US, Kenya elevate ties to ‘strategic partnership’

By The Star Staff Writer

The United States and Kenya have decided to deepen their defense and security cooperation and elevate their relationship to a “strategic partnership,” said the leaders of the two countries that also agreed to hold annual meeting to “advance mutual prosperity.”

President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya visited the White House on Monday for security and trade talks with his American counterpart, Donald Trump. He was the second African leader to meet with Trump since Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s April visit.

“The leaders resolved to elevate the relationship to a Strategic Partnership, affirming it as a cornerstone of peace, stability and good governance in Africa and the Indian Ocean region,” said a joint statement by President Trump and Kenyatta on Tuesday. “This United States– Kenya Strategic Partnership will include an annual dialogue to advance mutual prosperity.”

President Trump lauded Kenya’s “leading role in the East African fight against terrorism and for its sustained dedication to this effort,” especially the Kenyan army’s fight against Shabab militants in Somalia.

Since 2007, when the African Union deployed its peacekeepers in Mogadishu, Somalia has not only become a cash cow for all troop contributing countries, fetching millions of dollars of compensations, but African countries have also leveraged their presence in the war-scarred Horn of Africa nation to squeeze what they want out of Western countries. Other foreign nations, such as the US and the UK, have also used the criminal militant group of al Shabab as a convenient cop-out to interfere in the internal affairs of the nation.

In 2012, Uganda threatened to withdraw its troops from Somalia after a U.N. group of experts accused Kampala — along with Rwanda — of supporting the defunct Congolese rebel group M23, whose leader, Bosco Ntaganda, is now facing war crimes trial in The Hague.

In an interview with the Voice of America, President Kenyatta said he would only pull his troops out of Somalia when Somalis are “able to take care of the security concerns within their own country.”

“So until we’re in such a situation, it is impossible for us to say when the withdrawal date shall be,” he said. “The withdrawal date is based on us being able to defeat al-Shabab.“

On July 30, the United Nations security council gave the AU mission in Somalia, or AMISOM as it’s popularly known, until December 2021 to hand over security responsibilities to Somali forces – well after the term of the current government has run out.

Before Trump and Kenyatta held their bilateral meeting, President Trump said the “tremendous relationship” between the two nations is “getting bigger and bigger all the time.” President Kenyatta has also said Nairobi and Washington “have had strong, solid relationships ever since our independence.”

“We are here to renew that partnership. We are here to strengthen it,” he said before heading to the closed-door meeting.

Kenyan troops invaded southern Somalia in 2011 under the pretext of taking the war to the doorsteps of al Shabab whose fighters carried out several attacks inside the country. The Kenyan troops later re-hatted to become a part of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

But since that military involvement, the Shabab has carried out several high-profile attacks in Kenya, most notably the group’s 2015 attack on the University of Garissa in which its fighters killed 148 people, most of them students.

“The leaders pledged to deepen defense and security cooperation, building on the recent acquisition of military equipment made in the United States and committed to further enhance Kenya Defence Forces capabilities,” said the statement.

Last year, Bechtel Corporation, a United States engineering and construction company, signed a deal with Kenya to build a modern, 280 mile-superhighway from the capital, Nairobi, to the coastal city of Mombasa, the second largest in the country.

“This and nearly $900 million in other commercial deals and engagements announced during the visit are expected to create thousands of American and Kenyan jobs, further enhancing the prosperity and economic competitiveness of both nations,” said the leaders.

During his visit to America, President Kenyatta hosted a United States delegation from the Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa and signed investment deals worth millions of dollars, said his office. After arriving back in the country, Kenyatta called his visit to the White House as “fruitful engagements.”