Kenya, 2006

Let me add my voice of

congratulations to President Sheikha Haya Rashed

Al-Khalifa on her assumption of this driving seat,

which has mainly been occupied by men in the history

of the United Nations. Before this Assembly last week,

we welcomed the first African woman to become a

national President — Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia.

At last, the glass ceiling that has tended to frustrate the

attempts of women to become presidents is surely

cracking in several places. We should celebrate that.

Let me also congratulate Ambassador Jan

Eliasson of Sweden for a job well done as President of

this Assembly.

Kenya is a United Nations country. We attach

special significance to our being hosts of the biggest

United Nations centre outside the developed world —

the United Nations Office at Nairobi, which also hosts

the global headquarters of the United Nations

Environment Programme and the United Nations

Human Settlements Programme. We are a major

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contributor to United Nations peace missions around

the world. We subscribe to the principles and ideals of

this Organization and have always upheld its Charter.

In my contribution to this general debate, allow

me to dwell on the crisis that is Somalia. I do not think

that I need to remind the world that there is a crisis in

Somalia, but I believe that I must encourage the

community of nations to understand that the problem

of Somalia is not going to go away unless we take

deliberate steps to address the crisis. The comfortable

thing to do is to look at Somalia as being far away and

hope that the problem will resolve itself somehow.

This afternoon, I bring the bad news that the

problem of Somalia is not going to get resolved

somehow by itself. All of us, the community of

nations, must chip in. If, for a moment, we dwell on the

comforting notion that Somali does not concern us,

then it may be worth talking to my friends from South

Korea or China, which are 8,000 to 10,000 kilometres

away from Somalia. A few months ago, pirates from

Somalia hijacked merchant ships in international

waters off the coast of Somalia. It was only after

protracted negotiations that included use of Kenyan

intelligence that the merchant seamen from South

Korea and China were released safely to their families.

I recount this story of merchant seamen so that all

of us in the international community should appreciate

that the Somali phenomenon, with no Government in

place, is a danger not just to neighbouring countries,

but to the whole world. As criminal elements establish

their safe enclaves in a country like Somalia, the

neighbouring countries and the international

community are soon forced to intervene, even

militarily, to free hostages, to hunt terrorists or to flush

out rebels.

In the new global village, we are all neighbours

of Somalia. As a front-line State to that country in

crisis, we have participated in negotiations to free

hostages. We have cooperated in attempts to arrest

criminal elements. We continue to host close to a

million refugees. We provide life-saving support in

terms of medical facilities and supplies. But above all,

we continue to work on efforts to create peace in

Somalia. The Transitional Federal Government, the

Transitional Charter and the Transitional Federal

Parliament were established all as a result of a process

that took place in Nairobi when we hosted up to 2,000

representatives from a cross-section of Somalia over a

period of two years.

Today, I appeal to the rest of the world to take

deliberate steps to help Somalia. The time to help is

now. Tomorrow may be too late.

There are many communities around the world

that attach great importance to funerals. In those

communities, most people only stand by and watch

when their kin have fallen ill. An occasional visit and

some token of support are what obtains. As soon as the

patient dies, an avalanche of support flows in. The

community of nations must not take that cynical or

undertaker’s approach. We are already too late, and any

intervention we implement now is of an ambulance-

and-fire-brigade variety, at best, but it is better than

simply standing by like spectators.

Somalia is almost dying. We can see it. We have

known that for the past 16 years. This is the time to

send in life-saving support. It is really a tribute to the

resilience of the Somali people that there are still living

human beings in that country. One day or one month

without Government, police, hospitals or banks in

modern society is unimaginable. The Somalis have

endured for 16 years. How much longer are they

expected to endure? Where is the international rescue

plan with a billion dollars? Where is the Marshall Plan

for Somalia?

Even a much better but devastated Japan and

Germany needed a Marshall Plan after the Second

World War. We in our region are sure that humanitarian

intervention now will yield better and faster results

than military intervention and at a much cheaper price

than sending troops to pursue criminal elements in a

failed State. That is not rocket science or complex

economic theory. That is common sense. All we need is

the will and the focus to apply ourselves collectively to

the problem of Somalia. I appreciate how difficult it is

to be focused, given the several competing issues

around the world, but focused we must be if we are to

avoid the current flip-flopping from one crisis to

another like chickens with their heads cut off.

