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Somalia

IGAD regrets failure to deploy peacekeeping force in Somalia

NAIROBI, Mar 13, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a peace brokering regional grouping of East African governments, on Monday regretted over failure by regional governments to deploy peacekeepers to Somalia a year after it was mandated to do so.
Boaz Mbaya, the permanent secretary in Kenya's Foreign Affairs Ministry, said one year after the IGAD Summit held on the sidelines of the AU Heads of State meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, directed the council to deploy a peace support mission in Somalia to assist the transitional government, no peacekeepers had been deployed.

Mbaya, who was opening the two-day 25th session of the IGAD experts committee meeting in Nairobi, urged the seven-member IGAD to ensure decisions taken by the regional peace and development body are implemented.

He said the it was a "great shame since part of the reason is the failure to provide the necessary capacity to deploy the mission," Mbaya told the seven-member body comprising Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia.

But he was quick to praise IGAD for spearheading both the Somalia national reconciliation conference and the Sudan peace process which were successfully concluded with the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government for Somalia and the signing of the Sudan Peace Agreement.

The latter led to the formation of the Government of National Unity in Sudan, ending the 21-year civil war which pitted the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), led by the late John Garang, against the Khartoum government.

The meeting is deliberating on a range of important issues the outcome of which will be presented to the Council of Ministers for consideration later in the week.

IGAD was initially formed to address the issues of drought and desertification, but later grew into a fully-fledged regional, political, economic and social entity.

Copyright (c) 2006 Comtex News Network
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 03/13/2006 11:35:50