Category Archives: African Union

Catching up on Somalia and Somaliland

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Kenya’s military objectives in Somalia remain unclear, with the idea now floated that Kenya is satisfied with whatever has been done to date and has no need to seek to capture Kismayu after all.  As far as Kenya itself is concerned, Somalia just isn’t legitimately the most important priority, and I agree with the perspective offered by Wycliffe Muga in Nairobi’s Star in his column a month ago:  “Kismayu is the Least of our Problems”.

Here is a new article by Nairobi-based Muhyadin Amed Roble from the Jamestown Foundation’s “Terrorism Monitor”: “Will the Return of Ethiopia’s Military to Somalia Destroy al-Shabaab or Revive It?”

Just 40 days after Kenya’s military intervention against the militant al-Shabaab group began in Somalia there are indications that the Kenyan effort may become part of a joint operation with African Union and Ethiopian military forces to eradicate terrorist elements in the Horn of Africa. The African Union has backed the Kenyan invasion of southern Somalia and has also invited the Ethiopian army to join the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), currently consisting of military contingents from Uganda and Burundi.

.  .  .  .

Knowing the results of Ethiopia’s bloody invasion of Somalia in 2006, the AU’s invitation to dispatch Ethiopia troops to Somalia will be another counterproductive and undiplomatic move according to Abdihakim Aynte, a Somali political analyst in Nairobi. “The African Union seems to ignore the last experience of Ethiopian’s business with Somalia,” Aynte told the Jamestown Foundation. [1] The U.S.  State Department also seems wary of the outcome of another Ethiopian invasion. Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s top Africa policymaker, said: “Ethiopia went into Somalia some four and a half years ago and stayed for approximately two and a half to three years. That effort was not universally successful and led in fact to the rise of Shabaab after they pulled out” (McClatchy Newspapers, November 22; The Standard [Nairobi], November 22).

Ethiopia’s military intervention in Somalia will not please the current Transitional Federal Government (TFG) president Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad, a former leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), ousted by the Ethiopians in 2006.  Abdihakim Aynte says President Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad and the TFG do not have a choice in the matter. Somali Defense Minister Hussein Arab Isse welcomed the entrance of Ethiopian forces to eradicate al-Shabaab but warned Ethiopia against having any other objectives that damage the reputation of the country: “We welcome Ethiopian troops…and any other country that contributes forces to fight against the Shabaab militants, as long as they do not violate our sovereignty” (AFP, November 21).

.  .  .  .

With troops from four African nations now operating on Somali soil backed by the military power of the United States, al-Shabaab is certain to try to capitalize on traditional Somali xenophobia and nationalism to preserve and even expand the radical Islamist movement.

In the meantime, it is reported that up to 6,000 Somalis have recrossed the Red Sea into Somaliland  since the beginning of October, leaving Yemen due to conditions there. Somaliland’s exports of livestock to Yeman have dropped dramatically.  In Somaliland, IRIN reports that the newly formed National Development Program has determined that “the weighted average national employment rate is 52.6 percent” and unemployment is higher among youth, encouraging risky attempts to migrate to Europe via Ethiopia and Sudan.  The article also quotes a youth organization leader that there are approximately 104 NGOs and UN agencies working in Somaliland, but complaining of low local versus expat hiring.

Somaliland has certainly become one of best known ” little known” places in the last couple of years.  At this point I do have concern that with movement toward international recognition still seeming to be stalemated by the instability and uncertainty about the nature of government in the rest of Somalia, Somaliland could deteriorate if economic progress is too slow.  We shouldn’t take the status quo for granted.

Congratulations to the International Republican Institute for publishing a first-of-its-kind public opinion survey covering Hargeisa.  On balance the results suggest a generalized optimism about the state of the country in Hargeisa.  An interesting discussion of how to understand the results is here from the blog of Watershed Legal Services.

Chatham House has issued a report by Sally Healy entitled “Hostage to Conflict:  Prospects for Building Regional Economic Cooperation in the Horn of Africa” (h/t to Ambassador David Shinn’s blog).  She sees significant potential for the “close but distrustful neighbors” of the IGAD to cooperate in areas such as “transport corridors to sea ports, the management of shared water resources, common management of pastoral rangelands and improved energy security.”

