NAIROBI, April 29 (Xinhua) — Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has called on the international community to continue with efforts to end conflicts in Sudan and Somalia to stabilize the region.
President Kibaki, who is also the chairman of Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which brokered the two peace processes, also said the challenge facing Kenya as chair was to mitigate the effects of drought and search for lasting peace in Sudan and Somalia.
President Kibaki called for continued efforts and support from the international community with the objective of giving impetus to peace process in Sudan.
“With regard to Sudan, considerable progress has been made in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. We, however, call for continued efforts and support from the international community with the objective of giving impetus to the peace process in the Sudan,” Kibaki said.
The Kenyan leader made the plea on Friday night during a state banquet he hosted for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is on a three-day visit to the east African nation.
The IGAD chairman called for internationally supported measures to guarantee durable peace agreements in the two countries.
“The transitional federal government of Somalia continues to require sustainable international assistance and support to enable it to carry out its mandate of post conflict reconstruction,” Kibaki said.
He noted that the IGAD, which facilitated Somalia’s two-year reconciliation process, has appealed to the United Nations to lift the arms embargo on Somalia to pave way for deployment of the African troops to enable the transitional federal government get a foothold in the lawless nation.
“In the search for durable peace in the region, IGAD member states have urged the United Nations to lift the arms embargo on Somalia. Likewise, we have emphasized the importance of implementation of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs,” Kibaki said.
Somalia’s exiled transitional government last year officially relocated from the relative safety of neighboring Kenya to the Horn of Africa nation to embark on a key task of rebuilding the war-torn nation after decades of anarchy.
Regional analysts, however, say relocating without foreign peacekeepers, the transitional government fears the militia-rule in Somalia will prevent ministers and their teams from carrying out their work in safety.
Early this week, African peace activists accused IGAD and the donors for neglecting Sudan and Somalia, raising fears of more conflicts in the two Africa nations.
The activists said lack of United Nations monitoring in Sudan and Somalia was also to blame, adding that resources that fuel conflicts in the conflict-prone Horn of Africa could instead be used to search for peace.
The 21 years of civil war between the former rebels of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army and the Khartoum-based government, which ended with the signing of a peace deal in January 2005, killed at least two million people, uprooted four million more and forced some 550,000 to flee to neighboring countries. Enditem
Source: Xinhua, Apirl 29, 2006
