Somalia's Neighbours call on United Nations to set up Blockade

Somalia's neighbours have called on the United Nations to set up an air, sea and land blockade on the Horn of Africa nation and also impose sanctions on Eritrea for arming Islamist insurgents pushing to topple the Somali government.

The Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) - a grouping which includes the countries Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti and Somalia - said that Eritrea must he held accountable. Eritrea suspended its membership in IGAD already in 2007.

The 33rd Extra-Ordinary Session of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Council of Ministers stated: 'The council ... condemns the government of Eritrea and its financiers, who continue to instigate, recruit, train, fund and supply the criminal elements in ... Somalia,' the body said in a statement after a council of ministers met in Addis Ababa on Wednesday. 'The council ... calls upon the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on the government of Eritrea without any delay,' it added. IGAD also called on the UN to block all flights to Somali airports except for those bringing humanitarian aid and to blockade sea ports particularly Kismayo and Merka in order to stop not only more weapons coming in, but also foreign fighters who diplomats say are streaming into Somalia to join the fight.

The Council, however, noted that the UNSC arms embargo does not apply to the TFG while analysts say that weapons also reach Somalia from Yemen. The Council received briefs from the Somali Delegation and IGAD Facilitator for Somalia Peace and National Reconciliation. In attendance at the session presided over by Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin were Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Djibouti, Kenya (Wetangu’la), Uganda, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG), the State Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Sudan and Executive Secretary of IGAD.

The African Union commission Chief Jean Ping, who also attended this IGAD council meeting, once again called for a UN peacekeeping force in Somalia to respond to the threat to international security. "I wish to once again call on the UN Security Council to authorize the deployment of a fully-fledged peacekeeping mission in Somalia and respond to the threat to the international peace and security," he said. Ping's call comes only days after a UN delegation visiting the region said conditions for deploying peacekeepers were not appropriate yet. While the six-nation East African body - rather then implementing it by it's members but passing the buck to the United Nations - has urged the UN to impose an aerial and maritime blockade on Somalia, regional analysts warn of such a move, because it never could be implemented properly and only would create options for criminal networks to earn more money by providing blockade-breaking services and deals, like it had to be observed in the former Yugoslavia or the oil-for-food scheme concerning Iraq, which even lured the son of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan into controversial deals.

Though Kofi was later cleared of charges, the investigation gave a sharply critical account of efforts by Annan's son, Kojo Annan, to deceive investigators and his father about his financial relationship with his former employer, Geneva-based Cotecna Inspection Services SA. "Our assignment has been to look for mis- or mal-administration in the oil-for-food program, and for evidence of corruption within the U.N. organization and by contractors. Unhappily, we found both," chief investigator and former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, the head of the Independent Inquiry Committee, had to tell the UN security council.

Source: Ecoterra May 21, 2009

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