By Irwin Arieff
Council support for a “peacekeeping support operation” proposed for the lawless Horn of Africa state by the African Union and the seven-nation regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, is crucial as troops could not go in unless the council first eased a 1992 arms embargo.
A statement read by French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, the council president for July, said the 15-nation U.N. body “states its willingness” to consider such a peacekeeping operation if it feels it would contribute to peace and stability in Somalia.
The statement, drafted by Britain, also expressed the council’s readiness to ease the arms ban to enable Somalia’s shaky Transitional Federal Government to develop its own security forces.
Somalia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Idd Beddel Mohamed, welcomed the statement, saying it marked the first time the council had accepted “a request from a legitimate government in Somalia to partially lift the arms embargo so it can establish its security forces.”
He said the declaration sent a message to militant Islamists who captured Mogadishu on June 5 “that they are not a legitimate and responsible actor in Somalia.”
The Islamists oppose letting in foreign peacekeepers, although interim President Abdullahi Yusuf says they are needed to get his government on its feet and pacify the country.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has denounced letting in foreign troops as part of a crusade against the Muslim world.
Somalia has had no real central authority since 1991.
The Western-backed interim government was formed in neighbouring Kenya in 2004 with help from IGAD. It is based in Baidoa, 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Mogadishu, because it was too weak to set up in the former capital.
Council action on the proposal for foreign peacekeepers had been stalled for weeks over internal divisions. The United States had been hesitant to embrace the idea of easing the arms embargo, while China had argued this was merited by the need for a peacekeeping mission.
Source: Reuters, July 13, 2006
