UN authorizes return of peacekeepers to Somalia 14 years after rout - but Africans will take the lead, not the U.S.

Posted on February 20th, 2007 by Marian Houk

Fourteen years after an American-led UN Peacekeeping operation pulled out of Somalia, following the deaths of Pakistani and American force members, the UN Security Council has authorized a return of peacekeepers to that country. This time, however, the force will be African-led.

As the UN News Centre [the UN uses British English spelling] says, Somalia “has not had a functioning government for over a decade and a half.”

Diplomats have been working for weeks to agree on the creation of a peacekeeping force which will allow Ethiopian forces which entered Somalia at the end of last year to withdraw. The Ethiopian forces, which had American training and back-up, were fighting in support of the Transitional Federal Government (or Institutions), and against the “Islamic Court” movement that had reportedly restored some sort of order to the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

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