[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20671-20672]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SOMALIA

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I wish to express my strong 
support for the efforts underway to establish clear systems for 
effective regulation and

[[Page 20672]]

monitoring of Somali remittance companies. Right now, the United 
Nations Development Program is working to build the capacity of the 
Somali financial sector and to bring Somalis together with key 
stakeholders in the international banking community so that clear 
expectations, shared high standards, and meaningful enforcement 
mechanisms can be established. Somali remittance companies can survive, 
and can contribute the development of the Somali people, only if this 
effort is successful. I applaud this undertaking, and believe that the 
United States should provide assistance where appropriate.
  As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's 
Subcommittee on African Affairs, I held a hearing on U.S. policy 
options in Somalia earlier this year. In the wake of the attacks on 
September 11, I wanted to explore the issue of weak states, where 
manifestations of lawlessness such as piracy, illicit air transport 
networks, and traffic in arms and gemstones and people, can make the 
region attractive to terrorists and international criminals. The United 
States can no longer pretend that we have no stake in the fate of 
countries in distress--the Afghanistans and Somalias of our world, and 
the United States can no longer pretend that we can insulate ourselves 
from the difficult problems confronting those countries. We cannot 
ignore them, we cannot simply condemn them. We must work to strengthen 
state capacity and curtail opportunities for terrorists and other 
international criminals.
  It is my intention to introduce legislation at the beginning of the 
108th Congress aimed at focusing more coordinated and consistent 
attention on Somalia. The U.S. must work harder at providing an 
alternative to the extremist influences in Somalia by vigorously 
pursuing small-scale health and education initiatives. And we must help 
Somalia's surprisingly vigorous private sector, to begin building 
regulated, legitimate financial institutions in Somalia, which will be 
essential to any economic recovery in the country in the future. 
Otherwise, we leave it to illegitimate, shadowy forces to step into the 
breach.
  One has only to meet a few of the many dynamic and committed Somalis 
who are working every day to build a better future for their countrymen 
to conclude that Somalia is not hopeless. But helping to rebuild 
capacity in Somalia will certainly not be easy. These efforts are 
important, and they deserve our attention and our support.

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