Kenya urged the United Nations Security Council on
Monday to make "timely and total reimbursement" of what the country is
owed for its military contributions to the African Union Mission in
Somalia (Amisom).
Kenya's UN ambassador Macharia Kamau warned that
failure to provide Kenya with the full amount pledged by the Security
Council is "unacceptable and unsustainable."
In his speech during a Council debate on UN
peacekeeping activities, Mr Kamau did not specify how much Kenya is
owed. He said only that the country has received "a fraction of the
millions of dollars committed by this Council."
According to Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper, the UN agreed to pay Kenya $132 million by July of this year but has so far provided only $947,000.
"Troop-contributing countries spend significant
amounts of money preparing troops, maintaining readiness and deploying
expensive equipment to support given mandates," Ambassador Kamau noted
in his address. That burden weighs particularly heavily on developing
countries, he added.
Kenya sent troops into Somalia in October 2010
following a series of terror attacks on Kenyan territory said to have
been carried out by forces operating out of Somalia.
The UN Security Council, which partly finances the
six-year-old Amisom operation, approved Kenya's participation in the
17,000-member force in a resolution adopted in February 2011.
A total of 4,664 Kenyan personnel deployed in
Somalia were formally integrated into Amisom's ranks in June of last
year. Kenya had sent troops into the country in October 2011.
In September, the Kenyan forces captured the
strategic port city of Kismayu, which was their strategic target and the
key source of funding for the Al-Shabaab militia.
Kenya has separately asked the UN to designate the
country's maritime forces operating in Somali waters as an official
component of Amisom. Such recognition would enable Kenya to receive
additional reimbursements from the UN.
The Security Council has so far declined to extend
Amisom's mandate to include maritime forces. Mr Kamau says Kenya will
raise the issue again in March when the council conducts a scheduled
review of Amisom.
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