Somalia: floundering TFG

The UN Security Council is considering the secretary-general's grim assessment of the situation in Somalia, ahead of a Thursday discussion of the UN's options for helping the floundering Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Since the Ethiopian intervention in late 2006 that swept the Council of Somali Islamic Courts (CSIC) from power in Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia, the TFG has struggled to assert its authority.  It remains dependent on the Ethiopian military for security, in the face of a growing insurgency, including Islamist militants.  Battles in Mogadishu have left some 700,000 displaced, and as many as 7,000 dead, many of them civilians caught in insurgent attacks on TFG and Ethiopian personnel, as well as indiscriminate counter-insurgency operations.  Those individuals face dire conditions, but international aid is hampered by the lack of security.

Recently appointed Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has said that the government is willing to negotiate with the insurgents and the political opposition, which includes former TFG and CSIC figures based in Eritrea.  Yet a common position among disparate opposition figures is the precondition that Ethiopian troops withdraw, a non-starter for the TFG.  An African Union mission (AMISOM) comprising 2,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops remains far short of the nearly 8,000 personnel envisaged, and even at full strength might not be in a position to guarantee security should the Ethiopians pull out.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the TFG's mandate to organise a constitution and elections by 2009. Somalia looks set for continued insecurity and an intensifying humanitarian emergency.