Now that he is solidly on terra firma and recovered from the highs of his United States state visit, President William Ruto should take a step back and carefully review some of the things he signed on to while bamboozled by his hosts.
Our Head of State is reportedly a strict teetotaler and also not known to take any other substances that might have him assent to deals while ‘under the influence’.
However, there are other ways in which one’s judgement can be clouded, especially where the leader of a small, poor third world country is squired and flattered by the mightiest nation on the globe.
While the President came home with welcome pledges of aid, support and investment in numerous areas, there are things agreed on which will need keener scrutiny.
Of particular concern to most Kenyans must be some of the security agreements. There is no doubt that Kenya and the US are natural allies given shared threats posed by violent Islamist extremism, Al-Shabaab out of neighbouring Somalia in our case.
However, Al-Shabaab or similar groups in the region and beyond provide absolutely no justification for Kenya to drunkenly stagger into an American-led military alliance that is predicted on confrontation with Russia.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) was formed in 1949 with the specific mandate of countering westward expansion by the then-Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact communist allies. The central premise holds that if one Nato member is attacked, the other member-countries are obliged to come its defence.
It was President Joe Biden who announced during President Ruto’s trip that he would ask Congress to designate Kenya as a ”Non-Nato ally”—the first in sub-Saharan Africa and fourth on the continent, after North African states of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, to gain the status.
However, we have heard nary a word from our own government on the benefits and risks of that.
The designation would, presumably, give Kenya access to sophisticated military equipment and training, as well as financial support on defence spending.
But unlike a formal member, Kenya will not be mandated to send troops for Nato operations; neither will alliance members be obliged to defend us should we fall under attack.
Devil in the detail
But then, the devil could be in the detail—and perceptions. Were wars to break out in Africa around resurgence of West-East hostilities, Kenya would immediately be viewed from the prism of an American vassal.
Bear in mind the conflicts being witnessed in Europe. The ongoing war in Ukraine is a direct result of Russian expansionism out of President Vladimir Putin’s mission to regain the sphere of influence lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact defence alliance.
The invasion of Ukraine, while unjust and indefensible, cannot be divorced from Moscow’s alarm over its former allies moving to join the enemy military alliance. It is countering a Western military expansionism that threatens to encircle it.
Do we want to be caught up in the middle in the event of similar West-East wars on African soil? We must say a big no and also demand that any such military links be subjected to public scrutiny and formal assent by Parliament.
Also alarming is the reported agreement, again with total opacity from our side, for Yemeni Houthi rebels captured by American and European Union navies in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to be brought to Kenya for trial.
Drawn into alien war
We are being drawn into an alien war we have no business getting entangled in. It is one thing for Kenya to hold and prosecute Somali pirates who have been attacking ships in the Indian Ocean within our region. Those are criminals with no political or ideological objectives and will be treated as such.
The Houthi rebels disrupting shipping off their coast are a different kettle of fish altogether. They are part of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the latter backed by the US and other Western nations. If any of them are incarcerated in Kenya, we become a target. Let us not be foolish.
While reviewing all those deals, President Ruto must also take a fresh look at the influence of the World Bank-IMF twins on our budget-making process. It seems that our National Treasury and Central Bank mandarins are mere lap dogs of the Bretton Woods institutions, doing copy-and-paste jobs of demands that make the core elements of another contentious and totally objectionable Finance Bill.
President Ruto will not burnish his Pan-African credentials by always asking “How high?” when the Americans say “Jump!”
Source link : https://nation.africa/kenya/blogs-opinion/opinion/us-kenya-deals-cry-for-a-review-4645652
Author :
Publish date : 2024-06-03 17:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.