South Africa will not contribute troops to an African peacekeeping force in Somalia, but will study other ways to help stabilise the war-ravaged country, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said on Friday.
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota made the decision after reviewing South Africa’s overseas peacekeeping commitments, which include forces in Burundi, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as smaller missions in Côte d’Ivoire and Ethiopia and Eritrea, spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi said.
Mkhwanazi said while the country supported the deployment of peacekeepers, it was ”currently stretched” because it already contributed troops to African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) missions.
”It would not be in the interests of either the UN, the AU and other missions where South Africa is involved if the country were to send troops to Somalia.”
The AU has proposed sending about 8 000 peacekeepers to Somalia to bolster the interim government after Ethiopian troops pull-out of the chaotic country, where they intervened against Islamist forces in a two-week war in December.
Mkhwanazi said Lekota and other officials were reviewing other options for assisting the Somalia peacekeeping mission, which might include technical support, and would shortly advise President Thabo Mbeki on their suggestions.
Nigeria said this week it would send a battalion to join the peacekeepers in Somalia, which defied UN and United States peacekeeping attempts more than a decade ago and has not known peace since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991.
Malawi and Uganda have also said they are willing to contribute to the peacekeeping force.
Ethiopia has started withdrawing its troops but there are fears the interim Somali government of President Abdullahi Yusuf, which lacks a national power base, could implode if that happens and the Ethiopians are not swiftly replaced.
Ethiopian soldier killed in southern Somalia
Meanwhile, attackers killed one Ethiopian soldier and wounded another in the southern Somali port of Kismayu on Thursday.
The shoot-out happened in the main market in Kismayu, the last city the Islamists held before joint Ethiopian-Somali government forces ran them into the nearby bush of Somalia’s southern tip at the New Year.
”One Ethiopian soldier got killed and another one was wounded when gunmen opened fire at them. We do not know who was behind this act, but we are investigating,” lawmaker Abdirashid Mohamed Hidig, who is also the regional government administrator, told Reuters by telephone from Kismayu.
Kismayu’s police chief, Mohamed Abdi, said 36 people were arrested and were being interrogated.
The gunfight was the first against Ethiopians in Kismayu, but the latest in a spate of attacks against Ethiopian and government troops across the country — most of them in the chaotic capital Mogadishu.
The allies ran the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (Sicc) out of the seaside capital and most of southern Somalia in a lighting assault with Ethiopian jets and tanks, that ended the Islamist movement’s six-month rule under strict sharia law.
Many suspect hardcore Islamist remnants from the two-week war are behind the attacks, but there are many enemies of the government including clan militias and criminals.
Besides, Ethiopia for at least a millennium has been a rival of its Horn of Africa neighbour Somalia, and many Somalis are furious that an opponent in two brutal wars in the last 50 years is patrolling the streets and propping up the government. – Reuters