Connect with us

Somali News

Why Somalia wants a 25 -years arms embargo lifted

Published

on

The conference on Somalia held in London Thursday was replete with handshakes and backslapping as the U.K. and others praised the new Somali government and pledged to do all they could to help defeat terrorism in the Horn of Africa country.

Yet amid the genial atmosphere, there was a moment of tension as Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed broached the issue of lifting a 25-year arms embargo that he said has hampered the fight against Al-Shabab, an Islamist militant group affiliated to Al-Qaeda that has bombed and blasted the Somali military for more than a decade.

“Al-Shabab has AK-47s and the Somali National Army has the same equipment, the same weapons. And that’s why this war has been lingering for 10 years,” said President Farmajo at a press conference at the conclusion of the London meeting. “If we don’t have more sophisticated and better weaponry, this war will definitely continue for another 10 years.”
Besides temporarily loosening some restrictions in 2013, the international community has steadfastly refused to remove the arms embargo, as Somalia has battled to establish a stable government and retake control of territories governed by Al-Shabab, which has a presence in much of rural southern Somalia.

The embargo was put in place in 1992 as Somalia fell into civil war, wracked by clan conflicts.

The civil war saw two northern regions of Somalia effectively break away, with one claiming independence, left the country without a central government for more than two decades, and created the conditions for the rise of Al-Shabab, a militant offshoot of a group of sharia courts that seized control of the capital Mogadishu in 2006. It also saw Somalia become a byword for anarchy: The Horn of Africa country has been ranked top of the Fragile States Index seven times in the past nine years.

Farmajo, who was elected in February on a wave of optimism, said his government was working toward a full lifting of the arms embargo. But the country is not there yet, says Thomas Shannon, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the U.S. Department of State.

“He talked about creating a process that would get Somalia there. He understands that the reason that hasn’t happened yet is because Somalia still doesn’t have in place the internal control mechanism, the storage, repository and tracking mechanisms necessary to ensure that weapons stay where they are supposed to stay,” says Shannon in an exclusive meeting with Newsweek on the sidelines of the London conference.

While the original 1992 embargo banned the sale of all weapons and military equipment to all parties in Somalia, several amendments have since been made.

Somalia President Explains Why Lifting The Arms Embargos Is Important For Somalia

In 2007, the Security Council resolved that the embargo would not apply to weapons and equipment directed for the sole use of AMISOM, the 22,000-strong African Union force that has been leading the fight against Al-Shabab, and which is due to exit Somalia by 2020. Then in 2013, following the establishment of the first central Somali government since the early 1990s, the Security Council lifted the embargo on light weaponry being sold to Somali national forces for a twelve-month period, though certain heavy arms—such as surface-to-air missiles—were still banned.

The international community’s key concern is that Al-Shabab could get its hands on heavy weaponry if the embargo to Somali forces was lifted, says Omar Mahmood, an expert on Somalia at the Institute of Security Studies, an African think tank.
This could happen in a number of ways, he says: Either sympathetic elements in the SNA could smuggle weapons to the militants, or corrupt Somali forces could sell arms on the black market, potentially attracting Al-Shabab. Alternatively, the Islamist group could collect the munitions as spoils of war after overrunning Somali forces.

An example of the latter occurred when Al-Shabab overran Kenyan troops at a base in El Adde, near the border between Somalia and Kenya, in January 2016: The militants released video footage of the aftermath of the attack, in which fighters are seen looting boxes of ammunition and military vehicles.

At the London conference, President Farmajo suggested tentatively that “maybe next year, maybe in eight months,” the embargo could be lifted if Somalia could fulfil whatever criteria was demanded by the Security Council.

The comment was apparently brushed aside by British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who chaired the conference: “This is not the time to lift the arms embargo. We shouldn’t be thinking of doing it that way round.

The priority has got to be to get the Somali forces to a condition working with the regional authorities where they are able to take on Al-Shabab, and where AMISOM is finally able to discharge its obligations,” said Johnson. The British minister emphasized the training of Somali forces currently being undertaken by advisers and troops from several countries, including the U.K. and United States.

The international community still appears to have many doubts about Somalia’s capacity to keep weapons out of the clutches of Al-Shabab, which has called for attacks on the West as well as launching major incursions into Kenya and other neighboring states.

