Renewal of Security Council Resolutions 1816 and 1838 on Piracy U.S. Participation in NATO Taskforce to Escort Humanitarian Supplies in Region Piracy is a Serious Issue for International Community
SOMALIA
U.S. Supportive of Having Peacekeeping Force in Somalia to Help Stabilize Situation Chaos in Somalia Has Effect on what is Happening in Gulf of Aden
ZIMBABWE/SOUTH AFRICA
Question about South Africa Withholding Aid to Zimbabwe Countries in Region Should Use Leverage to Bring About Change in Zimbabwe
TRANSCRIPT: View Video Full Text
10:42 a.m. EST
MR. MCCORMACK: Good morning, everybody. I don’t have anything to start off with, so I can --
QUESTION: Can you tell us what the discussions are like on the Somalia piracy issue, what’s going on now? There seems to be some movement at the UN or --
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, there’s --
QUESTION: The Secretary General’s report yesterday --
MR. MCCORMACK: Right, there’s a – there’s a renewal of a Security Council resolution, and I can get the exact number for you – 1816, which was passed specifically to deal with Somali piracy. I guess we passed two of these up at the UN, 1816 and 1838. So – and that’s coming up for renewal. We’re working on the text of the renewal internally. As I’ve said over the past couple days, we’ve – the Secretary got together a little group led by Eliot Cohen to try to take a look at what might be done. Once you start digging into this issue, it’s very complex and it’s a very complicated issue in terms of finding the right solutions.
Just to review, we are participating in a NATO task force that is escorting humanitarian shipments into Somalia. We do have ships in the air, as do other countries. You’re still dealing with a million square miles of ocean to cover, and it’s still a very difficult problem. When ships encounter, you know, piracy and the pirates are firing on those ships, then they’re free to fire, as we saw with the Indian Government yesterday. So we’re trying to, as a government, working with other governments, get a handle on this. It’s a serious issue. It’s not going to be something the United States solves alone. And it’s something that the international community truly has to grapple with, and we’re – we’re trying to. We’re trying to via the Security Council as well as other mechanisms.
QUESTION: The Secretary General is talking about a UN peacekeeping force to replace the --
MR. MCCORMACK: In Somalia?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, clearly --
QUESTION: -- to replace the current UN-authorized --
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: It’s an African Union force.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right. We have – we’ve been supportive of that and --
QUESTION: Supportive of his --
MR. MCCORMACK: Of – we --
QUESTION: -- desire to make it a UN force?
MR. MCCORMACK: Of having a peacekeeping force in there. I have to admit I have not seen the proposal to make them blue-helmeted, and I’ll look into that particular question for you. But you raise an important point, and that is that the chaos in Somalia certainly has an effect on what’s happening out in the Gulf of Aden. And we want to try to address both issues. You could say that the piracy is a symptom of what’s going on in Somalia, so there are no easy answers to either of those. One step in the right direction is getting some peacekeeping forces in there. I know the Ethiopians are still there and they want to leave, so to try to help stabilize the situation in Somalia, which we think over time will have some effect – positive effect on what’s going on in the Gulf of Aden. So we’re working – as you point out, we’re working on a number of different fronts here. And I’ll check for you on the blue helmet question.
QUESTION: What’s the current condition under which U.S. forces, U.S. Naval forces, can fire? I mean, can they go seek out --
MR. MCCORMACK: You have to talk --
QUESTION: -- these small vessels?
MR. MCCORMACK: Talk to DOD about the rules of engagement. You know, I – really, I am not well versed in maritime law, and DOD probably will want to talk about their own rules of engagement.
Okay. Gollust, there you go.
QUESTION: There has been kind of a surge of reports in recent days about political unrest in Nicaragua following an election that is disputed.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: And now, there are reports that forces loyal to Ortega are using strong-arm tactics against opponents. I’m just wondering whether that’s a matter of concern for --
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, it is, and it’s clearly – that’s clearly a negative development. There are real concerns about the integrity of the vote. I think we’ve talked about that, and others have talked about that as well. And the solution – the solution is not to try to rally pro-government forces to suppress peaceful dissent, people who are merely trying to raise legitimate questions about how the vote proceeded and the counting, the post-election activities.
So that’s not the answer. The answer is to consider seriously what might be done to address the legit – these legitimate concerns, whether or not that involves a recount with international observers, that kind of thing. So that is the proper pathway to go down, not to try to encourage nongovernmental forces sympathetic to the government to try to suppress peaceful dissent.
Yeah.
QUESTION: South Africa says it’s going to withhold aid from Zimbabwe until they have a representative government. Do you approve of that sort of punitive measure by a regional government?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, what we approve of it is countries in the region or around the globe using their leverage to try to bring about some change of behavior in Zimbabwe. And I think you just had Ambassador McGee up here. I wasn’t here for the briefing, but I suspect he probably gave you the same message.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. MCCORMACK: Yep.
(The briefing was concluded at 10:55 a.m.)
dpb # 197
Released on November 20, 2008
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