Terror is the same in Paris, Garissa or Kigali and must be fought the same way

Terrorists have struck again, in Paris, and killed more than 130 people and injured more than 350 others. France is in shock and mourning. The rest of the world has come together in a rare unanimous condemnation of the attacks and expressed solidarity with France. Swift arrests have been made. That is the response we should expect when there is a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. Wherever it happens, terrorism is an attack on humanity, and hurts the same way and must be condemned and fought. That should be the same whether it is Al Qaeda attacking New York, Boko Haram in Nigeria; Islamic State (IS) in Paris or Beirut, or FDLR in Rwanda and D R Congo. That is the only way terrorism can be defeated – through concerted international response. Unfortunately, it does not always happen like that. The tendency is that as long as acts of terrorism are committed in some faraway place among people we don’t know, they don’t concern us. Or worse, they are misrepresented as legitimate response to a stifling political climate. Both attitudes stand in the way of effectively dealing with terrorism. We still get shocked at what the terrorists do and the targets they select. Yet we should not because they do the same thing all the time and attack the same sort of targets – usually places where people congregate in large numbers and where they are likely to be least concerned about attacks. In Paris last Friday, it was a sports stadium where thousands had gathered to watch a football match, a theatre where a concert was taking place and restaurants where people were enjoying a night out with friends after a hard week’s work. A few years ago in Rwanda, terrorists targeted bus stops at a time when they were most crowded with people going home at the end of a long day’s work. They attacked markets at their busiest moments. Recently in Kenya, terrorists attacked university students at their most vulnerable and helpless moment, as they slept in their dormitories. In all these instances, the affected countries have acted in a more or less similar manner. Usually, they increase security, put more armed police and other security agents on the streets, erect more checkpoints in certain places, and make border and entry point controls tighter. In the case of France, they have even announced a state of emergency. These are normal protective measures that anyone would take and ordinarily should not be questioned. In some cases, however, they have. A heightened security presence on the streets is sometimes interpreted as intended to intimidate citizens, or as evidence of a police state. Yet the motive is to provide security to those same citizens. Whenever there is disagreement about the security measures applied, terrorists take advantage. They know that in some places they can act with impunity because any action against them will be given a different interpretation and therefore no unified action will be taken against them. It has happened in this region. Every time acts of terrorism occur, the same words are used to describe them. They are brutal, barbaric, callous murderers and so on. But one fact is forgotten - that there is a method and motive to the barbarism. Terrorists are not disparate, mad individuals. They are organized political and military units with an ideology. Religious fanaticism or rejection of modern civilization is only a façade or a means to an end. The aim is political, economic and strategic control of territory. IS may say they want to reestablish a historical Muslim Caliphate, but the real aim is to control the strategic meeting point of three continents and its resources. . The FDLR has genocide as an ideology that will enable it to control exclusively the territory that is Rwanda. Mistakes have been made in dealing with terrorism in the past. After 9/11 President George W Bush declared a war on terror with the instructions: go after them, find them in their hiding places and finish them. They went after them in Afghanistan, succeeded in getting the Taliban out of power and eventually killed Osama bin Laden. They attacked Iraq, defeated and killed Saddam Hussein, and disbanded his army and even his civilian administration Individuals were killed, but the ideology was not and the conditions that give rise to it were not tackled. From Al Qaeda, at the time unknown outside intelligence circles, there are now several groups - IS in the Middle East and North Africa, Al Shabab in the Horn of Africa, and Boko Haram in Nigeria - that affect the daily lives of ordinary citizens in many countries. In dealing with the Paris attacks, one hopes similar mistakes will not be made. The temptation to blame it on migrants and therefore close borders is strong. Right wing parties are likely to latch on the attacks to bolster their anti-immigration arguments. Islamic fundamentalism will be blamed. And a war will be declared. All these add to the confusion and may not achieve the desired results. There is another undesirable outcome to the Paris attacks. The world’s attention has been turned to France. It has taken its eyes off other areas where acts of terrorism occur, sometimes even committed by the state. The Great Lakes Region is one such area where ordinary citizens live with the threat of terrorism everyday of their lives but do not get the same attention. Burundi was beginning to come under greater scrutiny and pressure to end killings there was beginning to build up. That may now decrease, but the killings will not stop. .. Today the people of Paris are mourning and afraid. In other parts of the world, that has become a way of life. This state of affairs is unacceptable. The murderers of the innocent people in Paris must be hunted and punished. But it should not end there. Hunting down all mass murderers wherever they are and bringing them to book is a duty to humanity. jorwagatare@yahoo.co.uk

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Terror is the same in Paris, Garissa or Kigali and must be fought the same way