U.N. Official Says Security Council Not ‎Addressing Somalia Concerns

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 30, 2006 – A U.N. official expressed deep concern Tuesday that weapons are flowing into Somalia and accused authorities in the violence-torn Horn of Africa country of doing too little to halt a new surge in fighting.

Dennis McNamara, head of U.N. efforts to help people displaced in their own countries, said officials often obstruct humanitarian work rather than encourage it in Somalia, where bloodshed has surged in recent weeks between Islamic militias and secular Somali warlords who are fighting for control of the chaotic capital, Mogadishu. Hundreds of people have been killed, many of them civilians caught in the crossfire.

"We have to keep reminding the authorities: `These are your people,'" McNamara said after a 10-day mission to Somalia. "While the arms continue to flow in Mogadishu, the fighting will continue," McNamara said.

Somalia has had no effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, carving this nation of an estimated 8 million people into rival fiefdoms.

The power of Islamic fundamentalists who promise an end to the chaos is raising fears that the nation could follow the path of Taliban Afghanistan into the hands of al-Qaida.

McNamara said the U.N. Security Council hasn't acted adequately on a May 4 report by the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia, which claims several countries have broken the 14-year-old arms embargo on Somalia. The countries cited in the report _ including Eritrea and Saudi Arabia _ have denied the accusations.

"Those countries that have breached the arms embargo needs to be acted upon politically by countries that are trying to stop the fighting. But as far as we know, it is not happening," McNamara said.

McNamara could not go to Mogadishu on his trip due to the violence there, but he visited sites including Merka, 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital, and the breakaway republic of Somaliland. He urged Somali authorities to do more to stem renewed violence.

"I found the authorities in all parts of Somalia ... rather inclined to ask what more can you do for us rather than what can we do for ourselves," he said. He noted that officials in Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia after the country descended into anarchy in the 1990s, were stopping humanitarian officials from building latrines.

The U.N., which left Somalia in 1995, recently helped Somali leaders meet in neighboring Kenya and form a transitional government. Divided and weak, it has begged for political, financial and military support but its influence in Somalia covers just a few towns.

The transitional government includes members of the secular alliance. But other members of the government, which is based in Baidoa, 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Mogadishu, have close ties to extremists.

On Tuesday, McNamara said the U.N. has limited authority to help strengthen the government and that the agency cannot risk sending its staff to an anarchic city.

"The transitional government has a responsibility to bring an end to the conflict, but that's not something the U.N. has a direct hand in, besides advising," he said.

Islamic leaders reject the transitional government because it's not based on Islam and portray themselves as an alternative force capable of bringing order to the country.

They accuse the warlords _ the self-described Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism _ of working for the CIA. The alliance says the Islamic militias have ties to al-Qaida.

Source: The Associated Press