On Tuesday, December the 6 the Institute for Security Studies will conduct a Pretoria seminar on “Kenya’s Military Incursion into Somalia and its Implications”.

What Kenya did for democracy in Ghana . . . and a “must see” movie

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The Africa Center for Strategic Studies has published last week its “Special Report No. 1,” an extensive analysis of “Africa and the Arab Spring:  A New Era of Democratic Expectations” by a blue ribbon group of experts.  As the title suggests, the basic conclusion is that the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa has been and will continue to be influenced by the dynamic of anti-authoritarian change from the Arab Spring, whereas in general the non-Arab states in Africa have advanced much further in democratization since the end of the Cold War, such that the pressure for the popular ouster of current governments is not comparable.

One example of progress from “lessons learned” is seen in the performance of the election authorities in Ghana in 2008 following the disaster in Kenya in 2007:

A key turning point in the recognition of the critical need for stronger EMBs [Electoral Management Bodies] in Africa came in 2007/2008. The run-up to a hotly contested presidential election on December 28, 2007 in Kenya had generated strong emotions that had become polarized along ethnic lines. Yet, bolstered by increasingly credible voting in 1997 and 2002, many assumed Kenya’s 2007 elections would be managed effectively. Accordingly, relatively fewer international observers participated. In fact, the voting itself went smoothly — with 70 percent turnout. However, blatant ballot-stuffing during the vote-tallying ensued. Unexplained delays in the reporting of results generated a swirl of rumors and further escalated tensions. At nightfall three days later, the Electoral Commission of Kenya, members of which had been appointed by incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, announced that the president had won the election by a difference of 2 percentage points, and promptly certified the results. Kibaki was sworn in at a closed ceremony within hours. Destruction of most of the physical ballots before the official result was announced prevented any authoritative followup inquiry.

The announcement immediately set off clashes throughout Kenya leading to more than 1,500 deaths and the estimated displacement of 350,000 people. Occurring in one of Africa’s most cosmopolitan  the Kenyan tragedy had broad reverberations around the continent. Indeed, many observers argued that, despite the charged atmosphere and other shortcomings of the process, if Kenya’s electoral commission had simply done its job and not certified elections until allegations of fraud were investigated, the violent aftermath could have been averted.

The distillation of this lesson was put into sharp relief with Ghana’s electoral experience exactly one year later. In a tightly contended second-round presidential election, the opposition candidate, John Atta Mills, of the National Democratic Congress, eked out a victory — 50.2 to 49.8 percent — over the incumbent party candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo. Yet stability prevailed. Akufo-Addo publicly congratulated his rival and called on all Ghanaians to rally behind their new president.

Key to the successful outcome was the equanimity of Electoral Commission of Ghana (ECG).  Despite enormous pressure to announce a result immediately following the close of the polls, the electoral commission waited five days for the votes from all jurisdictions to be counted and charges of irregularities investigated before certifying the results. The integrity of the process and the chairman of the ECG, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, reassured the Ghanaian public that the outcome was fair.  Empowered with this legitimacy, Atta Mills has subsequently overseen Ghana’s continued rapid rate of economic growth.

The drama of the 2008 Ghanaian election is well captured in the documentary movie “An African Election” by Jarreth Merz which is reviewed in the Los Angeles Times this week.  The film will be screened Saturday evening in Washington at the African Studies Association.  I highly recommend it.  My daughter and I were able to see it at the New Orleans Film Festival a few weeks ago and we were both impressed and moved in the context of our experience in Kenya in 2007.

David Axe on “America’s Somalia Experiment”–a timely reminder of policy in the Horn of Africa in 2007-08

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David Axe on “America’s Somalia Experiment”  this week in The Diplomat:

The complex US-led intervention in Somalia, a decade in the making, represents offshore balancing at its most potent and urgent. The Libyan rebellion was outside the United States’ core interests. For Washington, intervening in Libya was optional. But Somalia, a failed state since 1991 and an al-Qaeda safe haven, represents a direct threat to the United States, and indeed has inspired the first American suicide bombers.

