By Ali Musa Abdi
Mogadishu – The supreme leader of Somalia’s increasingly powerful Islamist movement said on Tuesday that easing a 14-year-old United Nations arms embargo on the lawless nation would be a “fatal mistake”.
“What has been destroying Somalia is the presence of arms and it’s awful to see the international community advocating the shipment of more arms to Somalia,” Aweys told reporters from his central home region of Galgadud.
“Easing the embargo would be a fatal mistake,” he said. “It is like allowing one group to arm itself. Others will follow and then we will have new problems in Somalia.”
Aweys heads the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS), a group of sharia courts whose militia seized the capital Mogadishu in June from a US-backed warlord alliance after months of fierce battles and is now tightening its grip on the nation.
The rise of the Islamists has fuelled fears of a Taliban-style takeover, particularly as some, including Aweys, are considered extremists and accused of harbouring “terrorists” by the West. They deny the charges.
Their growing influence also threatens the authority of Somalia’s weak transitional government, which has been appealing to the United Nations to ease the arms embargo to help the deployment of foreign peacekeepers.
On Monday in Brussels, the international contact group on Somalia, created by Washington after the defeat of the warlords, called on the UN Security Council “to consider with a sense of urgency modifying the arms embargo”.
The group – made up of the African Union, the Arab League, the East African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the European Union, the United Nations, Britain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Tanzania and the United States – said the move was aimed at helping the government establish its own security forces.
The Security Council endorsed the possibility of a such a step last week, after hearing pleas from the government, the African Union and some of Somalia’s neighbours to aid in the deployment of a peacekeeping mission. But it has yet to take action.
The Islamists are fiercely opposed to the presence of foreign troops on Somali soil and, led by Aweys, have vowed to resist and fight them if they are deployed.
The issue has placed them at direct odds with the transitional government, which Monday dropped objections to attending Arab League-sponsored peace talks aimed at easing tensions with the Islamists.
“Although we will continue the negotiations with the government, easing the weapons embargo undermines the peace process,” Aweys said. “We are urging the Security Council not to accept the recommendations of the contact group.”
The UN imposed the embargo in 1992, a year after Somalia was plunged into anarchy following the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Despite remaining on the books, the embargo has been frequently flouted and UN experts charged with monitoring the ban have accused numerous countries of violations, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
All these nations have denied breaking the embargo.
Aweys said that easing the embargo now would encourage current violators to send even larger flows of weaponry and ammunition into Somalia and lead to more violence, prompting Somali hostility toward the international community.
“It will upset the Somali people to see a free flow of arms that has been authorised by the Security Council,” he said. “It is unacceptable and we don’t want to see that.”
“Please think responsibly and do not give us the opportunity to get more weapons,” he said. The Islamists would be forced to rearm, he explained, if other groups in Somalia, including the government, started stockpiling weapons.
Source: AFP, July 19, 2006
