To Close or Not to Close Daadab? Debate Attracts Mixed Reactions

The debate took a new twist on Tuesday evening when the Parliamentary Committee on security chairman Asman Kamama faced-off with the Parliamentary Caucus on Human Rights Chairman Augustino Neto and Dr. Ochieng Kamudhayi, an international law expert on Citizen TV’s #BigQuestion programme.

According to Mr. Kamama, the Daadab camp should have been closed long time ago as it poses a great security threat to the country and its citizenry.

“We should not compromise the security of our nation for the sake of refugees. The security of the entire nation is at stake and we have right to security,” said Mr Kamama.

“We have lost so many people and we do not need to take anymore chances of losing our citizens.”

Relocating refugees to neighbouring countries

Mr. Kamama further said that the refugees are becoming a thorn in Kenya’s flesh and they should be relocated to Dhobly in Somalia or other neighbouring countries like Ethiopia and Djibouti.

He said that Kenya as a country has the right to review international and tripartite agreements between it and other bodies in order to secure the country.

He added that, “the solution to the increasing threat of terrorism is a robust strategy to deal with this threat.”

He further supported the government’s strategy to construct a security wall saying that the wall “will be very effective in fighting the porous state of our borders and infiltration of militia”.

However, Mr. Neto dismissed Mr. Kamama’s argument saying that the repatriation of refugees should be voluntary and should not violate the rights of the refugees as guaranteed in international treaties.

Misplaced security priorities

Mr. Neto said that Kenya risks international condemnation and sanctions should it proceed and “sacrifice a few innocent refugees for a problem that can be tackled even with the refugee camp in place.”

“We cannot repeal international laws in Kenya, it can be done only at a global level,” noted Mr. Neto.

“The problem is that we have misplaced security priorities. For instance, the available police plane should have flown the necessary forces to Garissa University immediately after the attack and not the Cabinet Secretary and the Inspector General of Police.”

He faulted the government for failing to use even the slightest of intelligence information provided to it.

He called on the government to work on a proper Refugee Bill to govern how we deal with the issue of refugees

On the other hand, Mr. Kamudhayi noted that the closing of Daadab is just a partial problem to insecurity, what we need is a total security.

“Answers to security problems must not be tackled emotionally but strategically. We can contain insecurity even without necessarily having to relocate the refugees,” he noted.