Why East Africa's Borders Are Blowing Up

[Holac]

 

Lines between countries used to have little importance in Africa's most dynamic region. How times have changed.

 

Economic growth, energy exploration, Chinese-funded infrastructure, and American- and European-funded security operations have given Northeast Africa’s states the means and ambition to conquer the frontier. The goal is clear: capture the resources that will sustain economic growth.

 

But this attempt to expand the state is setting governments across the region against the inhabitants of the frontier, who have spent the last century attempting to escape state control. A closer look at Kenya and Ethiopia helps explain the pattern.

 

The recent violence in Lamu in Kenya is the most obvious manifestation of this new trend and is indicative of the ways in which this regional process is being overlooked by an emphasis on either global terrorism or local politics. Although the attacks in Lamu by militias linked to al Shabaab in June and July are clearly tied to both the situation in Somalia and local politics, Lamu has long been the site of tensions between Kikuyu migrants from central parts of the country and communities with much longer histories of residence on the coast. But these tensions are intensifying because of new infrastructure developments around Lamu, particularly the construction of a new $5.5 billion port. Construction of the port, which is supposed to become an export hub for oil from the wider region, has inflated local land values over the past two years, sharpening existing inter-ethnic conflicts in Lamu and its neighboring counties. (In the photo above, Lamu residents protest the port construction project, chanting, "Our land, our rights!")

Tension between communities in the borderlands used to be met most commonly with indifference by the government in Nairobi. But Kenya’s once-marginal northern region has become critical to the achievement of the double-digit growth promised by the current government. Northern Kenya hosts the country’s onshore oil reserves. It is also the site for the ambitious Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia (LAPSSET) transport corridor connecting Lamu’s new port and oil refinery by road, rail, and pipeline to the Northeast and Central African interior.

 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/06/why_east_africas_borders_are_blowing_up

[Tallaabo]

If the Somalis had brains to use and our civil war never happened, today our former Republic would not only be the economic and military giant of the region if not Africa buy also recovered our lost territories.