Kenya: Raila Says Military to Flush Out Ethiopians-allAfrica.com

The military has been ordered to flush out the 2,500 Merille tribesmen from Ethiopia who have been attack communities living along the common border.
The government has also given notice to the Ethiopian government to relocate the Merilles voluntarily or they face forceful eviction from the Kenyan security agencies. The Merille are responsible for killing more than 40 people during an attack two weeks ago.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Raila Odinga told Parliament that a Cabinet sub-committee chaired by President Kibaki had met on Tuesday and authorized the forceful relocation of the Merilles if they did not leave willingly. "The Merilles have already been told to move through a notice. If they do not move they will be evicted," Raila said.
Raila said an estimated 900 of the total population of the Merilles who have pushed out the Turkanas and other communities from the areas near the Lake Turkana are armed militiamen while the rest were farmers. The Merilles are now living 17 kilometers inside the Kenya border.

Raila attributed the invasion of the Merille and their continued stay in the area to a collapse of security at the Kenyan borders. "We spend millions on our military. We train, promote and retire our soldiers who never go to any war!,"Raila said during the PM's weekly address. He said serious measures had been put in place including the upgrading of Todonyang Police post into a fully fledged police station.
Raila said the government had also taken other measures to protect the country's borders. These included the deployment of the military and the police to Migingo and Ugingo Islands where Kenyans are at the mercy of Ugandan forces which have seized the islands and established control.
He said the military had despatched a plane to the islands for surveillance purposes and had established that no Ugandan flag was hoisted there as alleged by some of the residents and fishermen from the area.
MPs blamed the government for doing nothing to secure the country's territories despite frequent aggression by neighbours with expansionist tendencies. "This is a shocking admission of government failure on a section of its citizenry. How much has the government set aside for the plans to improve security," wondered Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara.
Mandera East MP Mohamed Hussein said the idle Kenyan military should be put to use to scare away external aggressors targeting the Kenyan borders. Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi wondered what the National Security Intelligence was doing to protect Kenyans from further attacks.

Ruth Gruber, From Exodus to Ethiopia: Honored at 99 for Decades of Photography - NYTimes.com

Ruth Gruber, From Exodus to Ethiopia

By JAMES ESTRIN

Ruth Gruber is a pioneering correspondent and humanitarian who recorded the expansion of the Soviet gulag system and the unending trials of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Her own life is chronicled in the 2007 memoir,Witness: One of the Great Correspondents of the 20th Century Tells Her Story” (Random House, 2007).

At 99, she is being duly recognized as an accomplished photojournalist, too. This month, she won the Cornell Capa Award from the International Center of Photography. (At the same event, Elliott Erwitt won the Lifetime Achievement Award.) An exhibition of Ms. Gruber’s photos from the Soviet Arctic, Palestine, Ethiopia and the Alaska Territory opens Friday at the center, in mid-Manhattan.

She began carrying a medium-format Rolleicord as a correspondent for The New York Herald Tribune in the 1930s. “I just put one finger on the shutter and I found I was really enjoying it,” she said. “Now I could make my own pictures that also told the story.”

James Estrin/The New York TimesRuth Gruber at home in Manhattan this week.

The centerpiece of her work is her coverage of a 1947 debacle in which British authorities not only refused to permit 4,500 Jewish refugees into Palestine but forced them to return to Europe and debark in Germany. The refugees had reached Haifa on a passenger ship called Exodus 1947. There, they were transferred to three smaller steamers, including the Runnymede Park, which Ms. Gruber visited.

Ms. Gruber said only three journalists were allowed aboard the ships where the refugees were being held. She was the only one to bring a camera. In an interview this week at her Manhattan apartment, she described the grim scene:

I took countless pictures of them because I couldn’t believe what they had done. Nobody could destroy them. They survived the death camps, the D.P. camps, the broken-down ship [Exodus 1947] and now this ship.

The people began to talk to me. Many of them spoke English. They said, ‘Go below and see our floating Auschwitz.’ There was a prison gate. I went down to the hold. It was dark. There were no beds, there were no sheets. Only people on the floor, crowded together. They slept on the floor, crushed together.

When they heard an American young woman — a Jew — had come, they handed me phone numbers, asking me to call their relatives and tell them they were alive. I told them I would.

They saw my camera and they yelled: ‘Take pictures! The world has to know how they’re treating us! Take pictures!’

It was dark. The British had transformed this ship into a prison ship, with a little prison window. Briefly, light came through the window on all the people, and it was easy to shoot them holding their babies. Every man, every woman wanted a baby because that meant their lives were being healed, that they were human beings again.

