Friday, October 23, 2009
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki also noted that the international community should explore ways of supporting the TFG in halting the activities of the Al-Shabaab militia which are a threat to the attainment of a stable Somalia.
Speaking in Nairobi when he held talks with Lynn Pascoe, UN under-secretary general for political affairs, Kibaki asked the international community to fulfill pledges of 214 million U.S. dollars in support of the Somalia peace process. Only 47 million dollars have so far been released.
"He assured that Kenya remains committed to upholding international norms and United Nations resolution of denying groups that threaten peace, security or stability of Somalia," said a statement released by the presidency.
Kibaki noted that Kenya bears the heaviest brunt of the continued instability and termed the piracy off the Somali coastline a regional security threat as well as a hindrance to international trade.
Kenya currently hosts over 280,000 Somali refugees with another 10,000 entering the country every month due to the current instability.
The UN under-secretary is visiting the region to discuss peace on security challenges facing the region and sample Kenya's progress in the reform process.
Meanwhile, the Kenyan government has been urged to immediately stop the recruitment of Somalis in refugee camps to fight for an armed force in Somalia.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday that the Kenyan authorities have directly supported the drive, which has recruited hundreds of Somali men and boys in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camps as well as Kenyan citizens from nearby towns.
Since early October, Somali recruiters claiming to act on behalf of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) have operated openly in the Dadaab camps in northeast Kenya, near the Somali border, to enlist young refugees in a new force intended to fight in Somalia.
But military recruitment in these camps contravenes the principle recognized in international law that refugee camps should be entirely civilian and humanitarian in character.
"Permitting recruitment of fighters in refugee camps undermines the very purpose of the camps -- to be a place of refuge from the conflict," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
"Kenyan authorities need to immediately put a stop to this recruitment drive targeting Somali refugees."
The recruitment drive is also targeting Kenyans around the towns of Dadaab and Garissa. The Somali armed group al-Shabaab has also sought to recruit fighters among Somali refugee communities and Kenyans.
Human Rights Watch investigations have found that recruiters for the new force have used deceptive practices, promising exorbitant pay and claiming that the force has United Nations and other international backing.
They have urged teenage refugees to lie about their ages and to join without informing their families. Former recruits say that their cell phones were taken from them before they were transported to the training center.
Top Kenyan officials including the foreign minister have categorically denied this recruitment drive is taking place at all.
The Dadaab camps, built to house 90,000 people in the early 1990s, are now home to over 280,000 refugees, mostly from Somalia. It is the largest concentration of refugees in the world.
More than 50,000 people have arrived in the camps since January 2009. Many are fleeing the bloody conflict between Somalia's weak TFG and various armed opposition groups, including al-Shabaab, some of whose leaders have publicly linked themselves to al-Qaeda.
Source: Xinhua, Oct 23, 2009