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Somalia: No military solution to the crisis
January 13, 2009 | Erin Weir | Tagged as: Somalia
In March, Refugees International advocate Patrick Duplat and I called Somalia the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world. In the four months since we returned from Somalia, the situation on the ground has become precipitously worse -- over 2.6 million Somalis are in need of aid, and roughly 91,000 people were displaced from their homes by violence in June alone. Aid workers are being killed and kidnapped in unprecedented numbers, and violence has reached a level of intensity not seen since the crisis of the early 1990’s.
Amid all of this escalation, the international community is floundering. The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, has been inexplicably upbeat, hailing the June Djibouti peace agreement as a major step forward. But violence has intensified since the announcement of the agreement, and promises made by SRSG Ould-Abdallah are ambitious to the point of being unreasonable.
The repeated suggestion of a UN peacekeeping deployment in this volatile environment – where there is notably no peace to keep – is especially worrying. As the outgoing head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno said last week, "the international community... faced with a tragedy, wants to do something… To deploy blue helmets can look like the easy answer." However, experience has shown that UN peacekeepers are simply not able to take on the extremely violent resistance that they would surely face if deployed into the current environment in Somalia.
As Mr. Guehenno put it, "the danger is humiliation, is casualties, is that if you send a force and you don't make a real difference, then people will really turn away from Somalia, and that would be a real tragedy.”
While peacekeeping could surely play a role in supporting a robust and inclusive peace agreement, it is not a solution unto itself, and there is still a great deal of work to be done before the necessary political preconditions are achieved. This sentiment was echoed by Senator Russ Feingold in a recent floor statement.
Making reference to the Djibouti agreement, Senator Feingold rightly stated, “the United States and our international partners must move quickly with a coordinated diplomatic push to bring more Somalis into the process as well as put forth the necessary resources for implementation... Simultaneously, there must be a more active effort to hold accountable all those who perpetrate violence and violate human rights... It won’t be easy, but it is critical to begin laying the groundwork for long-term peace and security.”
Talk of a UN peacekeeping mission at this critical moment is little more than a deflection of responsibility. It is a convenient way to for politicians and diplomats to be seen as doing something without producing any of the tremendous political will that is necessary to make real strides toward resolving this crisis.
If the international community is serious about a sustainable solution to the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, the emphasis must move past knee-jerk reactions like a foolhardy peacekeeping deployment. There can be no military solution to the crisis in Somalia.
--Erin Weir
Amid all of this escalation, the international community is floundering. The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, has been inexplicably upbeat, hailing the June Djibouti peace agreement as a major step forward. But violence has intensified since the announcement of the agreement, and promises made by SRSG Ould-Abdallah are ambitious to the point of being unreasonable.
The repeated suggestion of a UN peacekeeping deployment in this volatile environment – where there is notably no peace to keep – is especially worrying. As the outgoing head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno said last week, "the international community... faced with a tragedy, wants to do something… To deploy blue helmets can look like the easy answer." However, experience has shown that UN peacekeepers are simply not able to take on the extremely violent resistance that they would surely face if deployed into the current environment in Somalia.
As Mr. Guehenno put it, "the danger is humiliation, is casualties, is that if you send a force and you don't make a real difference, then people will really turn away from Somalia, and that would be a real tragedy.”
While peacekeeping could surely play a role in supporting a robust and inclusive peace agreement, it is not a solution unto itself, and there is still a great deal of work to be done before the necessary political preconditions are achieved. This sentiment was echoed by Senator Russ Feingold in a recent floor statement.
Making reference to the Djibouti agreement, Senator Feingold rightly stated, “the United States and our international partners must move quickly with a coordinated diplomatic push to bring more Somalis into the process as well as put forth the necessary resources for implementation... Simultaneously, there must be a more active effort to hold accountable all those who perpetrate violence and violate human rights... It won’t be easy, but it is critical to begin laying the groundwork for long-term peace and security.”
Talk of a UN peacekeeping mission at this critical moment is little more than a deflection of responsibility. It is a convenient way to for politicians and diplomats to be seen as doing something without producing any of the tremendous political will that is necessary to make real strides toward resolving this crisis.
If the international community is serious about a sustainable solution to the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, the emphasis must move past knee-jerk reactions like a foolhardy peacekeeping deployment. There can be no military solution to the crisis in Somalia.
--Erin Weir
Labels: Somalia
