Fighting for peace in Somalia:AMISOM's seven strategic challenges

Journal of International Peacekeeping

Volumn 17, Issue 3-4, 2013, Pages 222-247

  Williams, Paul D ^a  

^a GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

African Union; AMISOM; peacekeeping; Somalia

Indexed keywords

EID: 84890417479     PISSN: 18754104     EISSN: 18754112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/18754112-1704004     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. See, for example, Greg Mills, 'AMISOM-An African Success Story', Brenthurst Foundation press release, 14 October 2012, http://www. thebrenthurstfoundation.org/a-sndmsg/news-view.aspI=128773&PG=227;
2. Matt Freear and Cedric de Coning, 'Lessons from the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM) for Peace Operations in Mali', Stability, vol. 2, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1-11.
3. On the basis of its successes, AMISOM was also initially mooted as the model for the UN's engagement with the African peace operations in Mali.
4. See the letter from the UN Secretary-General to the President of the UN Security Council (S/2013/37, 21 January 2013).
5. This section draws from Paul D. Williams, AMISOM in Transition (Nairobi: Rift Valley Institute, Briefing Paper, February 2013).
6. See AU doc. PSC/PR/Comm(LXIX), 19 January 2007 and UN Security Council Resolution 1744, 20 February 2007.
7. Sector One was centred on Mogadishu and staffed primarily by personnel from Uganda and Burundi.
8. In southwest Somalia, Sector Two was run by Kenyan forces.
9. Sector Three was focused on Baidoa, where Ugandan and Burundian forces were supported by Ethiopian troops.
10. To the north was Sector Four where the Djiboutian battalion eventually deployed and worked with Ethiopian forces to stabilize the area around Belet Weyne.
11. AU doc. PSC/PR/COMM.(CCCVI), 5 January 2012 and UN Security Council resolution 2036, 22 February 2012.
12. The 'Somalia End of Transition Roadmap' was a detailed list of tasks aimed at directing Somalia towards the creation of permanent political institutions, as well as greater national
13. security and stability. It was initialled by the Somali prime minister, the UN envoy to Somalia, representatives of the Arab League, the AU, and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), as well as the leaders of regional entities (including Puntland) and pro-government militias (including Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa). Available at http://unpos.unmissions.org/Portals/UNPOS/ Repository%20UNPOS/110906%20-%20Initialled%20Roadmap.pdf.
14. Author's interview, AMISOM official, Mogadishu, January 2013.
15. Author's interview, UN official, New York, October 2012.
16. See Paul D. Williams, 'Into the Mogadishu Maelstrom: The African Union Mission in Somalia', International Peacekeeping, vol. 16, no. 4, 2009, pp. 515-18.
17. See Somalia: Shell-Shocked-Civilians under Siege in Mogadishu (New York: Human Rights Watch, 19:12(a), August 2007).
18. Under Article 8.9 of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (9 July 2002)
19. Ethiopia's representative should have withdrawn from the deliberations after the briefing session.
20. Article 8.9 states: 'Any Member of the Peace and Security Council which is party to a conflict under consideration by the Peace and Security Council shall not participate either in the discussion or the decision making process relating to that conflict or situation.
21. Such Member shall be invited to present its case to the Peace and Security Council as appropriate, and shall, thereafter, withdraw from proceedings.'
22. Instead, the Ethiopian representative continued to participate and played a significant role in authorizing the mission.
23. Author's confidential interviews: AU official, Addis Ababa, May 2007, and former Ethiopian official, Washington, DC, March 2008.
24. Author's interviews with UN and AMISOM officials, Nairobi and Mogadishu, December 2012 and January 2013.
25. Human Rights Watch, Harsh War, Harsh Peace: Abuses by al-Shabaab, the Transitional Federal Government, and AMISOM in Somalia, 2010.
26. Author's interviews with AMISOM officials, Nairobi, August 2012 and Mogadishu, January 2013.
27. For an overview, see International Crisis Group, Somalia: The Transitional Government on Life Support (Washington, DC: Africa Report No. 170, 21 February 2011).
28. Solomon Dersso, Somalia Dilemmas: Changing security dynamics, but limited policy choices (Pretoria: ISS Paper No. 218, October 2010), p. 10.
29. Author's interviews with AMISOM officials, Mogadishu, January 2013.
30. For a good discussion of the problems of shifting clan loyalties and their impact on external efforts to conduct counter-insurgency
31. see William Reno, 'Rethinking Counterinsurgency in Somalia', CTC Sentinel, vol.6, issue 4, April 2013, pp. 16-19.
32. Author's interviews with Somali National Army officers, Mogadishu, January 2013.
33. Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, 'Collective conflict management: a new formula for global peace and security cooperation', International Affairs, vol. 87, no. 1, 2011, pp. 39-58.
34. In resolution 1890 (16 January 2009), the UN Security Council authorized its Department of Field Support to establish UNSOA in order to deliver a logistics capacity support package to keep AMISOM afloat.
35. This covered the delivery of rations, fuel, general stores and medical supplies; engineering and construction of important facilities; health and sanitation; medical evacuation and treatment services and medical equipment.
36. AMISOM medical facilities; communications and information technology; information support services;
37. aviation services for evacuations and troop rotations; vehicles and other equipment; and capacity-building.
38. UN support did not extend to the provision of ammunition which remained a bilateral partner arrangement
