Africa needs to help Somalia

Medeshi
Africa needs to help Somalia
Wednesday, 1st July, 2009
Few seem to notice but what is happening in Somalia could jeopardise the stability and security of the whole region. Al Shabaab, an Islamist youth group, have overrun most of southern Somalia and are just a few blocks away from taking the capital Mogadishu.
In areas under their control, they impose Sharia law and have started beheading and carrying out double amputations – hacking of a leg and an arm.
More worrying, hundreds of foreign fighters believed to be linked to al Qaeda, many from Afghanistan and Iraq, have poured into Somalia to join the Islamists in their ‘holy war’.
Apart from manpower, al Qaeda is also believed to provide weapons, ammunition and logistical support. If they succeed in toppling the government, Somalia would become the first nation controlled by a group close to al Qaeda.
The strategic country at the Indian Ocean would then provide an ideal base from which to launch terrorist operations, in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
So what are African leaders doing about this imminent threat? Apart from Uganda and Burundi, no other country has contributed troops to the African Union peacekeeping mission, AMISOM.
The leaders at the AU summit in Libya this week will again stress the need for African solutions to African problems. But two years after AMISOM was formed, only half of the required 8,000 troops have been found and the bloodbath of innocent civilians continues unabated.
The recently elected Somali government — the most broad-based ever formed — is in vain crying out for help against what increasingly looks like a foreign invasion.
Let President Museveni, the only leader who can assume authority on Somalia, take the lead in calling upon his African counterparts to live up to their declarations and expeditiously send troops to AMISOM.
And let Uganda make use of its presidency of the UN to mobilise the international community to enforce peace in Somalia
New Vision. Kampala