بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
News & Comment
Western Powers the Real Financiers of the Proxy War
News
The Daily Nation published a story revealing that African Union troops in Somalia have not been paid allowances for more than five months, as effects of funding cuts by the European Union bite. On Monday 27 June 2016, the EU said it had not released the money to the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) due to complex approval procedures that had resulted from a constrained budget. African Union troops in Somalia have not been paid allowances for more than five months, as the effects of funding cuts by the European Union bite.
“Funding cuts means there is a shortage and that has taken time to get the necessary approvals to release the money,” the diplomat said from Addis Ababa.
“It means decision-making takes long but we hope to get funds in a couple of months.”
The EU is the main financier of Amisom, committing about €1.2 billion (Sh133.85 billion) since 2007.
About half of that, €575 million (Sh64 billion) has been used to cover the forces’ allowances, costs for the police component of the mission and international and local civilian staff salaries.
Early this year, Gary Quince, the head of the EU delegation to the AU, told the Nation that a shortage of funds was the reason behind a pile of unpaid allowances.
Comment
Sources from European Union (EU) told the Amisom that the six-month payment was being withheld over accounting issues. The accounting issues come the sixth year after the invasion to Somali by Amisom and the year of campaign for the referendum in Britain. Nothing was withheld after all the corruption scandals of charcoal and sugar were made apparent to the world.
The EU is the main financier to the Amisom troops, committing about Ksh 133.85 billion since 2007 to war thousands of miles away in the name of fighting terrorism which has not claimed more than even 200 of its citizen in the entire Europe while at the same time failing to use the same amount to solve the unemployment rate in Europe. This shows that the War on Terror is nothing but a makeup; hiding the real motives of continuing looting the resources of Africa.
It is clear that military operation in Somalia is western agenda in pursuit for their greedy interests in Somalia. The African troops have been dragged into the proxy war by the western powers especially between Europe and the US.
Furthermore, African Forces are not stand alone armies but only depend on Western support in both logistically and financially. Therefore it was not strange to hear that Uganda has already threatened to pull its troops out of Somalia.
In a quick move 2011, Kenya deployed its forces in Somalia under the pretext of flushing out the Alshabab. This was very urgent to the extent the parliament agreed that the Kenya defense forces should go to Somalia when it had already crossed the border. But the pressing question is:
Why African Governments including Kenya sent their troops in Somalia while depending on other unions and country to fund it 100% to the extent of being ready to quit.
This is a situation affecting most third world countries which are pushed by either America or Britain into fighting their wars and assist them in looting their neighbor countries’ resources in the name of TERRORISM.
Written for the Central Media office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Bakari Mohamed
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Kenya