On Sunday Kenya’s Health Minister, Hussein Moalim Muhammad, ruled out the possibility of secession in Kenya’s Somali community. According to The Nation, the minister said Kenyan Somalis would not support moves for unification with Somalia. A large Somali population inhabits the northeastern region of Kenya. Since Somalia’s independence in 1960, there has been a strong feeling for joining Kenya’s Somalis with Somalia. The health minister, a Kenyan of Somali origin, was commenting on last month’s coronation of Dekow Moalim Stambuul as the new Sultan of the Kenyan Somalis. Stambuul, a former separatist, founded a patriotic front in the 1960’s backed by the Somali government. In 1967, the front led a guerrilla war against President Kenyatta of Kenya.
Muhammad said, “The coronation of the Sultan is not political. He is a cultural leader and has a special role to play in our community but not in politics.” He pointed out that Somalis had been integrated into Kenya’s mainstream.
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Ethiopia will soon organize a meeting for Somalia’s warlords and the leaders of the self-declared autonomous regions. According to the Ayaamaha newspaper in Mogadishu, the president of one of the self-proclaimed states, Hassan Muhammad Shatigadud, arrived on Monday in Ethiopia. The paper said that Addis Ababa would first try to mediate existing internal differences before hosting major talks for other Somali faction leaders.Ethiopia has established good ties with both the Somali warlords and the leaders of breakaway regions who reject the transitional government in Mogadishu.
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According to recent reports, some Mogadishu warlords have conducted a military exercise. Militiamen of warlord Muse Sudi Yalahow and his allies fired heavy machine-guns into the Indian Ocean. Yalahow told newsmen that the weapons testing was aimed at enhancing defense. Somalia’s Information Minister Abdirahman Adan Ibbi accused Yalahow of receiving arms from Ethiopia and working to destabilize Mogadishu.
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Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned Kenya against deporting hundreds of Somalis and Ethiopians who have fled conflicts in their home countries. The refugees allegedly entered Kenya illegally.
“If returned, many could face arbitrary arrest, torture and other serious abuses in their countries,” HRW official Alison Parker said in a statement this week. “The Somalis, if repatriated, would face renewed civil conflict in the border region of Somalia which has forced them to flee into Kenya in the last week. This is not the first time that the Kenyan government is flouting its obligations under international refugee law,” the HRW statement said.
