US troops move to Uganda, Kenya's advances to Somalia

As the economic milieu seems bleak in most developed countries, the IMF has projected a 6% economic growth for Sub Saharan African (SSA) economies beginning next year.In Nairobi, Ms Sayeh, Director of the IMF's African is in the country to launch the African economic outlook. The organization has warned that the economic momentum in SSA could be affected by the global financial volatility, and calls for a rethink in government policies in order to insulate the countries from the effects in global slowdown. However, a different predicament looms, that of a political contagion-spill over of conflicts. As president Obama announced this week that he will send 100 troops to Uganda’s troubled Northern region for peacekeeping and counter terrorism against the belligerent Joseph Kony, Kenyan army together with the Somali Transitional Federal Government TFG have launched a military action that will create a buffer zone against the Somali Islamists Al Shabaab to weed out the insurgents’ infamous rule. What has prompted the Obama government to be involved in what has long been seen as a ‘forgotten conflict’? The Kony reign of terror has been ongoing for the last 25 years with various attempts by both the US and Ugandan army to end it having failed. The US government could be using this as an opportunity to be involved in peacekeeping and counter terrorism in not only East Africa but also SSA. Major shifts in tectonic plates in this part of the world could have prompted the US government, such as the piracy issue in Somalia that for the past few weeks has witnessed the capturing and killing of foreign nationals along the Kenyan coast, discovery of oil in Uganda as well as the ever increasing threat of Al Shabaab militia. There is a direct correlation between US and Kenya’s security concerns that has annals in the 1998 US embassies bombings in Nairobi. Additionally the Kampala bombing this year in which the Somali Islamists claimed responsibility has raised alarm between the governments. In regards to the Kenyan forces action on the Somali soil, the Al Shabaab militia have already issued warnings of a retaliatory attacks against Kenya following the latter's decision to send troops into the neighboring Somalia. Kenya on the hand is claiming that it is not at war with Somalia but rather trying to stabilize the country. The US military approach to Uganda seems similar whereby it is not necessarily attacking the LRA but only offering logistical, military and intelligence support to the Ugandan army. Max Fisher analysis of the US increasing involvement in SSA is that;

''It's difficult to find a U.S. interest at stake in the Lord's Resistance Army's campaign of violence. The group could go on killing and enslaving for decades -- as they well might -- and the American way of life would continue chugging along. It's possible that there's some immediate U.S. interest at stake we can't obviously see. Maybe, for example, Uganda is offering the U.S. more help with peacekeeping and counter terrorism in East Africa, where the U.S. does have concrete interests, in exchange for the troops’’.

Whether it is the global financial crisis that will affect the SSA economies more or is the subsequent political risks is still unknown.