Twenty years after it withdrew its peacekeeping troops and shut down its humanitarian activities in war-torn Somalia in 1994, the United Nations is making a determined comeback in the Horn of Africa country.

Two events point to the resurgent UN interventionism.

On May 2, the UN Security Council authorised the formation of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (Unsom) charged with peacebuilding and state-building.

Then on July 24 it extended to November 25, 2014 the mandate of the eight-member Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia, which monitors compliance with the arms embargoes on the two countries and activities likely to generate revenue for Al Qaeda affiliated Al Shabaab group.

But the group’s recent reports reveal the activist face of the UN now redrawing the contours of Horn politics.

Three waves

The deployment of Unsom on June 3 for an initial period of one year marks the onset of the third wave of UN interventionism in Somalia.

The first and second were bold experiments in the new doctrine of “humanitarian militarism,” in the early post-Cold War period.

The first wave started in April 1992, when the UNSC authorised the United Nations Operation in Somalia I (Unsom I) and a sanctions committee to respond to the humanitarian emergency that followed the fall of the dictator Siad Barre and the ensuing civil war.

Unsom I failed to create a safe environment for humanitarian operations and ended prematurely eight months later.

The UNSC passed Resolution 794 sanctioning the Unified Task Force (Unitaf) to take over from Unsom I. This enabled it to operate in Somalia between December 5, 1992 and May 4, 1993.

But when several Pakistani peacekeepers were killed, the Security Council passed Resolution 837 permitting UNITAF troops to use “all necessary measures” to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid in accordance with Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.

However, the United States-led initiative (code-named “Operation Restore Hope”) also bowed out, when it failed to create a safe environment for humanitarian operations.

The inception of Unsom II on March 26, 1993 ushered in the “second wave” of UN interventionism under the banner of the Security Council Resolution 814 that also authorised the use of force.

Unsom II ended disastrously after the “Battle of Mogadishu” and the resulting events portrayed in the book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War and its associated film, Black Hawk Down.

UNSC Resolution 954 of November 4, 1994 withdrew Unsom II. This ushered in a decade of the UN’s hands-off policy where the vast bulk of its activities on Somalia were relocated to Nairobi.

Between November 1994 and June 2001, Somalia disappeared from the UNSC agenda despite the festering crisis.

The surging third wave of UN interventionism is a subtle blend of the “soft power” strategy dominant in the 21st century multi-polar order and a strong tinge of militarism now defining UN engagement in Africa from Cote d’Ivoire to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia to Mali, Sierra Leone to Sudan.

This militarism has seen UN troops in Africa surge by 52.3 per cent from 47,778 in 2001 to 91,216 by June this year.

In the Horn, the militarism is defined by a different logic set by renascent pan-Africanism and the ensuing global debate on strengthening relationships between the UN and regional organisations.

This culminated in the UNSC Resolution 1809 that established the joint AU-UN panel (the “Prodi Panel”) to consider options for supporting AU peacekeeping operations, chaired by former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi.

Meanwhile, on February 20, 2007 the Security Council passed Resolution 1744 that authorised the creation of the African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) — currently comprising more than 17,000 peacekeepers, mainly from Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Uganda, and funded from assessed UN contributions.

But the game changer in Somalia was the incursion by the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) into southern Somalia on October 16, 2011.

The coordinated military operation between Kenyan, Somali and Ethiopian militaries with alleged logistical backing from the French and US militaries was codenamed “Operation Linda Nchi” (“Protect the country”).

(Read: UN unveils new look Amisom as Kenya joins up)

It pursued the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabaab fighters accused of kidnapping several foreign tourists and aid workers inside Kenya and imperilling the region’s economies and security.

Amisom routed Al Shabaab from the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Last year, KDF and the allied Somali National Army (SNA) seized control of the port city of Kismayu, the hitherto principal stronghold of Al Shabaab.

This triumph has restored a rare calm, enabling the election of the UN-backed new government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Mogadishu last September.

The Kenyan operation has also set the stage for a safe return of the UN and its agencies in Somalia.

Spearheads

Although the new UN intervention in Somalia is riding on a raft of Security Council-sanctioned instruments such as the Panel of Experts on the arms embargo (2002) and the International Counter-piracy Action (2008), its spearheads are now the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (Unsom) and the controversial UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia.

Unsom is based on a report of the UN Secretary-General to the UN Security Council on Somalia (S/2013/69) of January 1, 2013, which recommended the reconfiguration of the UN presence in the country.

The report sets out Unsom’s five-point mandate as “good offices” functions: Providing advice to the government and the AU Mission in Somalia (Amisom) on peace-building and state-building; assisting the government with donor co-ordination; capacity-building in the areas of human rights and protection of civilians; and human rights monitoring and reporting.

The unveiling of Unsom is also taking place against the backdrop of the discovery of valuable mineral and energy resources.

This is raising fears in America and the European Union over a “Chinese takeover” in the region and thrusting Somalia into the forefront of the fierce scramble for Africa’s strategic resources.