I hear talk today about religious extremists in

Somalia. What did we expect? Our own seven-year-old

children become extremists in our households if they

go without food for one day. Somali children, youth,

women and men have been going hungry for 16 years

and living under very difficult circumstances. To be

extremist is the normal human reaction in such

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circumstances and one does not have to have studied

psychiatry at the PhD level to recognize that. If similar

circumstances in Somalia prevailed in other countries,

we all know that moderation would be the exception.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to brief the

Security Council on the position of the

Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

on Somalia. Our IGAD position is to support the

Transitional Federal Government, together with such

legitimate transitional federal institutions as the

Parliament in Baidoa and the Transitional Charter that

is the broadly negotiated road map for Somalia.

As IGAD, we have also opened a window of

dialogue with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Some

four weeks ago, I met representatives of the ICU in

Nairobi. We believe that, as in all situations of conflict,

the final resolution is best achieved through dialogue.

That is why, in our communiqué issued in Nairobi, we

welcomed the Khartoum talks that brought together the

Transitional Federal Government and the ICU. But we

are also concerned that communiqués after these

dialogue conferences should be genuine. Soon after the

Khartoum meeting, the news from Somalia has not

been encouraging. There was an assassination attempt

on the life of President Yusuf. One more city was

overtaken by the ICU, not to mention the cold-blooded

murder of a long-serving humanitarian worker, a

dedicated Catholic nun. The upbeat communiqué

released from Khartoum begins to look like a sandwich

without meat, fed to a world that is starved of any

encouraging news from Somalia.

There is a critical path that was set up by IGAD

with the help of the international community and that

resulted in the formation of the Somali Transitional

Charter that is recognized by the African Union and the

United Nations. We are encouraged by the United

Nations positive endorsement of the Transitional

Charter, which includes the Transitional Federal

Government and the Transitional Federal Parliament.

Indeed, the Transitional Federal Government is fully

accredited to the United Nations, the African Union

and IGAD, and the presidency of the Security Council

has articulated that recognition through its various

communications, including the presidential statement

of 13 July.

However, there is a major obstacle faced by the

Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. Without

substantive international support beyond the

recognitions, accreditations, resolutions and statements

I have alluded to, the bottom line remains that the

Transitional Federal Government is like people thrown

into the deep end of turbulent waters and are expected

to swim with their hands tied behind their backs while

hungry crocodiles surround them. It is not a very

encouraging scenario. That is why we appeal for more

meaningful support for the Transitional Federal

Government, even as we insist that it continue to

dialogue with various groupings in Somalia.

The international community must work to help

Somalia and not inadvertently compound the problem

in that country. It is vital that the international

community consolidate its efforts and not send

discordant messages from Stockholm, New York,

Nairobi, Khartoum, Cairo, Addis Ababa or anywhere

else. Whatever the motives behind the proliferation of

initiatives from different capitals, we must recognize

that discordant signals act only to give incentive to

some of the actors on the ground to attempt to establish

new facts on the ground that they may leverage in

future negotiations.

I discussed that matter with the Secretary-General

of the Arab League this morning and yesterday. Kenya

has put forward the following proposal, which I would

like to share with the General Assembly. We propose

that an international joint committee on Somalia be

constituted with the following membership: IGAD,

representing the front-line States; the African Union;

the Arab League, also representing the front-line

States; the European Union; and the United Nations,

with at least one or two permanent members of the

Security Council to be included. It is our submission

that the international joint commission will help

consolidate our efforts and bring about a speedier

resolution of the problem.

It is worth noting that the initiative that resulted

in the formation of the current Transitional Federal

Government was the fourteenth attempt to resolve the

Somali conflict after 14 years. Its collapse would bring

us back to square one in terms of coming up with an

institutional framework that enjoys political legitimacy.

The Secretary-General of the Arab League has

expressed his support for the Kenyan proposal and we

hope that we can proceed on that path by building on

the foundations already established by IGAD, rather

than allow another proliferation of vertical initiatives.

We appeal to other partners to embrace the proposal.

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On a more hopeful note, let me register our

delight at the progress made by our neighbours

Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa in brokering the

Burundi peace agreement. We commend their

collective effort. The news from the Democratic

Republic of the Congo is also encouraging.

As Kenya takes over the chairmanship of the

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region,

which will convene in December this year, let me

assure the Assembly that we will do our best to

contribute to the stabilization of our region, which is

really a very tough neighbourhood to live in.

Finally, let me congratulate Secretary-General

Kofi Annan on his exemplary stewardship of this world

body. As a brother from Africa, I can confidently say

that he has done us proud.