| dc.description.abstract | Kenya has pledged to reinforce its border with Somalia in an attempt to stem the recent string of abductions carried out by militants as stated in a Trans World news release [BBC Report July 2009] Government officials have been concentrating their efforts on halting the actions of the Somali insurgent group AI-Shabab which it blames for the recent flow of illegal weapons into the country as well as the abductions.
Kenya's president Mwai Kibaki addressed the issue saying, 'Our borders are porous and it is not a place where you can totally keep AIShabab at bay. But we are trying our best.' The president also blamed the insurgents for the influx of illegal weapons into Kenya. (BBC Report July 2009) Fearing the threat from weapons and narcotics traffickers, as well cis the heavily armed militias allied to warlords, Kenya officially closed the 680kms-[420 miles] Kenya-Somalia border back in the year 2007. But it has allowed thousands of refugees from Somalia to enter and live in the sprawli'ng refugee camp at Dadaab, where there are more than 260,000 mostly Somali inhabitants. - UNHCR Report 2009.
This study assesses the role of porous borders in promoting international conflict. It will discuss the arguments in favor of and against restrictive border policies. Contemporary migration and border policies are largely restrictive but still fail to meet their proclaimed objectives which call for alternative approaches to international human flows. Tight border controls are accompanied by major challenges; including trafficking, the asylum crisis, and the death and vulnerability of irregular migrants which ultimately threaten the moral foundations of a state. The right to mobility constitutes various implications and this study will examine such a right in relation to security and broad border management.
Everyday border control activities - checking travel documents, inspecting cargo and luggage, patrolling borderlines and airports, apprehending unauthorized entrants - are part of what gives the state an image of authority and power. Statecraft is about power politics and deploying material resources, but it is also about perceptual politics and deploying symbolic resources. Border control agencies grow and expand partly because of the symbolic power they gain from their role as border maintainers in times of high societal insecurity. Even as there is a pronounced erosion of the states traditional economic and military border control roles, its law enforcement role not only persists but continues to expand. | en_US |
