Arms continue to flow in despite embargo, say monitors

Weapons have continued to enter Somalia, despite a UN ban on the sale of arms to the country, a team of monitors reported on Monday. The UN-appointed team warned that violations of the embargo could undermine efforts to install a new government in the country.

"The Monitoring Group learned that arms-embargo violations had continued to occur at a brisk and alarming rate," the team said in its report to the UN Security Council.

It also provided the Council with a confidential list of those who continued to violate the arms embargo, for possible future action.

The report described how the group had uncovered 34 individual arms shipments, or violations of the arms embargo, between February 2004 and the time of writing.

In 1992, the UN imposed a weapons embargo on Somalia, one year after the country's government collapsed. Serious conflict ensued between various clan-based faction leaders and their militias, who scrambled to claim power, resources and territory.

Monday's report said that arms shipments uncovered by the team ranged in size, from individual weapons - such as a large, expensive anti-aircraft guns - to ocean freight-containers carrying small arms, explosives, ammunition, mines and anti-tank weapons.

"Information developed by the Monitoring Group indicates the existence of a sophisticated financial network, operating inside and outside Somalia, that may be directly involved in arms purchases," the report revealed.

It added that recent arms shipments had strengthened the military capacity of opposition elements inside Somalia. Opposition groups were now well organised and funded, and had publicly expressed their intent to violently oppose the transitional federal government (TFG) - and any international supporters that might provide it with military support.

The TFG, which was formed in Kenya last year, following a reconciliation conference between different warlords and factions, has yet to establish itself inside Somalia.

"The Bakaaraha arms market inside Somalia, particularly in Mogadishu, and the arms market in the neighbouring Gulf State continue to play central roles as sources of arms that fuel violent clashes, and remain an obstacle to peace and stability in Somalia," said the monitors.

Due to the continued flow of illegal arms into Somalia "there is a seriously elevated level of threat of possible violence" against the peaceful establishment of the TFG, they warned.

Arms shipments, offloaded from container ships at a neighbouring country's seaport and transported to Somalia by road and dhow, had also been investigated.

"Organised criminal groups involved in the clandestine movement of arms shipments from source to recipient have consistently circumvented customs and police authorities of various states responsible for interdicting illegal arms shipments," the report stated.

In his February report to the Security Council on the Somali situation, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had recommended that the arms embargo be tightened, saying outbreaks of violence had continued to hamper relief work in many areas of the country.