Somali leaders ban landmines
2002-11-12 15:09
Eldoret - The transitional government of Somalia and most of the war-torn country's faction leaders have signed a commitment with a humanitarian organisation to ban landmines in the areas they control.
They also called on the US to lift a freeze on Somali assets imposed after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to rescind their ban on the importing of Somali livestock.
The head of the humanitarian organisation, Geneva Call, said the agreement obliged the signatories to destroy and clear landmines and care for victims of the weapons.
The organisation's president Elizabeth Decrey called the agreement signed on Monday in central Kenya where Somali peace talks are under way, "a step forward in the peace process".
The Geneva-based group, which says some 4 400 Somalis have been killed or maimed by mines since 1995, was set up in March 2000 by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to get armed groups outside government control to ban the weapons whose main victims in Africa are civilians.
Rebel groups and other non-governmental bodies cannot be party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since President Mohamed Siad Barre's ouster in 1991. The leaders of clan-based political factions who overthrew him fought with one another, turning the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million into battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.
President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan and 245-legislators were elected at a gathering of clan representatives in neighbouring Djibouti in August 2000.
But the transitional government has little influence outside Mogadishu, the capital and has failed to disarm the thousands of gunmen around the country and reconcile its opponents.
The United States froze the assets of Somali companies involved in money transfers which Washington alleged were funding international terrorism.
In a statement on Monday, Somali leaders, elders and women's representatives attending the peace talks said the freezing of the assets of Al-Barakat and other money transfer companies had resulted in economic hardship for thousands of small depositors and made over 3 000 Somalis jobless.
Since the collapse of the banking system in 1991, Somalis have relied on the country's eight remittance banks to receive money from relatives living abroad.
The UN estimates Somali remittances annually total between $200m and $500m; in 2000, emergency international aid to Somalia amounted to between $50-60m.
The leaders said the ban on livestock imports to traditional customers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE has directly affected the livelihood of 3 million Somalis and has resulted in a disturbing increase in crime and violence. The leaders say the livestock are now free from the bovine fever that first led to the import ban.
"It is our hope that the two above-mentioned issues would serve as encouragement to the spirit of the Somali reconciliation," the leaders said.
Peace talks aimed at establishing an effective Somali government and rebuilding the crippled economy have been going on since October 15 in the central Kenyan town of Eldoret. Representatives of the transitional government and the major Somali factions agreed to a ceasefire on October 31. - Sapa-AP
- SAPA