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Uganda
wary of sending troops to Somalia - minister |
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Tuesday,
December 12th, 2006 |
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By Tim Cocks
 KAMPALA,
Dec 11 (Reuters) - Uganda will not send a peacekeeping force to
Somalia unless security improves and the risk of war in the Horn
of Africa country diminishes, a senior government official said
on Monday.
"We have decided that at this particular time, we should not go
to Somalia," Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Oryem Okello
told Reuters in comments that appeared to row back from
Kampala's previously stated position of willingness to go in. |
"The situation has deteriorated rapidly -- it risks all-out
war," Okello added in a telephone interview.
Last week, the U.N. Security Council approved a plan by east
Africa's regional body IGAD to send peacekeepers to Somalia to
bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government.
Of the two nations deemed suitable to send peacekeepers --
Uganda and Sudan -- only Uganda had agreed in principle to
commit troops, setting aside a battalion of 700 to 800 soldiers.
Diplomats say politicians, however, are deeply divided over the
plan.
Okello's comments, which came after two days of fighting in
Somalia between pro-government troops and rival Islamists,
seemed to contradict those of the army and the state minister
for defence, Ruth Nankabirwa.
She told Reuters last week the Ugandan force was mandated and
ready to go as soon as parliament approved it.
The powerful Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), which
controls Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia, has warned
foreign troops on Somali soil will be attacked as enemies.
They rejected the U.S.-sponsored Security Council resolution,
warning it would "add fuel to the fire" of a potential war with
the Western-backed government.
"The Islamic Courts are still expanding. They're taking up
combat positions," Okello said. "Our troops are not being
trained for combat, they're being trained for peacekeeping."
Diplomats say the United States is pressuring Uganda to take the
mission because it wants a regional ally to fight the Islamists,
who defeated U.S.-backed warlords when they took Mogadishu in
June after 15 years of anarchy in the capital.
Okello said when the offer of troops was made in September,
Uganda had assumed the Islamists would advance no further than
the territories in southern Somalia they already control.
But he said intelligence reports indicated they wanted to expand
into the self-declared enclave of Somaliland.
"It no longer looks like they want to stay put," he said.
But he added that Uganda might still commit troops at a later
date, if the African Union, which supports the IGAD plan, can
find other countries to contribute.
Somali government sources say they hope Nigeria might come on
board and contribute troops too.
Despite widespread fears that a peacekeeping force rejected by
the Islamists would be a magnet for foreign jihadists, the
United Nations approved the plan with the explicit aim of
propping up Yusuf's transitional government.
Diplomats say President Yoweri Museveni, a friend of Yusuf, is
keenest on the deployment but many other Ugandan government
officials regard it as a potential suicide mission.
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| Caynaba News
kama masuul aha afkaarta ay xanbaarsan yihiin qoraallada ay
akhristayaashu fekerkooda ku cabbirayaan. |
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11:00 GMT
