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viernes, 21 de octubre de 2011

El envolvimiento de Kenia en Somalía.

 

Beyond Boundaries in East Africa.

Kenia y sus vecinos.

By Johan Bergenas, Brian Finlay | 17 Mar 2011


On July 11, 2010, bombs ripped through crowds gathered to watch the World Cup soccer final in downtown Kampala, Uganda, leaving 76 dead and 85 wounded. Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based terrorist organization, quickly claimed responsibility, asserting that the attack was in response to Uganda's support for the African Union's U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission in Somalia. The attack constituted al-Shabaab's first major assault beyond Somalia and the deadliest in East Africa since the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings. It opened a new chapter for the region, raising the prospects of increased insecurity and regional instability, while simultaneously dealing a significant blow to prospects for economic growth and development.

Since the Kampala attacks, cross-border skirmishes and the threat of terrorist attacks by Somalia-based operatives have been an increasing concern for East Africa. In December, al-Shabaab took responsibility for the bombing of a Nairobi bus station that killed three.

The potential for terrorism in East Africa is heightened by the region's porous borders, insufficient government capacities and inadequate judicial and law-enforcement mechanisms. Although seen by many as a uniquely African challenge, the presence of disaffected Muslim groups in close proximity to the Arabian Peninsula also raises fears that terrorists could exploit weaknesses in the region to plan and launch global operations. Indeed, as terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, encounter greater operational difficulties in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, some worry that they will shift operations to areas where responsive capacity is less robust. There is emerging evidence that this may already be occurring in Somalia.

Kenya is indicative of broader and potentially more-worrisome regional trends. At present, because of Nairobi's resource constraints, as well as the practical challenges involved in monitoring the 400-mile border with Somalia, terror groups operating in that country "can essentially enter and leave Kenya . . . to hit the country's soft targets more or less at will." Other East African countries may be at even greater risk. Ethiopia's border with Somalia is largely void of security, and Addis Ababa has in the past found itself on al-Shabaab's target list.

Terrorism in East Africa also derails prospects for economic development. Additional attacks could hinder international business investments and hold grave implications for regional tourism and, by extension, regional economic growth. As such, terrorism is both a significant security priority and a central challenge to economic development. Governments in the region have displayed a willingness to address this threat, but unfortunately, sustained progress against terrorist organizations in East Africa is challenged by an array of financial, legal and technical hurdles. Among them are insufficient counterterrorism training for police, judges and prosecutors; lack of expertise related to the drafting and adoption of relevant counterterrorism legislation; inadequate control over land borders and inadequate monitoring of maritime boundaries; poor communications infrastructure; and a lack of the requisite technology and other hardware.

The global economic downturn complicates efforts to find funding to meet these challenges. As such, a more innovative leveraging of domestic resources and international assistance is required. In addition to helping to prevent further loss of life due to terrorism, a more coordinated approach would promote greater stability throughout East Africa, combat the challenge of small-arms trafficking, provide incentives for increased regional business investment and ensure the safety of tourists.

The concept of linking responses to terrorism with development objectives in order to reduce radicalization is not new. For decades, international security analysts and governments made the case for enhanced cooperation, even while development specialists have warned against the "securitization" of development assistance. But to date, little has been done to practically link the two.

This failure has not kept governments across East Africa from working to implement more-nuanced counterterrorism strategies.

For instance, Kenyan officials have taken steps to strengthen their capacity to combat terrorism, piracy, drug trafficking and small-arms smuggling through a variety of holistic information-sharing initiatives and the joint training of enforcement officials. In support of a U.N. resolution to combat Somali piracy, Kenya has spearheaded an effort to establish a regional maritime coordination center to support a worldwide navigation and warning system for ships sailing off the coast of Somalia. It has also set up a search-and-rescue center equipped with state-of-the-art operational systems, including a Global Distress Security System.

Border-security cooperation, designed to combat organized crime and terrorism insurgencies, is also ongoing between Kenyan, Ugandan and Somali authorities. More importantly, Kenyan officials have pragmatically leveraged the link between security and development objectives even while the donor community has been slow to implement its own rhetoric. A recent development-focused project to improve roads and transportation networks between Kenya and Tanzania incorporates a one-stop border post designed to significantly shorten customs clearance times by standardizing procedures and improving the capacity of customs agencies. The initiative will facilitate a greater volume of trade, making it more efficient but also more secure.

Although funding for the border post was drawn in part from a development grant by the U.S. Agency for International Development, because of the dual-benefit security dividends, resources could have easily been drawn from international counterterrorism and nonproliferation assistance. Such a strategy would not only have freed up financial resources for other pressing regional development objectives, it would have opened the door to a security dialogue with recipient partner governments that illustrated the net benefits of hard-security cooperation.

