U.N. council targets those stirring Somalia trouble

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted on Thursday to impose sanctions on anyone contributing to violence and instability in Somalia, in a bid to curb fighting in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

The resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council, is a framework that does not identify individuals or entities to be sanctioned. That will be decided later by a sanctions committee.

The British-drafted resolution calls for asset freezes and travel bans for anyone engaging in or supporting violence in Somalia, including individuals or companies that violate a 1992 U.N. arms embargo against the lawless Horn of Africa country.

The measure also targets anyone obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Somalia, where hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes.

"The prime goal of this is ... to stem the flow of arms into Somalia, which is causing such mayhem there," Britain's U.N. Ambassador John Sawers told reporters.

Somalia has been in virtual anarchy since the collapse of a dictatorship 17 years ago. Islamists now control most of the south. Feuding, heavily armed clan militias hold sway in many other areas and a weak, Western-backed interim government has little authority outside the capital Mogadishu.

The African Union's top diplomat said on Thursday the United Nations should send peacekeepers to Somalia urgently to stop the strife that is fueling piracy and is being aggravated by feuding politicians.

But, faced with problems encountered by U.N. peacekeeping forces in turbulent Congo and Sudan, the council has been reluctant to send its blue-helmeted troops into a situation it sees as even worse, despite pressure from African countries.

MULTINATIONAL FORCE

The council did, however, debate on Thursday a report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon exploring ways of assembling a multinational force that would have a much tougher mandate than a U.N. force but could make way for peacekeepers later.

But a senior official of the U.N. peacekeeping department, Raisedon Zenenga, told the council there had been a "mixed" response from countries approached about contributing.

Only seven of the 50 countries Ban wrote to had replied so far. One had offered equipment, two had offered funding and four had refused to take part. None had offered troops.

Diplomats said particularly important was finding a country to provide a lead contingent. Without that, the multinational force remained "an ethereal concept," one diplomat said.

The United Nations remains haunted by a 1993 debacle in Somalia in which 18 U.S. troops were killed by local fighters, an incident that prompted the film "Black Hawk Down".

"This council should not mandate a force which we do not think is up to the task," Britain's Sawers told fellow envoys.