If offshore balancing, with its emphasis on air and sea power and proxy armies, is to define the US strategic approach to Asia and the Pacific, it first must succeed in Somalia.

For advocates of the strategy, there are reasons for hope. US offshore balancing in Somalia came together gradually, almost by accident, as separate interventions chased the converging problems of famine, terrorism and piracy. Today, this increasingly unified US effort seems to finally be bearing fruit, as American-supported foreign armies rapidly gain ground against al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist fighters.

However, sceptics too might find ammunition in the United States’ Somalia strategy. For while current US efforts in Somalia have managed to avoid a major ground-force deployment – and  indeed have been essentially bloodless for Washington – they have at the same time failed to bring a speedy end to the country’s crises. The recent territory gains are encouraging but hardly decisive – and certainly reversible.

.  .  .  .

The ICU didn’t explicitly advocate terrorism, and there were probably only a handful of al-Qaeda operatives hiding out in Somalia at the time. But that nuance was lost on the George W. Bush Administration. Washington pledged support for the Ethiopian attack, including ‘intelligence sharing, arms aid and training,’ according to USA Today.

With this backing, plus air cover provided by US AC-130 gunships and carrier-based fighters and assistance on the ground by US Special Forces, the Ethiopian army launched a Blitzkrieg-style assault on Somalia in December 2006.

Ethiopian tanks quickly routed the ICU’s lightly armed fighters. ‘The Somalia job was fantastic,’ Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told then-US Central Commander boss Gen. John Abizaid in 2007.

The Bush Administration agreed with that assessment, at least initially. And the proxy approach to African security challenges quickly became central to Washington’s policy for the continent. In 2007, the Pentagon formed a new regional command called ‘Africa Command’ to oversee operations in most of Africa.

.  .  .  .

In Somalia, the Ethiopian invasion and subsequent two-year occupation only served to rally the country’s Islamic extremists. Al Shabab coalesced from the remains of the ICU’s armed wing and launched a bloody, and surprisingly popular, insurgency against the Ethiopians.

Also targeted: the UN- and US-sponsored Transition Federal Government, formed under the protection of the Ethiopians, plus the new African Union peacekeeping force composed mostly of Ugandan and Burundian troops and funded by the United Nations and Washington.

Al Shabab also strengthened ties with al-Qaeda, which had sent operatives to advise clan forces during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu and, more than a decade later, still maintained a small presence in Somalia. The al-Qaeda-Al Shabab alliance helped Al Shabab pull off a twin suicide bombing in Kampala, Uganda, on July 11, 2010 that killed 74 people.

.  .  .  .

US support for the peacekeepers and the TFG represents the proxy portion of Washington’s offshore balancing in Somalia. Naval patrols, Special Forces raids and strikes by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles round out the strategy. At first, however, the main air and sea initiatives weren’t directly tied to the proxy fight on the ground.

In parallel with its support for Ethiopia’s attack on Somalia, the Pentagon in 2006 was in the process of standing up an East African counter-terrorism complex anchored by secret bases reportedly in Ethiopia and Kenya. From there, US Special Forces and armed drones struck at terrorist targets in Somalia, occasionally in cooperation with naval forces.

In 2007, Special Operations Command aircraft launched at least two helicopter raids on al-Qaeda and Al Shabab operatives in Somalia. On no fewer than three occasions in 2007 and 2008, commandos spotted targets for US warships firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at Somali targets. Some of the same warships help make up Combined Task Force 150, a US-led international naval force assigned to intercept arms shipments bound for Al Shabab and al-Qaeda in Somalia.

Somaliland’s President Silanyo Official Guest for Saturday’s South Sudan Independence Ceremony

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HARGEISA (SomalilandPress)—President Ahmed Siilaanyo received an official invitation from the president of South Sudan Salva Kiir to attend the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of South Sudan on the 9th of July, 2011. South Sudan is set to become the 54th nation in the African continent after long fought civil against Northern Sudan’s rule that saw thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.

