Ruto Sets Timeline for Withdrawal of KDF Soldiers From Somalia
by Geoffrey Lutta on Tuesday, 2 May 2023
President William Ruto, on Tuesday, May 2, announced that his government will begin withdrawing Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers from Somalia in 2024 to allow the country to stabilise.
Don't want to parade on this but this smells like him pressuring UE to pay AMISOM. You see recently he was complaining about AMISOM budget might be cut.
And without the west paying all these African soldiers will return to their countries.
So I will wait and see. Hopefully EU sticks with his guns and stops all AMISOM funding.
1. Kenya's original interest for all of this including puppet J/land buffer zone was the MOU issue which has been completely legally adjudicated by international law
2. Although the original planning started under Kibaki, it became the issue of Uhuru and both whose govt and him personally became consumed by conflicts of interest. Uhuru and his government are gone.
3. Ruto is very much a traditional Kenyan politician in terms of non-interference and happy/smiling neutral relationships with neighbors and especially Somalia. Even his recent words show how aloof and friendly but cold he is toward Mogadish. It is traditional Kenyan disinterest.
The first 2 points plus the political disposition of Ruto in 3 leads me to convince he has already "withdrawn" substantively policy wise from Somalis which makes me believe he means what he says about withdrawing physically.
