I was getting this problem when using IBM RSA 9.6.1 when building a brand new development machine. The problem for me ended up being because of HTTPS on the Global Maven repository. My solution was to create a Maven settings.xml that forced it to use HTTP.
The key to me was that the central repository was empty when I exploded it under Maven Repositories -- > Global Repositories
Using the following settings file worked for me:
<settings>
<activeProfiles>
<!--make the profile active all the time -->
<activeProfile>insecurecentral</activeProfile>
</activeProfiles>
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>insecurecentral</id>
<!--Override the repository (and pluginRepository) "central" from the Maven Super POM -->
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>central</id>
<url>http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2</url>
<releases>
<enabled>true</enabled>
</releases>
</repository>
</repositories>
<pluginRepositories>
<pluginRepository>
<id>central</id>
<url>http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2</url>
<releases>
<enabled>true</enabled>
</releases>
</pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>
</profile>
</profiles>
</settings>