by Sylvie Lanteaume
Sat Jun 10, 12:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States proposed setting up an international “contact group” on Somalia, implicitly acknowledging that its policy of backing warlords to rein in an Islamist militia had failed.
“We are calling for the convening of a Somalia contact group, the Somalia Contact Group, the week of June 12th — next week — up in New York City,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
“The goal of this group is to promote concerted action and coordination to support the Somalia transitional federal institutions,” he said.
“So we’re going to be working with other interested states, international organizations, on this matter, in talking about how we might coordinate our efforts in a concerted way to support those transitional federal institutions.”
The United States has financially supported in recent months the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), a warlord alliance in the lawless country, to counter an Islamic militia it believes could shelter terrorists.
Though never officially recognized, this alliance with warlords widely blamed for much of Somalia’s disarray had been hit by criticism, especially in Africa.
Last month, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki urged the United States to help the Somali transitional government, which was long in exile in Nairobi, to “re-establish civil authority so as to bring the country back to normalcy.”
“(They) should also provide financial assistance to Somalia as it moves towards reinstating other essential structures of government including the judiciary, army, police and immigration authorities,” his statement said.
Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the current African Union president, said Monday after meeting President George W. Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as the Islamic militia took control of the capital Mogadishu, that “most important is to establish a government that must help the Somali people to have a real government.”
“We think that if this effort is needed, we have to move in this direction, in order that the Somali government can truly be established in Mogadishu,” he said.
The largely powerless government is currently in Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu.
The US spokesman did not say which countries had been approached to take part in the contact group.
But according to a senior US State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the countries likely were Britain, Italy and Norway, and unspecified African countries.
“I would expect the UN would want to participate in this,” McCormack said. “We think it’s the right time.”
He did not say whether the meeting would take place at United Nations headquarters in New York. It would be chaired by Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
Nearly 350 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded, many of them civilians, in four months of clashes between the Islamic militia and the US-backed warlord alliance.
Source: AFP, June 10, 2006
