On Child Soldiers Supported by UN in Somalia, UNSC Will Respond After 3 Years
Days after the UN-supported Somali Transitional Federal Government's use of child soldiers was widely exposed, the UN Security Council's lack of seriousness on the issue was on display on Wednesday. Mexican foreign minister Patricia Espinosa presided over a day-long series of speeches about children and armed conflict. At noon, Inner City Press asked her what she and the Council would do about their support of the TFG, which uses children as young as nine and 12 to wield AK-47s in Mogadishu.
This has not been raised to the Security Council, Secretary Espinosa replied, not even to the Working Group.
But minutes later, when Inner City Press asked the UN's envoy on the issue Radhika Coomaraswamy how the TFG's use of child soldiers could have been missed, she protected [sic] that the Council had in fact been told of the TFG's recruitment in three straight years' reports.
Later, at the end of the Council's debate after 7 p.m., a Mexican mission official confirmed that yes, the Somali TFG has been formally listed for the past three years. The most senior Mexican mission official shrugged that the minister had been mis-informed. But why?
The expose of the TFG's use of child soldiers was on the front page of the New York Times days before the UN's day long "debate." The representative of a Permanent Five member of the Council told Inner City Press that the NYT story had triggered inquiries to the capital(s), and statements ready for the press. How could the month's Council presidency, with children and armed conflict as their chosen thematic issue, be so unprepared?
Inner City Press asked Secretary Espinosa if this didn't show that the Council is too bound in bureaucracy to deal with egregious behavior in the peacekeeping or political missions it creates, from Somalia to the Congo to Haiti. These are the mechanisms, she replied. Indeed.
Ms. Johnson said that UN Envoy to Somalia Ould Abdallah had been told, UNDP had been told. Why did Ould Abdallah say or do nothing? Why did UNDP keep training? Watch this site.
From the remarks made Wednesday by Ambassador Susan E. Rice
The United States fully and firmly embraces our responsibility to protect children and we will not rest until the last abuse is halted and the last child soldier is released.
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We urge that all information on violations identified by the monitoring and reporting mechanism be thoroughly verified to ensure a high degree of accuracy.
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The United States is particularly concerned about the situation in Somalia. Active recruitment of child soldiers has placed several thousand children in the line of fire. We strongly condemn the use of child soldiers by any group and we call upon parties to the conflict in Somalia to immediately cease child recruitment and release those who remain within their ranks.
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The United States will remain fully and deeply dedicated to preventing violations and abuses committed against children in armed conflict. We will continue to strongly support the efforts of the United Nations and our many NGO partners. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our fellow Security Council members on this vital issue.
As Inner City Press's Matthew Russell Lee pointed out, following Rice's remarks,
US Amb. Susan Rice briefly mentions Somalia, calling on "all parties" to stop recruiting child soldiers. What about the "party" the US is funding, the TFG? Not enough specifics. She also mentions DRCongo, the Lord's Resistance Army and the Central African Republic. Answers on Somalia, and on US safeguards, are needed.
Don't expect much from those "open debates" at the UNSC, or followthru to back up Rice's rhetoric about not resting until the last abuse is halted...
From the TFG's propaganda ministry, Somali President Instructs the Army Chief to Investigate Child Soldier Recruitment Allegations
The President stated that, contrary to the New York Times assertions, the Somali government has not and will not knowingly recruit under-aged youth for the national security forces, because, the President said, “the country is already teeming with thousands of able-bodied men that the government is working hard to demobilize”
Furthermore, President Ahmed reiterated that the Somali Government “is fully committed to upholding existing laws and provisions banning the recruitment of child soldiers.”
However, as a charge of such magnitude warrants a thorough scrutiny, the President ordered the army chief “to conduct a full review and to report back to him in four weeks. The President also instructed the army to demobilize any under-age recruits without delay.”
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Shabelle Media: Ahlu Sunna accuses Somali government for not implementing deal
the consultation council of the Islamist clerics of Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a has Thursday accused the transitional government of Somalia for not implementing the deal between the two sides signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Sheik Omar Abdukadir, the chairman of the consulting council of the Islamist clerics of Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a had held press conference in Galgudud region in central Somalia and talked more on the agreement between the Somali government and Ahlu Sunna that had been signed earlier condemning the government led by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed for violating the decision of the agreement signed in Ethiopian and Somalia.
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Lastly Sheik Omar said that they would held meeting for the coming days and would discuss more what decision they would take if the government did not react on the agreement between the two sides.
