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TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4729
INFO RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
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RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
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RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC//J5/DDPMAW// IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 USUN NEW YORK 000689 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR IO, AF, PM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/30/2018 
TAGS: PREL KPKO UNSC SO
SUBJECT: SOMALIS PUSH STABILIZATION FORCE, UN RESISTS 
 
REF: USUN 668 
 
Classified By: Amb. Alejandro Wolff, for reasons 1.4 b/d. 
 
¶1. (U) This is an action request.  Please see paragraph 10. 
 
¶2. (C) Summary: In meetings during the week of July 21-25, 
Somali representatives and UN Department of Peacekeeping 
Operations (DPKO) officials offered sharply different 
perspectives on prospects for a UN peacekeeping operation 
(PKO) or multinational stabilization force in Somalia.  The 
Somali Foreign Minister, African Union (AU) representatives 
and members of the opposition Alliance for the Re-liberation 
of Somalia (ARS) gave enthusiastic assessments of recent 
political progress and pressed for urgent movement toward a 
large, UN-backed security force.  DPKO planners subsequently 
provided a private briefing for USUN that focused on the 
extreme volatility of the situation in Somalia and concluded 
that the situation would need to be secured by a 
multinational force (MNF) before a PKO could deploy.  End 
summary. 
 
Somalis push for immediate security help 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) In a July 22 meeting with Amb. Khalilzad, Somali 
Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Jana described progress on the 
political front and advocated a clear message from the UNSC 
that it was prepared to move toward a peacekeeping operation, 
which he estimated would require 10,000-12,000 troops.  A 
future force need not be a UN PKO, Jana said, but should be 
UN-funded in order to avoid the funding and logistics 
pitfalls that have hampered AMISOM.  Jana said that he looked 
forward to an official signing of the Djibouti Agreement 
soon, hopefully in Mecca.  He noted that under the terms of 
the agreement the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and 
ARS were to cease hostilities and work together to end 
attacks by non-signatory groups. 
 
¶4. (C) Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) 
Ahmed Ould Abdallah and AU Peace and Security Commissioner 
Ramtane Lamamra briefed Amb. Khalilzad on July 23 on 
developments in the political process following the 
initialing of the Djibouti Agreement.  They said that delay 
in the agreement's signing was not due to misgivings by the 
parties, but by a desire to accommodate the schedule of the 
king of Saudi Arabia.  In the words of the SRSG and Lamamra, 
the main "spoilers" to the peace process were Eritrea and 
individuals in Saudi Arabia who funded militias like 
al-Shabaab.  It was their hope that signing the peace process 
in Mecca with the Saudi king in attendance would make it 
easier for them to press the Saudi government into shutting 
down these individuals.  They hoped that the king's schedule 
would accommodate a signing before Ramadan, perhaps as soon 
as August 15.  They also dismissed the threat posed by the 
Asmara-based ARS faction led by Sheikh Aweys, who Ould 
Abdallah privately referred to as "a nobody" who "dyes his 
beard with henna so he can say he's an Islamist." 
 
¶5. (C) On the subject of a peacekeeping force, Ould Abdallah 
and Lamamra said that an additional force was needed as soon 
as possible in order to allow Ethiopian troops to withdraw 
and the political process to progress.  Lamamra lamented what 
he called a "civil war" between the UN Department of 
Political Affairs (DPA) and DPKO over the need for a Somalia 
peacekeeping operation and described military officers around 
Guehenno as being "brainwashed" into believing that a PKO in 
Somalia needed at least 28,000 troops.  Like the Somali FM, 
Lamamra believed that a significantly smaller force would 
suffice.  Amb. Khalilzad urged Lamamra and Ould Abdallah to 
be open to creative options to improving security in Somalia, 
including by increasing the capacity of Somali security 
forces.  Finally, the SRSG and Commissioner discussed the 
linkage of security and humanitarian issues in Somalia, with 
the SRSG emphasizing that no food can be delivered in Somalia 
without paying off warlords for protection.  According to 
him, the protection money paid by WFP and other NGOs goes to 
buy weapons, perpetuating the power of the warlords and 
instability in the country.  What was needed, Ould Abdallah 
and Lamamra agreed, was an empowered envoy along the model of 
Kai Eide in Afghanistan, who would be able to coordinate 
security and humanitarian efforts to ensure that they were 
mutually reinforcing.  Amb. Khalilzad undertook to study this 
possibility when reviewing AMISOM's mandate in August. 
 
USUN NEW Y 00000689  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
Opposition wants peacekeepers, too 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) On July 24, Pol Counselor and Poloff met with 
Mohammedabdir Mohammed and Omar Sheikh Ali Idris - two 
members of the ARS who were in New York as part of FM Jana's 
delegation.  Idris and Mohammed confirmed the ARS's strong 
support for the Djibouti process and said that the ARS had 
already identified its delegates to the political and 
security committees that would be formed once the agreement 
was formally signed.  They said that spoilers such as Sheikh 
Aweys could claim no more than 24 out of 191 members of the 
ARS Central Committee and that Sheikh Hassan had recently 
reached out to Sheikh Aweys in order to try to convince him 
to join the agreement.  Idris and Mohammed said that for the 
ARS, the Ethiopian presence in Somalia is the biggest 
obstacle to peace.  Idris urged that international 
peacekeepers be deployed "immediately" to Somalia in order to 
allow the Ethiopians to withdraw, and claimed that most 
fighters in Somalia would lay down their arms if this 
happened.  Idris and Mohammed said that even if a 
peacekeeping force could not immediately secure the whole 
country, an initial deployment that would allow Ethiopians to 
withdraw from Mogadishu would lay a strong foundation for 
peace. 
 
