Kenya, South Africa in fresh diplomatic row

Diplomatic tension between Nairobi and Pretoria have reached boiling point, partly fuelled by perceptions that South Africa’s weak immigration system aided masterminds of two major terror attacks in Kenya.

Kenyan sources point out that Samantha Lewthwaite, suspected of being involved in planning last year’s Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s East African chief who was allegedly behind the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, both used South African travel documents. Kenya is also said to be angered by the ‘mishandling’ of top government officials who accompanied President Uhuru Kenyatta on a recent trip to Johannesburg.

SA airport security allegedly forced them to return to Waterkloof Airport for a physical head count after their manifest did not tally with the people on board the aircraft they were using. In addition, South Africa recently outsourced its visa application process to a private firm, VFS Global, attracting additional charges for Kenyans traveling to South Africa.

Other factors fuelling the mutual antagonism, sources said, were Pretoria’s opposition to the African Union’s decision to pull out of the International Criminal Court, following the indictment of President Kenyatta. But yesterday Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho denied there was a spat between the two countries.

“Which spat? This time you get it wrong...We have no such issue and we shall not be forced to have one,” Dr Kibicho told The Standard on Saturday via text message.

“There is no spat on travel regulations between Kenya and South Africa. That is official,” he added.
Kenya-South Africa sour relations boiled over last month when Kenya hit back at South Africa’s restrictive visa regulations. The new measures, which were to take effect on September 1, have been suspended temporarily to allow room for talks following a major outcry from tourism industry players. The source, who requested anonymity so as not to prejudice negotiations, said Kenya does not understand why South Africa is being hard on its citizens given that it has always opened its doors to South Africans. South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, said at a recent media briefing that visa functions had been outsourced to VFS Global in high-volume missions such as Nigeria, China, Ghana, DRC, Angola and Kenya as “part of improving services to clients..” and “to cut long queues ...”

For weeks, The Standard on Saturday has been trying to get SA to confirm or deny the allegations with little success.  Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesperson Clayson Manyela referred us to the Home Affairs Department.

Home Affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete has not responded to our emails and text messages. At stake are millions of shillings that flow between the two countries in tourism, investment and students. Ironically, the two countries consider one another critical markets for short-haul tourists in Africa. A highly placed diplomatic source said the trouble between the two countries can be traced back to when it emerged that South Africa was a weak link in the fight against terrorism.
Lewthwaite, the world’s most wanted woman, and Fazul fraudulently acquired South African passports after changing their names to Natalie Faye Webb and Daniel Robinson respectively. It is believed that Lewthwaite bought the passports for herself and her two children from a convicted fraudster in Durban for R60,000 (Sh500,000).

After Fazul was killed in a US airstrike in Somalia in June 2011, a fake South African passport was found on him. According to author De Wet Potgieter, documents found on Osama Bin Laden after he was assassinated by US Navy Seals a month earlier, suggested that South Africa was a key cog for Al Qaeda activities.Though Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the mall attack, Kenya has become increasingly jittery about how its lax immigration rules for South Africans could expose it to more attacks.Players in the industry have also voiced their concern over the current state of affairs between the two states. Kenya Tour Operators Association chairperson Fred Kaigwa said: “We raised concerns that diplomacy based on reciprocity must factor in the country’s needs.

Kenya cannot impose the same rules that the US is asking from it, and demand that Kenyans should just walk into the US and be issued a visa on the spot since American citizens are enjoying the same...”

The writer, Paul Wafula, is a 2014 David Astor fellow at the Mail & Guardian Centre for Investigative Journalism, Amabhungane