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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
"slug": "moses-wetangula"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, from hon. Konchella, the law is very clear. Any person who enters this country is required by law to declare their status. If you are a tourist, casual visitor or business person coming for a conference, for whatever reason, there is a requirement under the Immigration Act for one to declare their status. But the fact that people do not, it does not mean that there is no law. I think it is important for people to do that. That is why the Ministry of Immigration and that of Internal Security have been from time to time, jointly working together to find out how many aliens are in this country and what to do with them. Those who are normally arrested are prosecuted and deported upon completion of their jail terms. On the East African leadership, if hon. Konchella was here when I started, I alluded to the Summit in Addis Ababa that made a very clear decision that there will be no business as usual with Somalia where we go to meetings and on arrival, you find a communiquĂŠ is ready to be read at the end of the meeting. The region has now said that they will have to operate differently. This comes to the point raised by the Deputy Speaker about the security personnel trained by Kenya. The Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Summit decided that now, it will be an operation of IGAD and not individual member states. That is why we have a unified command and a structure of bringing all the forces together. That is why we have military experts from Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti visiting Mogadishu to see how to work with AMISOM to bring this unified command and better co-ordination so that all the trained personnel can be put under one operational capacity to be able to help Somalia come together. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I honestly do not understand what hon. Baiya means by âself-determinationâ. Somalia is an independent country and so there is no self-determination to talk about in Somalia. That it is in difficulties and is having problems getting a government, does not mean the people of Somalia do not have self- determination. They are a republic â one of the oldest African republics. If he is making any implication of Kenyan nationals who are of Somali origin, that is treason. We cannot even talk about that. You know the history of the 1960s and I do not think we want to go that direction. The people of Somali origin who are Kenyans, are legitimate Kenyans have every right to be here and the issue of self-determination does not arise and will never arise because we are a unitary state and shall remain so. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of involving border communities, I agree with Dr. Eseli that, indeed, in dealing with the issues of Somalia, I have at least once joined the Minister for Defence to meet our colleagues from North Eastern Province of Somali origin to discuss about what the Government wants to do with Somalia and there were dissenting voices, but we met and discussed these issues. Where there are issues like those of the Tanzania or Uganda border, whenever they arise, we will involve members. My own constituency touches on Uganda and I have a heavy traffic of in and out movement of Ugandans and Kenyans who travel to and fro. You may recall in the 1970s and early 1980s when we had thousands of Ugandans living here under similar circumstances and they have all gone back. We pray and hope for a day when the people of Somalia, particularly their leaders, will realize the importance of their country to not only themselves but to the people of Somalia. When they will realise that warlordism will not help. When they will realise that at some time, a whole generation gets tired of fighting, so that they can go back and build their country. Kenya will be at hand to be part and parcel of this exciting development if it comes to Somalia."
}