Republic of Somaliland hails UN reaffirmation of arms embargo on Somalia

The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Somaliland, Saturday, warmly hailed the UN Security Council’s reaffirmation the arms embargo on Somalia.

Since the central government in Mogadishu collapsed in 1991, that part of the country has been oscillating from bad to worse in terms of political, economic and social stability. Up to this day, it is still ‘raining bombs and bullets’, as some observers put it.

Despite that fact, the leaders at Villa Somalia has been painting a picture that has no relations with the reality to the international community, including the august chambers of the United Nations. One objective which seems to be a common factor to the very frequent jet-hopping of President Farmajo and PM Khairre is more frequent requests put to international partners to intercede in an early lift of the arms embargo. Of course, the leaders intentionally opt to omit the fact that they hardly govern a radius beyond a kilometer of their seat of governance – Villa Somalia – even in Mogadishu itself.

Following a report the UN SEMG submitted to the Security Council, that body decided to lift  the sanctions that it had enforced on Eritrea for nine years but retain its earlier decision on not permitting ‘Somalia’ to import armaments beyond the most necessary quota due to the prevailing circumstances, and that country’s absence of leadership and unity to credibly account for or control imported weapons.

Weapons and ammunition of all types are openly on sale on the streets of Mogadishu – let alone outside of it – open to all buyers, regardless.

The Somaliland ‘Press-Statement’ read as follows:

The Government of the Republic of Somaliland welcomes the renewed extension of the arms embargo on Somalia by the UN Security Council on Nov 2018. In this opportunity, the Republic of Somaliland wants to reiterate that Somalia administration has no capacity and political authority to control over the weapons and ammunition as even the Security Council report on Nov 2018, which stated; ‘the deficiencies of the political authorities in Somalia to control weapons and military equipment.”

In this respect, the Government of the Republic of Somaliland is very grateful to the members of the Security Council for this commending step forward to continue the arms embargo on Somalia. Somaliland Government believes that any weapons provided to Somalia administration is a real threat against the Government of Somaliland, its neighboring states and international peace. The Government of Somaliland is strongly condemning those states that provide weapons to Somalia, which at the end fall the hands of terrorist and clan militias.

Moreover, Somaliland is calling international community, in particular, the UN Security Council mandated to maintain regional and international peace, to sustain continuation of the arms embargo on Somalia, with which arms embargo is an integral part of maintaining regional and International peace.

Somaliland has deep concerns those countries that breach arms embargo by providing Somalia a military assistance and as the Monitoring Group illustrated that weapons and military equipment provided to Somalia are not pursuing regularly the compliance of the arms embargo standards.

Somaliland is welcoming the regional peaceful resolutions most notably the Ethiopia and Eritrea successful bilateral talks and conclusion of the border dispute between two countries. The Djibouti and Eritrea border conflict that has existed since 2008, and we consider this, ms a regional burden and needs to be resolved through this avenue of the regional cooperation.

Somaliland government is encouraging the members of the Security Council, IGAD, Africa Union and United Nations to supports efforts to resume the bilateral talks between Somaliland and Somalia for the benefit of the regional and international peace. Whilst the Hom of Africa region has notable experiences of such bilateral peaceful resolutions regarding the cases of Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan.

Lastly, the Security Council is aware that Somaliland has contributed to regional and international peace, security and political stability over the past 27 years. Somaliland yet remains to fight against terrorism, arms smuggling, human trafficking, regional, and international, regional economic integration is a national priority for Somaliland.