Tuesday, January 30, 2007
The AU wants to send an 8,000-strong force to replace departing Ethiopian troops, whose intervention swept Islamists from power last month.
But so far only three nations have come up with concrete offers of troops.
Meanwhile, Somalia's president has agreed to host a reconciliation conference in the coming weeks.
President Abdullahi Yusuf told the AU summit that the conference would include clan and religious leaders but he did not say whether moderates from the ousted Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) would be invited.
European Union Development Commissioner Louis Michel said this meant the EU would be able to release 15m euros ($20m) to fund the peacekeeping force.
The EU, the US and the UN have all urged Mr Yusuf to include moderate Islamists in his administration.
The US has offered to provide air support for the peacekeeping force.
In other developments at the summit:
- Ghana was chosen to be the next AU chair, instead of Sudan
- Sudan still refuses to let UN peacekeepers go to Darfur
- UN chief Ban Ki-moon said urgent action was needed to tackle climate change in Africa.
On Monday, AU commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare said peacekeepers were needed in Somalia to prevent renewed conflict.
"If African troops are not in place quickly, then there will be chaos," he said in his opening remarks to the summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
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POSSIBLE PEACEKEEPERS
Nine battalions proposed - 7,600 troops:
Uganda: 1,500 troops offered, subject to parliamentary approval
Malawi: Up to 1,000 troops offered
Nigeria: 1,000 troops offered
Ghana: Reportedly offered troops
Benin: Considering
Burundi: Considering
Tanzania: Considering
Rwanda: Considering
South Africa: Not sending troops |
"We need 8,000 soldiers, today we have hardly 4,000. We cannot simply wait for others to do the work in our place."
In December, thousands of Ethiopian soldiers were sent to help the weak Somali interim government oust the UIC which had controlled much of southern and central Somalia for six months.
But Ethiopia says it is seeking an early withdrawal from the country and has already begun pulling some of its troops out.
The fear, says the BBC's Adam Mynott, is that unless insecurity is contained quickly, Somalia will slip back to the anarchic misrule which has prevailed in the country for the past 16 years.
Warning
So far three countries - Uganda, Nigeria and Malawi - have agreed to contribute troops.
There are reports that Benin, Burundi, Ghana may have offered to send soldiers but these have not been confirmed.
AU peace and security commissioner Said Djinnit told the BBC that troops from more countries were needed.
"I think we have made some progress because we are at the point where we are putting together conditions for an early deployment of at least the first three battalions," he said.
"And we are also in the process of creating logistical and financial conditions but we do hope that during the debate at the summit there'll be more pledges."
Meanwhile, a previously unknown Somali group threatened to fight any peacekeepers.
An Islamic website posted a message from the "Popular Resistance Movement" that read: "Somalia is not a place where you can come to earn a salary - it is a place where you can die."
Source: BBC, Jan 30, 2007