by Paul Ohia

Lagos — Focus has been on Iran, North Korea and even Gabon, Somalia's predicament has been overlooked in recent weeks. As the situation in the embattled African nation has worsened dramatically as of late, attention may turn there once more.

Just last week, the speaker of the country's parliament, Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur, renewed calls for foreign military aid in response to a flourish of increased bloodshed in Mogadishu.

The belligerence has mostly been between the Somali transitional government and a assortment of militant Islamist force. The most notable being a group called al-Shabab, which may have ties with al-Qaeda.

Those militant groups have been acting with a growing degree of impunity in the country's capital and recently they captured a police station and gunned down a number of high-ranking political figures, including the security minister and the chief of police.

Nur asked for aid specifically from nearby countries like Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Yemen but al-Shabab threatened to sack the Kenyan capital of Nairobi should that country intervene.

Somalia's hardline al Shaabab Islamists has vowed to fight any foreign troops that come to the aid of the Horn of African government.

An Ethiopian peacekeeping force occupied Somalia until this past January when their 2-year peacekeeping mandate expired. The remaining 4,300 African Union troops in the country do not have the authority to pursue action against the militants.

Will this remain the story of Somalia forever? Off the coast, pirates constantly attack ships despite patrol by a coalition of nations. Just recently some Nigerians were rescued from them after several months in bondage.

The big question is: What can be done to bring law and order after 18 years to a country where men use guns to resolve disputes and make a living?

With this question in mind, the two days meeting scheduled for this week in Brussels becomes very important. At the forum, international donors would try to help the anarchic nation by encouraging donors aim to raise millions to build up the country's weak security and peacekeeping forces on land, hoping that will reduce the rampant banditry plaguing the world's mariners.

But the mariners plight needs not be the major focus at this summit because this would be like facing the symptom and abandoning the real ailment which is lack of stable government.

This writer had it on good authority that the United Nations hopes to build up a national army of 6,000 soldiers and a police force of 10,000 in the future - at a cost of $31 million per year.

The Washington Examiner said that the police programme was halted in 2007 and 2008 because of suspected fraud, but it has since resumed. The key donors to that programme have been the European Commission, France, Norway, Sweden, UK and the United States.

According to the UN Political Office for Somalia, if the conference were to meet its goals of raising at least euro200 million ($260 million) the Somali transitional government would have the means to fund the establishment of a national security force of 6,000 members and a 10,000-strong police force.

This conference may signal the beginning of better deals for Somalia because, in the past there had been no follow-up to similar endeavours. The type of follow-up expected now would be the one where the well trained citizens are encouraged to take up issues of security against militants and the issue of foreign intervention will be relegated to the background.

Source: THISDAY (Nigeria)