AU meets on Somalia

  1. Posted on Monday 22 December 2008 - 10:00
    Dolphyne
    Image of Dolphyne
    Joseph Appiah-Dolphyne, AfricaNews editor in Accra, Ghana
    Members of the AUs peace and Security Council are holding urgent talks on the crisis in Somalia. The meeting in Ethiopia is to focus on finding a way to strengthen the peacekeeping force in Somalia. Ethiopian force of about 3,000 troops has been backing the interim government, but is about to withdraw.
    African Union
    An earlier meeting of the East African regional group, Id, decided to impose sanctions on the Somali president.

    The transitional government is in disarray, a BBC report said, after President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed attempted to sack Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein - a move the prime minister and parliament rejected.

    Peacekeepers promised

    Torn by internal conflict, Somalia has been without an effective central government for more than 15 years. Islamist insurgents are on the upsurge and control most of the country.

    The Ethiopian troops, a weak AU force and troops loyal to the interim Somali government are limited to parts of Mogadishu and the central town of Baidoa, where parliament is based.

    The AU ministers now have the task of trying to beef up the AU mission in Somalia, which will no longer have the comfort of knowing it can call for Ethiopian back-up when needed, says our correspondent.

    At the IGAD meeting on Sunday, African Union commission head Jean Ping said Nigeria was ready to send a battalion of about 850 troops.

    Burundi and Uganda would each send an additional battalion, he said.
    'Paralysed government'

    The foreign ministers of the six-member Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) came out in support of Prime Minister Nur in the political conflict with President Yusuf.

    After their meeting, the group said: "[IGAD] regrets the attempts by President Yusuf to unconstitutionally appoint a new prime minister that IGAD does not recognise, and decides to impose sanctions on him and his associates immediately."

    Yusuf had said he sacked the prime minister a week ago because the government had been "paralysed by corruption, inefficiency and treason" and failed to bring peace.

    However, Somalia's parliament declared the sacking illegal and passed a vote of confidence in Nur by a huge majority.

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