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allvoices.com: Ethiopian skilled Somali troops unite with rival islamists
Unnamed sources have told allvoices.com that a number of Somali government soldiers who were in the Dolwo district have defected from the Somali government soldiers and joined Al-Shabab a rival Islamist function in Somalia.
“These Somali government soldiers have just recently accomplished their training in Ethiopia, and they have decided to join the right path of fighting against the so called African Union troops who have invaded in our soil and as well as that of the apostate so called Somali government led by a former Islamist leader who has know converted to be a westernized leader who is working on the interest of the western countries” said Sheikh Ahmed Ali Al-Shabab officer at Bula-Hawo district in Gedo region.
The Al-Shabab officer added that they are ready to amiably receive if all the Somali government soldiers surrender to them.
“This is not the first time the soldiers of the apostate government have freely joined us there were also several other occasions, and we have affectionately received them, and now they are the brightest fighters among our fighters” added the Al-Shabab officer.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian trained government soldiers who defected from the Somali military, delivered a speech to the inhabitants of Bula-Hawo district in the center of the district.
“In the first place when we have enrolled ourselves to the Somali government soldiers we never really mean to be part of them, but we merely had the ambition of observing the way the Ethiopians train, and now were are fully trained to fight against the Ethiopian troops and their entire ally, I am advising those so called government soldiers to do as we have done” said Hassan the spokesman of the defected soldiers.
Hassan has also added that they have been in the military training course for a period of seven months.
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Human Rights Watch: Kenya: Police Abuse Somali Refugees
Kenyan police at the Somali border and in nearby refugee camps are abusing asylum seekers and refugees fleeing war-torn Somalia, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Kenya should immediately rein in its abusive police, and the UN refugee agency should step up its monitoring of the situation and press for an end to the abuses, Human Rights Watch said.
Based on interviews with over 100 refugees, the 99-page report, "‘Welcome to Kenya': Police Abuse of Somali Refugees," documents widespread police extortion of asylum seekers trying to reach three camps near the Kenyan town of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee settlement. Police use violence, arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention in inhuman and degrading conditions, threats of deportation, and wrongful prosecution for "unlawful presence" to extort money from the new arrivals - men, women, and children alike. In some cases, police also rape women. In early 2010 alone, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Somalis unable to pay extortion demands were sent back to Somalia, in flagrant violation of Kenyan and international law.
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Let's not even go there...
NYT: Somalia: U.S. Military Aid Denounced
A second United States senator complained Thursday about American military assistance to Somalia’s government, which the United Nations considers one of the most flagrant users of child soldiers in the world. Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the American government should press the Somali military to halt any use of child soldiers and “until we have that confirmation, I believe it is inappropriate to continue providing the T.F.G. with security assistance.” American officials said they have urged the Somali military not to recruit children but that with few American personnel in Somalia, it is impossible to guarantee this does not happen.
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Wecast for the House Subcommittee on Africa's Wednesday hearing, Horn of Africa: Current Conditions and U.S. Policy. PDF copies of the prepared remarks are available here under the June 17, 2010 hearing.
From insider-expert Menkhaus' prepared statement:
One of the main reasons US policy on Somalia has not shifted much over the past year is because the country presents us with such poor options. We have been left supporting the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia not because it had great promise but because it was the best of bad options. Many of us embraced this logic despite the TFG’s deep flaws and poor early performance, in the hopes that the “Djibouti process” of dialogue and inclusion since 2008 would earn the TFG more legitimacy and effectiveness and help Somalia end its twenty year crisis of state collapse.
My contention all along has been that the creation & support for this incarnation of the TFG was viewed more importantly as a counterrevolutionary tactic, designed to split open the alliances of the ICU and neutralize any further revolutionary momentum inside Somalia, for which it's hard to argue that it hasn't been successful, than any last best hope to legitimize & sustain a transitional government to help Somalis stabilize their country.
But the TFG is now clearly just a bad option, and its failures very costly to Somalis, the region, and the world. Unconditional support of the TFG has served as a poor substitute for a coherent strategy toward the broader Somali crisis, and has reinforced and rewarded the exceptionally bad performance of TFG leaders. Continued external efforts to breathe life into the moribund TFG have also had the unintended but very real effect of prolonging political conditions within which a radical Islamist insurgency has thrived. Past US and UN policy of unconditional support to the TFG has thus actively undermined our own long-term security interests.
The cornerstone of our strategy in Somalia has been strengthening of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Instead of serving as a cornerstone, it has been the weak link.
Too bad he doesn't elaborate on what either "our own long-term security interests" or "our strategy in Somalia" are. Our? He's certainly not an impartial & objective witness, now, is he...
