Student Number : 0415941F -
MA research report -
School of Social Sciences -
Faculty of Humanities / It is interesting how a specific date and month has come to define the world. In the
dawn of the millennium, few people would have thought international politics would
suddenly change. It was even harder to envisage that America would be a direct target
of terror groups’ right inside their country in such a huge magnitude, in this age after
the end of cold war when it was the only super power.
The events of September 11, 2001 will forever remain entrenched in history and even
more so the political events that followed after, since they have redefined the world
and its political ideology. Different states have responded to the attacks differently,
springing surprises, twists and turns that have shaped the agenda of the human rights
discourse. The response to the attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Centre has
posed a dilemma to scholars in international human rights law, some of them whom
have questioned if this is the end of human rights era.1 This is because of how the
human rights discourse has been put at cross purpose with the anti-terror efforts that
have been employed.
After Al-qaeda operatives crashed three airlines into the Pentagon and World Trade
Centre, while a fourth one crashed in a field in Shanksville, this was seen as a direct
act of aggression on America and President George Bush vowed revenge. On October
8th 2001, Bush launched a campaign to track Osama Bin Laden and followers of his
Al-qaeda group, who were responsible for the attacks. The “war on terror” began the
same day with the bombing of Afghanistan that aimed at toppling the Afghanistan
government, which supported Al-qaeda. While doing this, Bush placed terrorism
above any other global agenda. It is important to note that the toppling of the
Afghanistan regime was through the UN Security Council. When a new government
was set up after the regime was toppled, the “war on terror” entered new frontier.
In his State of the Union address in January 2002, President Bush declared that Iran,
Iraq and North Korea were “rogue states” and alleged that the three countries were
developing weapons of mass destruction. Bush feared that terrorists would use these chemical and biological weapons to attack other countries, more so American
interests and hence measures had to be taken before this happened.
He next turned to Iraq which was suspected of having chemical and biological
weapons and links with Al-qaeda. He vowed to topple the Iraq regime of Saddam
Hussein on these pretexts.2 These actions led to a lot of international debate, with
many countries urging America not to use force to push its agenda. Specifically, most
countries were of the view that inspectors from the United Nations Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNIMOVIC) should be allowed to inspect
Iraq to authenticate the claims.3 In addition, many countries felt that for such a war to
happen, the UN Security Council had to pass a resolution allowing the attack of Iraq.
Nevertheless, America and its allies went ahead with their plans of toppling Saddam.
On April 9, 2003 the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled and he was captured on
December 14, 2003. However, Osama has not yet been caught.
At the same time, the United Nations (U.N.) has passed various resolutions
condemning terrorism and urging countries to enact anti-terror measures that do not
infringe on the people’s human rights. Despite this, the anti-terrorism measures
adopted by many countries have fallen short of the U.N. human rights requirements
and have proved to be a challenge to internationa l human rights law and refugee law.
This has led to various scholars arguing that the U.N. charter should be reviewed to
adequately cater for the “war on terror” and the enforcement of human rights while
engaging in these efforts. In any case, it is clear that legal safeguards that were once
viewed as unchangeable are now being challenged. As David Rieff avers, “…the
threat that internal war and terrorism poses to the edifice of international law would
have become apparent sooner or later. If anything, September 11 only hastened and
focused the process.”
This research report aims to study the implications of the “war on terror” for the
protection of human rights in Kenya. In doing so, it is noted that even though Kenya
has been a victim of terrorist activities, it was only after America began the “war on
terror” in October 2001 that it started putting up structures to address terrorism. Thus,
the main thrust of this research is to investigate the human rights dilemma that Kenya
faces in these efforts includ ing interrogating the reasons for the tensions that resulted
from the draft Suppression of Terrorism bill 2003 that was drawn up by the
government in its effort to fight terrorism. In order to do this, several research
questions inform the study.
a) How has the “war on terror” shaped the understanding and practices of human
rights in Kenya?
b) How has the “war on terror” shaped Kenya’s approach to terrorism?
c) How did the draft Suppression of Terrorism bill 2003 emerge?
d) Was the draft bill a result of social struggles and history of the country as
regards terrorism?
e) What are the human rights concerns that have emerged from the draft bill?
f) What are the tensions that have cropped up between protecting human rights
and ensuring national security in Kenya? This will include a study of local
campaigns by the Civil Society and Muslim community against the draft antiterror
bill.
g) Why have the tensions come up between the citizens and the government? To
do this, the study will look into the human rights history of Kenya and
relationship between the government and its citizens.
h) What has been the impact of anti-terrorism measures on certain ethnic and
religious groups?
i) How have suspected terrorists in Kenya been treated while under custody?
Human rights as applied in this research report refers to a set of internationally agreed
upon principles which have been set down in the various declarations of United
Nations human rights instruments, African Charter and other legal documents like
Constitutions. Over the years, these principles have continuously been refined and
extended to ensure that more people especially the minorities are catered for and have
since been evoked when oppression occurs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/1741 |
| Date | 15 November 2006 |
| Creators | Wahome, Patrick Mutahi |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 387858 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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