Ivory Coast: Peacekeeping Chief Defends UN Role In Gbagbo Ouster

The head of the UN’s peacekeeping operations says the world body had “no other option” when it intervened in Ivory Coast this week, even if that move paved the way for the arrest of hold out president Laurent Gbagbo by his opponent Alassane Ouattara’s forces.

 Alain Le Roy told reporters at a news conference UN actions were within the framework of the Security Council resolution allowing UNOCI to take “all necessary means” to prevent the use of heavy weapons against civilians.

 Less than a week after Laurent Gbagbo’s arrest, the UN continues to draw criticism from those who say it went beyond its mandate and effectively took sides in a civil war.

 The United Nations and France have repeatedly tried to distance themselves from Gbagbo’s arrest, insisting all week that Ouattara’s forces had carried out the final raid on the former President’s compound without outside help.

Le Roy did however concede that UN and French intervention to protect civilians from heavy weapons set the stage for Gbagbo’s ousting.

 “ I agree, it is clear that the forces loyal to President Ouattara took advantage of that, and attacked the residence.” said Le Roy “Our intention was not any kind of regime change, that is not our mandate. Our mandate is to target heavy weapons when they are used, they were used every day of that week. So we had no option but to do it.

Le Roy said Gbagbo should have known UN retaliation against heavy artillery could give Ouattara’s forces an important advantage.

 “The fact that the forces loyal to Ouattara took advantage of it, there nothing we can do about it.” said Le Roy.“If Ouattara had heavy weapons targeting us or targeting the civilian population, we would have done the same.”

 The new Ouattara government may have trouble moving to its goal of national reconciliation if domestic opinion perceives it is in power thanks to outside intervention by the UN and especially by France, the former colonial power in the country.

 The Ouattara government’s prosecution of Laurent Gbagbo will also likely be a key aspect of the reconciliation process. 

 Although many of Gbagbo’s supporters defected to the Ouattara camp in the past few weeks, the former President still has a considerable support through out the country.

 Le Roy said President Ouattara’s forces were guarding Gbagbo and his family inside an apartment at the Golf Hotel and that UN officers were also positioned outside to ensure his safety.

 The UN peacekeeping chief confirmed that Mr. Gbagbo’s wife and son Michel were physically abused when first taken into custody, but UN officials had since received assurances from the Ouattara camp that they would be treated “in a correct manner”. 

 One of Gbagbo’s minister’s, Desire Tagro , died under mysterious circumstances hours after he was taken into custody by Ouattara supporters. Le Roy said UNOCI officials transported the former interior minister to a local hospital for emergency medical treatment on a gun shot wound to the jaw, but were unable to prevent his death. 

 Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies have voiced serious concern over the plight of the population displaced by armed clashes. More than 800 000 people have fled their homes since the start of the fighting, over 120 000 of whom have crossed into neighboring Liberia.

Yesterday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) appealed for 160 million dollars to address humanitarian needs over the next nine months. OCHA says aid agencies have been able to reach affected areas in the west of the country, but security concerns were preventing greater humanitarian access to Abijan, were a large portion of the population is without water, food and electricity. 

 The UN says its troops are actively patrolling the city and that calm is slowly returning to the country’s economic capital, with ports and banks scheduled to re-open sometime next week. 

U.N. Ambassador Rice Lays Out America's Role In Global Peacekeeping Operations

By Mariko Lamb - Talk Radio News Service

Ambassador Susan Rice, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, described challenges facing the UN’s 15 peacekeeping operations in conflict areas around the world as well as the U.S.’s role in facing these challenges in her address to the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday.

Key challenges include the rapid demand of riskier U.N. peacekeeping missions, lack of support and capabilities from member states, and lack of stability and legitimacy of host governments after the departure of U.N. forces.

“It will take concerted action by many actors to meet the difficult challenges facing U.N. peacekeeping. It will also take U.S. leadership,” Rice said.

“Increasing the effectiveness and the efficiency of peacekeeping is one of the Obama administration’s highest priorities at the United Nations,” she said. The U.S. is considering direct contribution to U.N. peacekeeping efforts in the form of military observers, military staff officers, civilian police, and other civilian personnel.

The U.S. share of the U.N.’s peacekeeping costs will amount to an estimated $2.2 billion in 2009.

“It is pragmatism and a clear sense of America’s interests that drives us to support U.N. peacekeeping today,” said Rice, adding that “2.2 billion is a lot of money, but the costs of inaction would likely be far greater, both in blood and treasure.”

What to do in Somalia?

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

The lack of a coordinated international response might have emboldened pirates off the coast of Africa to step up their terror, according to Retired Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff. This comes on the heels of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announcing the Obama Administration’s new approach to the situation in Somalia, which includes the U.S. seizure of financial assets.

Cosgriff believes that a coordinating authority among the nations with maritime interests in the region could help present a unified front against pirates.

“With so many different players on the field, it’s a bit like an all-star game without an authoritative coach. There are differing rules of engagement, national approaches, and limits on what they want their warships to do.” Cosgriff said it’s a challenge “to have the right ship from the right navy in the right place at the right time to do what you want to do.”

Cosgriff is former commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command. He held a talk at the Middle East Institute, at which he addressed the possible courses of action which could be taken against maritime piracy in the nearly 400,000 square mile region along the Somali coast.

