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| Refugees rested in a camp north of Mogadishu two weeks ago. Fighting in the capital has displaced thousands. Rafael Sourt/Reuters |
UN faces calls for action in Somalia
As violence mounts, the Security Council is to consider helping an overwhelmed African Union force.
By Rob Crilly | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the August 15, 2007 edition
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Nairobi, Kenya - Pressure is growing on the United Nations Security Council this week to bolster a beleaguered African peacekeeping force in Somalia, as fresh evidence of human rights abuses and an impending humanitarian catastrophe emerge.
The Horn of Africa nation has been a focus of violence and humanitarian crises since the ouster of its military dictator in 1991. But Somalia has reached a breaking point, say analysts and aid organizations, and international action is now crucial.
Without rapid moves toward political stability, the country's fragile, UN-backed Transitional Federal Government risks fragmenting along clan lines, says an official within the government.
Two battalions of Ugandan soldiers, under the auspices of the African Union (AU), have failed to make an impact in the capital Mogadishu, where Islamic insurgents and clan-based militia have clashed repeatedly with Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies. The fighting amplified sharply on Monday and Tuesday, resulting in the deaths of some 30 civilians.
"The Ugandan troops have had almost no impact, and it is time for the UN and the international community to use its influence to get a genuine peace and reconciliation process moving," says Mohamed Guyo of the Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi.
The UN Security Council began discussions Monday on the future of the undermanned AU mission with the intention of drafting a fresh resolution on Somalia. UN officials say the international organization is committed to replacing the 1,600-strong AU force once a negotiated peace is in place – an eventuality that observers say looks increasingly unlikely in the near future.
Other African countries have failed to send the forces they promised – obligations that, if met, would bring the total to 8,000 troops.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced out of the capital since militias loyal to a network of Islamic Courts relinquished their hold on Mogadishu at the end of last year.
But so far attempts at reconciling the country's fragile government with opposition elements have made little progress. A clan-based conference organized last month in Mogadishu by Somalia's tenuous transitional government has been criticized for failing to represent dissident Islamists.
An adviser to the Transitional Federal Government says the Mogadishu conference is a means of showing international donors that attempts at peace are being made, though actual progress is constrained by clan conflict.
"In international terms, the conference has some miles to go," says the anonymous official. "As usual in Somalia, things are being divided up along clan lines."
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