From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Aug 29 2009 - 04:46:19 EDT
In Somalia, troops for peace end up at war
African Union soldiers contend with a vague and underfunded mission with no
cease-fire to enforce. Among the troops who have died, some apparently
succumbed to illness due to malnutrition.
By Edmund Sanders
August 29, 2009
Reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia - When a mystery illness swept through the
African Union peacekeeping mission here, killing six soldiers and sickening
dozens, doctors were stumped.
With help from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they
ruled out swine flu, tropical infection, rat-borne bacteria and even
deliberate poisoning, as claimed by Somalia's insurgents.
But the culprit, doctors fear, is just as alarming: beriberi, a
vitamin-deficiency disorder typically seen only in famines. Simply put,
African Union soldiers appear to have died from a form of malnutrition.
It's the starkest example yet of how the mission in Somalia, which is
authorized by the United Nations and largely funded by Washington, has
become one of the most dangerous, yet least supported, peacekeeping
operations in the world.
More than two years after the AU launched its effort to try to turn around
this Horn of Africa nation, only 5,000 of the pledged 8,000 troops are on
the ground, nearly all from Uganda and Burundi. Experts say even the full
8,000 would be half of what's really needed.
Though the new commander says he is intent on taking a tougher stance
against insurgents who have growing ties to Al Qaeda, his force covers only
about 8 square miles -- roughly one-third of Mogadishu, an area that
includes the capital's airport, seaport and a cluster of buildings around
the presidential palace that are occupied by the weak, internationally
backed government.
The mission's projected $800-million-a-year budget has never been fully
funded, with the U.S. contributing about $200 million this year. Funding
shortfalls have forced commanders to depend also on donations, such as the
new hospital building paid for by Britain and food rations from the U.N.
U.N. missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the western Sudanese
region of Darfur each have four times as many troops, even though Somalia is
the only operation in Africa where peacekeepers are routinely targeted by
insurgents with mortars, roadside bombs and suicide attackers. Also, unlike
other missions, there is no cease-fire agreement or U.N.-brokered treaty to
enforce.
"How do you do a peacekeeping mission in a place that has no peace?" asked
Maj. Anthony Lukwago, an AU commander from Uganda.
At a hillside AU outpost along Mogadishu's craggy coastline, soldiers have
learned to improvise. They aim their 120-millimeter mortars using three
sticks in the dirt, capped with upturned old cigarette packs marking the
direction of insurgent strongholds miles away. Only recently did soldiers
receive upgraded flak jackets and armored personnel carriers capable of
withstanding the kind of roadside bombs they face.
On the campus of Mogadishu University, now serving as headquarters for
Burundi's contingent, soldiers face roadside bombs virtually every time they
leave the base. Nevertheless, they can't get basic bomb-detection devices to
sweep the streets or equipment to defuse the bombs.
Their solution? Drive fast and travel at irregular hours, according to Brig.
Gen. Prime Niyongabo, commander of the Burundian contingent.
"There is so much we need," he said.
Erin Weir, a peacekeeping advocate with Refugees International, credited the
AU presence with preventing Somalia's transitional government from being
chased out of the country altogether, but added that the worsening security
situation has altered the character of the mission. "What they are doing is
not peacekeeping," she said. "It's more a military task."
It's little surprise that the mission has become one of the deadliest in
Africa. Thirty-three AU soldiers have been killed, mostly by roadside bombs.
Eleven of these troops died in a suicide truck attack this year. An
additional 20 have succumbed to malaria and other diseases, AU officials
said, including last month's suspected beriberi outbreak
Most of those sickened were recovering thanks to vitamin B1 injections,
according to AU doctor James Kiyengo. That treatment was followed by
preventive thiamine supplements for all soldiers and a reexamination of meal
plans. Soldiers complain that the mission supplies them with meat just two
or three times a week, no eggs and only rarely fresh vegetables. Commanders
said they hadn't come to a conclusion as to what caused the illness.
The peacekeeping mission has also grappled with a vague, ill-fitting mandate
that tightly restricts troops' ability to combat insurgents, who scarcely
existed when the mission started. The mandate calls for the AU to protect
the government and its institutions. Safeguarding Somalia's beleaguered
civilians, half of whom survive on international aid, is not part of its
responsibility.
As a result, the mission, known as AMISOM, is frequently dismissed as weak
and ineffective. "If they are going to hide behind their sandbags while
people are suffering, they should go back home and enjoy a glass of wine,"
said Mahdi Ibrahim, 23, a frustrated Mogadishu resident.
AU officials have attempted to court public opinion by sharing their water
supply with neighbors and opening their clinics to the public.
But officials said the mission's mandate mainly permits self-defense.
Insurgents "could have a party in front of our gate and we couldn't do
anything unless they attacked us first," said Maj. Barigye Ba-Hoku, the
mission's spokesman.
Speaking at AU headquarters inside a whitewashed, bombed-out mansion
overlooking the Indian Ocean, Ba-Hoku said insurgents use the AU's mandate
and rules of engagement against it. For instance, he said, they often fire
mortar shells from residential neighborhoods because they know AU troops
won't fire back at civilian areas.
He said that once a busload of insurgents disguised as civilians approached
an AU base, singing as if members of a wedding party. As they left the
vehicle, they drew guns and attacked.
Soldiers say they've grown tired of being on the defensive -- and of the
criticism that comes with it. Many are itching for a fight.
"We could overrun Mogadishu in no time at all," Lukwago said, noting that
the AU force is the only one in Somalia with tanks, Katyusha rockets and
long-range mortars. The troops' foes, he added, "are not military guys."
"They are a bunch of boys. They are not trained."
Until recently, AU political leaders and the U.N. resisted requests by AU
military commanders that their troops be allowed to go on the offensive,
fearing such a move would only escalate the violence and allow insurgents to
taint the soldiers as "foreign invaders."
But the newly arrived force commander, Ugandan Maj. Gen. Nathan Mugisha,
said he had received a green light to get tougher. "We can preempt," he
said. "We don't have to be like sitting ducks, waiting to be beaten like a
drum."
In an instance of the new approach, AU troops last month responded to an
insurgent attack on the presidential palace by engaging for the first time
in a sustained street battle, pushing the insurgents back more than four
miles. It was the farthest AU troops had fought beyond their zone.
Two weeks ago, in a show of force, an AU convoy patrolled through an
insurgent stronghold, drawing fire. No one was hurt.
Somalia's president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, is encouraging the AU to jump
into the fight, saying operations against insurgents are justified under the
mission's mandate to support the government.
"Mogadishu is the seat of the government and it should be free of
insurgents," Ahmed said in an interview at Villa Somalia, the heavily
guarded presidential palace. "There are many different forms of
self-defense. Preemptive defensive action can be taken."
Ahmed said the AU's positions in the capital have allowed his army, which is
really a collection of allied militias, to take its battle to different
parts of the country. In recent weeks, government forces have made headway
near the Ethiopian border.
But analysts worry that unless more international support is forthcoming,
the AU force will become overstretched. Michael Weinstein, a Purdue
University political science professor, blamed Somalia's limbo on the
international community's hesitance.
"The West has been reluctant to go full throttle, and they've ended up with
a wishy-washy policy," he said. "Meanwhile, AMISOM is stranded. They're
stuck in a box."
edmund.sanders
@latimes.com
Somalia peacekeeper
A Ugandan peacekeeper guards the presidential palace in Mogadishu, the
Somali capital. There are 5,000 troops in the African Union mission; their
mandate mainly allows only self-defense, and they hold just 8 square miles.
(Mohamed Dahir / AFP/Getty Images / August 26, 2009)
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