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By Margaret Besheer
United Nations
20 March 2008
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The U.N. Security Council is looking at
options, proposed by the secretary general, for stabilizing Somalia.
They include the possibility of sending a U.N. peacekeeping force to
that country to take over from the small African Union force currently
there. From United Nations headquarters in New York, VOA's Margaret
Besheer has more.
Diplomats say sending a U.N. peacekeeping force
to Somalia is not an immediate possibility.
|
| U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad, 26 Jan 2008 |
But it is one of several
options Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has laid out for the council to
consider in a new report on the situation in Somalia.
Zalmay Khalilzad is the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
"We are not close to deploying the peacekeeping forces, but we are
looking at a variety of options: the political presence of the U.N.,
what you could do in terms of maritime activities, what you could do in
terms of strengthening AMISOM [The African Union Mission in Somalia],
and considering under what circumstances one might do peacekeeping," he
noted.
Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping
Operations Edmond Mulet, expressed concern to the council about sending
peacekeepers into Somalia while the security situation remains
inconsistent
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| People clean up after a roadside bomb exploded in the south of Mogadishu, Somalia, 3 Feb 2008 |
throughout the country and the Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) is unable to maintain law and order.
"The security situation in many parts of Somalia, and particularly
Mogadishu, remains complex, volatile and unpredictable," he noted.
"Due to the complexity of the conflict, shifting alliances and
extremist activity, the situation in south and central Somalia can
change daily, making any location that is safe one day, potentially
dangerous the next."
In his report, Mr. Ban laid out four scenarios for possible future
developments in Somalia. Two include international troop deployments,
but only if key conditions on the ground are met.
In one of those scenarios, Mr. Ban envisages improvements in both
the political and security situations resulting in the consideration of
a phased withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Mogadishu. Ethiopian
forces have been assisting Somalia's transitional government for more
than a year in its battle against an Islamist-led insurgency.
Under this scenario, Mr. Ban foresees a stabilization force of about 8,000 troops and police to prevent a security vacuum.
In another scenario, the U.N. chief says a viable political process,
involving a power sharing agreement among the parties and the
renunciation of violence, could lead to the withdrawal of Ethiopian
forces and the deployment of more than 28,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops
to succeed the current African Union mission. That mission is made up
of about 2,300 troops from Uganda and Burundi.
But in the current political and security climate, the
secretary-general is only recommending the relocation of a limited
number of U.N. staff from Kenya to Mogadishu and other parts of south
and central Somalia. He also proposes the possibility of a Maritime
Task Force, which would expand current French and Danish efforts to
protect ships carrying humanitarian aid from pirates off Somalia's
coast.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown.
Since an Ethiopian military campaign ousted Somali Islamists from
power in December 2006, Islamist-led groups have been waging a violent
anti-government insurgency.
The United Nations warns that violence and instability have left
some two million Somalis in need of humanitarian assistance and
displaced one million people from their homes.
SOURCE: VOA News, March 21, 2008