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Editorial
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The killing of two dozen African Union peacekeepers, including the deputy force commander Maj-Gen Juvenile Niyoyunguriza from Burundi by Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu last Thursday, was a sad reminder of the hellhole Somalia has become, and of the neglect by the world’s great powers of the incredible human tragedy unfolding there.
The deaths of the peacekeepers in two suicide car bombings at the AU’s main base in Mogadishu, during which force commander Maj Gen Nathan Mugisha from Uganda was also injured, also underlined the radicalisation of the Somali conflict, with the increased use of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices (IEDS).
This shows that the transfer of Jihadist ideology from Iraq and Afghanistan has reached a critical threshold.
That the AU officers were targeted while holding a medical camp to offer much-needed humanitarian aid to Somalis shows the senselessness of the ideology behind the attack.
The greatest victims of the violence have, of course, been ordinary Somalis.
More than half of the country’s population is now dependent on humanitarian aid, with nearly 300,000 refugees crammed into a few square kilometres at the Dadaab camp in northeastern Kenya alone.
Just how the Al Shabaab — which said it perpetrated last week’s outrage to revenge the killing of Kenyan-born Al Qaeda terrorist mastermind Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan by US special forces — can reconcile the terrible humanitarian suffering it has spawned with the stance that it is fighting for the people of Somalia is unfathomable.
Because the world and especially the AU cannot hope to reason with Al Shabaab on the need for peace in Somalia, new coercive methods and instruments need to be brought to bear to try to stabilise the situation.
For one, since the formation of the Transitional Federal Government in 2005, the world has failed to tilt the balance of power in favour of the legitimate Somali government against the insurgents.
The support by the United States of the Ethiopian invasion in 2006, without concomitant investments in a sustainable internal Somali security infrastructure, not only further weakened the TFG but also created the perception that the government was beholden to foreign interests.
This prepared the ground for the current insurgency, and also introduced Eritrea, Ethiopia’s archrival, into the equation.
To date, the international community continues to fail the Somali people and the AU’s efforts to prop up the government with endless talk and little action.
Going forward, the AU peacekeepers must be funded and trained adequately, and also be given the right tools and platforms to fulfil their mission.
Eritrea and other arms suppliers to the insurgents must be told in no uncertain terms that they will no longer be allowed to be factors in the conflict.
If need be, the international community must consider strong action against Eritrea.
The international armada amassed in the Horn against piracy offers a credible means of persuasion.
Elsewhere, the Security Council and the AU must change the rules of engagement for the AU troops, which currently allow AU peacekeepers to fire back only when fired upon.
The truth now is that the scenario has changed from peacekeeping to peace-enforcement.
The AU troops must no longer be sitting ducks.