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Kenya's unsubstantiated and malicious accusations labeled against Eritrea


Eritrea's Ministry of Information website shabait.com reports that "The Monitoring Group, in its report to the Security Council, explained that the accusation against Eritrea alleging that it sent three aircrafts carrying weapons to Somalia was unfounded and to the contrary external forces have entered Somalia uninvited and against Resolution 1725 (2006)."

The timing of Kenya's accusation was very malicious to say the least.  It was designed to thwart Eritrea's successful attempt to set the record straight that it had no interest in supporting extremists anywhere let alone in its neighborhood.   The Kenyan government knows full well that the allegations about Eritrea's support for al Shabaab was peddled by Ethiopia to divert attention from its illegal occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories in violation of a final and binding international arbitration.

Kenya's accusation came in November of 2011, a month after President Isaias afworki's successful visit to Uganda and a planned visit to Kenya.  During the Uganda visit President Museveni said "The bombing here was done by al Shabaab but the issue here is that al Shabaab is not supported by Eritrea, that's what Isaias told me and I accept it because he's an honorable comrade, he's not somebody who has walked out of the slums."  Eritrea's repeated request to meet with President Kibaki of Kenya were not answered.  Kenya's answer instead was an unfounded lie.  This put the expected strengthening of bilateral relation with Kenya on hold.

Ethiopia treats IGAD as an extension of its foreign ministry and uses IGAD to advance its agenda.  Eritrea in 2011 was meeting with IGAD member states to strengthen bilateral relations.  Eritrea was instrumental in the peace accord between Sudan and South Sudan and as such has excellent relations with both.  With the successful visit to Uganda and planned visit to Kenya, Eritrea was on a path to neutralize Ethiopia's unfair influence in IGAD when it comes to Eritrean issues.  The accusation therefore appears to have been designed to put a stop to this effort.  This poisoned the environment and created a conducive platform for what came next.  In December of 2011 IGAD's support was used as excuse to implement resolution 2023.  A resolution based on a lie.

It is easy to see that the people and government of Kenya do not benefit by damaging the relationship between the two friendly nations with a lie.  Those who do quickly capitalized on the opportunity.  The question now is, what will the government of Kenya do to rectify this injustice?

Yemane Abselom

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