Thursday, March 27, 2008
"This is the right moment to show in practical ways that we want to support the political process in which leaders of the Transitional Federal Institutions of Somalia are engaged," said Armando Sanguini, the personal representative of the Italian Prime Minister.
Initialing an agreement with the AU Commission to bring the Italian-Africa Peace Facility into operation, Sanguini said that his government set aside the funds to help the AU to have the necessary capacity for addressing the political challe n ges of Africa.
"Since Somalia is now within a phase that is extremely important and crucial, we want to show our support," he said, noting that the country's President Abdulla h i Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein were doing extraordinary wor k to reconcile and bring all Somali people into the national peace process.
"This occasion should give encouragement to other countries and organisations to assist Somalia. This is the first time after so many years that we see some light at the end of the tunnel.
"We know that there are still difficulties to overcome, but we want to show our trust in these authorities," said Sanguini, explaining that Italy's immediate su p port through the AU would be directed toward institutional capacity building and creation of the necessary security framework in Somalia.
"We want to see Somalia again playing its proper role within the international c ommunity, but without a security framework no political process can succeed to g u ide national reconstruction," he added.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hussein, who attended the signing ceremony, said his a dministration was pleased by the fact that a portion of the peace facility (US$ 1 0 million) would be dedicated to the training of the Somali police force.
"We are very happy to see this event happening. Somalia is trying its best to ad dress the problematic issues that contributed to its chaos and lack of law-enfor c ement.
"Thanks to the support from our friends, the AU, the governments of Italy and Et hiopia as well as other neighbouring countries, we feel encouraged to take tangi b le steps towards reconciliation, nation re-building, facilitation of humanitaria n services and bring all Somalis back into the international arena.
"Today, with regard to the national reconciliation process, we are achieving pos itive results, which will allow us to go ahead with the strategic plan that we p u t in place after the formation of the new government," the premier added.
According to AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit, who signed the agr eement on behalf of the AU Commission, one of the areas in which the AU has not b een able to mobilise the necessary political, logistical and financial support i s the case of Somalia.
"We hope this gesture will be emulated by others to come in support of the new S omali federal transitional institutions," Djinnit said, paying tribute to Prime M inister Hussein for his dedication to the cause of peace in Somalia.
The facility is meant to support the AU efforts in conflict prevention, conflict management with particular emphasis on negotiation and mediation, and in areas of post-conflict peace building.