AU peacekeepers tested in Somalia

Four Ugandan troops were killed this week in a bomb blast as Somalia's insurgency intensifies.

from the May 18, 2007 edition

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa and KAMPALA, Uganda - Even before a roadside bomb killed four Ugandan peacekeepers in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday, convincing other African nations to support the mission was a tough sell.

But as fighting in Mogadishu escalates into a full-scale insurgency, creating what the United Nations now calls the world's worst refugee crisis, the likelihood of a strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in Somalia has diminished even further.

By providing all of the 1,600 troops of the 8,000 peacekeepers requested for the AU's mission in Somalia, Uganda is bearing a heavy burden for a war that was started by Ethiopia, was supposed to be finished quickly, but now shows no sign of ending.

Like the AU mission in Sudan, the peacekeeping mission in Somalia is seen as a test of Africa's ability to solve its own problems, yet with little funding and unfulfilled commitment of troops, the Somali mission is in danger of failing that test. Unless the Ugandans get relief fast, patience among ordinary Ugandans may fade quickly, and the AU mission could collapse.

Members of the AU, including Burundi, Rwanda, Ghana, and Nigeria, which had all promised to send peacekeepers as soon as funding could be found to support them, are unlikely to send troops "because there is no peace to keep [in Somalia] in the first place," says Richard Cornwell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. "The Ugandans had kept their heads down, built their reputation locally, and were eager to show that they were not replacing the Ethiopians, but saw themselves as the forerunner of a UN peacekeeping operation." Now, however, they are getting caught in the crossfire.

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