No. Menkhaus believes that "a major policy shift by the US and its allies ... is the only option which allows the US to shape rather than simply react to events in the country."
Shape? As in 'to influence'? Or 'to determine'?
If you agree with the Menkhaus narrative, then
We face poor choices and high risks in Somalia no matter what we do. We also consider policy options in Somalia humbled by the fact that almost every foreign policy initiative in Somalia over the past twenty years has produced the exact opposite result than what was intended.
Really? What if the policies are, more often than not, actually producing specific intended results and, instead, it's the interpretation/understanding/analyses of certain experts that need to be adjusted?
Here's an example, taken from Menkhaus' recommendations, in which one can almost catch of whiff of previous recommendations that led to policies precipitating the rise of the ICU in the first place, when the U.S. financially and materially backed a number of warlords.
But the TFG should no longer enjoy a monopoly on external support.
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The US and other donor states should actively pursue a policy of diversification in Somalia, working pragmatically with whatever local authorities they identify on the ground who are relatively legitimate, powerful, and accountable to their communities. In some cases this means expanding support to existing regional polities. But this must not be reduced to a search to find and shore up regional states; that approach is very likely to produce war, not peace, in much of southern Somalia. Instead, the international community must be open to engaging whatever authorities they find.
And what to make of these recommendations regarding H.S.M.?
we must exploit the fact that shabaab is composed of very disparate groups with varying levels of commitment to the cause.
Who is "we"? Is this something personal for Menkhaus, maybe on account of comrades who were killed in Somalia as collaborators?
This opportunity to "exploit" the divisions in H.S.M. - doesn't sound too far off from a view that would have seen an opportunity in the creation of Sh. Sharif's TFG in order to permanently split the divisions in the ARS.
And what is "the cause" that Menkhaus has in mind here? International Jihad? Or, more realistically, protecting the rights of Somalis, first and foremost, against an unpopular & unwanted imposition of secular, foreign-backed rule?
the US should be prepared to use every carrot and stick at its disposal to encourage Somali interests to go after shabaab rather than to attack the group directly. Shabaab ultimately needs to be solved by Somalis.
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Many, perhaps most of the group can and must be weaned away from the movement as part of an enduring solution in Somalia. It cannot be defeated under current circumstances, but if weakened by defections the hard core remnant of the group can be contained if not defeated outright. But defections will only occur when a viable alternative emerges in Somalia, and if the US government is flexible and pragmatic enough to engage parts of shabaab in quiet dialogue.
Something along the lines of what Ranneberger et al did with Sh. Sharif four years ago?
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New Vision is reporting Hillary Rodham Clinton here this week
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected in the country this week for high-level talks with Government officials, according to highly placed sources.
The exact day of her visit is not yet clear though, according to government sources, issues on the agenda include the 2011 general election, Uganda’s relations with Iran and the controversial Anti-homosexuality Bill.
The article focuses on US efforts in shoring up Museveni's upcoming reelection, noting Johnnie Carson's visit last month as well, but you certainly have to wonder how the visit fits it Joe Biden's business in Nairobi recently, as New Vision had reported last Monday that
US vice-president Joe Biden last week held talks with Uganda’s defence minister, Dr. Crispus Kiyonga, about bringing peace to Somalia in Nairobi, Kenya.
Also at the meeting were the special representative of the African Union (AU) chairperson, Boubacar Gaoussou Diarra, the UN special representative of the secretary general for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, and the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISON) force commander, Nathan Mugisha.
Mugisha discussed the challenges facing AMISOM and the need for greater political inclusivity and stability in the Somalia transitional federal government.
Biden commended AMISOM for their peacekeeping efforts and discussed steps to bolster their capacity.
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Inner City Press has one more report this week on UN efforts to downplay the TFG's use of child soldiers:
When outgoing UN envoy on Somalia Ahmedou Ould Abdallah spoke with the Security Council on June 18, many expected that that recent expose that twenty percent of the Transitional Federal Government's armed forces are children would be raised. Why had Ould Abdallah not seen this war crime, why had he said nothing about it?
But in fact, it was the Security Council members who said nothing. A well placed Council diplomat, after the closed door consultations with Ould Abdallah, told Inner City Press than no Council member had raised the issue.
Inner City Press stopped Ould Abdallah as he left the chamber and headed up the stairs. What about the child soldiers?
"I'm not convinced," Ould Abdallah replied. He said that such reports "only weaken the government."
But did you see the video that accompanied the story?
"I saw only one" child soldier", Ould Abdallah said. In denial to the end, one wag muttered afterward.
