Somalis uneasy with idea of peacekeeping force

War-torn Somalis vividly remember botched military, humanitarian intervention by UN, US in early 1990s.

MOGADISHU - Residents of the war-torn Somali capital on Friday said they are uneasy with the prospect of deploying a peacekeeping force here, once a new government is installed to try to end years of anarchy.

The country has been carved up into fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords with constantly shifting alliances, since dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in January 1991.

The same warlords, recently selected as lawmakers for a Somali parliament that started its sessions on Thursday in Nairobi, hope to vie for the Somali presidency in the coming weeks in the nearly completed peace talks in Kenya.

The clan-based assembly is tasked with appointing a speaker and a transitional president, who will in turn appoint a prime minister. The prime minister will name a cabinet that will operate for an initial period of five years.

"Peace is good for everybody here, but it cannot be brought by those who created the mayhem (warlords)," Ahmed Mumin Hassan, a businessman in Mogadishu's main Bakara market, said in Mogadishu.

"There is no way a parliament that is dominated by warlords can function to promote peace and harmony among the Somalis," Hassan explained.

Amid such fears, the African Union (AU) has strongly hinted that a peacekeeping force could be deployed in Mogadishu after a new government is formed.

But Somalis vividly remember the botched military and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations and the United States in the early 1990s, shortly after the central government collapsed and the country turned into a "failed state".

Plans on October 3, 1993 to arrest top Somali warlord, General Mohamed Farah Aidid, whose militia had killed 24 Pakistan peacekeepers in an ambush four months earlier, went terribly wrong and led to a gunbattle in which hundreds of Somalis and 18 US special forces were killed.

It culminated in an ugly scene where the battered bodies of US special forces soldiers were dragged through the dusty streets of Mogadishu by a frenzied mob. That had a lasting effect on Washington's subsequent decisions about sending troops abroad.

"Accepting the new government is conditional," said Hassan Ibrahim, a gunman who protects aid workers in Somalia.

"If the coming government will not import troops (peacekeepers) to take over our jobs, we may welcome it," Ibrahim said.

Retired army officer Mohamud Sheikh Hassan said sending foreign peacekeeping troops to Somalia could doom peace talks, which started on October 15, 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret.

"Since there is no warlord capable of over-running his rivals since 1991, negotiation is the only solution for peace without involving foreign troops, who could complicate the matter," Hassan added.

Ahmed Matan Musa, who calls himself a "true believer" of Islam, took a hardline stance on the idea of outside peacekeepers for the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

"Troops from outside are appreciated by elements that are less patriotic and are not true believers of Allah," Hassan explained.

"Look what happened to Sunni prisoners in Iraq and remember the atrocities committed by UN and US intervention forces in Somalia in 1993," Musa added, referring to abuses committed by US troops on Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison.

Yahya Ahmed Dhere, a weapons dealer in north Mogadishu's Argentine arms market, said one solution could be the legalisation of weapons' sales.

"In America, there are big stores that sell weapons without undermining security. There is nothing sinister if we sell weapons to only very decent people for their self-defence," he added.

Dhere is one of several traders who equip Mogadishu gangs with a fearsome array of weapons, including anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks and machine guns.

"We welcome a new government, but say no to peacekeepers," a young Somali refugee said in Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya.