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As we celebrate Mashujaa Day, let me take you through the journey of one of Kenya’s finest military officer, the person who brought the peace being enjoyed in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mozambique, and Namibia.
Daniel Ishmael Opande is a retired Kenyan military officer, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant General in the Kenyan Army and is a graduate of the British Army’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is also a graduate of the British Army Staff College and the United States National Defense University.
General Opande served as Deputy Force Commander with the United Nations Transitional Assistance Group in Namibia (UNTAG) from 1989 to 1990. He represented Kenya in the Mozambican peace process as a facilitator and negotiator between the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) (U.N).
He was posted to Liberia as the Chief Military Observer of the United Nations Observer Mission(UNOMIL) from 1993 to 1995. In November 2000, he was appointed as Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).
As the at the helm of UNAMSIL, this is where he experienced full-fledged evil of civil war. According to his own accounts, the rebels would rape women, kill people for nothing, mistreat and extort passersby and so many human rights violations, his task was to rid off rebels in Liberia. Many of the fighters there were children in the 14-year-old civil war.
General Opande was appointed as Force Commander of UNAMSIL when a platoon of Kenyan peacekeepers was abducted and held hostage by one faction rebel group - the Fode Sanko United Revolutionary Front (URF). 30 Kenyan troops had been abducted and 4 had already been killed, and to make the matter worse, the Indian General who was in charge as the Force Commander did not much to liberate abducted troops. When Opande landed in Sierra Leone, his fast task was to liberate his fellow Kenyans under hostage. He had the head of the rebels Fode Sanko and his Vice arrested immediately and Kenyans troops liberated in one week. That’s just what happened, and for the four Kenyans who had been killed, he ordered their bodies exhumed to be flown to Kenya for a decent burial, any Kenyan troop that dies on a foreign land deserves to be buried in their ancestral land as a custom. He was able to quell rebels successfully and there is no way the U.N would let him off with the war lavaging neighboring Liberia.
In the year 2003, General Opande was appointed as the U.N Peace Commander in Liberia. His task was to stop the war and lead an intensive disarmament operation in Liberia. He moved into Liberia with just a single command from Sierra Leone amidst heavy fighting to establish a command centre. He found a collapsed country with a myriad of humanitarian challenges; no water, food, collapse health services, no electricity; it was just a collapsed state. He had a task to disarm over 40,000 teenagers all over Liberia and had to start with the capital Monrovia. By December 2003, he had been able to disarm 12,000 and would give those who surrender money for sustenance not to be involved in war again.
It’s in the month of December where he did a daring surprise that surprised everyone; he went into rebels stronghold and confronted a rebel group where he stripped a rebel general who had been appointed by the chief rebel Charles Tailor off his rank. His vice Brigadier Okwonko who had accompanied him was sweating profusely for the sole reason that they were deep rebels territory and Opande became very angry and dissappointed(in their own territory) with the rebels for continued blockade of a major highway which was risky and could have made them shot dead.
In April 2014 General Opande launched his final assault to disarm the rebel which was very successful. He encouraged children to go back to school where he ordered those which have been broken down rehabilitated and run a campaign gun for money or face the full force of the law.
General Opande met many challenges but he was really determined to put the war to an end. One of the challenges was that, when he crossed from Sierra Leone, he only had 3,000 soldiers, the majority of them being Kenyas against the promise of being accorded 17,000 peace-keepers. Another challenge was the U.N bureaucracy which would make resources to replenish vital needs for peace-keepers delayed. Despite the challenges he soldered on and within one year, he had managed to put to an end a 14-year-old war. Opande’s efforts in Liberia led to the election of the first ever woman president on the year 2006.
That’s a single story of one of Kenya’s finest in the Defence Forces, there are many more. Note that Kenya played many more pivotal peace missions beyond Africa such as in the former Yugoslavia for three years, between 1992 and 1995, East Timor from 1999–2000 and Peace-Keeping operations in Croatia among others.
Countries, where Kenya has sent peace-keepers and observers, include Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kuwait, East Timor, South Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. Others are former Yugoslavia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Namibia, Liberia, Angola, Chad, Rwanda, Mozambique, Burundi and Uganda.
Happy #MashujaaDay