Monday 2 May 2011

he Jubaland Initiative: Is Kenya Creating a Buffer State in Southern Somalia?



By: Derek Henry Flood

Several reports circulated through the international media in early April indicating that a new semi-autonomous state, tentatively named Jubaland (or alternately “Azaniya”), would be created in southwestern Somalia to contain the Somali militant outfit Harakat al-Shabaab. Jubaland is purportedly being created by Kenyan authorities to keep al-Shabaab fighters far away from the border of its North Eastern Province with Somalia where recent clashes and cross border incursions from both belligerents have occurred.

Jubaland would supposedly be composed of three Somali regions: Lower Juba, Middle Juba, and Gedo. The state would be headed by a professor named Muhammad Abdi Muhammad “Gandhi,” who briefly served as defense minister in Mogadishu in February 2009 (Garowe Online, February 21, 2009). Jubaland would have as its capital the Indian Ocean port of Kismayo, which was for a period of time under the firm control of an alliance between al-Shabaab and the Mu’askar Ras Kamboni militia (al-Jazeera, December 21, 2008). Professor Gandhi, as the former defense minister is commonly known, has outlined his strong desire to create a new, stable sub-state entity, analogous to Somaliland and Puntland, in order to “liberate Jubaland from extremists” (Daily Nation [Nairobi], April 3).

Beyond the argument for defending Kenya’s borders from foreign militants, Kenya’s ethnic Somali majority in North Eastern Province has historically been threatened by the Greater Somalia movement and deeply rooted notions of pan-Somali irredentism. From November 1963 to April 1968, a pro-Somali movement fought government forces in what was then called the Northern Frontier District. Known as the “Shifta War,” the conflict pitted Jomo Kenyatta’s Kenya in alliance with Haile Sellasie’s Ethiopia against ethnic Somali rebels and their backers in the Republic of Somalia. [1] Nairobi is not threatened solely by al-Shabaab forces crossing into Kenyan territory to stage attacks, but also fears a resurgence of ethnic Somali nationalism within its borders and the incitement of over 300,000 Somali refugees currently subsisting inside Kenya. Al-Shabaab spokesman Shaykh Ali Mahmud Raage recently rattled his saber at the Kenyan state by claiming Nairobi was knowingly allowing Ethiopian regular troops to stage offensive operations against al-Shabaab from the border town of Mandera (Reuters, February 27). Al-Shabaab wasted little time in making good on its threats by launching a bomb and gun attack on Mandera just two weeks later (The Standard [Nairobi], March 15). Beatrice Karago, counselor at the Kenyan Embassy in Addis Ababa told Jamestown the embassy has no knowledge of the entrance of Ethiopian troops into sovereign Kenyan soil as asserted by al-Shabaab. When asked if the Jubaland initiative had been a possible thorn in the side of Kenyan-Ethiopian relations, Karago glossed over any possible policy rift, replying: “Kenya and Ethiopia have always had good relations.”
  Continued


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