AU Somalia pullout a long way off, says French General

The Commander of the French forces in Djibouti, Maj. Gen. Thierry Caspar-Fille-Lambie, has said the African Union will have to stay in Somalia for a long time to achieve stability in the country.

Gen. Lambie told journalists at the French ambassador’s residence in Kampala yesterday that the mission lacks both personnel and equipment to flush out al-Shabaab out of Somalia. “We’re only at the beginning. It could take a long, long time,” he said.

He estimates that 20,000 forces are needed to pacify Somalia, a sizable increase on the 12,000 currently deployed.
“The task of soldiers is to secure areas but currently the force is too small to secure vast territories,” said Gen. Lambie.

Training soldiers
French forces, working with their UK and US counterparts, have provided training to UPDF forces deployed in Somalia. Eleven thousand forces have now been trained, more than half under Gen. Lambie’s supervision.

In addition, 2,500 Somalis have been trained in Uganda. The mandate for training Somali troops ends in September but negotiations at the European Union are ongoing to train a further 1,000 troops next year.

Gen. Lambie denied allegations of widespread defections of Somali government soldiers to al-Shabaab. He said the priority for the EU forces is now to identify and train Somali leaders. “We can train 2,000 troops a year but what we need are good leaders. This could take a long time,” he said.

Meanwhile, the AU Commission signed a protocol in Addis Ababa with the Chinese government yesterday in support of the African Union Mission for Somalia. The Chinese government has pledged to provide equipment and material worth $ 4.5 million to the mission.