The international community can no longer afford to ignore Somalia. States afflicted for too long by internal conflicts tend eventually to become sanctuaries for extremists. We are now faced with a chain of crises linking the Horn of Africa with the situation in Yemen, and reaching all the way to Afghanistan. With the growing military commitment in Afghanistan, increasing numbers of terrorists are moving to Somalia and Yemen. According to the information at our disposal, radical Somali groups have established close links with other groups in Yemen, a country that today hosts about one million people originally from Somalia.
To this must be added the acts of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, which are further increasing the instability in the region. After 20 years of civil war, Somalia has become a theatre of clashes between extremists, warlords and forces battling to rebuild the country under the authority of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the legitimate government led by President al-Sharif. Consolidating the TFG and preventing terrorism from gaining the upper hand is not just in the interests of most of Somali population, it is in the common interest of all the countries in the region and of the international community as a whole. We therefore have only one practicable option: to support the TFG. We are all encouraging it to engage in dialogue and intensify its efforts to achieve internal reconciliation, based on the Djibouti agreement of June 2008, on which lasting peace depends. In addition, re-establishing an international presence in Mogadishu could be a further important advance that would demonstrate our common commitment to shoring up legality in the country.
The Arab League currently has an office in Mogadishu, along with just a few other Arab African missions and/or embassies. In October 2009 the Djibouti Government also decided to reopen its Mogadishu embassy, which had been closed since 1991. Now Italy too has announced the political decision to reopen its embassy as soon as conditions allow. The international community’s commitment in Somalia has in recent years been sporadic and inadequate and, as a result, ineffective. Well under half the overall aid promised at the Brussels Conference in April 2009 has been delivered. There is therefore an urgent need to step up the pace. Europe, together with the United Nations, the African Union (AU) and the Arab League, can and must take the initiative to gather the necessary resources to stabilise the country.
It is time for multilateral action to concentrate its forces on “resolving” the crisis in Somalia, rather than simply managing it. We therefore need to see a joint, integrated action by the various regional and international organisations involved in Somalia: the AU, the Arab League, the European Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa, and the United Nations. The problem of Somalia must be tackled in two ways. The immediate priorities are security and humanitarian aid. We need to reinforce the country’s security forces, support AMISOM (the AU-led security mission in Somalia) and provide the Somali population with the humanitarian help they need. Because security and humanitarian assistance are intrinsically linked.
It is much more difficult for the international agencies to provide assistance without any guarantees of a minimum level of security: as demonstrated by the decision – a temporary one, we hope – by the World Food Programme to suspend its work in the south of the country. Italy has already delivered the 4 million euros pledged in Brussels. And we are about to provide a further 4 million through the Italian peace initiative in Africa for the Somali security forces and AMISOM, and to fund the operation of key Somali ministries. The Arab League recently contributed an additional one million dollars, delivered directly to the TFG. And Italy is also considering organising effective training in Kenya for the Somali police force. It is our hope that other countries will be able to do just as much, and soon.
In the medium term, we need to identify a comprehensive stabilisation strategy with clear references and a reliable timescale for implementation. A “Pact for Somalia” should be launched during an international conference to be held this year. This conference should be prepared with great care, with the involvement of the countries of the region, the AU, the Arab League and IGAD. It must send out a strong signal from the international community of its support for the Somali government. And the Somali government, for its part, must undertake to increase its efforts on the internal reconciliation front and in developing fully functioning, transparent and accountable institutions. The new pact must be inspired by the involvement of local and regional actors. Stability and security will in the last analysis depend on the work of the TFG: but for us the stakes are too high to settle for the hope that things will improve on their own account. We therefore need to act – fast!