There was a woman holding a baby and I asked if I could hold it. I crushed it to me. I don’t know who needed to be held more — the baby or me.

After she was told to leave the ship, the British consul general demanded the film from her camera. She refused to yield it. She filed a story to The Herald Tribune in Paris and brought the film there the next day. The pictures were distributed around the world, focusing attention on — and building sympathy for — displaced persons.

Ms. Gruber tried to follow the people she had met on the Runnymede Park. Told by the British that they would be landing on Cyprus, Ms. Gruber flew there and spent a week awaiting their arrival, taking pictures as she did so.

“They never came,” she said. “They were sent back to Germany by the British government. Nobody got to Cyprus. It was a lie.”

Kenya Govt intensifies patrols along Kenya-Ethiopia border Kenya Broadcasting Corporation: - KBC News

(File photo) President Mwai Kibaki has assured wananchi that Kenyan security officers have intensified patrols along the Kenya-Ethiopia border with a view to forestalling a recurrence of violence in the area. Noting that early this month the country lost several lives during a cross-border conflict on the Kenya-Ethiopia border, President Kibaki said his Government responded promptly to this security challenge by deploying additional security personnel in the affected border area. "Following this deployment, peace and security has since been restored," the Head of State said. The President was speaking Friday at the Recruits Training School in Eldoret where he presided over the passing out parade of newly qualified Armed Forces recruits. President Kibaki pointed out that recently he also held discussions on the border conflict with the Prime Minister of Ethiopia in Kampala and agreed on the need for a joint ministerial meeting which will seek ways of restoring any beacons that may have been destroyed along the Kenya-Ethiopia border. In this regard, the President expressed confidence that the joint ministerial meeting of the two countries will resolve outstanding border issues and facilitate harmonious co-existence of the various communities living along common borders. President Kibaki, at the same time, urged security officers deployed to the border to remain vigilant in order to ensure peace and security are maintained in the area at all times. He also called on local leaders in the region to engage in peace initiatives involving elders between communities living along the border so as to resolve conflicts that are linked mainly to resource sharing. "We are aware that since the 1990s, revenge attacks between the two communities along our common border with Ethiopia have been cyclical," President Kibaki said. Besides the border with Ethiopia, President Kibaki observed that the situation in Somalia also continues to pose challenges to Kenya's national security. Said the President: "These challenges have been worsened by the proliferation of small arms as well as the recruitment of Kenyan youth into radical insurgent groups." In view of these threats, the Head of State said the Government has stepped up security measures to forestall any acts of aggression and ensure the security of Kenyans. He disclosed that adequate officers have also been deployed to secure the border with Somalia and ensure fighting does not spill over into Kenya. President Kibaki, therefore, asked members of the public to complement the efforts of the Government by volunteering information that will lead to the pre-emption of crime and the apprehension of criminals. Regretting the recent death of five children from a bomb explosion in Kajiado district, President Kibaki said the military and other security forces must ensure that the training fields remain secure after training. "I have, therefore, instructed that steps be taken to ensure unexploded bombs are removed from the training fields after firing exercises," President Kibaki said. Recognize that the security challenges the country is facing transcend across borders and require transnational strategies to overcome, the President said the Armed Forces have continued to cooperate with other countries at the regional and international level in addressing security challenges. Regionally, President Kibaki said the Armed Forces are actively engaged in the activities of the East African Standby Brigade with a view to building capacity in conflict preemption and management in the East African region. At the international level, the President said the Kenyan Armed Forces have continued to take part in peacekeeping operations. "Presently, our Armed Forces have deployed over one thousand personnel on peacekeeping and other international humanitarian work throughout the world. These commitments have earned our Armed Forces a proud reputation internationally," President Kibaki said. Commending the Armed Forces for the civilian and humanitarian services they have continued to provide, the President said the Government appreciates their efforts and will continue to extend the necessary support needed to enable the country's security apparatus to discharge security services adequately. To the newly qualified Armed Forces recruits, President Kibaki congratulated them and wished them success in their new career and in all their future endeavors, encouraging them to uphold the same strength of character and determination they demonstrated in the course of their training. "You are also expected, to maintain high levels of professionalism and discipline. Above all, you are expected to maintain the highest standards of loyalty to the Government and people of Kenya," President Kibaki told the newly qualified Armed Forces recruits. Earlier after he arrived at the Armed Forces Recruit Training School, the President officially opened a newly constructed kitchen. The occasion was also attended by Forestry and Wildlife Minister Dr. Noah Wekesa, Defence Assistant Minister David Musila, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, the Chief of General Staff Gen. Jeremiah Kianga, service commanders and parents and relatives of the newly qualified recruits among others.