Somalia's fragile leadership, its neighbours and international allies meet in London today in the hopes of stabilising the country's government and containing the threat from Islamic militants.
About 50 nations and international organisations will attend the one-day summit on Thursday, including Somalia's Western-backed transitional government, officials from the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
However many are sceptical the talks can agree on concrete steps to address Somalia's complex problems – pirates who target international shipping, the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab which holds territory in the country's centre and south and the effects of a lengthy famine which Britain's government estimates have killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people.
Others suspect the attention of Clinton and world leaders is currently focused on more urgent troubles, including the crisis in Syria – which will be discussed in meetings on the sidelines of the conference.
Somalia has had transitional administrations for the past seven years, but not had a functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and turned on each other, plunging the nation into two decades of chaos. The weak UN-backed administration – which holds the capital, Mogadishu, with the support of about 12,000 African Union soldiers – has been boosted by recent offensives against al-Shabab and UN approval Wednesday for an increase in the size of the peacekeeping mission.
"We are moving from an era of warlordism, terrorism, extremism and piracy and we are moving into an era of peace, stability and normalcy," Somali prime minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali told BBC radio. "Twenty years of lawlessness, violence and chaos is enough. Somalis are ready to move on."
No comments:
Post a Comment