Kenya's Global Role Declining, Says Kalonzo

Nairobi, Kenya, September 15, 2006 – Kenya's role in the international scene is diminishing, former Environment minister Kalonzo Musyoka has said.

Mr. Musyoka who has also served as Foreign Affairs minister, said: "Kenya had been at the forefront in efforts to build peace in Eastern and the Horn of Africa region but that role is now slowly being abandoned by the Government."

Without elaborating, he described the performance of the Government at the last African Union meeting in Banjul, Gambia, as "shameful".

The Mwingi North MP said he did not understand why the Government could let the exemplary role it had been playing in peace-building fizzle out.

"Kenya's image is suffering because we have abandoned our brothers and sisters in the neighboring countries who are in distress due conflicts," he said.

Mr. Musyoka said a recent meeting planned by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) in Nairobi, which later turned out to be an informal talk, "speaks volumes about how much Kenya is losing out even in Somalia where it has also been playing a leading role".

Mr. Musyoka said Kenyans have played major roles in securing peace in the rest of Africa and cited the role played by Lt General Lazarus Sumbeywo in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan.  

He also cited the role played by Lt General Daniel Opande in UN peacekeeping missions in West Africa.

He was speaking at a meeting held in Nairobi to petition President Mwai Kibaki and the international community to take a bigger role in resolving the crisis in the Sudan's Darfur region.

The meeting,   organized by the Darfur Consortium, asked the African Union to strengthen its peace-keeping force in the region. It also wants an immediate deployment of a UN force to contain the crisis which has led to the death of many people.

However, Mr. Musyoka said the Darfur crisis was an African problem and the continents' governments should "recognize the Darfur crisis as their own".

"African governments should act with sufficient resolve and ensure that a lasting peace was secured in the Sudan region," he said.

The Darfur conflict, said Mr. Musyoka, was a difficult African problem because it happened after a solution was found for the decades old conflict in the country's southern region.

Mr. Musyoka said the answer for resolving the current conflict lies within IGAD and said member countries should increase their resolve to find peace.

"The solution to the Darfur issue is within the reach of the IGAD and the organization should ensure that the benefits which it secured in the south should not be cancelled out by the current conflict. It will also be painful for Kenya if all the efforts it had put in getting peace in the south was cancelled by the Darfur conflict." he said.

He asked African Governments that had sent forces to Darfur to sustain them.

"Despite of the magnitude of the crisis it is honorable for the countries to try and sustain their own forces before we ask for help from the rest of the world" he said.

Mr. Musyoka criticized an article in the current issue of the Economist which said that "the conflict in Southern Sudan was in abeyance." He urged the media to play a more constructive role.

Source: The Daily Nation