The invitation of Somaliland’s president Ahmed Siilanyo to South Sudan’s historic day has been welcomed with delight in Somaliland by both the government of Somaliland and its citizens. Somaliland believes it could use the south’s independence as a precedent as it seeks more support for its case for international recognition and become the 55th nation in the continent after South Sudan. Some foreign observers and politicians believe the Juba government will recognize Somaliland which will pave the way for other regional powers to follow.

“Book Bitings”–Some Thoughts on “Fighting For Darfur; Public Action and the Stuggle to Stop Genocide” by Rebecca Hamilton

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June 9 update, h/t Africa Files:  Human Rights Watch Report–“As South Split Looms, Abuses Grow in Darfur”.

I will join with many others in recommending Rebecca Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur as well worth buying and reading for anyone interested in American policy in Africa, citizen activism in the West as a foreign policy input, genocide as a moral and political challenge and Sudan specifically.  Don’t get lost in the debate without taking time to get the book and read it–it is relatively short and quite accessible for busy non-specialists.

African Arguments features noteworthy reviews by Laura Seay of Morehouse College and Texas in Africa and Alex Thurston of Sahel Blog.

Hamilton was personally involved as a student activist and also worked for a time at the ICC after graduating from Harvard Law School before taking up this book project and journalism full-time.  Combining the roles of insider and journalist lets Hamilton provide the reader with direct access to an unusual range of the players in the activist and political community and those in the U.S. government at the time.  She also has direct experience and follow-up reporting from the camps in Darfur and Chad and sources in Darfur and access to officials in Khartoum.  She was also able to get some of the basic U.S. government documents declassified quickly enough to be used in her reporting.

Hamilton is left asking more questions than she is able to answer in the wake of the failure of the activists to deliver any clear positive change in the situation in Darfur in spite of their success in moving the domestic American political process in such a way that the United States officially engaged in a variety of diplomatic efforts.   Nonetheless, there is significant learning on offer here–and perhaps that learning can save some lives in the future.

It seems that there is some realization that the activists did not know enough about the context and specific background of the complex situation in Darfur as opposed to some other situation of mass atrocities in some other place or time.  There may be ways to address this shortfall in preparation for future conflagrations.  At the same time, I don’t think that it necessarily follows that our government would have accomplished more without the youthful energy and passion of the activists, or that things would not have gotten even worse in Darfur if the United States had not engaged to the extent that it did.

Writ large, this is a reminder that we don’t get second bites at the apple.  Darfur is not Rwanda and cannot offer redemption for our failure to act there.  Likewise, 2003 did not offer a second chance at the situation that the United States faced at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.  In fact, invading Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein ended up hamstringing the U.S. in responding to the newer crisis in Darfur.  Nonetheless, from our failures we can learn, and Hamilton’s is a real contribution.

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On the “to read” list, here is a review from the Stanford Social Innovation Review of More Than Good Intentions:  How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty” Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel.

Enough to drive one to drink . . . Museveni on Gaddafi (and Western company bribes to Gaddafi)

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The obvious question that comes to mind after reading Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s  “The Qaddafi I Know” at Foreign Policy is:  do politically-minded people go to bars?

The Middle Eastern radicals, quite different from the revolutionaries of black Africa, seem to say that any means is acceptable as long as you are fighting the enemy. That is why they hijack planes, use assassinations, plant bombs in bars, etc. Why bomb bars? People who go to bars are normally merry-makers, not politically minded people.

We were together with the Arabs in the anti-colonial struggle. The black African liberation movements, however, developed differently from the Arab ones. .  .  .  .

(you may remember that Gaddafi directed the bombing of a nightclub frequented by American servicemen in West Germany in 1986)

So is Museveni a radical?  If so, a radical for what?  For just a small sample of the rest of the sophistry:

I know Qaddafi has his system of elected committees that convene to form a National People’s Conference. Actually, Qaddafi thinks this is superior to our multi-party systems. Of course, I have never had time to study how truly competitive this system is. Anyway, even if it is competitive, there is now, apparently, a significant number of Libyans who think that there is a problem in their country’s governance. Since there has not been internationally observed elections in Libya, not even by the AU, we cannot know what is correct and what is false. Therefore, a dialogue is the correct way forward.

