No border state troops in Somalia, donors say

By C. Bryson Hull

NAIROBI, March 17 (Reuters) – A call by the Somali president for peacekeepers drawn from bordering countries, already virulently opposed at home, appears headed for defeat under international donor pressure, diplomats say.

Many Somalis, including warlords and militant Islamists, have promised to attack any troops from neighbouring states – especially from traditional rival Ethiopia – if they deploy as part of a planned African Union peacekeeping force.

The dispute, which provoked sharp debate in the Somali parliament, is fast approaching a deciding moment. Regional leaders on Thursday began a two-day meeting in Nairobi to discuss the AU deployment.

Diplomats at the meeting, held by ministers from the east African nations that make up the IGAD regional mediation body, said donors will oppose the use of any troops from Somalia’s neighbours Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia.

“It cannot happen. It can happen if they pay for it themselves,” one Western diplomat told Reuters.

Ethiopian-backed Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf wants 7,500 AU and Arab League troops to help his government return home from Kenya, and is adamant that border states be included.

The AU last month backed a deployment of troops from IGAD members Uganda, Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia to tame rampant insecurity in lawless Somalia, but it has no money to fund it.

Donors have grown increasingly cool towards Yusuf’s plan, and the United States last month said it would not support any peacekeeping force with border state soldiers.

Other donors, who have thus far kept their reservations quiet because of IGAD’s lead role in shepherding Somalia’s peace process, echoed that position on Thursday.

“We wish to express our concern regarding the question of neighbouring troops in Somalia,” Enrico De Maio, Italy’s ambassador to Kenya and co-chair of IGAD’s donor partnership, told the meeting.

The United Nations acting special representative to Somalia, Babafemi Badejo, told the meeting that the U.N. Security Council would have to grant an exemption to a 1992 arms embargo to any foreign force deployed in Somalia.

Several diplomats said the United States has promised to use its Security Council veto to block any force involving neighbouring troops.

“We have said … we would not be supportive of such a force in the Security Council,” a U.S. official told Reuters.

The official cautioned it was too early to say a veto would happen, since it may not be necessary after the IGAD meeting and next week’s Arab League summit in Algeria.

On Thursday, Somalia’s parliament debated a Yusuf-backed motion to approve his plan, and both sides claimed they had the votes to win.

But about half of the 275 MPs have publicly supported an alternative plan that would permit foreign troops except those from border states.

The plan offered last month by Mogadishu MPs from the commercially influential Hawiye clan – including several powerful warlords – calls for voluntary militia disarmament and re-training by former Somali police.

Donors are encouraged, but say the plan needs improvement.

“It’s a gesture and one that deserves careful study,” the U.S. official said. Washington has said Somalia has the means to secure its country, through the warlords that are now part of the government.