SOMALIA: East African church leaders call for African Union action

By Fredrick Nzwili, March 23, 2007 [Ecumenical News International] Church leaders in East Africa have reacted sharply to fresh fighting in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government forces, and have urged the African Union to intervene.

"AU peacekeepers must be beefed up," said Agnes Abuom of the Anglican Church of Kenya, who has been chairing an east African grouping of Muslims and Christians seeking to broker peace in Somalia.

The latest clashes in Mogadishu broke out on March 21 between government forces and fighters believed to be remnants of the Islamist Union of Islamic Courts, which had controlled the capital and much of southern Somalia before being routed by Ethiopian-backed troops at the end of 2006.

Somali fighters dragged the bodies of five dead soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu before burning the corpses. The Reuters news agency reported that in one place, two bodies were pelted with stones and kicked, while a crowd chanted, "God is great."

An informal truce was reported to have been agreed on March 23 but other reports said the cease-fire was breaking down.

"Dialogue must work. It must be broad-based to include UIC," said Abuom, whose Muslim-Christian group has been calling for inclusive dialogue, power sharing, voluntary disarmament and demobilization. The group is also urging the replacement of Ethiopian troops and other external forces with neutral peacekeepers acceptable to all parties.

"It is bad that violence is returning to Somalia," Roman Catholic Archbishop Boniface Lele of Mombasa, in neighboring Kenya, told Ecumenical News International. "We appeal for and encourage quick intervention."

An African Union peacekeeping force is being deployed to take over from the Ethiopian troops but it is reported that the AU force is not yet ready for action.

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