“Doing nothing, or being ineffective at what we do, strikes me as bad policy,” said the commander, who addressed five possible courses of action that could be taken to curb the lawlessness:

• Do Nothing: Companies which traffic goods off of the African Horn would pay ransoms and treat piracy as a cost of business.
• Arm the Crews: Ship crews would be expected to maintain their own security through hiring private security forces or arming their mariners.
• Flood the Zone: International naval coalitions and unofficial patchworks of navies “with significant maritime interests” would patrol the region.
• Go in on ground - Light: Tactical airstrikes and troops on the ground aimed at equipment and infrastructure within known pirate camps along the Somali coastline.
• Go in on ground - Heavy: Tactical airstrikes and troops on the ground to flush out the pirate camps, seize property, and not allow the pirates to bare the fruits of their actions.

Cosgriff emphasized the importance of a coordinated international response in whatever route was selected, because it is an “international problem in the great global commons known as the sea.” A coordinated response would provide a uniform framework in which to react to pirates when they engage in hostility, according to Cosgriff. He said that since the U.S. is a global maritime leader, it should take a leading role in the solution.

“Whatever lies ahead, we have to take care… that the cure is not worse than the disease,” he said.

Cosgriff acknowledged that piracy is a business, and doesn’t believe that it is rooted in simple poverty and desperation, although he acknowledged those as contributing factors. “The overall problem is that of organized criminal clans,” groups which he said, “try to extend seaward the rule of the gun which pertains in much of Somalia.” He continued, “in short, piracy pays.”

Somalia has faced ongoing violence and lawlessness since the government collapsed in 1991.

Somalia: A Pirate’s Paradise

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

Piracy is nothing new in Somalia. Every day pirates run free off of Somalia’s nearly 2,000-mile coastline and find haven within this African country which is slightly smaller than Texas. The problem has long been of concern to the U.S. State Department and the United Nations, but it has been gaining special attention once again because of the targeting of American citizens. The hostage situation with American ship captain Richard Phillips caused a nation to hold its breath, and many were in shock when U.S. Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) escaped a mortar attack aimed at his airplane in Mogadishu on Monday while the congressman was meeting with government officials.

Maritime piracy has been a lucrative business since the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 and in the thirteen governments to exist since. It can provide quick income for the uneducated and impoverished, and has become a fact of life for companies trading around the Horn of Africa.

The United States has not had full diplomatic ties with Somalia since 1991. Somalia now has a U.S. “Ambassador-at-large” with no formal office in the U.S. from which to work. The Ambassador-at-large, Abdi Awaleh Jama, believes that the violence comes from a “poverty of leadership” in Somalia. Jama said the leaders at the regional and national level don’t serve communal interests but rather favor specific clans or family members.

“The dominant paradigm now is the clan paradigm... not the nation paradigm,” Jama said. He continued, “When there is no law and order, you take the law into your own hands.” Jama said the natural resources in Somalia have been seized by certain clans and used to hold down opposition within the rest of the country.

Jama, who does not fault the sitting Somali president for the country’s condition, said that pirates flourish off the expansive coast because the rule of law has not existed in Somali society in the past decade. When such anarchy is combined with the overflowing poverty, a situation will develop where people will seize “any opportunity they have to make money,” said Jama.

Officials within the Somali government have defended the so-called pirates as being a “coast guard” who protect the country’s resources. Jama dismisses that claim.

“These are criminals who want to make quick money, and who want to just use force, in the name of saving Somalia,” he said. “They are only there to enrich themselves, and to use that gimmick that they are defending Somali resources, which is wrong.”

Joel Carny, an expert from Refugees International, said that Somalia “really hasn’t had a central government that has functioned in so long.” He believes this has led to “warlordism” and opportunity for clan-based regional politics to develop. He called Somalia “an environment in which everyone has to fend for themselves.”

According to Carny, approximately two million Somalis have been displaced due to the violence in the past decade and three million are in need of emergency assistance.

Somalia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Elmi Ahmed Duale, acknowledged in a phone conversation that the violence was taking place and said the government cannot hide it. He hopes for a resolution.

The international community has taken this issue very seriously. The United Nations has had peacekeepers in Somalia at various times since 1991, and most recently the African Union has dedicated resources through AMISOM, their official Mission to Somalia. In February 2009, the United Nations Security Council authorized AMISOM to stay in Somalia for another six months, which places peacekeepers on the ground through August. The United Nations says the goal of this mission is to help establish order and secure human rights.

Recent Somali elections were marked by violence to the point that they had to take place in neighboring Djibouti. Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected in January, and shortly thereafter, Ahmed appointed a new prime minister.

Carny is doubtful of the new government’s ability to establish order but thinks that the international community should give the new president a chance. Carney said, “Lets see if [the government] can establish a viable authority... that can at least establish security inside the capitol and then spread from there.” Carney said, however, that “anyone who’s pessimistic about Somalia is probably going to be right.”

Jama wants the United States to help Somalia build a “proper coast guard,” which would replace vigilantism that currently runs the shorelines.

Both Jama and Carny acknowledged that most of the social problems in Africa are rooted in the colonial past, but Carny believes that Africa must move on. “We’re not going to redraw the boundaries in Africa,” said Carny. He suggested that Somalia could be governed regionally through “some kind of Federalism,” as a credible solution for ethnically diverse nations prone to social conflict, civil war and genocide.

“For better or for worse, these countries have to live and work their way out of consequences. When you get good leadership at the national level... things can turn around fairly quickly,” Carny said.

Listen to the audio report here.