By Billow Kerrow
Sunday, November 03, 2013
The UN Security Council is set to approve an additional 4,000 troops for
Amisom in Somalia to help the fledging government maintain security in
that nation.
This follows the Africa Union request to send in more soldiers to
fight Al Shabaab due to its threats to nations in the region. If this
additional force is deployed, it will bring the total number of the
Amisom troops from several African nations to 22,000.Amisom
controls Mogadishu, Kismayu and other major towns in the south of the
country. According to the UN, Al Shabaab controls about a third of the
territory. Recent UK media reports suggest that the organisation, which
UN says has about 5,000 men, is regrouping, recruiting and training
daily contrary to perceptions that they are finished.
The Guardian
newspaper report quotes KDF sources saying that the group’s number
could actually be three times more, and that in spite of being formally
removed from Kismayu, Al Shabaab maintains a parallel underground
administration that collects revenue from businesses.
The same
report suggests that Amisom advances to other areas under the control of
the group have lost momentum in recent months due to inadequate
equipment.
My take is that both the AU and the UN are wrong in
pursuing expansion of Amisom troops at the expense of building the
capacity of Somalia’s defence forces. Its Army, estimated at just about
10,000 men converted from local militias, is so ill-equipped that it
lacks the capacity to secure towns freed from Al Shabaab.
For a
country as vast as Somalia, facing a major terrorist insurgency, its
security forces do not have a single aircraft to help its forces mobilse
when necessary. Its so-called Army, where the rank and file earn an
inconsistent, paltry pay of $160 per month, suffers questions of trust
and legitimacy because of their perceived affiliations to clans and
regional powers.
It is illogical to invest so much resource in
sending foreign armies to police the country, yet the national
government urgently needs support to build its own security forces.
Amisom
spends about US$500 million annually for deploying its 17,000 troops in
Somalia. Regional countries spend similar amounts to support troops in
that country.
Uganda’s budget for its forces in Amisom last year
was about $100 million. Kenya probably spends even more. Yet, the impact
of these foreign forces in Somalia is minimal in my view, relative to
what a well trained and equipped Somali forces would have achieved.
First,
the amounts spent on the proposed 22,000 Amisom forces annually is more
than adequate to recruit 100,000 men into the Somali Army, complete
with their artillery.
Secondly, there is little doubt that local Somalis understand the
terrain and would, according to some UN reports, offer “better policing
and better intelligence”.
It is also rational to suggest that
properly equipped, trained and well remunerated Somali forces would
easily overrun the insurgent groups, and be a more attractive
alternative for the youth to join.
It makes pretty good sense to teach folks how to fish than to give them fish.
The
Somalia Army even under the TFG regime suffered low morale and
defection due to poor terms and the lack of adequate equipment to
respond to threats.
Now that Somalia has a government that is
recognised globally, it is time the international community invested in
its people in order to help the nation build its capacity.
The
Amisom forces can then be redeployed to its porous international borders
to stop infiltration until security is restored in the country.