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Somalia: New President Asks AU for 20,000 Peacekeepers

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
October 25, 2004
Posted to the web October 25, 2004
Addis Ababa
Somalia's newly elected president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, has asked the African
Union (AU) for 20,000 peacekeepers to help secure the country, officials said
on Saturday.
The peacekeepers would also help disarm various militias, AU spokesman Adam
Thiam said after a meeting between the president and AU chairman Alpha Oumar
Konare.
The comments came as European Union (EU) foreign policy chief, Javier Solana,
held talks in Addis Ababa about helping rebuild the war-ravaged nation. Solana
said the EU could help with physical reconstruction and also help to "put the
administration into shape", although he declined to say how much it would
contribute.
Solana, who also met Sudanese-rebel leader John Garang and Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi during his two-day trip to Addis Ababa, said the
challenges were enormous.
"It is not an easy job and that is why they need moral support and
recognition," the EU chief said after a meeting with Yusuf. "The country has
suffered a lot and it is time to reconstruct and reconcile the country. The
stability of this part of the world is fundamental for Africa and in a
globalised world, stability everywhere has repercussions for the rest of the
world."
Solana said that while security in Somalia should remain the task of Africans,
the EU was willing to continue support and training in technical areas.
"We will be able to help, but the ownership of this belongs to the Africans,"
he said. "A lot of work has to be done on the country still to disarm people
who are armed - there are too many weapons there."
Yusuf was elected as Somalia's president after almost two years of stop-start
talks held in neighbouring Kenya because of insecurity at home. The Horn-of-
Africa country has been divided into fiefdoms ruled by rival warlords since
1991, when long-time ruler Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted. Yusuf, 71, winner in
the run-off round of the poll by lawmakers, had served as president of the
northeastern self-declared autonomous region of Puntland since 1998.
There have been 13 previous peace efforts and two previous governments formed,
but they never managed to take effective control over most of the country.
"The main focus for the AU is security, Thiam said. "What they will be asking
for is 20,000. The president mentioned there were more than 15 million small
arms in Somalia and the disarmament will be a very important issue."
Thiam added that the aim was to build a peacekeeping force to disarm the
warlords and train a national army, which is needed for the "reconstruction of
Somalia".

   

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