Farmajo’s government has been in place less than three months—he announced his cabinet in March—and in that time, the militant group has carried out multiple large-scale suicide bombings in Mogadishu and other attacks elsewhere. The president announced a state of war in Somalia in April, offering disillusioned jihadis a 60-day window to disarm.

But even if, against the prevailing mood, the arms embargo were to be lifted, it would not have a determinative effect in Somalia’s war on Al-Shabab, says Mahmoo, pointing out that AMISOM has been excused from the arms embargo for the past 10 years. While the African Union force has made significant gains against Al-Shabab—pushing it out of Mogadishu and most other urban areas—the militant group still holds around 10 percent of territory in the country and appears to conduct attacks at will.

“Al-Shabab has been very good at undertaking asymmetric attacks,” says Mahmood, “so it’s no guarantee that if we have heavier weapons going to Somalia, Al-Shabab is going to be eliminated. AMISOM’s struggle pertinently demonstrates that.”

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Somali News

Somalis unhappy with new sales tax

Published

on

The government instituted a five percent sales tax, the first in nearly 30 years, as part of the conditions set by the IMF to relieve Somalia’s debt burden.

Going to a restaurant in Somalia has become more expensive, and customers don’t like it.

They’re angry at the government imposing a five percent sales tax, the first for nearly thirty years.

The tax is a key condition of the International Monetary Fund to relieve Somalia’s debts.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from Mogadishu, Somalia.

Continue Reading

Briefing Room

A Child Dies, a Child Lives: Why Somalia Drought Is Not Another Famine

Published

on

DOLLOW, Somalia (Reuters) – At the height of Somalia’s 2011 famine, Madow Mohamed had to leave her crippled five-year-old son Abdirahman by the side of the road to lead her eight other starving children toward help.
When she returned to search for him, she found only a grave. He was among the 260,000 Somalis who perished.

“You can never forget leaving your child to die,” she says, wiping away tears at the memory seven years later. “It is a hell that does not end.”

This time, the drought has been harsher. Three seasons of rains have failed, instead of two. But none of Mohamed’s other children have died – and the overall death toll, although unknown, is far lower. The United Nations has documented just over 1,000 deaths, mostly from drinking dirty water.

Why?

Earlier donor intervention, less interference by a weakened Islamist insurgency, a stronger Somali government and greater access for aid workers have been crucial.

Another reason is that aid agencies are shifting from giving out food to cash – a less wasteful form of aid that donors such as Canada, Europe and Australia have embraced, although the United States still has restrictions on food aid.

The U.S. Congress will debate a move toward cash-based aid this year when lawmakers vote on a new Farm Bill. Christopher Barrett, an expert on food aid at Cornell University, is one of many scholars, politicians and aid agencies demanding reform.

“A conservative estimate is that we sacrifice roughly 40,000 children’s lives annually because of antiquated food aid policies,” he told Congress in November.

FROM FOOD TO CASH

In 2011, a few donors gave out cash in Somalia, but the World Food Programme only gave out food. It was often hijacked by warlords or pirates, or rotted under tarpaulins as trucks sat at roadblocks.

Starving families had to trek for days through the desert to reach distribution points. Their route became so littered with children’s corpses it was called “the Road of Death”.

Now, more than 70 percent of WFP aid in Somalia is cash, much of it distributed via mobile phones. More than 50 other charities are also giving out cash: each month Mohamed receives $65 from the Italian aid group Coopi to spend as she wants: milk, medicine, food or school fees.

Cash has many advantages over food aid if markets are functioning. It’s invisible, so less likely to be stolen. It’s mobile so families can move or stay put.
WFP said it gave out $134 million directly to Somali families to spend at local shops last year.

“We … basically gave confidence to the market to stay active,” said Laurent Bukera, head of WFP Somalia.

And money is more efficient than bags of food: in Somalia, cash aid means 80 cents in every $1 goes directly to the family, rather than 60 cents from food aid, said Calum McLean, the cash expert at the European Union’s humanitarian aid department.

Cash might have saved little Abdirahman.

“I could have stayed in my village if I had had cash. There was some food in the markets. It was expensive, but if you had money, there was food to buy,” Mohamed said sadly.

GLOBAL SHIFT

Aid groups have been experimenting with cash for two decades but McLean says the idea took off five years ago as the Syrian civil war propelled millions of refugees into countries with solid banking systems.

Donors have adapted. Six years ago, five percent of the EU’s humanitarian aid budget was cash distributions. Today, it is more than a third.

