Issue No. 746

 

On Monday evening, Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) arrived in Nairobi for the last leg of his belated regional dash to shore up support for the next African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Having already travelled to Djibouti, Burundi, and Uganda, the Somali president's trip comes amid intense regional and domestic turmoil– and appears unlikely to decisively change opposition towards the proposed Egyptian deployment and concurrent Ethiopian withdrawal at year's end. The most important and only troop-contributing country (TCC) absent from the president's itinerary was, unsurprisingly, Ethiopia.
 
On 16 October, prior to HSM's regional tour and despite Villa Somalia's objections, Addis publicly called a meeting of regional TCC defence ministers in Ethiopia. The attendance of the Burundian, Djiboutian, Ugandan, and Kenyan ministers was an indication that despite the occasional acquiescence to the bluster of 'sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity,' administrations remain concerned about the implications of any chaotic peacekeeping transition to the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) in 2025. There are few illusions in Kampala and Nairobi that 'replacing' Ethiopian troops with Egyptian and injecting yet more weapons into Somalia is a feasible or sustainable solution to the country's perennial instability. It was also a clear signal from Addis that Ethiopian troops are not going anywhere in the coming months as it continues to consolidate its years-long military presence in southern Somalia.
 
At the heart of the issue is that HSM and the federal government believe that the African Union mission should be essentially subservient to the federal government and serve as an arm of the Somali National Army (SNA). Yet this consideration both misunderstands the nature of multilateral peacekeeping operations and undermines it as well in the fraught and transitional political context of Somalia, in which the Egyptian-Ethiopian rift is the latest schism playing out across historic centre-peripheral divisions.
 
Moreover, a peacekeeping operation should not be at the beck-and-call of any single administration, particularly considering that Al-Shabaab is not a threat unique to Somalia. While it has not conducted an attack in Uganda since the 2010 Kampala suicide bombings that left dozens dead, it maintains a significant presence in Kenya and, to a lesser extent, Ethiopia. It is a jihadist group with clear ambitions beyond the borders of Somalia and should be treated as such– not only a problem for Somalia's federal government to contend with. And 'contend with' is generous, considering that defeating Al-Shabaab has been removed from the federal agenda, and the repeated promises that the extremist group would be defeated have vanished. That focus has been entirely diverted onto Ethiopia, which Villa Somalia has designated as the principal threat to the country.
 
While platitudinal statements were issued following HSM's trip to Djibouti and Burundi, with promises of deepening bilateral relations and thanks to the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), it will not change the broader scepticism amongst the regional and international communities. In early October, Ugandan Foreign Minister Henry Oryem Okello was quoted as saying, "Why does Egypt want to join now, where have they been all this time?" It was unsurprising then that the joint Ugandan and Somali communique made no mention of the boilerplate language of respecting Somalia's 'territorial integrity' and 'sovereignty,' a probable demand of the Somali delegation.
 
Further, the tour came shortly after HSM's public courting of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The new anti-Ethiopia axis, formalised in the signing of the Tripartite Alliance in Asmara earlier this month, has given jitters to officials across the Horn, who are looking on with unease at the still-escalating tensions. The Somali president's close alliance with Isaias, who is distrusted by many, and his preference for travelling to Turkey and the Gulf has hardly endeared him to his counterparts in East Africa. That is not to say the mercurial Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed is more popular, but that the Somali president has not established the necessary groundwork for these leaders to consent to a blatant weaponisation of AUSSOM.
 
Funding remains a major sticking point for the mission slated to begin in 2025, and an understandable concern amongst the TCCs. Though the UK recently announced an additional GBP 7.5 million for ATMIS, it is the outlier, and the funding bulk for AUSSOM remains unknown. There is a general perception that the money will be found, with the security auspices so dire if not, but as every week passes, the chances of a disorderly transition rise. Having already budgeted for 2024 and with growing demands on its coffers, the EU has felt it has already absorbed the lion's share of contributions for far too long- handing over a total of EUR 2.6bn over the years. Still, there is some expectation that Brussels could find some money, but it is also understandably reticent to fund AUSSOM, considering it is being wielded as a cudgel against Addis and could spark a regional conflict if the Egyptians are deployed. Others may cough up some funds, including Turkey and Qatar, but it is unlikely to be sufficient for the touted USD 100 million yearly price tag.
 
Another avenue that has been proposed by Somalia and other TCCs is through Resolution 2719-- the UN and African Union's framework agreement agreed in late 2023. Under the agreement, the UN has pledged to support specific AU peacekeeping missions with up to 75% funding, and Somalia has been suggested as the first location for its use. Through 2719, the US would shoulder a greater burden of the peacekeeping costs but has tried to delay this, urging the EU to sustain funding for the mission for a further two years before the UN assumes responsibility. The EU finds that suggestion unpalatable, not least because of the tumult of Somalia, the intense domestic and foreign demands on European budgets, and the risk that the US would renege on future commitments if Donald Trump, a famously isolationist president, were to win the US presidential election on 5 November.
 
The longer the delays and the greater the political wrangles, the more complex the transition becomes. The AU 'plan' for AUSSOM remains up in the air, and despite several weeks have passed since the first proposal of the Egyptian deployment, the continent's premier multilateral remains silent. Moreover, HSM's regional tour cannot disguise the domestic antagonism to the proposed changes to the years-long mission in Somalia, with Al-Shabaab-threatened communities in Hiiraan, Bay, Bakool, and Gedo fundamentally rejecting the plan to replace Ethiopians with Egyptians. And, like Ethiopia and Kenya, and unlike Egypt, these are communities with vested interests in fighting Al-Shabaab that Villa Somalia's rhetoric of sovereignty will not easily sway. In this light, the AUSSOM plan remains unimplementable, no matter how much glad-handing is done. With the AU fumbling the force generation for AUSSOM, those considering funding it are best placed to bring pressure to bear on Somalia's federal government. Unless urgent steps are taken to change course, AUSSOM is shaping up to be the ignominious final chapter of Africa’s largest and longest-running peace operation.
 
By The Somali Wire Team