Har Somalia brug for dét efter mere end to årtiers borgerkrig? Her i marts neddroslede FNs Sikkerhedsråd mange års våbenblokade mod det kaotiske land på Afrikas Horn og gav den nye civile regering lov til at indføre lette våben i 12 måneder.
NAIROBI, 21 March 2013 (IRIN): The move, according to proponents (fortalere), will give poorly-equipped security forces a much-needed edge over the Islamist Al-Shabab group, but critics warn that the new imports could end up in the hands of insurgency and increase the risk of human rights abuses (overgreb).
“On the arms embargo, originally imposed in 1992, the Council decided that it would not apply to arms or equipment sold or supplied solely for the development of the government’s security forces, but it kept its restrictions in place on heavy weapons, such as surface-to-air missiles,” UN Security Council Resolution 2093, adopted on 6 March, said.
The government – or member states delivering weapons – are required to notify the Council’s sanctions committee of any such deliveries.
Below, IRIN has put together a briefing on the implications of easing the embargo.
Why ease the embargo?
For more than two decades after the fall of Siyad Barre in 1991, Somalia experienced widespread gun violence in the form of clan conflict and, more recently, conflict involving the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)-supported government and Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabab.
According to the UN Monitoring Group for Somalia and Eritrea, between May 2004 and July 2011, some 445 instances of arms transfers or seizures, involving almost 50.000 small arms and light weapons, took place in Somalia.
Also in violation of the embargo, arms continued to flow into Somalia by land, air and sea from countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia and Yemen.
But following more than a year of relative stability in Mogadishu and many other parts of south-central Somalia, some analysts expressed a desire to see the UN relax the embargo.
In February, the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), a Mogadishu-based think tank, urged the US to “lobby for a gradual end to the arms embargo on Somalia… so that the Federal Government can take a qualitative monopoly on the instruments of legitimate violence”.
“Currently, all actors are armed to the teeth”
Easing the arms embargo would, according to HIPS director Abdi Aynte, “gradually give the Somali National Army [SNA] the qualitative edge over their principal adversaries, such as Al-Shabab”.
“At the moment, the SNA is battling Al-Shabab using the same [old] AK47s. They would have to change that, especially if we want the SNA to ultimately defeat Al-Shabab,” he told IRIN, adding:
“It would allow the Somali government to gradually monopolize the use of legitimate force. Currently, all actors are armed to the teeth, and that will not change for some time, but it could be reversed over time.”
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud welcomed the decision to lift the embargo as a reflection of “a new and steadily improving political situation in Somalia”.
“Thousands of Somali National Army recruits, trained by our international partners, have returned to Somalia but have been unable to perform their security duties effectively alongside AMISOM troops because the government was unable to access the equipment they needed,” he noted, adding:
“Lifting the arms embargo was the missing element, and now the gap has been filled.”
Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, a Horn of Africa analyst, said the resolution made necessary compromises between the need for legitimate weapons and the fear of illegal ones.
“The way the resolution was crafted struck a balance between the concerns of those who feel the country is still [too] awash with weapons for the embargo to be lifted, and those who consider the government needs to be able to purchase weapons to provide security for its people,” he said.
What are the risks?
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97703/Briefing-The-risks-and-rewards-of-easing-Somalia-s-arms-embargo
