JOHANNESBURG, 27 January, 2007 - South Africa will not contribute troops to an African peacekeeping force in Somalia, but will study other ways to help to stabilise the war-ravaged country, a Defence Ministry spokesman said yesterday.

Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota made the decision after reviewing South Africa’s overseas peacekeeping commitments, which include forces in Burundi, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as smaller missions in Ivory Coast and Ethiopia and Eritrea, spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi said.

“ South Africa supports the African Union deployment of peacekeepers, but South Africa, having contributed to the African Union and UN’s other missions, it is currently stretched,” Mkhwanazi told Reuters. “It would not be in the interests of either the UN, the AU and other missions where South Africa is involved if the country were to send troops to Somalia.”

The AU has proposed sending about 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia to bolster the interim government after Ethiopian troops pull out of the chaotic country, where they intervened against Islamist forces in a two-week war in December.

Mkhwanazi said Lekota and other officials were reviewing other options for assisting the Somalia peacekeeping mission, which might include technical support, and would shortly advise President Thabo Mbeki on their suggestions.

Nigeria said this week it would send a battalion to join the peacekeepers in Somalia, which defied UN and US peacekeeping attempts more than a decade ago and has not known peace since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991.

Malawi and Uganda have also said they are willing to contribute to the peacekeeping force.

Ethiopia has started withdrawing its troops but there are fears the interim Somali government of President Abdullahi Yusuf, which lacks a national power-base, could implode if that happens and the Ethiopians are not swiftly replaced.

Source: Reuters