Kenya and the Somali Crisis

Somalia a state once praised for its homogenous society that was seen as a stronghold and model to lasting peace in Africa became its shortfall that led to a fallen state. Clannism was one major cause to this shortfall. Somalia has a lineage based society on a patrimonial clan family which is cross-cut into clans that are divided into the majority and the minority clans. However, clannism is not the only precipitator of instability in Somalia. The concept of the Somali state was the beginning of problems for Somalia, colonialism. Somalia adopted a colonial inheritance, divided into five regions, each under different colonialists rendered Somalia towards independence with a dualism of political traditions, resulting into conflict with its neighbors, Kenya and Ethiopia. Kenya upon attaining independence inherited a colonial problem, the Northern Frontier District (NFD). A region currently in northern Kenya became a contest with Somalia, who pushed for secession. Somalia advocated for the unification of all areas populated by Somali's to be one country, a concept called Pan-Somalism or the Greater Somali Phenomena. The consequence to this claims led to the shifts war, in which Kenya began its struggle of protecting its territorial integrity. Despite the shifta war that lasted and still remains an issue at northern Kenya with cases of conflict in the region, she was appointed to head and steer the Somali peace talks. These talks having ended in Mbagathi saw the inauguration of a new president of Somalia and the establishment of both a transitional government and parliament. The questions therefore are: How did Kenya get involved in Somalia, yet she was inexperienced in peace mediation? Now that Somalia has a president and parliament, will she have lasting peace? And is/was Somalia ripe for mediation'? These are some of the questions this thesis will answer by looking into the historical developments of Somalia parallel to Kenya's.