Annan says interested nations must
join efforts to aid reconciliation process
27 February - With the neighbouring
countries of Somalia taking a more pro-active role to further that
country’s national reconciliation efforts, United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has suggested that a committee of
interested nations be re-established to help the process along.
In his latest report to the Security Council on
the situation in Somalia, the Secretary-General says this so-called
Committee of Friends would focus on ways to draw attention to the
country’s needs in the area of national reconciliation and help
mobilize funds for rehabilitation and development.
The group would also support the decision taken at
the recent summit of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), an organization comprising countries in the Horn of Africa
region, to hold a Somalia reconciliation conference in Nairobi in
late April.
“The IGAD decision on Somalia is also
significant because it acknowledged that consensus among Somalia’s
neighbours is essential in order to support a way forward in the
search for a more broad-based transitional arrangement for the
country,” Mr. Annan observes. “The decision is therefore an
important development and the international community at large, and
the United Nations in particular, should support and assist in its
implementation.”
On the humanitarian front, the Secretary-General
reports that the situation remains perilous and that years have been
lost in terms of socio-economic and infrastructure development. He
stresses that the international community must increase its aid
programmes to Somalia “in creative and innovative ways,”
wherever the security situation allows. He also notes that access to
strategic sites such as airports and primary road networks and the
safety of UN staff and assets are basic requirements for increased
programme implementation.
“Somalia remains one of the most dangerous
environments in which the United Nations operates,” Mr. Annan
says, adding that under the current circumstances, a comprehensive
peace-building programme cannot yet be launched in Somalia.
Until more secure conditions emerge, the UN will
make greater efforts to ensure that the “peace dividend” aspect
of targeted assistance is fully exploited, the Secretary-General
writes. UN programmes will be expanded through humanitarian and
development projects as well as specific peace-building activities
focusing on community-based peace-building, reduction of small arms,
police training, quick impact projects aimed at improving security
and intensification of dialogue on humanitarian and development
issues.
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WINSTON A. TUBMAN APPOINTED
HEAD OF SOMALIA POLITICAL OFFICE
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has
designated Winston A. Tubman as Head of the United Nations Political
Office for Somalia (UNPOS). Mr.
Tubman will assume his duties next month in Nairobi, Kenya, where
the Office is currently located.
Mr. Tubman, who is a national of Liberia, has since February
1998 been the Senior Advisor to the Force Commander of the United
Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM).
Prior to that he was assigned to the United Nations Peace
Office in Zagreb, Croatia, and the United Nations Peacekeeping
Mission in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES).
He
served as Principal Legal Officer in the Office of Legal Affairs
from 1973-1975 and from 1991 to 1996, and with the United Nations
Environment Programme from 1975-1977.
He was also a member of the various United Nations legal
teams. In 1993, he
served as Executive Secretary of the Commission of Inquiry that
investigated the ambush and killing of Pakistani peacekeepers in
Mogadishu.
Earlier, he served in many areas of public life.
In 1990, he was Chair of the Legal and Constitutional
Committee of the group of Liberian political leaders meeting in
Banjul, Gambia, that established an interim government in Liberia
and later served as its Foreign Minister and as Minister of State.
He
has occupied a number of senior positions in the Government of
Liberia, including Permanent Representative to the United Nations
from 1979 to 1981 with concurrent accreditation as Ambassador to
Cuba and Mexico, and before that, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs.
In
1968, he established the Tubman Law Firm in Monrovia, Liberia, and
served as its Managing and Senior Partner over the next two decades.
He is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of Liberia and
taught law at the University of Liberia (1968-1972) and at
universities in the United States.
Mr. Tubman obtained his graduate degrees from the London
School of Economics, Cambridge University and Harvard Law School.
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Abdulmejid
Refutes, Djiboutian Communiqué As "Preposterous"
Addis
Ababa, February 27, 2002 (WIC) - Dr. Abdulmejid Hussien Ethiopia's
Permanent Representative to the UN strongly refuted the recent
communiqué issued by the Djiboutian Foreign Ministry as
preposterous.
Reacting to the communiqué which
was issued following his comments regarding Somalia in a Reuter's
news story, Dr. Abdulmejid said the Djiboutian Foreign Minister as
an official of a friendly country could have cleared what he said
was a misconception before they issued the communiqué based on the
misquoted report of Reuters.
"What
came out of Djibouti is infact preposterous and to start with, as a
friendly country they could have just cleared before they issued the
communiqué. They could have asked our ambassador there or the
Foreign Ministry of Ethiopia. They didn't choose that for reasons
only known to them. They have infact used the public way of trying
to do some thing which was not directed to Djibouti but Somalia,
this is the question that we are helpless about.
According
to Ambassador Abdulmejid Djibouti seemed to designate itself to
speak on behalf of Somalia where Ethiopia is paying for most of the
problems in Somalia.
"We
are not going to apologize to any body in this region or out side
it. Together with IGAD member countries we want to have a stable and
peaceful Somalia. We have been working for that (peaceful Somalia)
for long time, we will continue to do that despite those who want to
destroy Ethiopia from this or that direction and then labeling it as
interfering in Somalia affairs because we do not."
Meanwhile
the Ambassador said Reuters wrongly had quoted him when it carried a
statement saying that "Ethiopia will change the game in Somalia
if Somali factions failed to do it" while what he told was
infact that Reuters "factions that will not be willing to
attend the Somalia reconciliation conference in Nairobi to be held
in March will be ostracized."
According
to him it has always been Ethiopia's stand that Somalia's problem
will be solved by the Somalis themselves.
The
Ambassador indicated that the statement carried by Reuters to the
effect that "if the majority of the players in Somalia are not
playing the game in Somalia and then Ethiopia will change the rules
of the game", was not his statement."
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SRRC
consultation begins on Thursday
Addis
Ababa, February 28, 2002(ENA)- Consultation will get underway on
Thursday among members of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration
Council (SRRC) and other Somali political groups not part of the
Transitional National Government (TNG).
A
press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the
consultation is a follow-up to the understanding reached at the
Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) Council of
Ministers meeting in Nairobi on 14 February 2002.
The
meeting is designed to prepare for the upcoming national
reconciliation conference, that is hoped will include all Somali
political forces for its success, the release said.
"It
is also hoped that this process of consultation would ensure the
constructive participation of all Somali forces in the national
reconciliation conference," it said.