The Controversial 10,000 Strong IGAD Peacekeeping Force for Somalia
Abdullahi Mohamed (Deputy Editor Geeka Afrika Online)
Djibouti (HAN) March 17, 2005
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The Controversial 10,000 Strong IGAD Peacekeeping Force Planned for Somalia




Experts from the Inter-government Authority on Development (IGAD), have agreed to send eight battalions (roughly 10,000 troops) of peacekeepers to war-torn Somalia

ADDIS ABABA, March 16 (Reuters) - The African Union (AU) said on Wednesday it planned to send between 6,000 and 7,000 troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help disarm militias threatening peace in the region, officials said


MOGADISHU (HAN), March 17, 2005 --The Security Council today requested the UN Secretary General to re-establish, within 30 days and for a period of six months, the Monitoring Group focusing on the ongoing arms embargo violations in Somalia, including transfers of ammunition, single use weapons and small arms.



The IGAD Frontline peacekeeping force will be deployed in Somalia at the end of April, according to a senior Ugandan military officer. The peacekeepers will be chosen from the countries of Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The controversial 10, 000-strong regional peacekeeping force planned for Somalia will deploy across the country except in the breakaway region of Somaliland, a senior Ugandan military officer has said.
"The force will deploy throughout Somalia, from Puntland all the way to the south, but not in Somaliland," the officer said after meetings of east African military experts at which the eight-battalion deployment was worked out.
Somalia has been without any functioning central authority for the past 14 years but the region of Somaliland has established its own governmental structures and claims independence from the rest of the war-shattered nation.
The officer said the first phase of the proposed deployment, which has been recommended to begin on April 30, would see three-and-half battalions of troops sent to lawless Somalia to assist the country's transitional government relocate there from exile in Kenya.
The first peacekeepers to go would include a battalion each from Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia and a half battalion from Djibouti, he said on condition of anonymity.
He stressed that the proposal, presented by defence chiefs from the seven-nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development on Monday, still had to be approved by IGAD foreign ministers.
The officer added that the proposal did not take into account strong opposition from some Somali warlords and Islamic clerics to the participation in the force of troops from Ethiopia and Djibouti.
Those two countries, as well as Kenya, are seen by opponents as having ulterior motives in Somalia.
"The foreign ministers will handle those policy matters," the officer said. "We wrote down the concept and it is them to decide the implementation policy."
However, on Monday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the current chair of IGAD, said the force, to be known as the IGAD Peace Support Mission for Somalia, would deploy with or without the support of the warlords.
"We are going to deploy with or without the support of the warlords," Museveni told defence ministers from IGAD, which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia. - AFP