http://za.news.yahoo.com/us-urges-lifting-un-arms-embargo-somalia-envoys-050911210.html
US
urges lifting of UN arms embargo on Somalia: envoys[image:
Reuters]<
http://www.reuters.com/>
By Louis Charbonneau | Reuters – Wed, Feb 6, 2013
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States is urging fellow members of
the U.N. Security Council to agree to demands by the government in
Mogadishu to lift the arms embargo on Somalia, which has been in place for
the past 21 years, U.N. diplomats said on Tuesday.
The U.S. push comes after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week
that the 15-nation council should consider lifting the arms embargo to help
rebuild Somalia's security forces and consolidate military gains against al
Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants.
The Security Council imposed the embargo in 1992 to cut the flow of arms to
feuding warlords, who a year earlier ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and
plunged Somalia into civil war.
"I think we'll come down in terms of having probably a political lift of
the arms embargo but retaining some controls," said a senior Western
diplomat on condition of anonymity.
"What the Somali government partly wants is a political signal that they
are now a sovereign government and we're supporting them, rather than a
trusteeship," the diplomat said. "They say the bad guys are getting weapons
and the good guys are not."
A U.S. official said Washington was merely backing a request the Somali
government and African nations have been making.
"Somalia, countries of the region, and the African Union have asked the
Security Council to review the structure of the current arms embargo," the
official said. "The United States supports that request."
It was not clear what a "political lift" of the embargo would entail,
though diplomats said it may involve easing arms import restrictions on
Somalia while ensuring that a strict monitoring mechanism remains in place.
Diplomats said Britain and France have been reluctant to support ending the
arms embargo. The Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group, which monitors
compliance with the sanctions regime, has also opposed the idea of lifting
it, U.N. envoys said.
Those who oppose getting rid of the arms embargo say Somalia's security
sector still includes elements close to warlords and militants, an
allegation the Somali government rejects.
"There are no Somali warlords that threaten peace and stability in
Somalia," the alternate permanent representative for Somalia, Idd Beddel
Mohamed, told Reuters. "They are normal citizens now, members of
parliament. The embargo must be lifted."
AMENDED REPORT?
Somalia wants help strengthening its poorly equipped and ill-disciplined
military that is more of a loosely affiliated umbrella group of rival
militias than a cohesive fighting force loyal to a single president.
There are 17,600 U.N.-mandated African Union peacekeepers helping battle
the Islamist rebels in Somalia. The AU mission's mandate is up for renewal
in March, which is when the changes under discussion, if approved, would
take effect.
"There's no guarantee there will be a lifting of the arms embargo but it's
something the U.S. wants," an envoy said.
Several diplomats noted that Ban's recommendation to end the embargo was so
weakly worded it was barely a recommendation at all. The wording was: "the
Security Council may wish to consider the repeated request by the (Somali)
government for lifting the arms embargo."
A diplomatic source said the recommendation did not appear in earlier
drafts of Ban's report but was in the final version. It has happened before
that secretary-general's reports on various issues have been amended before
publication in response to complaints from U.N. member states.
Another diplomat said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice did not ask Ban or any
other U.N. official to recommend in his report that the arms embargo be
lifted.
AU troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Ethiopia are battling al Shabaab
militants on several fronts in Somalia and have forced them to abandon
significant territory in southern and central areas of the Horn of Africa
country.
The militants, who merged with al Qaeda in February last year, launched
their campaign against the government in early 2007, seeking to impose
sharia, or strict Islamic law, on the entire country.
The U.N. Security Council is also considering a call to permit the export
of stocks of charcoal from Somalia. It banned the sale abroad of Somali
charcoal last February in an attempt to cut off al Shabaab's funding.
Diplomats said the charcoal export ban would likely remain in place.
The Security Council's Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, an
independent panel that reports on compliance with U.N. sanctions, said
charcoal exports from southern Somalia in 2011 generated over $25 million
for al Shabaab.
Received on Wed Feb 20 2013 - 10:40:16 EST
