Somalia
Expected Council Action
The Secretary-General’s report on implementation of the phased approach towards the eventual deployment of a UN peacekeeping operation, requested by the Council on 26 May in resolution 1872, is due by 30 September, but it is unlikely that the Council will take up the report in September.
It is also possible that the Somalia Sanctions Committee, which was due to deliver a midterm briefing, will also be pushed to October.
It seems likely that the issues in Somalia and the related regional issues will be on many minds during the high-level meetings in New York in September, and it is always possible that some new initiative could emerge as a result.
Key Recent Developments
In Mogadishu clashes between Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and the Al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam militant groups have continued since May. More than 200,000 people have fled their homes as a result. On 16 August a UN aid compound in southern Somalia was attacked. The UN Children’s Fund postponed the distribution of aid supplies in central and south Somalia on 13 August. The action followed previous instances of its supplies being taken or destroyed by local armed groups amid continuing insecurity.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, on 12 August welcomed the release of two pilots and four aid workers who had been abducted in November 2008.
Also on 12 August, masked gunmen killed seven Pakistani clerics at a mosque. The attack occurred on the southern edge of the semiautonomous northern Puntland region, a previously relatively stable region where there has recently been a decline in security.
The increasing violence has fostered renewed concerns that Somalia is attracting foreign fighters and may be becoming a base of operation for militants plotting attacks beyond the country’s borders.
On 8 August, a mortar battle occurred when insurgents opened fire on the airport in Mogadishu and the Somali presidential palace as the President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, returned from a meeting in Kenya with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
President Ahmed met with Clinton in Nairobi on 6 August, where they discussed issues affecting Somalia, including Eritrea. (There are allegations that Eritrea is supporting militant groups inside Somalia.) After meeting with the Somali president, Clinton warned that the US would take action against Eritrea if it does not stop supporting militants in Somalia. She called Eritrea’s actions unacceptable and said the US would increase its support for the TFG. Eritrea strongly denies that it supports Islamist insurgents in Somalia.
On 1 August, Burundi announced that it had deployed a third battalion of 850 soldiers to Mogadishu to reinforce the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The same day, a conference convened in Washington by the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) began to identify ways to strengthen the country’s security institutions. The conference included former and current officials from Somalia’s police and security forces.
The Security Council met on 29 July to discuss the situation in Somalia and the Secretary-General’s latest report on the issue. The same day, the Council was briefed by the chairman of the Somalia Sanctions Committee. It seems that the sanctions committee is close to agreeing upon a list of names of individuals and entities that would be subject to targeted sanctions.
The Secretary-General’s July report focused on the recent increased fighting in Mogadishu between forces of the TFG and insurgent groups such as Al-Shabaab. The report stressed that the security situation in Somalia remains very fluid, and cautioned that the TFG may be unable to sustain itself without the urgent military assistance and other support that it has appealed for.
Human Rights-Related Developments
Following his visit to the Horn of Africa in early June, the Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Somalia, Shamsul Bari, expressed serious concerns about the recruitment of children by armed groups and the violent targeting of human rights defenders, aid workers and journalists. For its 12th session (from 14 September to 2 October), the Human Rights Council has scheduled an interactive dialogue on the report of the Independent Expert. On 10 July the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, issued a press release drawing attention to grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law taking place in Somalia. Echoing remarks made by the Independent Expert, Pillay lamented the flow of refugees from Somalia into the overflowing camp at Dadaab in Kenya. |
Key Issues
A key issue remains the serious challenge being posed to the TFG by insurgent groups such as Al-Shabaab, and whether the TFG will receive adequate international support to be able to sustain itself.
Another issue is the complex and interrelated nature of issues confronting Somalia and the region, and whether the Council is willing and able to formulate a response to the current crisis in Somalia that is sufficiently comprehensive in a regional sense to address related issues involving Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
In practical terms, an immediate issue is how much attention the Council (and the US, which has the Council presidency for September) will be able to focus on Somalia during a very busy month. This will include the convening of the General Assembly and US President Barack Obama’s first address to the UN, as well as the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on 24 – 25 September.
Options
It seems that there are few options for Council discussion in September.
Council Dynamics
There seems to be some apprehension that the Secretary-General’s report on implementation of the phased approach may be too limited, especially due to the recent multiple attacks on humanitarian agencies and the subsequent suspension of some humanitarian operations. On the other hand, there seem to be no proposals for alternative approaches to the “light footprint”—which the phased approach calls for—although it is proving more difficult than originally hoped.
Council members seem to be still in the process of considering possible names for targeted sanctions, thus calling into question whether the imposition of such sanctions would be possible by the end of September.
There appears to be some recognition by Council members that all these issues will most likely need to be addressed on a regional level for a response to be effective, due to their interrelated nature.
The UK is the lead country on Somalia in the Council.
Selected Council Resolutions |
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Selected Secretary-General’s Report |
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Selected Meeting Records |
Selected Presidential Statements |
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Other Documents |
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Special Representative of the Secretary-General |
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah (Mauritania) |
UNPOS |
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Chairman of the Somalia Sanctions Committee |
Claude Heller (Mexico) |
AMISOM |
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