Somalia's 'last chance' to become a stable country
blindbat
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/somalia/8745095/Somalias-last-chance-to-become-a-stable-country.html
those damn niggers are too scared to stand up to the pirates and insurgents , i see failure .this is one of the places we should just nuke and redevelop .
Somlia began its latest attempt to create political institutions capable of beating piracy, driving out Islamist insurgents and finally leading a stable country that has been ruled only by war for more than two decades.
Diplomats and senior aid officials flew in from neighbouring Kenya to witness Somalia's leaders sign a â road map' which should eventually lead to elections in less than a year.
The gathering was held in a Portacabin behind blast walls at Mogadishu's heavily-fortified airport, for fear of suicide attack by al-Shabaab, Somalia's anti-Western insurgents.
But the fact that so many high-level figures were able to attend at all was a testament to the improving security in the city, said President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
"The time to say Somalia is not peaceful has come to an end," he said after he and eight others signed the document, which commits the notoriously inefficient and corrupt Somali authorities to a strict timetable of reforms.
"The Somali people are expecting us to achieve full security so that they can have a good life.
"We will sustain and honour their dignity, and we will lead them to prosperity."
The three-day conference which culminated in yesterday's ceremony was sponsored by the United Nations.
It has channelled millions of pounds of British, European and international money into a series of attempts to fix the world's most failed state. So far, little has been achieved, one Somali MP admitted privately yesterday.
Sitting allowances paid by the European Union to Somalia's MPs, totalling GBP400,000 for 2010, were frozen earlier this year after too few failed to turn up to sessions.
Officials from the UN and Western diplomats attending the meetings said that there would be "graduated consequences" should the ambitious timetable slip significantly.
"This all should have happened a long time ago, these are the absolute most basic building blocks for the state," said one senior UN official.
"The patience of the international community is wearing thin, this really is the last chance and these guys have to get these basic things off the ground." Â Among the tasks ahead of the Transitional Federal Government, and its 550-member parliament, include drafting a new constitution, setting up an anti-corruption commission and reforming the parliament.
According to the â road map' agreed yesterday, the reforms and changes will culminate in national elections on August 20, 2012.
Because that would mean conducting a census and then registering voters â " including in government no-go areas held by Islamists â " that target is "unrealistic", said one European diplomat.
"In al-Shabaab areas, we need to see the government increase its political outreach to areas that are becoming more modestly stable, or freer of Shabaab than they have been before," he said.
"That's where the government can demonstrate it's got the political will to try and do this. From that, then I think you'll start to garner greater support." Â That support, and the money that comes with it, was heavily dependent on results, according to the Georges-Marc Andre, the EU's representative for Somalia.
"What the international community wants to see, in terms of investing large sums of money, is the accomplishment of all this that has been agreed today," he said.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The UK, both bilaterally and through the UN Security Council, has made clear that future support to [Somalia's political institutions] will be contingent upon progress in bringing the transition to a close."
those damn niggers are too scared to stand up to the pirates and insurgents , i see failure .this is one of the places we should just nuke and redevelop .
Comments
Somalia, you made some great joke subjects and South Park episodes.