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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Tue Jul 27 2010 - 02:56:41 EDT
The Long War Journal: The African Union's beleaguered Somalia mission
Written by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Seungwon Chung on July 20, 2010 2:00
PM to The Long War Journal
Available online at:
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/07/the_african_unions_b.php
Shabaab fighters march in southern Somalia.
Being an African Union peacekeeper in Somalia must be one of the world’s
worst jobs, even in a down economy. The African Union Mission in Somalia
(AMISOM) is a bootstrap operation whose troops face rocket attacks, suicide
bombers, and improvised explosive devices. They do this in service of a
strategy in which they and their governments lack confidence, as
restrictive rules of engagement seemingly do not allow an effective defense
against militant attacks. Compensation can be sporadic, as peacekeepers
were forced to go six months without pay last year. And the recent attacks
in Uganda make clear that the insurgent group al Shabaab intends to make
peacekeeping in Somalia even harder.
Though commentators agree that last week’s bombings that struck Uganda
were designed to weaken the AMISOM mission by undercutting Uganda’s
commitment, missing from the public discourse has been a comprehensive
account of AMISOM showing how the mission developed, its strategic goals,
and the challenges it faces.
Early rumblings for peacekeeping in Somalia
African countries first endorsed the idea of peacekeeping in Somalia in
September 2006, when most of Somalia’s key cities were controlled by the
Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist group that ultimately splintered
and gave birth to al Shabaab. Somalia’s UN-recognized transitional
federal government was at that time holed up in the south-central Somali
city of Baidoa, in imminent danger of being overrun by ICU forces.
This first peacekeeping plan, which was developed by the East African
regional development organization Inter-Governmental Authority on
Development (IGAD), can be described most charitably as a tepid effort.
Though IGAD’s plan called for 8,000 troops from member countries to
support Somalia’s transitional government, it was hampered by two
significant problems.
The first barrier is endemic to African Union (AU) efforts in general: lack
of funding. Though AU peace and security commissioner Saïd Djinnit
estimated that the first year’s deployment would cost $335 million, the
AU had nowhere near that level of resources available. The second barrier
was one of design, in that—in an effort to prevent political
problems—the deployment plan specified that IGAD countries bordering
Somalia could not contribute troops. This left a limited universe of
countries that were eligible to send troops: Somalia was one of IGAD’s
seven members, and three other countries were neighboring states.
What followed was bureaucratic shuffling as the ICU continued to make
gains. Though IGAD’s early September deployment plan ambitiously called
for peacekeepers to be in place by the end of that month, when December
2006 rolled around there were still no troops in place. The UN Security
Council got into the act of passing further resolutions at the beginning of
December with Resolution 1725, which authorized the IGAD mission, as well
as the restriction that states bordering Somalia could not contribute
troops.
Ethiopia invades
Of all the countries worried by the ICU’s rise, Ethiopia had the deepest
concerns due to previous Islamist attacks launched into its territory from
Somalia in the 1990s and the ICU’s territorial designs on the Ogaden
region, which was inhabited by a majority of Somali speakers. Despite the
slow bureaucratic movement toward the deployment of peacekeepers—and
despite the provisions in the IGAD plan and UN Security Council Resolution
1725 that states bordering Somalia should not introduce troops—Ethiopia
intervened unilaterally in an effort to push back the ICU and stabilize the
transitional government.
Though Ethiopia quickly dislodged the ICU from Mogadishu and other
strategic cities, it eventually faced a powerful insurgency. Al Shabaab
split with other insurgent factions in late 2007, blasting them for working
with secular powers and failing to adopt a global jihadist ideology.
During this time, African nations prepared for Ethiopia’s inevitable
withdrawal in two ways. First, the regional IGAD mission was broadened to
the AU-wide AMISOM mission. Second, the first contingent of AU peacekeepers
was deployed to Somalia even before Ethiopia withdrew: in fact, a
1,700-strong Ugandan force arrived in March 2007, within months of
Ethiopia’s invasion.
Ethiopia maintained the largest foreign footprint in Somalia until January
2009, when it withdrew in the midst of intense fighting; the trucks filled
with Ethiopian soldiers hit a roadside bomb almost immediately as they left
Mogadishu. At that point, AMISOM forces took their place: a total of 2,850
troops from Uganda and Burundi. Uganda and Burundi remain the only two
countries to have contributed troops to AMISOM even though Ghana, Nigeria,
Malawi, and Burkina Faso committed to deploying soldiers. That promised
support has never materialized.
AMISOM today
Why have other countries been so hesitant to devote their militaries to
AMISOM? The two primary reasons have been lack of confidence in the mission
and general inertia.
Many AU countries have reservations about AMISOM’s mission. Currently
AMISOM is conceived of as a peacekeeping operation, with rules of
engagement reflecting that design. Traditionally, peacekeeping missions are
designed to help implement peace agreements that have been reached by
conflicting sides. In contrast, peace enforcement operations are designed
for situations where the parties do not have an agreed-upon ceasefire, and
violence is consequently prevalent. While peacekeeping operations have
cautious rules of engagement, peace enforcement missions have greater
allowances for use of force.
Nigeria’s then-foreign minister Ojo Maduekwe clearly expressed this
concern last year when explaining why his country had not provided the
troops it promised. “'The situation in Somalia constitutes a threat to
international peace and security in the region, hence the need to review
the mandate of the peacekeeping mission to a more effective one,” he
said. Similarly, following Sunday’s bombings, Ugandan president Yoweri
Museveni again called for the AMISOM mission to shift from peacekeeping to
peace enforcement.
But one question is where the resources for this expanded mission can be
found. In February, when the AU rejected a similar Ugandan request for a
change in mandate, a Ugandan minister noted that a sticking point had been
the “increased burden” it would entail, including “new troop
requirements and equipment.” Diplomatic sources also worried at the time
that an expanded mandate “could complicate the mission and suck the
troops into a no-win situation.”
In addition to concerns about the AMISOM mandate, simple inertia is another
reason that countries have been hesitant to contribute: there is a
free-rider problem at play.
The AMISOM mission has clearly suffered due to its nebulous strategy, lack
of funding, and limited participation. Uganda is attempting to use the
recent bombings as an opportunity to shift to what it considers a more
appropriate strategy, while al Shabaab hopes that its attacks can undercut
Uganda’s political will and deter other AU countries from committing to
AMISOM.
Seungwon Chung, a graduate student at Wake Forest University, is a research
intern at the Center for the Study of Radicalization at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies.
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