Involve Somali in talks

President Kibaki on Wednesday joined Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, and other leaders in a conference on Somalia hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government was be represented, as were some key semi-autonomous regions in the troubled country.

Altogether, more than 40 countries, regional blocs, and multilateral organisations were be in London.

The key issues under discussion included governance of Somalia after the mandate of the transitional authority ends in August.

Also on the agenda was be the African Union peacekeeping mission, Kenyan and Ethiopian military intervention, a coordinated international campaign against the Al-Shabaab extremists, and the pirate gangs.

That wonderful agenda will be futile unless the conference, and future efforts toward peace and security, secure the buy-in of the Somali people.

There is grumbling that the London meeting is a modern-day replication of the 1884 Berlin Conference that drew arbitrary lines on a map to partition Africa among colonial powers.

It must be clear in London that lasting and sustainable peace and security in Somalia cannot be imposed from outside.