ADDIS ABABA/MOGADISHU, 9 February 2005 — The African Union has authorized five east African nations to deploy troops and equipment to help Somalia’s fledgling government return safely to its anarchic nation.
Somalia’s government was formed at peace talks in Kenya last year to end the lawless rule of local militias which banded together to depose military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The five nations agreed at an African Union summit in Nigeria last week to send troops or equipment to ensure security when the government returns.
In a communique issued yesterday, the pan-African body’s Peace and Security Council laid out the responsibilities of a peace mission backed by contingents from Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda.
The soldiers and other personnel are to be employed under the rubric of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), a group of east African governments that managed peace negotiations for Somalia and southern Sudan.
The AU-backed peace support mission is “to provide security support to the transitional federal government, in order to ensure its relocation to Somalia”.
It will also “guarantee the sustenance of the outcome of the IGAD peace process and assist with the re-establishment of peace and security, including the training of the police and army”, the communique said.
Two groups of government officials returned to Somalia last week, greeted by cheering Somalis, while on a mission to assess security.
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has said he wanted a combined AU-Arab League force of 7,500 troops to facilitate the government’s return. But others in his administration have argued that the militias are all the military muscle required.
Somalis are traditionally resistant of outside interference. The last peacekeeping mission in Somalia ended in a bloody and humiliating withdrawal by US and United Nations troops in the mid 1990s.
The communique did not specify the deployment size, although Uganda has already pledged 2,000 troops. Discussions on the size and mandate of the force were under way this week.
Kenyan Foreign Minister Chirau Ali Makwere told a press conference that Kenya wished to maintain its mediator’s neutrality and therefore would only send logistics and observer personnel, not soldiers.
It was unclear from what government branch the Kenyan contingent would be drawn.
Meanwhile, Information Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mohamoud Abdullahi Sifir said the relocation of government to Somalia would start on Feb. 21. “The speaker of Parliament and other MPs who are currently visiting Mogadishu are assessing the security situation in the city. The visit of Cabinet members is totally different from the tour of the MPs. Cabinet members will travel to the country before deciding where to set up their base in the country.
In another development, warlords in the Somali capital yesterday started handing over key state installations occupied by their gunmen to an official Somali delegation that is negotiating the relocation of the country’s national administration from exile in Kenya.
Warlord Hussein Mohammed Aidid’s Somali National Alliance (SNA) faction handed over the presidential palace in southern Mogadishu and asked President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s government to return and occupy it “very soon.”
“With respect, we hand over the presidential palace and ask the government to return very soon. Mogadishu is safe and SNA is ready to assist in maintaining security,” SNA’s top gunman Akbar Ganey said.
Aidid himself is a deputy prime minister in the Yusuf’s government. Commander Mohammed Jama Nur, now a lawmaker, also gave up control of the Mogadishu seaport and handed it over to Somali parliament speaker Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden, who is leading a delegation of around 70 lawmakers. “The port is now officially handed over to the government,” Nur said.
