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Ban urges 'coalition of willing'
21/04/2007 11:43 - (SA)
United Nations - A "coalition of the willing" may be needed to enforce peace in Somalia, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report.
In a report to the security council made available on Friday, Ban called on the 15-nation body to consider in June whether a conventional UN peacekeeping force could succeed in the lawless East African country or whether something more was needed.
Ban said a UN force might work if fighting stopped in south-central Somalia and all or most armed groups and communities signed up to an agreement allowing outside monitoring.
In that case, UN involvement "would primarily focus on technical assistance to the reconciliation efforts, as well as on reconstruction and development, supported by an appropriate UN peacekeeping presence", he said.
But if the political process failed and violence got worse, "alternative options, including peace enforcement, should be considered".
Mogadishu residents flee city
"An operation, mandated by the UN, mounted by and composed of a coalition of the willing with the appropriate capabilities to deal with the high paramilitary threat, would be better suited" to such a situation.
The term "coalition of the willing" refers to a group of like-minded countries that decide to take action in a trouble spot but are not under UN control.
Ban's report, which would be discussed by the security council next Tuesday, came as fresh shelling and gunfire shook Mogadishu and an exodus of residents from the Somali capital gathered pace.
Somalia was thrown into anarchy when former president Mohamed Siad Barre fell in 1991.
AU soldiers attacked
The Council of Islamic Courts captured Mogadishu from warlords last year, but was ousted over the New Year by the forces of the Western-backed interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf, bolstered by Ethiopian troops.
Since then an insurgency blamed on the group has grown in Mogadishu and challenged Yusuf's effort to restore central control.
About 1 200 Ugandan soldiers are now in Somalia as an advance guard of a planned African Union peacekeeping force but have not stemmed the violence and have themselves become a target of insurgents.
Ban urged the security council to look at the situation again in mid-June to see if a UN-backed reconciliation process that Yusuf's government was trying to launch had made enough progress to allow a UN peacekeeping operation.
But his report admitted that such an operation would be fraught with problems, ranging from security to logistics.
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