Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Howell of Guildford (Conservative). It was answered on Wednesday, 14 January 2009.

Somalia

Question: My Lords, as the Ethiopian troops began withdrawing only the day before yesterday—on Tuesday—does the Minister agree that it is possibly a little early to judge the security situation and the power vacuum that they leave? However, is it not clear that the al-Shabab Islamic extremists will have a much freer run for the moment, and that action internationally is required? Are we, the British, supporting the American draft resolution for a UN force to be in place by 1 June, if that is not too late?

Answer: My Lords, I take a very important correction from the noble Lord; it is too soon to say with any confidence that the security situation has improved. There has been a fundamental debate about the Ethiopian forces, whose intervention into the country we certainly understood the reasons for, and whether they have become more of a source of the conflict than a solution to it. Certainly, al-Shabab and the other hard-line Muslim elements in the country have essentially mobilised themselves against the Ethiopian presence, and if you read the language in which they have cast the Ethiopians as a proxy of the United States in Somalia, you can see that they have in some ways become part of the problem, not just part of the solution. We have to wait and see what impact the Ethiopian withdrawal will have on the security situation. On the second point, we are working very closely with the Americans to secure a resolution. We are, however, taking care to make sure that there is no open-ended commitment of a UN peacekeeping force without political progress and sufficient conditions of security to ensure that that force could be effective.

Secondary information

Type: Oral question
Reference: 706 c1223-4
Session: 2008-09
Oral question type: Supplementary
Chamber / Committee: House of Lords chamber
Subjects: Armed conflict Politics and government Peace negotiations Somalia UN Security Council
Link: View this Oral question on www.publications.parliament.uk