The Appropriations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives should provide humanitarian assistance at appropriate levels to meet the basic needs of the people of Eritrea, with special emphasis on the needs of displaced persons along its borders.

The Appropriations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives should consider initial ESF funding to support Eritrean diaspora projects in the United States, to provide disenfranchised expatriate Eritreans with an effective means to promote human rights and democracy in their home country.

Foreign Policy Recommendations on Somalia

U.S. government officials should strongly condemn human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law in all documents and statements pertaining to Somalia. The United States and other countries to which Somali refugees have fled persecution must ensure that they are afforded protection, as required under international human rights standards and international standards governing the treatment of refugees.
UN agencies and bilateral partners, including the U.S. government, should fund and implement programs to provide vulnerable groups, including women, young people, and minorities, with education, employment and training opportunities, in addition to fully funding and staffing emergency assistance programs throughout Somalia.

The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations should work within the UN Security Council to give the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Somalia a higher profile, beyond the question of a peacekeeping force, strengthen human rights components of UNPOS, and ensure authorization of resources necessary to support human rights assistance for Somalia through the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations should work within the UNSC to strengthen and enforce the UN arms embargo.

Any U.S. military or police assistance to the TFG should require a vetting process to ensure that violators of human rights are not placed in positions of authority in Somalia. The U.S. Congress should consider conditioning plans for further security sector assistance to the TFG on the inclusion of mechanisms to monitor the human rights performance of its security forces and hold individual leaders, soldiers and units responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law accountable for their actions, according to international standards of justice.

The United States should establish investigations to determine which forces of the TFG are responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The U.S. government and the international community are strongly encouraged to fulfill all commitments made in UNSC Resolution 1745 to fund and support full deployment of AMISOM, as part of the process required to facilitate the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia, while acting to encourage AMISOM to extend its operational mandate to include civilian protection.

As national reconciliation efforts continue, diplomatic initiatives must ensure that human rights and humanitarian assistance are made central to the dialogue among all political actors and parties to the conflict in Somalia.

Foreign Policy Recommendations on Somaliland

The Appropriations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives should consider initial ESF and Development Assistance to support democratization, elections, institutionalization of human rights protections, police and security sector reform and judicial capacity building in self-declared independent Somaliland. Such assistance need not address the question of international recognition, but would ensure the support of
the government of Somaliland requires to continue to build democratic institutions and a secure environment for its citizens.