Museveni, of course, has allowed international observers to the elections that his government has conducted and is thus “too legit to quit” twenty-five years after taking power by force.  And since Libya is on the same continent as Uganda, Museveni is entitled to write in Foreign Policy and  have a large role is solving Libya’s problems without even claiming to know much about the details of the issues, all while stridently denouncing “foreign” meddling.  (And to take lots of American and other Western money to train and otherwise fund his military, and especially to “peacekeep” in Mogadishu–and to operate his government and otherwise meet some of the needs of his constituents while his government funds his re-election).

Pretty sobering to realize that Museveni is, in many ways, our bestest ally in the region .  .  .  .

And of course more information is coming out about Museveni’s mobilization of the Ugandan military in his election.  And now Human Rights Watch finds that a Ugandan “Rapid Response Unit” is using torture and extra-judicial killings.

And reporting by The New York Times discloses some of the massive shakedowns by Gaddafi of Western companies seeking to do business in Libya to fund his payment to the families of Lockerbie bombing victims.

The wealth that Colonel Qaddafi’s family and his government accumulated with the help of international corporations in the years since the lifting of economic sanctions by the West helped fortify his hold on his country. While the outcome of the military intervention under way by the United States and allied countries is uncertain, Colonel Qaddafi’s resources — including a stash of tens of billions of dollars in cash that American officials believe he is using to pay soldiers, mercenaries and supporters — may help him avert, or at least delay, his removal from power.

The government not only exploited corporations eager to do business, but willing governments as well. Libya’s banks apparently collected lucrative fees by helping Iran launder huge sums of money in recent years in violation of international sanctions on Tehran, according to another cable from Tripoli included in a batch of classified documents obtained by WikiLeaks. In 2009, the cable said, American diplomats warned Libyan officials that its dealings with Iran were jeopardizing Libya’s enhanced world standing for the sake of “potential short-term business gains.”

AU selects Museveni to Negotiate on Libya Crisis Resolution with Gaddafi

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From Monday’s Daily Monitor via AllAfrica.com:

Addis Ababa/Kampala — President Museveni has been named by the African Union (AU) alongside South African President Jacob Zuma to negotiate a resolution to the mounting crisis in Libya.

AU chairperson Jean Ping made the announcement at a Peace and Security Council meeting in Addis Ababa at the weekend. Mr Museveni and Mr Zuma will work alongside presidents Mr Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, Mr Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali and Mr Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania. The team is expected to travel to Tripoli this week to assess the situation on the ground and meet all parties involved in the ongoing conflict.

Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi is facing the strongest challenge to his 42-year rule, after demonstrations demanding he step down last month escalated into civil unrest across the country. Rebel forces have since taken control of most of western Libya and the situation has now been described as a full-fledged civil war.

However, rebels continued to lose ground this week, and international consensus remains elusive on extending economic sanctions, as well as establishing a no-fly zone – some observers say is essential to preventing government air strikes on rebel territory.

President Museveni is known to be an old ally of the defiant Libyan leader. But the President’s press secretary, Mr Tamale Mirundi, said the President “cannot refuse” helping in the face of such a crisis, citing his past involvements in neighbouring Kenya and Rwanda, among others. “The president believes that African problems can easily be solved by Africans using regional and continental approaches,” Mr Mirundi said yesterday.

If Nelly Furtado and Beyonce are Embarrassed, is the Government of Kenya?

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“Revolt Cuts Short Gaddafi’s Economic March Into Kenya”, Business Daily:

It is not clear what will be the fate of the agreement that Kenya signed with the Libyan Government.

The most significant for the business community was the trade agreement in which Libya and Kenya agreed to grant each other most favoured nation treatment in all matters relating to customs duties.

The foray into Libya came shortly after the Narc party victory when Mr Kibaki’s nephew, the late Alex Mureithi, visited Tripoli in mid 2003 as a special envoy.

While details of this visit and its implications on future Kenya-Libya relations are hazy, it telling that Mureithi, who was to become the Managing Director of Tana and Athi Development Authority, was a confidant of Mr Kibaki —who said as much at his funeral in Nyahururu.

The Libyans, or rather the Gaddafi network, had lofty dreams on Kenya since it was the largest economy in the eastern Africa region.