Ould Abdallah remains in the post until the end of the month, when he will be replaced by current Tanzanian Ambassador to the UN Augustine Mahiga. A diplomat who has attended numerous closed consultations with Ould Abdallah told Inner City Press his behavior had grown more and more erratic. Even his supporters say he perhaps hung on too long.
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Garowe Online: Aweys defends decision to abandon central town
The Islamist leader of Somalia’s Hizbul Islam Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said his group took the decision to pull out of central town of Beledweyne, the administrative capital of Hiiran region, to avoid fight with rival group Al-Shabaab insurgent.
The things that forced us to peacefully vacate Hiiraan region were to avoid clash with Al-Shabaab and also avert possible shedding of innocent blood,” he said while admitting for the first defection of some officials from his group who joined Al-Shabaab.
The elderly cleric warned Al-Shabaab of anything that would put them in jeopardy, adding that they could only unite with the group through talks.
“Al-Shabaab wants more than they deserve, we warned them against that because it is not good for the brothers,” he noted.
His remarks come as Hizbul Islam officials from central Shabelle region announce their decision to join Al-Shabaab. They are joining dozens of their colleagues who renounced their allegiance to Aweys’s group.
SMC: Hizbul-Islam vanishing into Al-Shabab
The warriors of Hizbul-Islam one of the adversary Islamist functions in Somalia are in their hundreds joining Al-Shabab another Islamist function in Somalia, which is also extra superior than Hizbul-Islam according the areas which each group is controlling and in terms of fighters as well.
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Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim the commandant of Hizbul-Islam in the locations of Yaqbariweyne, Hakaba, Kanbahirig, Gobanle and some other villages which all come under the above mentioned locations has verified for the press that they have joined Al-Shabab.
“We warmly want to inform the press that from today henceforth we have joined Al-Shabab and by joining Al-Shabab is not something disgracing there were several leaders of Hizbul-Islam who have previously joined Al-Shabab and to mention one of them is Sheikh Hassan Turki the founder of the Islamists groups in Somalia, and the reason we have joined Al-Shabab is that we have seen that Hizbul-Islam is not as active as Al-Shabab, but they are instead passive” said Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim the former commandant of Hizbul-Islam in some parts of the lower shabelle region in southern Somalia.
The commandant Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim has as well added that they are very proud of amalgamating their strength to Al-Shabab, and has urged the remaining Hizbul-Islam fighters who in a few location in some of the regions in the country to follow their concept.
Garowe Online: Hizbul Islam in 'talks' with Somali TFG
A Somali minister claims his government is engaged in reconciliation talks with Somalia’s second militant group, Hizbul Islam.
Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister, who is also Deputy Prime Minister Abdirahman Hajji Aden Ibbi said the negotiations with the group, led by Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, have been going on for the past few weeks.
“The talks are progressing well and we are very hopeful that we will reach agreement with Hizbul Islam because this group has no ties with Al Qaeda,” Aden Ibbi told reporters in Mogadishu.
“Hizbul Islam promised us that it would hand over the control of their areas before The 50th anniversary of Somalia’s independence, we hope that the Somali flag will be raised in those areas, because this group is not against the sovereignty of our country,” he added.
It is not clear who is pushing for the talks from the government side or representing the militant group in the talks, as no word from Aweys, who has recently loss his officials to Al-Shabaab, leaving him with empty shell. Other reports also suggest that members from Hizbul Islam group have walked out of the negotiation table for unclear reasons.
APA quotes a slightly different translation of Aden Ibbi:
“The talks are on going smoothly and we are very hopeful that Hezbal Islam which has no ties to Al Qaeda will totally change its policies and will join the Somali government,” Aden Ibbi said.
“The 50th anniversary of Somalia’s independence is approaching and before it comes we hope that the Somali flag will be raised in areas under the control of Hezbal Islam. This means that they are not against the country’s independence and sovereignty,” he added.
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Garowe Online: Furious Soldiers storm Villa Somalia
Armed soldiers stormed Somalia’s presidential palace in a protest against non-payment, a lawmaker said.
Saleban Mohammed, who was among more than 20 other parliamentarians barred from getting out of the palace, said the incident happened Saturday evening after the soldiers barricaded the palace, holding all inside, including President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh hostage.
“They were so furious, they barricaded the front gate of the palace and also the offices. None of them spoke, they even refused us to get out,” he said.
Reports said that the angry soldiers were at some point involved in an exchange of gunfire with African Union troops who guard the palace. Two soldiers were injured in the incident.
It took the intervention of the President, who was advised by the lawmakers, to calm the soldiers, promising them to be paid their salaries.
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