CNN:
Cameron warns global security rests on Somalia’s future
British Prime Minister David Cameron urged the international community Thursday to help Somalia’s feeble government tackle piracy, militants and hunger.
Otherwise, he said, the world risks terror threats from the troubled African nation.
World leaders met Thursday in London to address terror and conflict in the Horn of Africa nation and find ways to resolve other critical problems, including famine and weak leadership.
British Foreign Minister William Hague dismissed criticism of the conference by some who said it lacked enough Somali input.
“It’s not western, it’s global,” he told CNN. “Part of our objective here is to build up the local governments, the regional governments, the institutions that have been able to take root … which is why they are all here. It’s not top down at all.”
Representatives from 40 countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, attended the conference on stabilizing and rebuilding Somalia after decades of war.
“These problems in Somalia don’t just affect Somalia. They affect us all,” Cameron said at the event.
“In a country where there is no hope, chaos, violence and terrorism thrive,” he said. “Pirates are disrupting vital trade routes and kidnapping tourists. Young minds are being poisoned by radicalism, breeding terrorism that is threatening the security of the whole world.”
Cameron said the world cannot afford to look the other way any more.
“If the rest of us just sit back and look on, we will pay a price for doing so,” he said. “For two decades, politicians in the West have too often dismissed the problems in Somalia as simply too difficult and too remote to deal with.”
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said Al-Shabaab’s recent announcement that it had joined the al Qaeda terrorist network should serve as a wake-up call.
“Clearly, a new and more dangerous theater for terrorist action has emerged in Somalia, and this calls for focused and concerted international effort,” said Kibaki, whose nation hosts the world’s largest refugee camp. Dadaab is brimming with desperate Somalis who have fled their homeland.
Kibaki said it was vital to develop a Somali national security force in order to guarantee long-term security and stability.
“In this regard, there is need to support the setting up of a nucleus Somali armed force,” he said.
