Somalia Addresses General Assembly | |
Ismael Mohamoud Hurreh, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Somalia, addresses the general debate of the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, at UN Headquarters in New York. |
NEW YORK, September 27 (AFP) – The foreign minister of Somalia’s transitional government on Tuesday urged the United Nations security council to lift a 14-year-old arms embargo on his lawless nation to facilitate the deployment of foreign peacekeepers.
Ismael Hurreh told the UN general assembly: “The UN arms embargo must be favourably reviewed and lifted by the security council.”
He also called for the deployment of an African Union-mandated peacekeeping force, a move opposed by Somalia’s powerful Islamist forces.
The seven-member east African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) had approved plans to send 8 000 peacekeepers to prop up the wobbly government it helped create in 2004.
On Tuesday, Somalia’s Islamists quelled women’s protest in the southern port of Kismayo and imposed a curfew after violent demonstrations by residents against their new Muslim leaders.
Witnesses said that a day after taking Kismayo peacefully, but later opening fire on demonstrators, Islamist forces had put down a brief protest by several dozen women and children and imposed a 21:00 to 05:00 curfew.
Kismayo was the latest municipality in southern Somalia to fall into Islamist hands since they seized Mogadishu from warlords in June after months of fierce battles.
At the general assembly, Hurreh also appealed to the world community “to demonstrate a political will and commitment and redouble efforts to provide political, financial and technical support to Somalia’s weak transitional government”.
He pleaded for relief aid for the roughly 1.8 million Somalis still in need of urgent humanitarian assistance and livelihood support.
On Monday, Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi also appealed for foreign help to prevent further Islamist expansion, saying their alleged links to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda posed a growing threat to the region and world.
Gedi’s internationally backed but largely powerless administration was the latest in more than a dozen attempts to restore stability to Somalia, which plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.
Source: AFP, Sept 27, 2006
