“What we are going to do in Somalia is to empower our brothers to rebuild their state.” Words of Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni, whose country deployed troops to Somalia in response to IGAD’s 2005 call to African countries to contribute troops for a mission in Somalia. IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) is a regional body comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
For more than 18 years now, Somalia has been a classic case of a failed state, the main reason why chaos, instability and violence have persisted. IGAD in particular, and the African Union (AU) in general, consider the building of a strong Somali state as key to the re-establishment of security and stability in that country. The AU believes that a strong Somali state will provide an environment where the Somali people can sit together and discuss the conflicts that have for years torn their nation apart. In 2006, before Uganda deployed her troops to Somalia, Yoweri Museveni emphasised this aspect of the mission: “We will not go to Somalia to impose peace on the Somalis, because we shouldn’t do that and we cannot. What we are going to do in Somalia is to empower our brothers to rebuild their state…. We want to be part of the solution [in Somalia], not the problem.”
Since the toppling of the regime of Siad Barre in 1991, thousands of people in Somalia have perished, tens of thousands have been internally displaced while others fled into neighbouring countries, and a large part of the population now depends of food aid. The country is awash with armed militias, arms are flowing in day and night, foreign fighters are coming in at an alarming rate, and piracy along Somalia’s coast is fast becoming a way of life. The situation, if it continues unabated, poses a threat not only to the people of Somalia but to the entire region and the international community.
Uganda is one of the two African countries that have so far contributed to the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Of the Mission’s present 4,300 troops, 3,000 are Ugandan and 1,300 are Burundian.
Uganda’s reasons for deploying troops to Somalia are first and foremost a response to the decision by IGAD and, subsequently, by the AU, to help the people of Somalia. Fundamentally, however, Uganda’s decision is couched in the Pan African philosophy that as long as a single African country is in turmoil, the continent of Africa will not be at peace. The very philosophy that informed African countries’ involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, it has been at the heart of the AU’s conviction that Africans must assist Somalia to come out of its cycle of conflict. Museveni summarised this sentiment at an IGAD summit in 2005: “It is a shame for one of the ancient races of Africa to suffer for so long as the rest of Africa looks on.”
Additionally, Uganda sees the stabilisation of Somalia as a strategic challenge for the entire region. The increasing internalisation of the conflict, especially the suspected infiltration into Somalia by Al Qaeda elements who want to use Somalia as a bridgehead for expanding their terrorist activities throughout Africa, has added urgency to efforts to stabilise Somalia, a concern echoed by Somalia’s president Sheikh Sharif Ahmed who recently told journalists: “Al Qaeda considers Somalia a strategic place. They want to make it a safe haven for criminals. We ask the world to help us fight the international terrorists.”
Uganda’s involvement in Somalia is also set against a backdrop of recent troubles in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa: the genocide in Rwanda, the civil war in Southern Sudan, the civil war in Burundi, the wars in the DRC, the ongoing war in Darfur, the wars in Uganda, the Ethiopian war that removed Mengistu, and the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The people of the region are still trying to recover from the devastation and suffering that accompanied those conflicts. In Uganda’s view, a view in harmony with that of the AU, the last thing the region needs is for one of its sister countries to become a haven for international terrorists of any type.
For Uganda, therefore, participation in the African Mission in Somalia is a strategic necessity and a duty for all African countries if the region is to avoid slipping back into the violence that has already devastated the region and traumatised its people. The very future of the people of the region is intimately linked to the success of the African Mission in Somalia.
Hope Kvingere is a special presidential assistant in Uganda.