NAIROBI, Kenya – Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta lashed out at foreign troublemakers who are weakening Somalia’s national government and dividing its people, saying those “agents” could reverse security gains in the Horn of Africa nation.
In recent months, Somalis have been accusing the United Arab Emirates of trying to divide their country into clan-based fiefdoms by pitting regional administrators, especially politicians in the northwestern and northeastern regions, against the central government in Mogadishu. The UAE cut unilateral military and trade deals with politicians from the two regions to operate the ports of Berber and Bossaso and set up a military base there.
The deals irked the national government, which in March asked the United Nations Security Council to take action against Abu Dhabi for violating its sovereignty.
The UAE has since discontinued a financial support it was providing to the Mogadishu-based national army and closed an outpatient hospital it run in the capital.
“The region is not at peace,” said Kenyatta in a wide-ranging speech to his nation that also touched on South Sudan. “Somalia remains troubled, largely by foreign agents who weaken its government, who divide its peoples, and who threaten to reverse the gains we have so painfully won under” the African Union Mission in Somalia.
The open criticism by Kenyatta — whose country has several thousand soldiers in Somalia — underscores the growing frustration among regional governments at the long-running instability in Somalia and the little resources and attention the world is directing toward solving it.
For decades, many Somalis also have also suspected that Kenya and Ethiopia are united in their endeavor to rip their country apart to avert the establishment of a strong and united Somali government that can claim afresh Somali lands occupied by the two nations.
But in recent years, both Nairobi and Addis Ababa have been reducing their contacts with regional administrators and openly expressing their support for the central government, perhaps after the two nation realized that an unstable Somalia is a long-term threat to their own security.
Last year, Kenyatta invited President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo to Nairobi, a visit that led to the renewal of ties between the two neighboring countries. The two presidents agreed at the time to resume direct flights between Mogadishu and Nairobi.
Kenyatta, whose country is entangled in a maritime dispute with Somalia that is now before the International Court of Justice, has also last year visited the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to attend President Farmajo’s inauguration.
“We remember that if our brothers and sisters in Somalia prosper, we prosper; if they are safe, so are we,” said Kenyatta. “It has been our policy, then, to help them regain the peace and prosperity they once knew.”
Al-Qaida-linked, Somalia-based insurgent group of al Shabab carried out numerous attacks inside Kenya, killing hundreds of civilians, including students. The group also killed hundreds of Kenyan soldiers in attacks on their bases in southern Somalia.
Kenyatta said his country will work toward securing foreign funding and support for Somalia that is commensurate with the Horn of Africa nation’s challenges.
“We helped, and will continue to help, the people of Somalia build a strong and stable government,” Kenyatta said.
In a message to his nation, Kenyatta has also mentioned the crisis in South Sudan, urging the leaders of that nation to “put the interests of their people and motherland above their own.”
“As we have in the past year, Kenya stands with the people of South Sudan in their search for lasting peace,” he said.
Locally, Kenyatta has asked for forgiveness.
“If there was anything I said last year that hurt or wounded you, if I damaged the unity of this country in any way, I ask you to forgive me, and to join me in repairing that harm,” he said in his state of the nation speech on Wednesday.
Kenyatta admitted that during last year’s two presidential elections, “politics was no longer a debate between opponents on issues; it was a clash of irreconcilable enemies.”
He called on Kenyan politicians to apologize for their words during the elections, “and for the anger and malice that Kenyans heard.”
He also urged citizens to celebrate their country’s diversity, which he called “God’s gift to us,” and emulate him and his erstwhile opponent, Raila Odinga, for recently burying their hatch to herald a new era of cooperation between the sons of two arch-rival families.
“All of us, and in particular we leaders here, will have to admit that last year, we failed in our duty to preserve the unity of this country. And we must make amends,” Kenyatta said.