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Somalia: Government asks for US aid
Fri. January 19, 2007 07:56 am.
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Mohamed Abdi Farah
(SomaliNet) The transitional federal government in Somalia is asking the United States government for help in building up competent police, military and intelligence organizations as it attempts to overcome years of conflict and impoverishment.
Dahir Mirreh Jibreel, a U.S. representative of the Transition Federal Government in Somalia submitted to the State Department requests containing three-page letter.
Jibreel distributed copies of the requests during a meeting on Wednesday with a small group of reporters that was hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative public policy research group.
The statement also calls for congressional approval of Somalia stabilization and reconstruction legislation as well as encouragement of private U.S. investment in Somalia.
The transitional government lacks funds to pay civil servants and the list submitted to the State Department includes a request to fill that need until the country is able to generate its own revenue.
Shortly after the transitional government was installed in Mogadishu, United States made an initial down payment of $40 million in revitalization assistance for Somalia. About $16 million was earmarked for humanitarian assistance, $14 million to fund a multinational force whose deployment is still pending and $10 million in development aid.
The interim government, which took power recently after the ouster of radical Islamists by Ethiopian troops, was established in 2004 with U.N. backing but had been too weak until the turn of the year to establish a presence in Mogadishu, the capital.
Somalia had no central government, which has been able to control the national territory since 1991.