- Title: [SW News](Reuters) Kenya's Moi says foreign arms fuel Africa wars
- From:[]
- Date :[]Thu, 3 Feb 2000 04:32:41
WIRE:02/03/2000 06:35:00 ET
Kenya's Moi says foreign arms fuel Africa wars
NAIROBI, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi said on
Thursday a flood of foreign arms was fuelling conflicts in the Horn of
Africa and threatening the stability of the whole region.
"I hope that Europe and America will take action because the sources of
these arms are not within Africa, they come from outside," he told
reporters at a rare press conference.
While post-independence Kenya has enjoyed relative stability, its
neighbours Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia are involved in protracted conflicts
which have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
"The situation in the Horn has continued to worsen," Moi said. "Kenya can
no longer sit quietly and watch while the situation gets worse."
Since 1991, Somalia has been without central government and ruled by the
gun. Rival warlords have carved the country into a patchwork of fiefdoms
and frequently battle over territory.
In Sudan, more than 1.5 million people have died in a 17-year civil war
between the Islamist government and mainly Christian and animist rebels in
the south.
War broke out between Ethiopia and its northern neighbour Eritrea in May
1998, and tens of thousands of soldiers have died in bloody trench warfare.
The whole picture is complicated by smaller insurgencies and inter-ethnic
conflicts across the Horn of Africa, aggravated by the relatively free
movement of arms across borders.
Refugees have streamed into Kenya, with around 200,000 housed in camps in
its arid north -- causing friction in a region where Kenyans themselves are
facing a hunger crisis.
While the United Nations and Organisation of African Unity (OAU) have
failed at mediation efforts in all the Horn's conflicts, Moi said peace
initiatives must continue to be channelled through these bodies.
"How can stability come about when refugees come across borders and arms
are coming in from wherever?" he said. "This is going to build up into a
much bigger issue and the U.N. and the OAU must take note of this
development."
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