I would like to be associated with the comments thanking the Chairman for having us here and for the effective response of the Government and Irish Aid to this crisis to date.
From Trócaire's perspective, we have been operational in Somalia since 1992 and at present we provide the health service to the people of Gedo province in the south west of the country and also the education service at primary school level, serving a population of 220,000 people. The reason we have been able to continue to operate there, despite the difficult political circumstances and the presence of Islamic groups that control areas there, is through the close relationship we have built up with local communities over that time. These programmes are run by local district committees elected to represent their people, funded financially and technically by Trócaire. Wherever there is a difficulty with a local authority, we do not engage, rather the people themselves do so. On occasions in the past we have had to withdraw, go back across the border to Kenya and only come back when the local community has established with the political authority that Trócaire is free to continue.
This is the nature of the work that we have all been doing to try to continue to serve the people of Somalia in what is a very difficult circumstance, and it is very delicate and sensitive. It is important that in any political intervention and any initiative to try to resolve this that these sensitivities are respected. It is possible to work in Somalia if one is patient and prepared to put in the time and effort to work through the local people and not to impose things from on high.
We are also present in Kenya and Ethiopia and I refer to Turkana in north-west Kenya. There we work with the diocese of Lodwar and there is a long tradition of Irish missionaries working there, which are now very few in number because many have retired, but they have left a fine legacy behind through the diocesan health, agriculture and development office. I travelled with a mobile clinic about 50 miles from the provincial capital Lodwar and one of the first things pointed out to me were the carcasses of camels that had died of thirst on either side of the road. I saw a number of camels in distress in the bush just waiting to die. I know the death of a person is a tragedy and that of a camel is perhaps not one but it gives an indication of the depth of this drought that nature's one creature that was built to survive in such circumstances now cannot survive. When we arrived at the clinic, the health team from the diocese was quite shocked at what it found. It visits there every month and the deterioration in the health of the people as a whole, and particularly the children, in a period of four weeks was deeply worrying. It said that unless intensive aid was got to this group over the next three to four weeks, that it would begin to see children die. That work is now proceeding, since it discovered this, but it is worried about so many other communities in this very widespread and semi-barren area. What is going on in those areas? Services for those people are few.
This drought is not only in Somalia but in Kenya and Ethiopia, but we need to focus on Somalia for one or two reasons. One is that despite the severity of the drought, because Kenya and Ethiopia have governments that provide services that have a structure and a framework into which NGOs and other aid organisations work, we can be hopeful that the worst can be avoided. The problem in Somalia is that there is political anarchy and that the instability and weak local government structures are a major contributor to the famine in that country. In terms of the response of the international community, a key political decision must be made. Up to now Somalia has been treated by the international community as a failed state and a source of terrorism and every initiative towards it has been based on that premise and that Somalia should be contained to protect the security of the west. The time for that is now past. There are 10 million Somali people. These are not 10 million terrorists but ordinary people, like you and me, whose only aim in life is to provide for themselves and their families. That the country is now so unstable has led to a situation where extremists have been able to get into positions of influence and power. If one continues to marginalise a population like that and give them so little, then is it any wonder that some will turn to extreme methods in terms of their response?
The former European External Affairs Commissioner, Mr. Chris Patten, talked about this problem directly. He used the metaphor that if one wants to kill the mosquitoes, one must first drain the swamp. What he meant, essentially, is that we have allowed Somalia to turn into a swamp and the mosquitoes therein are those who are perceived to be terrorists. Until we get Somalia sorted out, these people cannot be eliminated. It is time now for people to be put before politics. We need to see a proper response from the United States, whose contribution of $15 million is hardly more than our own in Ireland, and from other major European donors that have been reluctant to put what is required into this effort, which is now estimated to be $400 million short of its immediate needs in terms of a response.
Another point I make relates to political accountability in terms of the problem of world hunger. This is something that was highlighted by the Hunger Task Force, of which Mr. Tom Arnold and I were members, established by the Government in 2007. The report of that task force was presented to the United Nations in 2008. It referred to the recurring problem of hunger in the world and that there is no political accountability for it. A press conference was held in Nairobi last week at which the head of a major international organisation and a Minister from a European Government talked about who was responsible for what had happened and they kind of said that of course we are all responsible and now we had all better do something about it. That was a nice way of saying nobody was responsible. Three million Somalis are threatened by death because of famine and we cannot say that nobody is responsible. The problem all along has been that hunger is something we tolerate. Constant levels of hunger among 1 billion people seems to be acceptable. I want to quote from the Hunger Task Force report. It states:
There is no shortage of international agreements on hunger and the right to food. The problem is the lack of effective actions and inadequate resources to implement these agreements. A robust mechanism is required to hold countries to their pledges and commitments - at the very least a mechanism with the capacity to ‘name and shame' those defaulting on earlier commitments.
To avoid this happening again in Somalia in five or ten years' time both the issues of treating this country as more than a failed state and the international community being held to account for commitments it has made must be held forth. The United Nations, and Ireland in particular because of the lead we have taken on the hunger issue, needs to push this issue in the international community to avoid this happening again.
They say drought does not cause famine. It is vulnerability to drought which causes famine. We have seen here when floods happened or when the water services failed in Northern Ireland over three weeks last Christmas that people with resources will survive those events. It is the poor who are vulnerable who cannot survive them.
The lack of attention to vulnerable people by way of agricultural policy and investment in the case of Somalia is one of the causes for this crisis. These are marginalised communities that receive little support, even from their own governments, let alone the international community, and we need to renew our commitment to those people, as a result of this famine, to ensure there and elsewhere we will not see such suffering again.
