|
April 21 2009 at 12:39PM
Brussels - International donors gather in Brussels on Thursday to try to
help bring stability to civil war-torn Somalia, but the conference risks
being overshadowed by rampant piracy off its coast.
The United Nations, whose chief Ban Ki-moon will attend, hopes to
collect €200-million to back the peacekeeping mission there and rebuild
the Horn of Africa country's security forces, according to an EU
official.
But as the economic crisis bites and with Islamic sharia law likely to
be introduced in chaotic Somalia - where poverty and hostage-taking is
rampant - it remains to be seen whether the pledges will be lived up to.
While the conference is not focused on piracy, the high media-profile of
the growing cases of daring raids on freighters on the seas of the Gulf
of Aden could distract attention from some of Somalia's real needs.
"We've always said that the problems of Somalia deserve the support of
the international community. Everything that is happening there is the
consequence of the lack of a state," said the African Union envoy to
Brussels.
"We need financial means and political support. We have to bolster the
transition government and the world must take an interest in Somalia,
not just when there is piracy, which is nothing but a product of the
situation," said Ambassador Mahamat Saleh Annadif.
Despite international naval missions - including from Nato and the
European Union - piracy has spiralled over in 2008, as ransom-hunting
Somalis tackle ever-bigger and more distant prizes in a major world
shipping lane.
More than 130 merchant ships were attacked in the region in 2008, an
increase of more than 200 percent on 2007, according to the
International Maritime Bureau.
Naval officers concede that hundreds of warships would be needed to
effectively patrol around a million square kilometres of waters and that
the only way to really halt piracy would be to launch some ground
operation.
But there is no appetite for such an enterprise, given United States
troops losses there in 1993.
According to the spokesperson for EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis
Michel, who will also take part in Thursday's meeting, Somalia's woes
and piracy are "two things linked together".
"There won't be any solution at sea without a solution on the ground,"
said the spokesman, John Clancy, noting that piracy "is a result of the
decay of the Somali state."
More and more clans are trying to seek a living on the high seas - one
of the few if risky ways to make serious money in poverty-stricken
Somalia, where Islamists have been waging a civil war since 1991.
However, bringing any political order remains an enormous challenge.
The transitional government has little real power, and none reaching
into the north, which is divided between the Puntland region and the
"republic" of Somaliland.
And since the Ethiopian army pulled out in December, the only security
presence supporting the government is the African AMISOM peacekeeping
mission.
The 3 500-troop force - with soldiers mainly from Uganda and Burundi -
is well short of the 8 000 soldiers initially planned and is regularly
attacked by the Islamist Shehab militia.
Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, African Commission chief Jean
Ping, Arab League head Amr Mussa and EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana are expected at the conference, along with representatives from
some 30 nations. - Sapa-AFP
|
