No one on the continent has responded so far to the call for 8,000 African peacekeepers for Somalia, perhaps because it looks like it will be some time before there's enough peace to keep.
Uganda has promised about 1,500 troops, but not moved decisively to send them. Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Benin and Ghana, among the other nations on whom hopes were pinned, have been reticent on the matter.
"For us to send troops would be to enter a serious quagmire. We would be perceived to be fighting the US war on terror. Any peacekeeping force there would lose credibility," said a senior South African foreign affairs official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
After Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops drove an Islamic movement out of the Somali capital earlier this month, US, EU, African and Arab diplomats called for an African peacekeeping force envisioned at 8,000 soldiers.
Many African countries are already occupied with peacekeeping missions in other parts of the continent, so may be reluctant to take on the considerable challenge Somalia poses.
A UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia in the 1990s saw clashes between foreign troops and Somali warlords' fighters, including the notorious downings of two of the US military's Blackhawk helicopters in 1993. The Blackhawk debacle led to the US withdrawal from Somalia in 1994, and that was followed a year later by the departure of UN peacekeepers.
"There is strong thinking that foreign troops may not be the panacea everyone wants it to be," said Iqbal Jhazbhay, a Horn of Africa specialist at the University of South Africa. "The history of southern Somali since 1991 has shown that the area is averse to foreign troops even if they are African or Muslim."
A senior US official in Kenya said on Thursday that US diplomats were doing everything possible to persuade African countries to contribute to a new force, but that security was a major issue.
Nonetheless, the official, who was authorized only to speak on condition of anonymity, said on Thursday that he still hoped the vanguard of an African peacekeeping force would be in Mogadishu within weeks.
Nigerian troops are on the ground in Ivory Coast, Sudan and Congo, three nations still wracked with insecurity.
As to Somalia, Nigeria Foreign Affairs Minister Joy Ogwu told reporters on Thursday that no comment would be made on peacekeepers until after an African Union summit set for Jan. 29-30 in Ethiopia.
Like Nigeria, South Africa has been a major contributor to peacekeeping missions in Africa, with troops in Sudan's Darfur, Burundi, Congo, Ivory Coast and along the Ethiopian-Eritrean border.
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