Initially, the Libyan African Arab Investment Company had shown interest in setting up a 5-6 Star hotel in Nairobi, but the Grand Regency sale came at the appropriate time, sparking a national row on how the Libyans bought the hotel.

The Governor of the Central Bank, Prof Njuguna Ndung’u, was to tell a commission that was investigating the sale that the government offered the hotel to the Libyans without tendering.

Grand Regency was a public property and its sale should not have been shrouded in any secrecy whatever value it was given. But it was.

A conference centre in Mombasa that was also in the pipeline never materialised as the Libyans were caught in the Grand Regency pricing row that saw then Finance Minister Amos Kimunya step aside.

It was the cultural cooperation that was pushed by Gaddafi that has seen some “elders” led by Kamlesh Pattni visit Libya.

Before the revolts across the Arab countries, Kenya and Libya’s diplomatic manoeuvring was in full swing, with Kibaki sending vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka to go and lobby Tripoli to support Kenya’s efforts at the African Union (AU) to defer the post-election trials at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Of course it was widely rumored that the concessional sale of the Grand Regency Hotel by the Government of Kenya was part of the financing for the Kibaki re-election campaign. I have nothing independent to contribute on whether or not this is true, but would simply note the lack of other explanations of various facets of the transaction and lack of thorough investigation and or prosecution of anyone involved.

For an overview of perceptions of Gaddafi in other African capitals, see “Qaddafi’s Tangled Legacy in Africa” at the CSIS Online Africa Policy Forum blog.

 

Related Post:    “Watching Alliances Experience “Blow Out” From a Build Up of Democratic Pressure
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Links to Start the Week

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Qaddafi demise helps African Union at Africa Works by G. Pascal Zachary:

The collapse of Qaddafi’s dictatorial regime in Africa has concrete benefits for the African Union, whose international standing has repeatedly been undermined by the Libyan leader’s eccentric Pan-Africanism and past embrace of terrorism. . . . . Qaddafi and Libyan cronies invested in African real estate but they never provided either finance or expertise to promote industrial enterprises. Should Qaddafi vanish permanently from the club of African leaders, the African Union will be the beneficiary. The AU struggles with legitimacy and effectiveness; Qaddafi made the tests of pragmatism and idealism much more difficult. His absence from the AU governing body will make the renovation of this disappointing regional body easier, though even without the burden of Qaddafi, the task facing reformers of the AU remains daunting.

In Uganda, a new inflation–in the price of votes, Jina Moore

Martha Karua, running for the Kenyan presidency next year, says Kibaki administration has increased extrajudicial killings from the level of the Moi administration.

Sixth Fleet Frigate USS Stephen W. Groves is  spending roughly two weeks at Dar Es Salaam for African Partnership Station program training East African sailors, along with some community relations.

“Real Conservatives Don’t Slash Foreign Aid:  What House Republicans Can Learn From David Cameron and the Tories” Thomas Carothers in The New Republic.

“Wako reserves his most potent sting for Kibaki” Emeka-Mayaka Gekara in the Daily Nation. A good example of how things really work in Kenyan politics.

“Somalia:  The Transition Government on Life Support” International Crisis Group report, February 21.  Says the international community has continued to fail to appreciate the reality that attempts to create a European-style centralized national government are doomed to failure.  The TFG is further hampered by corruption and irresponsibility.  Without serious progress and reform by August, the attention of the international support should shift:

Yet, the situation is not as bleak as it may seem. Some parts of Somalia, most notably Somaliland and Puntland in the north, are relatively stable, and as the ill-fated Union of Islamic Courts demonstrated in 2006, it is possible to rapidly reestablish peace and stability in central and south Somalia if the right conditions exist. Contrary to what is often assumed, there is little anarchy in the country. Local authorities administer most areas and maintain a modicum of law and order. Somalis and humanitarian agencies and NGOs on the ground know who is in charge and what the rules are and get on with their work. The way forward needs to be a more devolved political and security structure and far greater international support for local administrations.  Furthermore, if by August, the TFG has not made meaningful progress in coping with its internal problems and shown itself genuinely willing to work and share power with these local authorities, the international community should shift all its aid to them.