An African summit ended Wednesday with a proposed peacekeeping
force for Somalia still lacking firm commitments for thousands of
troops, despite fears the country could plunge back into
anarchy.
Much of the second day of the African Union (AU) summit was
dominated by discussions on the need to urgently raise 8,000 troops
for Somalia.
The force is required to fill a vacuum when Ethiopian troops
pull out soon, after ousting Islamists who ruled much of the Horn
of Africa country for six months.
But Ghana's President John Kufuor, the new AU chairman, told a
late-night final news conference after Tuesday's session that the
number of troops firmly pledged so far was only 4,000, with other
countries still mulling contributions.
"That we have 4,000 shows that we have come to the stage that we
have 50 percent already," said Kufuor. "It's early days yet. We
have asked the nations to contribute and I expect that they will
contribute."
At the opening of the summit on Monday, AU commission chief
Alpha Oumar Konare urged the leaders to raise more troops, saying
hardly 4,000 had been pledged so far and warning of chaos if the
force was not deployed.
But despite extensive discussions at the summit, the number
firmly committed appears not to have increased, although pledges of
logistical support have been made.
Many African nations are nervous about committing soldiers to
one of the world's most dangerous countries where warlords and
their gunmen ruled unchecked for 15 years.
The dangers were underlined on Tuesday when a series of blasts
rocked northern Mogadishu in an area of the capital where Ethiopian
troops are based, security sources and residents said.
There was no immediate information on casualties after the
blasts, which occurred on the same day a Somali Islamist website
posted a message purporting to be from a new insurgency group
vowing to kill African peacekeepers.
The authenticity of the posting could not be confirmed.
EU releases US$19 million funding
The European Union has released €15 million (US$19 million) to
finance the Somalia peacekeepers.
Uganda, Nigeria and Burundi have pledged most of the troops so
far, with an unknown number also committed by Ghana and Malawi.
Zambia is considering a contribution.
A senior Algerian official said his country would provide about
12 transport planes to airlift the troops.
Ethiopia says its mission is complete after its warplanes, tanks
and troops swept aside the Islamist militia in a two-week Christmas
war. It wants the first AU units to deploy by mid-February.
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin told reporters the
pledges of up to 4,000 troops so far were "very encouraging because
this is the first phase of the deployment".
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He said Addis Ababa was confident the troops would be deployed
before Ethiopia withdrew in a few weeks.
The summit thanked Addis Ababa for supporting the interim
government in Somalia and defeating the Islamists.
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told the summit his government
would shortly call a broad reconciliation conference of clan,
religious and political leaders as well as other prominent figures
to discuss the country's future.
(China Daily via agencies February 1, 2007)
