Bombs, Bandits Hinder Aid to Somalia

By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 11, 2007; A11

Rising insecurity in Somalia is hampering delivery of humanitarian aid to people who need it most, an adviser to the Oxfam relief agency said Tuesday.

Roadside bombs, banditry and roadblock gunmen demanding $500 per truck of relief supplies have made "getting the right quantities to the right people a problem," said Robert Maletta. In some areas where displaced people are now living, few aid agencies are operating on the ground, he added.

In June and July, close to 7,000 people fled general insecurity and clashes in the capital, Mogadishu, he said. Of 404,000 people displaced within the country since February, only 125,000 have returned to their homes.

Last December, Ethiopian troops drove the radical Islamic Courts movement from Mogadishu and installed a U.N.-backed transitional government. Militiamen supporting the Islamic movement and some of the country's powerful clans have continued to harass the Ethiopians and their Somali allies.

Because of historical and cultural differences, many Somalis see Ethiopians as a hostile invading force, Maletta said: "The trick is how to get Ethiopia out while keeping the transitional government from collapsing." He suggested looking into integrated missions of several U.N. agencies.

The Mogadishu government has been under international pressure to convene a national reconciliation gathering. The meeting has already been postponed three times and it is unclear if the latest date of July 15 will begin a broad consensual effort toward national recovery and forgiveness.

Some groups have said they will not attend until Ethiopia pulls out its troops.

International observers and the transitional government say that hard-core Islamic Courts leaders and opposition figures including former members of parliament have gathered in Asmara, Eritrea, and have formed a loose alliance under the aegis of the Eritrean government.

A Human Rights Watch report last week said the Ethiopian military has forcibly displaced thousands of civilians in Ethiopia's eastern region in the course of escalating a campaign against the Ogaden National Liberation Front, an ethnic Somali rebel group.

The action could be part of an effort to sever links among the rebels, the Islamic Courts and Eritrea, including arms and supply lines from Eritrea and Somalia to the rebels.

Maletta said Somalia needs help in building its institutions, but he emphasized that the solutions have to come from Somalis themselves. "Give them the tools and they will get out and fix it. Somalis are not passive victims," he said.

"The role of the international community would be to support Somali institutions without taking them over," said Maletta, who has spent time in Somalia before and during the current conflict.