DPKO tries to put on the brakes 
------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Following the U.S.'s reftel request for a briefing 
before August 15 on peacekeeping scenarios for Somalia, DPKO 
military planners requested a meeting with USUN political 
officers and Military Staff Committee officers on July 25. 
DPKO Chief of Military Planning COL Brian Norman (U.S.) and 
his staff told USUN that while DPKO is "encouraged" by the 
momentum of the Djibouti Agreement, the situation on the 
ground remains highly volatile and is not conducive to 
deploying a UN peacekeeping operation (PKO).  He cited a UN 
Department of Safety and Security review that classified 
Somalia as the most non-permissive environment in the world 
-- significantly worse, he noted, than Iraq or Afghanistan. 
Margaret Carey, principal officer in DPKO's Africa Division, 
said that based on AMISOM's experience, any new security 
force was likely to be tested severely within the first 90 
days of its deployment by those seeking to derail the peace 
process.  For that reason, any such force would need to have 
full-spectrum combat capabilities, unlike AMISOM.  DPKO staff 
outlined two objections to a direct move to a UN PKO.  The 
first, political  objection was summarized by Carey: "We 
would not like to see blue helmets using force to the extent 
that this force will have to -- it will undermine the UN's 
ability to mediate this conflict and deliver humanitarian 
aid."  On the operational front, Norman said that the command 
and control and intelligence capabilities of the UN were not 
sufficient to tackle a situation as unpredictable and kinetic 
as that in Somalia. 
 
¶8. (C) DPKO believes it is imperative that, prior to any PKO 
in Somalia, a MNF headed by a capable lead nation must deploy 
first in order to establish a "baseline" of stability built 
around sustained political will and reconciliation between 
the parties.  According to DPKO, this force would need to be 
a self-deploying, self-sustaining force of approximately two 
or three brigades (8,000-10,000 troops total) which would 
operate chiefly in Mogadishu and have the capacity to 
stabilize the situation on the ground through use of force if 
necessary.  Such a force would be designed to monitor the 
Peace Agreement, secure air and seaports and provide limited 
force protection for the UN Political Office for Somalia 
(UNPOS) in order to allow it to relocate to Somalia and 
better facilitate the political process.  DPKO planners said 
that this MNF could either replace or subsume AMISOM, but 
emphasized that AMISOM's current troops did not have the 
full-spectrum capabilities they deemed necessary for a 
potential MNF.  Only once the MNF established a secure 
environment would DPKO be prepared to segue to a UN PKO that 
would relieve the MNF.  In DPKO's view, this PKO would need 
to be at least 22,000 strong and operate in central and 
southern Somalia.  It would need to have very specific tasks 
and missions that would include and expand upon those of the 
MNF. 
 
¶9. (C) DPKO acknowledged that the wild card in their planning 
 
USUN NEW Y 00000689  003 OF 003 
 
 
is the Ethiopian Army.  DPKO repeatedly asked for U.S. 
support with the GOE, specifically requesting information 
regarding the GOE's intentions and possible withdrawal plans. 
 DPKO also asked for sustained U.S. intel support concerning 
the security situation on the ground in Somalia.  In response 
to MSC questions on building the capabilities of Somali 
security forces, DPKO agreed that a security sector reform 
(SSR) component will be central to the long-term stability of 
Somalia, but because SSR is a commitment of several years, 
they do not believe such programs can offer immediate support 
to the Djibouti Agreement process.  A maritime task force 
(MTF) was also discussed, with general agreement that it 
would be useful to modestly increase the size of the existing 
effort.  While the AU has asked for a very large MTF, DPKO 
believes this is likely not achievable. 
 
¶10. (C) Comment and action request: DPKO's August 15 briefing 
to the Council is likely to shape Council members' thinking 
on possible engagement in Somalia, and from the July 25 
briefing it appears likely that DPKO will lean strongly 
toward the deployment of a MNF rather than a UN PKO.  This 
approach may be persuasive to some members of the Council, 
but faces many obstacles, particularly with regard to force 
generation -- even if sufficiently capable troops were 
interested in joining a Somalia operation, countries would 
have no incentive to fund their own participation in a MNF 
when they could instead deploy to a UN-funded PKO.  We 
request Department guidance on responding to DPKO's 
anticipated mid-August briefing, as well as DPKO's requests 
for assistance vis-a-vis Ethiopia.  Mission would also 
welcome the Department's views on the idea of an empowered 
envoy for Somalia, similar to that in Afghanistan. 
 
Khalilzad