The Root Causes of Insecurity

• Spread of arms in the hands of the populace all over the country
• Lack of reconciliation among the warring factions
• Consistent looting and misappropriation of properties belonging to innocent civilians
• Poverty, joblessness and economic hardship in both urban and rural areas
• Lack of education for the youth
• Grievances and mistrust among the clans resulting from the civil war
• Naturally occurring drought generally causes sever shortage of water and pasture in rural areas, thus creating an environment conducive to violence
• Lack of law and order

The players

• Warring and political factions
• Business community militias
• Freelance militias
• Armed clans
• Frontline States

Strategic Interventions

• Reconciliation: Adopt the recommendations of the National Reconciliation Committee.
• Disarmament: As a first priority, collect heavy weapons from: 1) Factions, 2) Business community, 3) Islamic courts, and 4) Clans. This will be followed by the collection of small arms. For arms to be successfully collected from the above-mentioned players, compensation packages will be required.
• Disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration of the various militiamen.
• Re-establishment of the police forces to maintain law and order.
• Return properties held illegally to its rightful owners.
• Design a plan with the aim of reducing conflicts resulting from water and pasture scarcity in rural areas.

• Top priority must be given to internal security
• The business community must register and license all of their small arms that might be used for business protection only, until such time the authorities can guarantee their security
• The UN should monitoring and enforce arms embargo against Somalia
• For safe and secure environment, de-mining work should be carried out
• The AU forces must not include Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti