Global Policy Forum

The UN Security Council on Thursday took steps toward launching a new peacekeeping mission in Somalia. The 15-member council asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a statement to "prepare a proposal for a peace-building mission for Somalia," aimed at ending 10 years of turmoil in the country.

After former president Mohammed Siad Barre's regime toppled in January 1991, the Horn of Africa nation remained in a state of conflict for nearly 10 years, without a central government and at the mercy of various clan-based warlords battling for control of land and resources.

But after several failed attempts, a conference on national reconciliation convened in Djibouti last year, sparking the formation of a transitional government in August and the election of a president, Abdoulkassim Salat Hassan.

The interim government, led by Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh, opened shop on October 20. "Somalia doesn't have very many resources," Galaydh said. "We need the United Nations. We need the support of the international community."

Annan's special representative for Somalia, David Stephen, maintained that any UN mission would be minimal: "There will not be any huge mission nor big ambition," he told reporters.

But, echoing Galaydh, he emphasized that Somalia's government is in dire straits: "The transitional government works out of hotels. It has no archives. It doesn't even have paperclips," he said.

UN troops pulled out of the country in 1995 after an unsuccessful venture that cost hundreds of lives. In one incident on October 3, 1993, 19 US rangers and other UN forces were killed in a Mogadishu battle that left at least 200 Somalis dead.