The donor community should build upon Kenya's innovative approach to counterterrorism by using similar dual-benefit assistance to provide funds for training police, judges and prosecutors; drafting relevant legislation; and enhancing national and regional communications infrastructure, among other things. With East African states taking steps to confront the growing threat of terrorism, it is incumbent upon the developed world to provide adequate resources to struggling governments in a way that builds sustained buy-in. In doing so, donor governments can operationalize their own "whole of society" rhetoric and consciously provide assistance that resonates beyond counterterrorism. And they can do so in a way that stretches dwindling assistance dollars, while positively impacting both development objectives and good governance.

Brian Finlay is a senior associate and director of the Managing Across Boundaries program at the Stimson Center.

Johan Bergenas is a research associate with the Managing Across Boundaries program at the Stimson Center.

This article series reflects the authors' research and travel in East Africa during 2010 and 2011, which is documented in a newly released report, "Beyond Boundaries in Eastern Africa: Bridging the Security Development Divide With International Security Assistance." Elisa Valbuena-Pfau and Lovely Umayam provided research and editorial assistance.

1 comentario:

carlos pissolito dijo...

Eritrea: Kenyan comments ‘regrettable’
November 7, 11
By Richard Lough and Feisal Omar



Nairobi/Mogadishu - Eritrea has rejected a Kenyan accusation that it might be arming Somalia's Islamist al-Shabaab rebels, and said a threat by Kenya to take unspecified action in response was “unfortunate”.

Eritrea has become increasingly isolated by accusations from its neighbours that it is arming the Islamist rebels in Somalia. The diplomatic row follows Kenya's deployment of troops across its border to fight al Shabaab in southern Somalia three weeks ago.

Kenya's Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula summoned the Eritrean ambassador on Friday to raise concerns over what he called reports of arms shipments from Eritrea to al-Shabaab, and said Nairobi could take unspecified measures in response.

Eritrea has long denied arming al-Shabaab, and accuses neighbours of inventing such accusations to tarnish its image.

“The government of Eritrea finds extremely regrettable the remarks attributed to the foreign minister of Kenya... regarding the fabricated story of Eritrean arms shipments to al-Shabaab in Somalia,” Eritrea's foreign ministry said in a statement posted on its website and date November 5.

Kenya's implied threat of action was “unfortunate” ahead of a planned visit to Kenya by Eritrea's foreign minister, it said.

Kenya sent its troops across the border into Somalia three weeks ago to crush the al-Shabaab militants it blames for a wave of kidnappings in Kenya and frequent cross-border attacks.

Since then Kenya has been plagued by a string of attacks along its northeastern border area, as well as in the capital.

Suspected al-Shabaab militants launched a dawn raid on Sunday on the border post of Lafey, killing one police reservist, military sources and local elders said. Late on Saturday, Kenyan security forces battled with gunmen a few kilometres outside the Dadaab refugee camp.

“Lafey was turned into a battlefield for over an hour until the police and army repulsed the raiders,” said a local leader who declined to be named.

Earlier on Saturday evening, a grenade attack on a church in Garissa, northern Kenya, killed two people, hours after a United Nations aid convoy struck a landmine which failed to detonate in the Dadaab refugee camp, close to the Somali border.

Nairobi has threatened to carry out air strikes on a number of rebel bases across southern and central Somalia in response to what it said were reports Eritrea had flown consignments of weapons into the militant enclave of Baidoa.

One of al-Shabaab's top commanders told worshippers on Sunday the insurgents would not surrender their key strongholds, even if subjected to aerial bombardments.

“Kenya's fighter jets will never seize our towns, but they may injure or kill a few people,” Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said in Almada, in the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu, after leading prayers to mark the Muslim festival of Eid.

Kenya has long been alarmed by its lawless neighbour, awash with weapons and mired in conflict for two decades.

To keep peace on the frontier, it has quietly supported the birth of a semi-autonomous Somali province dubbed 'Jubaland', comprising three Somali regions bordering Kenya. The status of Jubaland, also sometimes called Azania, is not clear: Somalia's government says it does not support the Jubaland initiative.

Al-Shabaab says the Kenyan military incursion is part of a plan to impose control over Somali territory to create a buffer zone between the two countries.

“Let them not deceive you with Azania. It is a Christian state, take care,” said Aweys, whose militants are fighting to impose a hardline version of sharia law on Somalia.

Kenya's military denies any long-term plans to assert control over parts of Somalia, and says it is fighting for Kenya's own security and to help the Western-backed Mogadishu government. - Reuters