Britain says Kenya corruption invites terrorists

NAIROBI, Nov 10 (Reuters) Top-to-bottom corruption in Kenya has heightened the East African nation's vulnerability to terrorism and made it an increasingly popular route for drug-traffickers, a senior British official said.

''People can be bought, right from the person who works at the docks in Mombasa up to the government,'' Foreign Office Minister of State Kim Howells said in comments sure to irk the Kenyan government. Nairobi frequently dismisses such criticism as unjust meddling by its former colonial master Britain.

''This weakness has been recognised by drug-traffickers and probably by terrorists too,'' Howells, whose brief includes drugs and terrorism prevention, told reporters late yesterday during a visit to the East African country.

Howells said the rise of an Islamist movement in neighbouring Somalia this year had heightened the risk to Kenya.

''There seems to be a revival of al Qaeda activity there ...and Kenya has a long and porous border with what is probably the most stark example of a failed state in the world.

''There is a perception of (Kenya) being wide open. Al Qaeda watches these things very closely.'' Western security services have long regarded Kenya, which suffered bomb attacks in 1998 and 2002 blamed on al Qaeda, as a weak flank in counter-terrorism activities in East Africa.

US WARNING The United States warned last week that both Kenya and Ethiopia could be targets of suicide attacks by ''extremist elements'' from Somalia.

''There is terrorism movement in Kenya. It has been going on for some time,'' said Howells.

He said he heard on a recent trip to South America that Kenya was being used more and more to deliver Colombian cocaine to Europe.

Heroin was also coming in from South Asia, he said.

''It is almost entirely due to the fact that you can buy off almost everyone here,'' said Howells.

President Mwai Kibaki came to power in Kenya on an anti-corruption ticket, vowing to sweep away rampant graft and nepotism under his predecessor Daniel arap Moi.

But his government has been mired in massive corruption scandals -- some implicating senior officials -- to the disgust of Western donors and many of the nation's 32 million people.

Global watchdog Transparency International ranked Kenya 142nd in the world in its 2006 corruption index.

''All of us were looking forward very much to a government elected on a pledge to tackle corruption, but almost nothing has resulted from that,'' said Howells. ''And you don't have to be Einstein to realise that if people are open to corruption, then there will be other people who will exploit that.'' Although it was impossible to quantify Kenya's drug problem, he said a recent 1.1 million tonne cocaine haul and trafficking by some Kenya Airways crew showed its magnitude.

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