2007年VOA标准英语-Chief US Africa Diplomat Urges Somali Reconcili

By David Gollust
State Department
12 February 2007

The top U.S. diplomat¹ for Africa has made an unusual direct appeal to the people of Somalia to reconcile differences and work together after years of political strife². Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer spoke³ in a VOA interview in connection with Monday's launch of VOA's new Somalia program. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

Jendayi Frazer

The past few months have been among the most turbulent in Somalia's troubled history, but Assistant Secretary Frazer says the current situation, in the aftermath of Ethiopian intervention⁴ that helped drive radical⁵ Islamists from power, offers Somalis a real opportunity to restore stable governance in the country for the first time in 16 years.

Interviewed at the State Department prior to departing for Dar es-Salaam and last Friday's meeting of the international "contact group" on Somalia, Frazer said she wanted to use the first of the renewed VOA broadcasts to that country to urge Somalis to reach out to one another.

"Inclusive dialogue and reconciliation⁶ are important," she said. "I especially appeal to the Somali women, who are extremely strong, and I say to them: reach out to your husbands, to your sons, and to your brothers. And tell them to put down their weapons. Now is a time for discussion and dialogue, not for the types of mortar⁷ attacks and shootings to take place in Somalia. Now is the time for peace and for dialogue."

Frazer attributed the swift collapse⁸ of the Council of Islamic Courts movement, which had controlled Mogadishu since the middle of last year, to a desire by everyday Somalis to take control of their own destiny and to, as she put it, "deny space" to warlords, religious extremists, bandits and others who have held sway in the country since 1991.

The assistant secretary has taken a lead role in international efforts to field an African Union stabilization⁹ force in Somalia to replace the Ethiopians, who have already begun to withdraw.

Though the process of building the Ugandan-led force to back up the Somali transitional federal administration has been slow, Frazer said she is not discouraged and said the United States is ready to support the deployment¹⁰ with funding and logistics.

"We're prepared to provide planners, in-capital and at the AU headquarters," she said. "We have said that we will provide contract airlift, particularly for the Ugandans. We'll provide equipment, we'll help with sustainment. We have money and resources available. And so we're prepared to help and assist. We did this before in Liberia, before ECOWAS went into Liberia, and we certainly know what we're doing."

The Bush administration has earmarked $60 million for aid to Somalia, two-thirds of it to support the force deployment, in the supplemental budget request it sent Congress this month, otherwise dominated by funds for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Frazer, who has held the top Africa post at the State Department since 2005, defended the Somalia aid request in congressional testimony¹¹ last week, in which she also resisted calls from House members for the naming of a U.S. special envoy¹² for Somalia.

In the talk with VOA, Frazer bristled¹³ at the idea that an envoy is needed, since she said that pre-supposes that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top officials are too preoccupied¹⁴ with other matters to focus on Somalia.

"I have no problem with a special envoy for Somalia," she said, "but what I do have trouble with is the notion that somehow Somalia isn't of the importance that it should be a priority for the secretary of state. It is a priority for Secretary Rice. And so the notion that you have to have an envoy when you actually have a secretary of state fully¹⁵ engaged, daily, working on Somalia as one of her key priorities - just like she does Iraq and Afghanistan and other key priorities - I think comes from a time when perhaps Africa issues weren't considered a priority for the principal levels."

Frazer, who said the Bush administration will be seen over time to have been the most attentive¹⁶ ever to African issues, said she considers it important for the United States to establish a diplomatic presence in Somalia.

But she gave no timetable, and said in the meantime day-to-day contacts with Somalis will continue to be handled through the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.

1 diplomat   

n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人

参考例句：

• The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话，紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
• He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。

2 strife   

n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争

参考例句：

• We do not intend to be drawn into the internal strife.我们不想卷入内乱之中。
• Money is a major cause of strife in many marriages.金钱是造成很多婚姻不和的一个主要原因。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

5 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

6 reconciliation   

n.和解，和谐，一致

参考例句：

• He was taken up with the reconciliation of husband and wife.他忙于做夫妻间的调解工作。
• Their handshake appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation.他们的握手似乎是和解的表示。

7 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

8 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

9 Stabilization   

稳定化

参考例句：

• The position of barycentre on plane directly impacts the stabilization and manipulation of plane. 飞机重心位置直接影响飞机的稳定和操纵特性。
• With the higher olefins, stabilization of the energetic intermediates occurs more easily. 在较高的烯烃情况下，高能的中间物稳定作用更易出现。

10 deployment   

n. 部署,展开

参考例句：

• He has inquired out the deployment of the enemy troops. 他已查出敌军的兵力部署情况。
• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely used customer-driven quality, design and manufacturing management tool. 质量功能展开(quality function deployment,QFD)是一个广泛应用的顾客需求驱动的设计、制造和质量管理工具。

11 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

12 envoy   

n.使节，使者，代表，公使

参考例句：

• Their envoy showed no sign of responding to our proposals.他们的代表对我方的提议毫无回应的迹象。
• The government has not yet appointed an envoy to the area.政府尚未向这一地区派过外交官。

13 bristled   

adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• They bristled at his denigrating description of their activities. 听到他在污蔑他们的活动，他们都怒发冲冠。
• All of us bristled at the lawyer's speech insulting our forefathers. 听到那个律师在讲演中污蔑我们的祖先，大家都气得怒发冲冠。

14 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

16 attentive   

adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的

参考例句：

• She was very attentive to her guests.她对客人招待得十分周到。
• The speaker likes to have an attentive audience.演讲者喜欢注意力集中的听众。