Statement of British High Commission, Nairobi on the security situation

THE CAUSE...

Police corner a female student at the University of Nairobi last week. "The Western plots against the popular government include engineering last week’s demonstrations by university students, which were then given suspiciously prominent front-page picture and story treatment by major Western newspapers and TV stations". PHOTO | FILE  NATION MEDIA GROUP

I am writing as Head of Communications at the British High Commission to respond to the Sunday Nation article, “Is there Western conspiracy to end Jubilee rule before its five-year term?”

You will not be surprised that the UK response to this is, “there is no such conspiracy”.

But it is likely that conspiracy theorists may not take our word for this, so I would like to offer a few facts.

Firstly I would refer to the clarification we made last week, following our travel advice change of the week before.

In it, we said that the change to our travel advice regarding Mombasa was motivated by one thing only: our responsibility to inform British citizens of our objective assessment of the potential security threat to them in that area.

RISK LEVEL

Travel advice is there solely for the safety and security of British people when they are outside the UK.

We do not take changes to our travel advice lightly because we know the impact that it can have on the economy in those areas that are affected.

We are not allowed to make travel advice changes on the basis of political or economic reasons — assessments are made purely on the level of risk to the security of our citizens.

Nor would it make any sense for us to make this travel advice change on the basis of politics or economics.

The latest advice for Mombasa affects British businesses just as it affects Kenyan businesses.

And it’s not only the individual British citizens that live and work in Mombasa. Other British tourism business operators have also temporarily lost a key part of their market.

The charter companies that have cancelled flights, the hoteliers, the travel writers, the sea sports specialists and so on. Many of them are British; indeed, more tourists come to Kenya from Britain than from any other country.

Our desire is always to reduce the level of travel advice. We keep it under constant review and we hope it may be possible to take it back to a lower level before too long.

But we have to do that on the basis of objective security assessments, as always, not because conspiracy theorists pressure us to do so.

Finally I wish to reiterate that for many years, the UK has stood shoulder to shoulder with Kenya in the fight against terrorism, just as we did during Westgate.

We recognise the impact of terrorism, and we are resolved to continue supporting Kenya in this fight.

JOHN BRADSHAW,

British High Commission, Nairobi

THE EFFECT...