Expert cautions over peacekeeping force

A hasty imposition or deployment of a peacekeeping force to war-ravaged Somalia could ignite renewed conflict, Alejandro Bendana, team leader of the European Union (EU)-backed Somalia Strategic Demilitarisation Unit, warned on Thursday.

"There is no question about going in there to impose something," Bendana told journalists at the start of a two-day Somalia planning meeting at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa. "This is not Iraq. No one has a right to go and impose on another government - on a people that has not solicited it."

Bendana, whose unit is supported by the AU and the UN, said the international community must instead be prepared for a long commitment.

The meeting aims to thrash out a strategy for the eventual deployment of an African mission to Somalia. UN, EU, AU and World Bank officials are attending alongside diplomats, military and security experts.

The talks come in the wake of a recent appeal by the new Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed for 20,000 peacekeepers to help restore order in the devastated country and disarm about 55,000 militias that roam the country carrying more than two million small arms. Yusuf also wants the force to help train a 30,000 strong Somali army within a year.

Bendana said no timetable had been agreed on for sending a peacekeeping force to Somalia, but conditions had to be right before they could go in. "There is relative urgency. But mistakes in deployment can cost us very dearly and not just in terms of lives, but in terms of being able to generate broad-based support," he noted.

"Whatever action the international community takes has to be sensitive to the reality on the ground," he continued. "There are pre-conditions for a deployment. Along with the question of numbers, there has to be political conditions and understanding and dissemination of what that external deployment should be."

A seven-person Somali delegation is also at the planning conference that ends on Friday. Muhammad Ali Foum, the AU’s special envoy for Somalia, said they hoped an AU military observer mission could go in at the "earliest opportunity" and lay the groundwork for an eventual peacekeeping force.