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{
    "id": 84248,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/84248/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Duale",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Livestock Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Report and urge this House to adopt it. The incident in this Report happened in my constituency in Garissa. There is glaring evidence on the alleged recruitment. This is as a result of the testimonies made by the leadership in Garissa led by the Mayor of Garissa, the Deputy Mayor, the councillors, the elders and above all the parents whose children were recruited into the alleged military to support the TFG Government in Somalia. The list of the Kenyan youth who have been recruited and later released from the training camps in KWS have been circulated. Out of the 61 youth, 45 of them come from Ijara Constituency while the rest come from Dujis, Lagdera or Fafi. There are a number of reasons why these youth decided to join this illegal activity and the Committee has expounded it. It is because of high unemployment situation in northern Kenya and the high poverty levels among the households in northern Kenya and particularly in the greater Garissa. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of Somalia is very hot. The politics of Somalia for the last 20 years have been very complex. That is why we feel, as a country, that we must now more than any other time have a policy towards the political crisis in Somalia. I am saying this because the people who are most affected by the political crisis in Somalia are our own constituencies that border it. That is why ignoring Somalia, as a country, is done at our own peril. This is because if you take a chronology of the political process in Somalia in the last 20 years, you will see that more than any other time, Somalia is today at its worst stage. A report done by the International Crisis Group based in Washington in 2006 says that Somalia has deteriorated into the world’s worst humanitarian and security crisis in the world today. The issue of Somalia in terms of foreign policy has been mishandled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kenya. Our neighbours have done better. If you look at the part that borders Ethiopia, you will find that the Ethiopian Government under Meles Zenawi felt that they need to have a sort of normalcy with their neighbours and they built a regional government called “Puntland”. The same applies to Djibouti. Djibouti and Ethiopia have created stable governments along the other side of the borders. We have a fairly stable democratic government in Somaliland and a fairly stable process of government in Puntland. Why can the Kenya Government not create a stable regional government along its borders? I am talking about the Juba region. This is what the leadership from that region has asked the Kenya Government to do several times. This must be done so that when we have border invasion, we can have resemblance of government on the other side that we can relate to. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of Somalia was very delicate and volatile. There was the December, 2006 invasion of the Ethiopian forces under the advice of the Bush administration. What happened? A more moderate Islamic Union Government was removed and now it has been replaced by a more militant Islamic group called the Al Shabaab which is not only a threat to the stability of Somalia but also a threat to the regional stability, Kenya included. As a country, we must have an effective regional policy towards Somalia. How do you have an effective regional"
}