Jamster Posted March 14, 2005 AU appeals for international support on Somalia troop deployment - Monday, March 14, 2005 at 14:17 ENTEBBE, Uganda, March 12 (AFP) - The African Union Saturday appealed for international support for the planned deployment of regional peacekeepers to help the new Somalia administration relocate from exile in Kenya. The appeal was made by an AU official during a meeting of senior east African defense officials here planning the controversial deployment, which is estimated to cost about 500 million dollars (371 million euros). "I wish to appeal strongly to the international community to come forward in supporting and assisting the deployment of the IGAD peace support mission in Somalia," said Jaotody Jean de Matha, an AU representative. "We cannot afford to waste any more time as the relocation of the transitional federal government to Somalia is long overdue. "We need to respond to the call of the Somali people that the government must come home without any further delay," de Matha explained. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, his premier Mohammed Ali Gedi and the whole parliament have unable to return home since their appointment last October owing to insecurity in the bullet-scarred Somali capital, Mogadishu. AU last month authorised the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to deploy a peace mission to help Yusuf make good his commitment to return to Somalia, but the proposal has met fierce opposition from some Islamic clerics there and a number of warlords. IGAD, comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia, plans to deploy about 10,000 peacekeepers, who will remain in Somalia for eight months before handing over to a proper AU force. "The mission is estimated to cost about five hundred million dollars and will take eight months before we hand over to the African Union," an official attending the meeting told AFP. Ugandan Regional Cooperation Minister Nsimye Sebuturo said the defence officials will debate a document detailing the deployment of troops, the areas they will cover, their mandate, size and funding and other logistics ahead of an IGAD foreign ministers' conference on Monday. Somalia has been in chaos and without a functional government since 1991, when strongman Mohammed Siad Barre's ouster slid the nation of 10 million people into an ungovernable patchwork of fiefdoms. A previous attempt to pacify Somalia between 1993 and 1995 failed ignominously with the death of 140 UN peacekeepers, 18 US special forces troops and thousands of Somalis. Source: Relief Web Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
