Monday, February 06, 2012
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There is an unprecedented build-up of military force in Somalia. African Union peacekeepers are set to double to more than 17,000 while Kenya and Ethiopia have launched their own invasions. Soldiers from the USA, Britain and France are targeting insurgents with foreign terrorist links. This military influx could prove counter-productive, given the lack of resources for stabilising local politics and strengthening the economy .
Charming and jovial, Tanzanian diplomat Augustine Mahiga worked the room hard as he talked about tangible progress in Somalia to an array of stern faces at the African Union's (AU) Peace and Security Council on 5 January in Addis Ababa.
"This is the moment when years of investment in Somalia could finally pay off if we stay the course and move forward together," Mahiga intoned in his role as the UN secretary general's special representative to Somalia.
It was a hard sell convincing fellow diplomats about progress in Somalia after another year of famine, piracy, fist fights in parliament and battles with jihadist militias.
The irrepressible Mahiga wants to show that he believes that the progress is real by moving his UN office to Mogadishu following an offensive by the AU troops that drove the Islamist Al-Shabaab militia out of the capital last year.
THE AU AND MAHIGA have asked the UN Security Council to approve funding to add 5,700 troops to the current total of 9,500.
That will add to what has become a multi-million-dollar business in pacifying, or at least neutralising, Somalia.
African defence officials and private military consultants are in hot pursuit of funding from the UN and intervening governments for operations and procurement.
Governments in the region earn $1,000 for each peacekeeper per month, and it also builds up their armies' combat experience.
With anti-pirate flotillas from more than 24 countries patrolling the [LINK=http://www.theafricareport.com/index.php/east-horn-africa/plundered-fish-stocks-somalia-s-double-piracy-5136198.html]Gulf of Aden[/LINK], and French and United States forces monitoring terrorist targets from Djibouti (and occasionally sending special forces into Mogadishu on covert operations), there is an unprecedented build-up of military force in and around Somalia.
There is quieter talk of the [LINK=http://www.theafricareport.com/index.php/east-horn-africa/plundered-fish-stocks-somalia-s-double-piracy-5136198.html]mineral and fishing resources[/LINK] off the longest coastline of any African state.
This new militarisation could result in political progress, according to the executive secretary of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.
Kenya's Mahboub Maalim told The Africa Report: "Somalia is closer to being stabilised than at any other time.
It is mostly due to the lifting of the UN Security Council resolution limiting border countries from intervening in Somalia."
That change by the UN has legitimised the [LINK=http://www.theafricareport.com/index.php/2012012550180054/columns/a-new-world-order-on-hold-50180054.html]operations by Kenyan and Ethiopian[/LINK] troops over the past few months.
The Kenyan government wants to join the AU mission so its troops can be eligible for funding from the UN.
For Maalim, the next critical stage in Somalia will be political: "There will be some far-reaching changes. Elections must be held by the end of August. A new government will be formed, and one that hopefully comes without the baggage of the current one."
This is where Somalia's divided political class is meant to work with African governments and Mahiga's UN office.
Few Somalis outside the partisan political groupings have much of a voice: civic organisations have taken a terrible hit in the past two decades.
Some UN officials are now trying to reinvigorate the reconciliation strategy launched by veteran Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun that worked with clan organisations, the foundation of Somali society.
President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu is meant to hand over power in August when a new constitution based on the principle of decentralisation comes into force.
The transitional parliament, which has voted itself a three-year extension, will be central to any transition: its members want to push out Sheikh Sharif but cannot agree on a replacement.
For Simon Mulongo, former director of the Eastern Africa Standby Brigade and now a Ugandan MP, there is a clear imperative for regional states to intervene: "Somalia represents a black spot, an ungoverned space, and therefore precipitates concerns of organised crime, bandit economies, etc., which affect the region directly and indirectly ... This invites those affected to take charge of the situation ... especially when they have Somali elements that also operate in their countries."
al-SHABAAB ORGANISED a bomb attack in Kampala in July 2010, so Mulongo insists that the Ugandan government has vital security interests there: "Somalia is not just a problem for Somalia alone.
Terror groups operating in the region are creating relationships. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have links with groups also operating in Somalia.
Jamil Mukulu, the ADF leader, trained in the Middle East and has organised some of his elements to be linked with some of the groups.
The ADF is based in the western slopes of the Rwenzori and western Uganda."