are often rewarded with state appointments as cabinet members, ambassadors and chairmen of parastatals. Mid-level officer veterans including warrant officers are acutely aware that kuchunga pension (guarding their pension) is their number one priority even as they jostle for appointments in military installations such as DEFOCA, DEFCO and DEFMIS among the others. Junior officers comply because they are working to develop another career unencumbered by military politics. Service men and women who are surviving on meager to no pensions are living in the indignified manner poverty silences people.
Since independence, the presumption has always been that the determination of deployment, modernization, and strategic thinking was safe in the hands of a politician who has integrity, a high moral standing, is emotionally regulated, and won’t be hijacked by foreign countries and agents. The presumption also is that this politician would not abuse the office, corrupt that power structure to benefit themselves or others financially, territorially, and above all, that he or she would take political responsibility for the outcome of the deployments, the culture, the processes, procedures and command in the military.
We must stop making such assumptions. The documented unfolding of events that resulted in the over 10-year war with Somalia, the Wagalla and Mt. Elgon operations, environmental devastation, the shroud of secrecy that blinds citizens from the extent of the cost of that war, the deployment to Haiti, the military guard at the founding father’s mausoleum, the co-opting of local industries to assemble military hardware, the military take over of Uhuru gardens, the construction of an ebola center in a military base, the military command of Nairobi county, taking financial loans from controversial countries, the management of the Kenya Meat Commission, construction of stadiums by the military, doubling of the budget and the increase of foreign militaries on Kenyan soil all require that we drop the act. The military is not apolitical.
Awareness of this dissonance brings clarity because understanding a problem is 3/4 of solving it. Appreciating that all of it is a political process and every citizen must engage with it is a form of national defense. Conclusively, the likelihood of the political class having to take responsibility for the outcome of military operations is an unpopular but necessary peacekeeping incentive.
*Dr. Wairimu Mukuria is a retired Major of the Kenya Defense Forces, Psychologist, Founder of True North and Public Voices Fellow Tackling Poverty, a partnership of Acumen and The OpEd Project.
