Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno said on Tuesday he was worried about a possible plan to send U.N. troops to Somalia when it is unclear who controls militants on the ground.
Fighting in the lawless Horn of Africa country between government forces and Islamist insurgents has left more than 8,000 civilians dead over the past year and forced 1 million from their homes.
The interim government of Somalia, a country whose main exports are sheep and goats, and its exiled opposition initialed a deal in Djibouti last month calling for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers and a ceasefire after a month.
However, that pact was rejected by Somalia's Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, an Islamist who recently claimed to have taken over the country's exiled opposition, the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.
"The political process is very elusive," said Guehenno, who steps down this month after eight years in the job. "The people who sign agreements ... how much of the guns on the ground do they control?
"If their control of guns is at best weak or ... nonexistent, then the agreements will not be a solid foundation for a peacekeeping operation."
The Security Council has been reluctant to send U.N. peacekeepers to Somalia, where warlords, Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces are battling.
The African Union has said its peacekeeping force cannot stabilize Somalia and asked for U.N. troops instead.
Despite his reservations about Somalia, Guehenno said it was hard to deny peacekeeping missions, "How can you say 'no' when you are the last resort?"
The French diplomat leaves the department with twice the number of peacekeepers on staff than when he took the job. (Reporting by Megan Davies and Louis Charbonneau)
Source: Reuters, July 29, 2008