Stop ignoring Somalia - UN
2008-03-21 12:02
New York - The international community must overcome its reluctance to get involved in Somalia and help put an end to abuses there, a special UN
envoy said on Thursday.
"While more people are talking about Somalia, there is
still little action to stop the violence," Ahmedou
Ould-Abdallah told the Security Council during a debate on
whether to send UN peacekeepers to the African country.
"I am not asking outside countries to become active for
moral or altruistic reasons. They have a clearly mandated
responsibility to become involved in a country where there are
widespread violations of human rights and humanitarian law."
AU mission
Last month the Security Council extended for six months
UN endorsement of an African Union mission in the lawless
country. It consists of two Ugandan battalions, totalling 1 600
troops, and an advance party of 192 Burundians.
Deputy UN peacekeeping chief Edmond Mulet outlined four
possible scenarios for deploying international peacekeepers.
One called for the deployment of up to 27 000 UN troops.
While the 15 Security Council members agree the situation
is dire, many are reluctant to send UN peacekeepers to
Somalia, where Islamist insurgents, warlords and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces fight battles every day.
'Failed state'
Britain's UN ambassador John Sawers described Somalia as
a "failed state" and said more political progress was needed
before the council could consider deploying UN forces there.
"Until there's further progress on the political front,
it's difficult to see scope for a fully-fledged peacekeeping
force," he said.
French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said the council
needed be certain Somalis wanted international peacekeepers.
"For the moment we have the African troops. It's a start,"
he said.
South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said it would
take time to persuade the council to deploy peacekeepers.
"The ultimate goal is to have a UN peacekeeping mission
on the ground. That is not going to happen tomorrow," he said.
The UN refugee agency has described the conflict, which
has uprooted more than one million people, as the world's worst
humanitarian crisis, even worse than Darfur.
- Reuters