Lucas Barasa
21 March 2006
Nairobi — Seven countries yesterday agreed to deploy security forces to Somalia to help find lasting peace in the country.
Under the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the countries also agreed to establish a regional emergency fund involving the private sector to fight ravaging famine in the Horn of Africa.
In a 56-point communiqué released after a one-day Summit in Nairobi, Presidents Kibaki, Omar El Bashir (Sudan), Abdullahi Yusuf (Somalia), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) and Ismael Omar Guelleh (Djibouti) further welcomed the progress made in the implementation of peace deal for Sudan.
Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Mr Meles Zenawi and an Eritrean Government official, also signed the agreement reached at Grand Regency Hotel, which saw the leaders cut a cake to celebrate Igad's 20th anniversary.
The resolutions, read by Foreign Affairs minister Raphael Tuju, also urged the international community to help Southern Sudan and Somalia recover from many years of war.
Pledges made during a donors' meeting in Oslo, Norway, last year, should be honoured to help in the reconstruction of Southern Sudan, they said.
However, leaders said aid for the implementation of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Khartoum Government and Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army should not be tied to the success of the Darfur peace process.
If the CPA succeeds, it would help in the search for peace in Darfur and President Bashir promised cooperation in the efforts. The leaders, most of whom jetted back home immediately after the Summit, also called for an immediate start of repatriation and resettlement of refugees and other displaced persons in Southern Sudan.
The leaders said the deployment of a peace mission to Somalia should be followed by an African Union team, but were unclear when it would be done.
They also urged the United Nations to lift an arms embargo on Somalia and supported the body's appeal for food for the country.
The leaders expressed concern over the upsurge of piracy and terrorism on the Somali coastline and vowed to fight the vice.
The governments further promised to increase allocations to agriculture to 10 per cent of national budgets to help find lasting solutions to persistent famine in the region.
Food shortages
President Kibaki took over from President Museveni as Igad chairman during yesterday's meeting.
Some 11 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti are faced with serious food shortages due to drought and conflicts and the fund is to target donors "who would like to deal with the region as a unit as opposed to individual countries," Mr Tuju said.
The minister said the international community preferred to deal with a fund and that if formed, relief rations would be distributed across borders.
They also appealed to donors to help address threats of bird flu in the region.
President Kibaki took over from President Museveni as Igad chairman during yesterday's function.
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