From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2010 - 12:18:05 EST
Force alone cannot defeat Somali insurgents: PM
Wed Mar 31, 2010 3:49pm GMT
By Abdiaziz Hassan
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's prime minister has said military force alone
will never defeat Islamist extremists engaged in a three-year-old insurgency
in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke also said a government inquiry had found
allegations in a U.N. report of corruption and the sale of arms to rebels by
Somali government troops to be baseless, and said the report was of
"doubtful validity."
"We have to understand that military capability alone will not defeat the
rebels. There are also some ideological issues which must be addressed",
Sharmarke told Reuters late on Tuesday.
Somalia has lacked an effective government for nearly two decades, and
Western and neighbouring countries say it is a breeding ground for militants
intent on launching attacks on east Africa and beyond. It is also a base for
pirates seizing foreign ships for ransom.
Somali experts say the western-backed Transitional Federal Government is
preparing for a long-awaited offensive aimed at driving al Shabaab Islamist
fighters out of the capital, Mogadishu.
But Sharmarke said Somalia's future stability could not be ensured by a
single military operation and that public trust in the government had to be
improved.
"Religious scholars have to define a direction for their people and as a
government we are restoring the trust of the public in the system," he said.
LACK OF TRUST
The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters have left President Sheikh Sharif
Ahmed's administration in control of little more than a few blocks in the
mortar-pocked streets of the capital.
The group wants to impose a harsher version of Sharia, Islamic law, on
Somalia's 9 million people, of whom more than a third depend on emergency
aid.
Speaking from his office in Mogadishu, Sharmarke said he expected to win
public confidence by bringing new faces into the cabinet.
He said he hoped this month's power-sharing deal with the moderate Ahlu
Sunna militia would bring the government broader grassroots support and
improve the security forces' morale.
The prime minister denounced a report by the U.N. Monitoring Group on
Somalia, saying it had played down the importance of the conflict that has
killed 21,000 Somalis since early 2007 and uprooted 1.5 million from their
homes.
The report said two U.N. aid agencies had dealings with a prominent
businessman linked to Islamic extremists, accused officials of selling
diplomatic visas for up to $15,000 and alleged government troops were
supplying rebels with arms, Sharmarke said.
An initial government inquiry found some of the accusations to be "baseless"
and there will be no further investigation into the rest of the report's
findings, he said.
"The validity of this report is doubtful," Sharmarke told Reuters.
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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