Lifting arms embargo risks more violence - ICG

The UN arms embargo on Somalia has been critical in limiting violence in the war-ravaged nation, and lifting it would create a serious threat of expanded violence, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned.

"Lifting it [the embargo] for any reason at this critical time risks destabilising the transitional institutions, derailing the peace process and rekindling civil conflict," Gareth Evans, President of the ICG, said in a letter on Friday to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The letter was also sent to the Permanent Representatives of the UN Security Council members. The Council is expected to consult on Somalia on 14 July.

Evans urged the Council to "defer consideration of the exemption until these preconditions have been fulfilled and instead encourage the African union to put in place a political initiative that would complement its efforts on the military side".

Somalia has been under the arms embargo since 1992, following the collapse in 1991 of the government of Muhammad Siyad Barre. Nearly fourteen years of civil war followed Barre’s overthrow, as various factions and rival warlords tussled for power.

The regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) sponsored two years of peace talks between rival Somali factions that led, in October 2004, to the formation of the current Transitional Federal Government (TFG) led by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.

However, the proposed deployment of foreign troops, particularly those from frontline states such as Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya, as part of the IGAD force, has deeply divided the TFG.

Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi support the deployment, but several key cabinet ministers and legislators strongly oppose any moves to include frontline states in the proposed force, to be known as IGASOM.

"The problem is that the interim president’s appeal for foreign troops is very deeply divisive in Somalia, and has yet to receive the unambiguous approval of the transitional federal institutions," the Brussels-based ICG said in a separate statement on Tuesday.

Evans said the vocal reaction to IGASOM in Somalia and the force’s concept of operations, which includes "peace enforcement", meant the force would be likely to be seen as partisan.

"For peacekeepers to become embroiled in the Somali conflict would undermine both the prospects for peace in the country and development of the AU’s peacekeeping capacity," he added.

Unless broad consensus was reached among the Somali leadership and the TFG and parliament unambiguously approved the proposed peacekeeping operation, Evans said, no international deployment to Somalia would succeed.

Revival of political dialogue between the two wings of government and national ceasefires were necessary preparatory steps before a peace support operation was deployed, he stressed.

The government has also disagreed on their base, with an estimated 100-plus legislators and members of the TFG choosing to operate from the capital, Mogadishu, and Yusuf and Gedi choosing Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital, on the grounds that security in Mogadishu remained tenuous.

The murder on Monday of prominent peace activist Abdulkadir Yahya Ali at his home in Mogadishu, and of Hersi Abdi Elmi, an official of one of Mogadishu’s Islamic courts, also gunned down in the capital on Monday, has been seen by some as justification for Yusuf’s decision to steer clear of the capital.