Most of the initial cost lies in setting up the database and the distribution system. After that, adding more recipients is cheap, McLean said. Amounts can be easily adjusted depending on the level of need or funding.

“Cash distributions also becomes cheaper the larger scale you do it,” he said.

Most U.S. international food assistance is delivered by USAID’s Food for Peace Office, which had a budget of $3.6 billion in 2017.

Just under half those funds came through U.S. Farm Bill Title II appropriations, which stipulate that most food must be bought from American farmers. The U.S. Cargo Preference Act requires that half of this be shipped on U.S.-flagged vessels.

Despite these restrictions, Food for Peace increased cash and voucher programs from 3 percent of the budget in 2011 to 20 percent last year.

But sourcing food aid in the United States is expensive and wasteful, said Barrett, who oversaw a study that found buying grain close to an emergency was half the price and 14 weeks faster. Arguments that food aid supported U.S. farmers or mariners were largely false, he said.

HOW IT WORKS

Aid groups use different systems to distribute cash, but most assess families, then register them in a biometric database, usually via fingerprints. Cash is distributed using bank cards or mobile phones or as vouchers.

Some charities place no restrictions on the cash; others, like WFP, stipulate it can only be spent at certain shops with registered shopkeepers.

In Dollow, the dusty town on the Ethiopian border where Mohamed lives with her surviving children, families say the cash has transformed their lives.

Gacalo Aden Hashi, a young mother whose name means “sweetheart”, remembers trudging past two dead children in 2011 on her way to get help. A third was alive but dying, she said, and her weakened family had to press on.

When she arrived at the camp, men were stealing food aid to give to their families, she said.

“Men were punching each other in line every time at food distributions,” she said. “Sometimes you would be sitting and suddenly your food would be taken by some strong young man.”

Now, she says, no one can steal her money – Coopi uses a system that requires a PIN to withdraw money. Most of her cash goes on food but with a group of other women she saved enough to open a small stall.

“The cash may end, but this business will not,” she said.

PROBLEMS PERSIST

Cash won’t work everywhere. In South Sudan, where famine briefly hit two counties last year, the civil war shut markets, forcing aid agencies to bring in food by plane and truck.

Sending cash to areas hit by earthquakes would drive up prices. But in a drought, where livelihoods have collapsed but infrastructure is intact, cash transfers are ideal, experts say.

Some problems remain. There’s often little co-ordination among donors – for instance, there are seven separate databases in Somalia, said McLean, and monthly stipends can vary widely.

In Uganda, authorities are investigating reports of fraud after the government used its own biometric registration system for refugees.

And if there’s no clean water or health service available, then refugees can’t spend money buying water or medicine.

But most scholars agree that switching to more cash aid would save more lives, a 2016 briefing paper by the Congressional Research Service concluded.

(Additional reporting by George Obulutsa; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Continue Reading

Somaliland

Anglo-Turkish Genel Energy might starting drilling in Somaliland in 2019 -CEO

Published

on

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) – Kurdistan-focused Genel Energy might start drilling in Somaliland next year, Chief Executive Murat Ozgul said on Thursday, as the group reported 2017 results broadly in line with expectations.

“For the long term, I really like (our) Somaliland exploration assets. It’s giving me a sense of Kurdistan 15 years ago,” Ozgul said in a phone interview. “In 2019 we may be (starting) the drilling activities.”

Chief Financial Officer Esa Ikaheimonen said Genel will focus spending money from its $162 million cash pile on its existing assets in Kurdistan but added: “You might see us finding opportunities… somewhere outside Kurdistan.”

Continue Reading

TRENDING

  • Somali News2 days ago

    At least 14 dead, several hurt in car bomb in Somali capital

  • Somaliland2 days ago

    Anglo-Turkish Genel Energy might starting drilling in Somaliland in 2019 -CEO

  • Somali News11 hours ago

    Somalis unhappy with new sales tax

  • Diaspora11 hours ago

    Racists Charged In Terror Plot Against Somali Refugees Get A Nearly All White Jury

  • Somali News2 days ago

    Somalia ranked sixth happiest African nation

  • Minnesota11 hours ago

    Minnesota Somali Community Condemning Charges Against Mohamed Noor

  • Briefing Room12 hours ago

    A Child Dies, a Child Lives: Why Somalia Drought Is Not Another Famine

  • Somali News2 days ago

    Africa is on the verge of forming the largest free trade area since the World Trade Organization