The leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia met on Tuesday to ease mounting tensions along their border where at least 100 people have been killed in tribal attacks over the past three months.
In addition, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles al-Zenawi were discussing prospects for restoring stability in their lawless common neighbour Somalia, officials said.
The two men met in the aftermath of the latest in a series of increasingly bloody cross-border cattle raids and counter-attacks in which 18 people, including 17 Ethiopian gunmen, were killed on the weekend.
”The leaders are currently in talks over border security, among other issues of bilateral importance,” an official in Kibaki’s office told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.
They are exploring ways to boost security on the largely unpatrolled frontier where frequent clashes over cattle and resources have been exacerbated by the effects of a killer drought, the official said.
As they met, Kenyan security forces pursued hundreds of Ethiopian raiders thought to have escaped Sunday’s fire fight while relief workers distributed aid to hundreds of villagers who fled for safety, officials said.
Also on the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting was the problematic matter of Somalia, where a weak transitional government is facing growing threats from the country’s powerful Islamist movement.
Kenya and Ethiopia are both wary of the rise of the Islamists and Meles, who discussed Somalia with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala on Monday, has been accused of sending troops to Somalia to back the administration.
In Uganda, Meles repeated Addis Ababa’s long-standing denials of having deployed troops to Somalia but allowed that some Ethiopian ”trainers” had been sent at the request of Somali authorities.
The Somali government and the Islamists are expected to meet for a much-delayed second round of Arab League-mediated talks in Sudan later this week but remain deeply at odds on numerous key matters.
Most critical is the proposed deployment of an East African peacekeeping force to help the government shore up its limited authority, a mission the Islamists have vowed to resist.
The plan calls for Uganda and Sudan — both part of the seven-nation regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) — to send the vanguard of the force by the end of next month.
But along with the Islamists, some Igad members — notably Ethiopia’s arch-foe Eritrea, which has been accused of funnelling arms to Muslim militia in Somalia — are firmly opposed.
Museveni said on Monday that Kampala remained committed to contributing troops to the mission but first wanted an urgent regional summit to further consider the force.
Kibaki currently holds the rotating chairpersonship of the Igad executive council and has offered to assist the Arab League in mediating an end to the dispute. — AFP
