Abstract
Deployed to Mogadishu in March 2007, it was not until late May 2013 that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) adopted a mission-wide protection-of-civilians (PoC) strategy. This article helps explain this long delay by highlighting the multiple PoC challenges faced by the mission. First, it shows how AMISOM’s relevant documents contained a variety of mixed messages on PoC issues. Second, it illustrates some of the ways in which the African Union was hardly an ideal actor to implement a civilian protection agenda because of its limited previous experience with these issues. Third, it analyzes the ways in which AMISOM was itself sometimes a source of civilian harm in Mogadishu. The fourth section examines the remedial policies AMISOM adopted to try and alleviate this problem. The conclusion reflects on the current PoC challenges facing AMISOM and suggests that to be successful the new mission-wide strategy must overcome these material, legal, moral, and doctrinal challenges.
Highlights
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was mandated by the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council on 19 January 2007 and later endorsed by the UN Security Council (AU 2007)
Art. 39, page 8 of 17 Williams: The African Union Mission in Somalia and Civilian Protection Challenges concern that AMISOM would become financially liable for any claims but had neither a mechanism to verify such claims nor any funds to pay reparations in legitimate cases (Interviews, AU official and adviser, January 2011)
Williams: The African Union Mission in Somalia and Civilian Protection Challenges Art. 39, page 9 of 17 mated that between January and July 2011, 6,543 individuals had been admitted to hospitals in Mogadishu with “weapons-related injuries”
Summary
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was mandated by the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council on 19 January 2007 and later endorsed by the UN Security Council (AU 2007). In contrast to the 2011 Mission Implementation Plan, AMISOM’s new Military Strategic Concept of Operations – formulated in late 2011 and adopted by the African Union in January 2012 – did not list PoC as part of the mission’s mandate.
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