UK minister expresses concern over drug trafficking, terrorism in Kenya

A British minister said this week that widespread graft and a porous border with lawless Somalia have made Kenya the top target in East Africa for drug runners and terrorists.

Britain's Foreign Office Minister of State Kim Howells said in remarks likely to rile the Kenyan government that rampant graft in the east African nation has made the country more vulnerable to terrorism and to becoming a transit route for drug traffickers.

Kenya was also being targeted by drug cartels, bringing in heroin and cocaine, which ended up in Britain, Howells said during an official visit.

Howells told reporters that, in Kenya, "people can be bought, right from the person who works at the docks in Mombasa up to the government."

"This weakness has been recognized by drug-traffickers and probably by terrorists too," Howells said in unusually blunt comments after visits to Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa.

The UK minister noted that pledges from President Mwai Kibaki's government, elected in 2003 on a reform platform to clean up endemic corruption, had not been realized.

"Almost nothing has resulted from that. There is clearly complicity at very high levels in terms of arrests," he said.

He said he heard on a recent trip to South America that Kenya was being used more and more to deliver Colombian cocaine to Europe. Heroin was also coming in from South Asia, he said.

"It is almost entirely due to the fact that you can buy off almost everyone here," said Howells.

Because of this corruption, he said, terrorists and drug traffickers can take advantage of what they perceive to be a weak system to conduct their illegal activities.

Howells said the recent developments in Kenya, including conflict in Somalia and huge drug seizures, demonstrated the threat.

He added that an apparent surge in al-Qaeda activity in neighboring Somalia this year had heightened the risk to Kenya and had big implications for regional and international security.

"There seems to be a revival of al-Qaeda activity there ... and Kenya has a long and porous border with what is probably the most stark example of a failed state in the world. There is a perception of (Kenya) being wide open. al-Qaeda watches these things very closely," said the UK minister.

Western security services have long regarded Kenya, which suffered bomb attacks in 1998 and 2002 blamed on al-Qaeda as a weak flank in counter-terrorism activities in East Africa, he said.

The UK minister's comments come a week after the United States warned that both Kenya and Ethiopia could be targets of suicide attacks by "extremist elements" from the Horn of African nation.

"There is terrorism movement in Kenya. It has been going on for some time," said Howells.

The minister also lamented what he said was growing drug trafficking activity in the East African nation. "We know that from South Asia, a lot of Afghan, Pakistan heroin is moving through here," he said.

"They are using the links that are very old links with the United Kingdom particularly, but also with the rest of Europe. I think we have to step up to the mark on this," said Howells.

"The Kenyan government has to step up to the mark. We all have to realize that this is now one of the major routes to the very lucrative drug markets of Europe."

Howells also expressed his concerns about instability in Somalia, and, the "very porous border across from Somalia."

"There have been a great many difficulties in Somalia for a very long time now, this is nothing new," he added. "And we have to, as an international community, try to help in whatever way we can to see Somalia return as a viable nation to the community of nations."

Source: Xinhua