by Abbas Kamau
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Every trick in the book to solve the Somali crisis in the past two decades has been tested and failed. And there is no hope in sight the crisis will either end soon. Warlords have come and gone. Endless peace conferences have been held. Transitional governments have proved ineffective and even the Islamic courts have come and gone. And the question that remains in most Somalis mind is; where will Somalia go from here. Certainly, as the protracted civil goes on, so will be the difficulty of finding a solution.

If there is one thing the Somalis have proved themselves in the past-it is their inability to run their own affairs and govern themselves. And one will wonder if you cant govern yourself and put your house in order, why not call others for assistance and give them the opportunity to govern you. After all, governance concept is all that seems to be in short supply in Somalia's gene. And when I talk of external assistance, what comes to mind is the world body, the UN. The UN has played a major role in restoring peace and stability in countries with similar crisis like Somalia like Kosovo, East Timor, Liberia, and Sierra Leone etc. The current struggling African Union (AU) force will be just another of those ineffective solutions that Somalia has lived with in the past. If even in Darfur, the AU force has proved ineffective and the UN had to be called eventually, what is the reason to believe that the AU force, which has a chronic shortage of funding and equipment can prove itself in Somalia, which is 100 times more complicated than Darfur.

What Somalia now needs, more than ever, is a comprehensive UN mission that combines a peacekeeping function with a civil administration-like the one implemented in East Timor.

In East Timor, the UN was mandated to run the country (through a transitional administrator appointed by the UN Secretary General), provide security through its peacekeeping department, conduct election, mentor and train government employees and finally hand over a working nation to its people.

Somalia needs nothing short of that. Somalia needs a UN transitional administration mission with a strong peacekeeping force. A mission that is mandated to run the country untill such a time a transitional local authority is instituted and trained, provide security, conduct election and remain in place until Somalia returns to the path of peace. For at this rate if it is left to Somalis alone the world will have to wait for a great deal of time before Somalia becomes peaceful country

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Abbas Kamau
Central Africa Republic (CAR)
asheikh5@hotmail.com