The search for a way to end the chaos in Somalia has been going on for a long time now. Last year, Somalis from all the formerly warring factions reached the point where they recognized that their primitive minifiefdoms, which divide up the country of ten million, were getting them nowhere. The only way they could better themselves and the people they claimed to represent was to work with all the other warlords. Though the deal to form a “Transitional Federal Government” was brokered by outsiders, the final decision to go with the arrangement rested with the Somali warlords themselves.
Now the African Union is planning to send an international peacekeeping force to help Somalis begin to restore some kind of normalcy and rebuild the shattered governmental institutions. Very much aware of the disastrous gung-ho military intervention by the US which imagined it could shoot its way to establishing a peace and then suffered a humiliating defeat, the AU is thinking that a low-level force from five East African countries — which hopefully will be seen as independent — will be able to work across clan lines in a way that a purely Somali force would not.
It is an honorable plan which may indeed be essential to take Somalia on the next step toward returning to properly functioning statehood. The risks, however, are considerable. Many of the gunmen are undisciplined thugs who have become used to lives of violence and intimidation. They may not take kindly to anyone asking them to move aside. Matters are made more dangerous by the fact that not all members of the transitional federal government are happy about foreign intervention. While the Cabinet has approved the deployment of between 5,000 and 7,000 foreign troops, the warlords are opposed to the move in its present form. While they may be prepared to accept the proposed Sudanese and Ugandan contingents, they are less happy about the planned participation of soldiers from Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti because each of these countries has, in the past, tried to influence Somali politics for its own ends. No arrangement will succeed unless it can be based on consensus. The AU, already doing less well than it hoped in Darfur, must not seek to impose anything on the fragile Somali government. There must be clear and generally accepted operational guidelines for any AU force. Just as importantly, a viable procedure to investigate impartially any unfortunate incidents as soon as they occur must be agreed upon.
When AU officials meet in Kampala this week to finalize their proposals, they must appreciate that this will be one of the toughest peacekeeping missions ever. It needs meticulous organization to ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease. Neither Somalia nor the AU can afford a disaster. If there really is a danger that forces from Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya will not be acceptable to some members of the Somali government, then the AU must be prepared to go back to the drawing board. Imposing a solution could shatter the fragile Somali consensus and doom an AU peacekeeping force to disastrous failure.