39. For details, see Report of the UN Secretary-General, Support to African Union peacekeeping operations authorized by the United Nations (A/65/510-S/2010/514, 14 October 2010), para. 30.
40. Its participants included Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, African Development Bank, AU, EU, Islamic Development Bank, IGAD, League of Arab States, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, NATO, UN, and the World Bank.
41. In mid-November 2008, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon recommended that an International Stabilization Force (ISF) of 'approximately two brigades' be deployed to Mogadishu.
42. Subsequent UN-AU planning cohered around an ISF of approximately 6,000 troops.
43. Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Somalia, UN doc. S/2008/709, 17 November 2008, paragraphs 31-43.
44. Author's interview with UNSOA official, Nairobi, August 2012.
45. UN doc. S/2008/804, 19 December 2008.
46. Author's interviews with AU officials, Addis Ababa, July 2012;
47. AMISOM officials, Nairobi, August 2012, and Mogadishu, January 2013.
48. In May 2008, one of al-Shabaab's senior leaders and al-Qa'ida associate, Aden Hashi Ayrow, was killed during a US strike.
49. These airstrikes were apparently ordered by the US Department of Defense without input from the State Department regarding the likely diplomatic repercussions
50. without assessing the consequences for humanitarian activities. Refugees International, Somalia: Policy Overhaul Required (Refugees International Field Bulletin, Washington DC, 19 November 2008), p. 2.
51. Author's interview with EU official, Addis Ababa, July 2012.
52. Since at least 2009, Kenya provided military assistance, finance, weapons and training to armed factions in southern Somalia.
53. The strategic objective appears to have been an attempt to create a Jubaland political entity which could control the Gedo, Middle Jubba
54. Lower Jubba regions thereby acting as a buffer zone between Kenya and the worst spillover effects of Somalia's conflict.
55. Roland Marchal, 'A tentative assessment of the Somali Harakat Al-Shabaab', Journal of Eastern African Studies, vol. 3, no. 3, 2009, pp. 393-4.
56. Indeed, al-Shabaab was so successful and AMISOM's media machine so weak in comparison that in 2009 a UN-AU Information Support Team was established in part to enhance AMISOM's own public diplomacy but also to explicitly counteract al-Shabaab's.
57. See David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerilla (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
58. David H. Shinn, 'Al Shabaab's Foreign Threat to Somalia', Orbis, vol. 55, no. 2, 2011, pp. 209-11;
59. Report of the 2nd AMISOM-TFG Information Sharing Meeting, 22nd to 24th November 2011, Bujumbura Burundi (AU internal document, no date), p. 10.
60. Ken Menkhaus, 'Violent Islamic Extremism: Al-Shabaab Recruitment in America' (Washington, DC, US Senate Committee on Homeland Security hearing, 11 March 2009), at http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/-files/031109Menkhaus031109.pdf.
61. Wikileak Cable 09ADDISABABA110, 16 January 2009, para. 9.
62. Marchal, 'A tentative assessment', p. 395.
63. For background and details see International Crisis Group, Somalia's Divided Islamists (ICG Africa Briefing No. 74, 18 May 2010).
64. Cited in Haggai Erlich, Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2010), p. 182.
65. Fred Ngoga Gateretse, Adviser to the AU Special Representative for Somalia, Amb.
66. Nicholas Bwakira, Statement before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Washington, DC, 25 June 2009, p. 3.
67. Somalia Security Sector Assessment (AU, US, EU, TFG, World Bank and UN: 1 January 2010), para. 15c.
68. For details, see StigJarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 100-102.
69. Stephen Biddle, Military Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
70. Report of the 2nd AMISOM-TFG Information Sharing Meeting, p. 9.
71. Concept Note: Draft AMISOM Stabilization Plan for the Liberated Areas (AU doc., February 2012).
72. Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea pursuant to Security Council resolution 1916(2010) (UN doc. S/2011/433, 18 July 2011), p. 12.
73. Report of the 2nd AMISOM-TFG Information Sharing Meeting, p. 13.
74. Report of the Monitoring Group (18 July 2011), para. 64.
75. Report of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission on the implementation of the mandate of the African Union Mission in Somalia pursuant to paragraph 21 of the Security Council resolution 2036 (2012) (UN doc. S/2012/468, 1 June 2012), para. 14.
76. Author's email communication with AMISOM planner, December 2012.
77. Author's interview with EU official, Addis Ababa, 2 May 2012.
78. See, for example, Alice Hills, Future War in Cities (London: Frank Cass, 2004).
79. Hills, Future War in Cities, pp. 12-29.
80. Sam Ntale, 'AMISOM ventures deep into Mogadishu after 5 year [sic.]', Dispatch (Kampala), 19 March 2012, http://www.dispatch.ug/amisom-ventures-deep- into-mogadishu-after-5-year/3757/.
81. In early 2009 about a dozen AMISOM soldiers died from a mystery disease which was suspected to be linked to the lack of proper nutrition intake and standards of culinary hygiene.
82. Report of the African Union-United Nations Panel on Modalities for Support to African Union Peacekeeping Operations (UN doc. A/63/666-S/2008/813, 31 December 2008).
83. Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the Situation in Somalia (AU doc. PSC/PR/2(CCXCIII), 13 September 2011), para. 49.
84. This is a longstanding challenge in Somali politics.
85. See Ken Menkhaus, 'Governance without Government in Somalia', International Security, vol. 31, no. 3, 2006/07, pp. 74-106.
86. Author's interview with AMISOM official, Nairobi, July 2012.
87. Author's interview with UN official, Addis Ababa, August 2012.