East African states on Tuesday imposed travel sanctions and froze the bank accounts of Somali warlords who have been blamed for igniting the latest round of deadly fighting in the capital, Mogadishu.
A ministerial meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc key to the formation of Somalia’s transitional government, agreed to catalogue “all those involved in the use of illegal arms” and recommended they should be “subjected to legal international process for prosecution for crimes against humanity”.
The sanctions, which took immediate effect, include imposing a travel ban and freezing the bank accounts of all warlords, with the exception of those who surrender, and open dialogue with the powerless Somali administration, according to an official communiqué.
In apparent reference to Washington’s backing of the weakened warlords, IGAD countries, namely Uganda, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and nominally Somalia, urged the “members of the international community not to offer official or non-official unilateral support to any party” in Somalia without consulting IGAD and the federal government.
The sanctions will affect warlords — some of whom are members of the Joint Islamic Courts — who have families and business interests across the region, officials said.
Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said imposing sanctions was the only way to restrain the United States-backed warlords, who are reported to regrouping in northern Mogadishu and their remaining stronghold of Jowhar, 90km north of the capital.
Kenya was the first regional country to slap sanctions on the warlords. Last week it deported prominent Mogadishu businessman Abdirashid Shire Hussein, accused of financing the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT).
Previous attempts to implement such sanctions have foundered, with some IGAD members accused of taking sides in the intricate Somalia conflict and violating the 1992 arms embargo.
In addition, the ministers agreed that the arms embargo should remain in place, but exemptions should be made to allow the government to establish law and order.
Yemen has offered to mediate dialogue between the Joint Islamic Courts’ alliance, which last week seized large swathes of the capital from the warlords, and President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s government.
Talks launched a fortnight ago collapsed over the weekend when the hard-line Islamists pulled out in protest at the government’s proposal for the deployment of peacekeepers in Somalia.
European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel said the world must empower the Somali government, based in the regional town of Baidoa, about 250km north-west of the capital, if stability is to return to Somalia.
“The time for divisions, polemics and symbolic gestures has ended. We must move from mere moral support to effective tangible results,” Michel told the ministers.
Outgoing US ambassador Willam Bellamy said Washington, which has been chided for its covert operation in Somalia, is willing to help Kenya restore peace in the shattered Horn of Africa nation.
“We need to help Somalis start serious reconciliation processes,” Bellamy said. “The US and Kenya want to see [that] dialogue and reconciliation are achieved in Somalia.”
Nearly 350 people were killed and more than 2 000 wounded, many of them civilians, in four months of bloody battles in Mogadishu before the Islamic militia routed the ARPCT. — AFP