Joyce Mulama

Nairobi, September 11, 2006 – Is it, as one cabinet minister has claimed, a "welcome" troop deployment? Or is an analyst's description of the force as "suicidal" more accurate?

These questions are doubtless occupying the minds of a good many politicians and observers in East Africa, after the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) agreed Tuesday on plans to send peace keeping troops to Somalia.

IGAD is a regional body comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and Sudan. The group presided over lengthy talks that resulted in the installation of a transitional government for Somalia in 2004, this after more than a decade of lawlessness sparked by the fall of dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre.

However, the administration has proved unable to exert control beyond the south-central town of Baidoa, where it is based.

It suffered a further setback in June, when Islamic militias under the auspices of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took command of the capital, Mogadishu, from faction leaders said to have received support from the United States. Washington has accused the Islamic body of harboring al Qaeda militants, a charge the UIC denies.

The UIC also established control over much of central and southern Somalia, enforcing strict Islamic law -- "sharia" -- in a way that has reportedly not been welcomed by all.

While transitional authorities favor an IGAD deployment, the UIC is vehemently opposed to the presence of foreign peacekeepers. Reports from Mogadishu indicated that several thousand people demonstrated in the capital, Tuesday, against the planned IGAD force, followed by a similar protest Wednesday.

"It will be suicidal to send peace keepers to Somalia at this point in time. The leaders of the Islamic courts movement have made their opposition very clear: I don't see them relenting on this," said Kizito Sabala of the Africa Peace Forum, a non-governmental organization based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that is involved in conflict management.

But if the mission went ahead, it would be important for peace keepers to be given sufficient authority, Sabala told IPS.

"If IGAD manages to deploy peace keepers in Somalia, the question of the mandate is critical What mandate will the peace keepers have? Will they have sufficient capacity to deal with the militias? We may be in for a repeat of the fiasco that befell the U.S. soldiers in the 1990s."

This was in reference to the killing of 18 American troops in Mogadishu in 1993, after they staged a raid against Somali faction leader Mohammed Farah Aideed.

The troops were in the East African country as part of an international effort to restore some stability to the country, and distribute humanitarian aid at a time when the combined effects of drought and civil war had brought millions to the brink of starvation.

Hundreds of Somalis are also said to have died in the U.S. raid. Earlier in 1993, 24 Pakistani peacekeepers were killed in an attack by Aideed's forces.

A Brussels-based think tank, the International Crisis Group, has also cautioned against the deployment of a peacekeeping mission, saying it needs to be suspended until transitional authorities and the UIC can agree on its goals, composition -- and the length of time it would remain in Somalia. This came in a report issued last month, titled 'Can the Somali Crisis Be Contained?'

At present, notes the document, "The calls of the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development for foreign peacekeepers, intended to bolster the TFG (transitional federal government), have instead cast it as ineffectual and dependent on foreign support, and provided a rallying cry for diverse opposition groups."

For the moment, however, these views are having little discernable effect on efforts by IGAD for renewed intervention.

"The deployment has received unanimous welcome," Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Raphael Tuju told journalists after the meeting of IGAD leaders and government representatives in Nairobi, where the bid to send troops to Somalia within the next month was endorsed.

Added Somali Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammed Hurreh, "There is nothing now that can be considered an obstacle to deployment."

In fact, Ethiopian troops are already believed to have been deployed in Baidoa in support of the transitional government, although Addis Ababa continues to deny their presence in Somalia.

This reportedly came after Islamic militias advanced to within a short distance of Baidoa. The deployment sparked a motion of no confidence on the part of Somali legislators -- said to have questioned why parliamentary approval was not sought for the arrival of Ethiopian forces.

The presence of these troops appeared to pose a threat to talks that had got underway between the transitional government and the UIC, mediated by the Arab League -- with the UIC declaring a "jihad", or holy war against Ethiopia. This country has a long history of conflict with Somalia. (For their part, Islamic militias are accused of receiving arms from neighboring Eritrea, also at odds with Ethiopia -- something that has heightened fears of the two countries fighting a proxy war in Somalia.)

Nonetheless, discussions have gone ahead, even resulting in an accord, Monday, for the administration and UIC to join forces after reaching agreement on the sharing of political power.

This is seen as a further obstacle to the IGAD force -- which also needs funding from the African Union (AU) to become operational.

In addition, peacekeepers can only enter Somalia once the United Nations has lifted an arms embargo on the country.

Source: Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)