Somalia is the latest in a string of African nations that will need international peacekeepers if a process aimed at ending more than a decade of violence and chaos is to succeed, the chief mediator said on Friday.
Talks aimed at setting up the first effective government in the Horn of Africa nation since 1991 are nearing their final phase, and the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Somalia is ”crucial” to the success of any new administration, Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat said.
Ministers from regional countries supporting the peace process are going to appeal ”officially and internationally” for financial and other support for such a force, he said.
”That is our hope. Really [a new government] cannot go there without a force in place,” Kiplagat said in the Kenyan capital where more than 350 Somali delegates are attending peace talks.
Such a force would likely be made up of African troops, he said.
International forces, under with United Nations, European Union or Africa Union mandates, are already in Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. West African leaders are preparing to send a force to war-torn Liberia, possible as early as Monday.
The last time an international force deployed in Somalia — from late 1992 to 1995 — the mission ended in disaster for the United States and the United Nations (UN) after Somali fighters killed dozens of UN and US troops.
Analysts say the bitter experience in Somalia created a reluctance in Washington to intervene in other African conflicts, including the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The African Union (AU) is considering the stabilisation of Somalia and ”this may entail a peacekeeping operation”, said Mohammed Ali Foum, the AU’s special envoy.
The AU already plans to deploy 81 military observers in the country to monitor a cessation of hostilities agreement signed last October by Somalia’s various warlords and faction leaders.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since opposition leaders joined forces to oust dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The opposition leaders then turned on each other, reducing Somalia to a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed clan-based factions.
A transitional government was elected at a peace conference in neighbouring Djibouti in August 2000, but it has little influence outside Mogadishu and has been unable to disarm the gunmen. Its three-year term expires later this month.
The latest series of talks to end the chaos in Somalia – there have been more than a dozen previous attempts — began last October in Kenya, which shares a long and porous border with Somalia.
The negations began amid optimism after more than 20 Somali leaders -hailed as the largest gathering of faction leaders in a decade – signed a cessation of hostilities agreement. But the talks became bogged down by disputes among the Somali delegates and charges of corruption and mismanagement against the mediators.
There have also been widespread violations of the cessation of hostilities agreement; killing and banditry have continued in the nation of seven million.
However, there has been progress since Kiplagat took over in January as chief mediator. Earlier this month, the Somali delegates agreed to create a federal transitional government and 351-member Parliament.
The delegates have also adopted reports drawn up by committees to deal with disarmament, property rights, economic reconstruction and conflict resolution.
During the weekend, delegates will discuss the final and most contentious report that deals with a new transitional charter for the country, Kiplagat said.
If that is adopted, the talks will enter the final phase, focused on power-sharing and the election of a president by the new Parliament.
”We are looking forward to the formation of a transitional Somali government very soon,” Kiplagat said. – Sapa-AP