Somalia: U.S.-Uganda Arms Aiding Al-Shabaab

The Monitor Somalia: U.S.-Uganda Arms Aiding Al-Shabaab, Says NGO

Risdel Kasasira Kampala:  A new report by Amnesty International has suggested that

unregulated arms supplies to the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia

may be finding their way into the hands of its opponents including the

militant Islamist fighters Al Shabaab.

The report also accuses Uganda, Ethiopia and Yemen of supplying the
TFG-outside of the United Nations regulatory regime, which has imposed an
arms embargo on Somalia.

"International arms supplies to TFG forces have increased during 2009. The
UN Monitoring Group on Somalia has reported since 2006 that TFG forces have
received arms and ammunition from the three states without those states
having applied for exemptions to the UN arms embargo from the UN Sanctions
Committee on Somalia," the report says.

However the report also says there are no guarantees that arms supplied are
properly accounted for by the TFG and says major diversions of arms or
money for arms have already occurred. "TFG lacks the capacity to prevent
the diversion of substantial quantities of its own weaponry and military
equipment to other armed groups and to Somalia's domestic arms markets" the
report notes arguing that without safeguards of arms supplies there could
be human rights abuses.

Defence and Army Spokesman Lt. Col Felix Kulayigye, however, told Inside
Politics Uganda does not technically arm the TFG and that the embargo on
arms has been lifted with regards to AMISOM, the African Union force in
Somalia. Uganda and Burundi supply the only troops that make up AMISOM.


Shipped supplies

According- to the report however substantial US-funded arms supplies have
been shipped from Uganda to Mogadishu for TFG forces since May 2009. In
August 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly pledged
military support for Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's government, and a State
Department spokesperson stated that the US government intended to supply
the TFG some 40 tons of military weaponry and equipment.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently- Uganda has offered
TFG supplies in return for reimbursements from the State Department.

Amnesty recommends a moratorium on all arms supplies until there are
mechanisms in place to prevent "such material assistance from being used in
committing serious violations of international humanitarian and human