This, in turn, is fuelling renewed militarism, now everywhere fashioning the geopolitics of the Horn.

West-based think-tanks are pointing to a move by the US to step up “its secret war in Somalia” and the region.

Washington has operated training camps for regional peacekeepers destined for Somalia besides hosting eight Predator drones, eight F-15E fighter jets, nearly 2,000 US troops and military civilians at its Djibouti base.

Similarly, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) launched the “Operation Ocean Shield” involving warships from the United Kingdom and US in an anti-piracy campaign off the Horn seaboard.

However, the Monitoring Group report indicates that, last year, US war tactics undermined the region’s security. Its drone flights clogged the skies over Somalia where it posed a threat to air safety.

Its unmanned aircraft also slammed into a refugee camp, skirted a fuel dump and nearly crashed into a passenger plane over Mogadishu.

But the West has also undertaken “soft power” initiatives.

In May, Britain hosted a high-level conference on Somalia in London for key regional and international actors and the EU will stage a conference on September 16 in Brussels on support for Somalia, fronted by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton as “an opportunity to capitalise on political gains made in Somalia.”

Discernibly, the combination of the West’s charm offensive and militarism seek to effectively lock China and other emerging powers out of Somalia’s resource theatre.

Undermining local actors

Unsom also comes as the role of regional actors is waning. The clear failure of regional actors to maintain a united front against Al Shabaab is imperilling Unsom’s fortunes.

As an American analyst rightly stated, “Our best friends are busy fighting one another.”

The African peacekeeping forces in Somalia are caught in the mire of intra-clan discord over the control of Kismayu and its lucrative charcoal trade, estimated at more than $25 million.

In recent months in Kismayu, Kenyan forces in Amisom have clashed with clans loyal to the federal government in Mogadishu.

In turn, Mogadishu’s new rulers have accused the Kenyans of taking sides against it, calling for their withdrawal from southern Somalia, to be replaced by “a more neutral force.”

(Read: KDF aiding Al-Shabaab, says UN)

Kenya and Ethiopia are wary of a weak and unfriendly government in Mogadishu, whose structures they fear have been heavily infiltrated by Al Shabaab at the “highest levels.”

Addis Ababa and Nairobi view the new government as still under the long shadow of Eritrea’s proxy war in Somalia.

Asmara’s agents are stealthily sponsoring periodic covert meetings for Somali Islamists in Khartoum and other centres to organise military operations.

This is enabling Al Shabaab’s frequent attacks on targets inside Somalia and its neighbours — including a recent deadly strike on a UN humanitarian aid compound in Mogadishu and sporadic bombings in northern Kenya.

As a result, analysts fear a dramatic comeback of Al Shabaab, making a credible threat to peace and security in Somalia and its neighbours.

In June, forces loyal to Ahmed Godane took charge after fierce internal strife within the movement in which Al Shabaab’s co-founder, Ibrahim al-Afghani, was killed and two other leaders, Sheikh Mukhtar Robow and Hassan Dahir Aweys, fled for safety.

The infighting obviously left the Islamists weaker, but its approximately 5,000-strong force and well-financed secret service — Amniyat — remain intact.

The internal strife has engendered a shift from a “standing army” controlling large swathes of territory to a strong, disciplined and unified group controlled by Godane.

It is now able to avoid direct military combat with the AU forces while preserving the core of its fighting force and resources and executing hundreds of attacks within Somalia, northern Kenya and even Nairobi.

The militia is strategically lying low, waiting for foreign troops to withdraw so it can effortlessly seize control of the vacated areas.

The charcoal crisis

But the formation of a united front against the re-emerging Al Shabaab is undermined by the politics of the Somalia “charcoal crisis,” recently compounded by an unbalanced analysis by the UN Monitoring Group’s 485-page report.

The report makes the damning claim that the Kenyan forces in Amisom have colluded with financial backers of Al Shabaab in the charcoal trade, enabling the Islamist group to refill its war chest.

The “Charcoal Crisis” report harks back to the UN ban on the importation of charcoal from Somalia last year.

(Also read: Trouble in Somalia over world’s largest charcoal stockpile)

On February 22, 2012, the Security Council passed Resolution 2036 to cut off one of Al Shabaab’s sources of income. At the time, Kismayu and the charcoal trade were in the hands of the militia.

Fearing that the use of arms to enforce the UN charcoal ban could complicate the support Amisom has enjoyed from the local population in Kismayu in the fight against Al Shabaab, in early November the African Union and Somalia’s neighbours urged the Security Council to lift the 2012 ban, at least temporarily.

Kenya argued that Kismayu’s angry charcoal traders could jeopardise the security of its troops in southern Somalia.

Even Somalia’s former prime minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, asked the Security Council’s sanctions committee to review the ban.

As a result of sharp divisions within the UN on the issue, the UNSC dithered on lifting the sanctions.

The Monitoring Group described the “argument that a group of charcoal traders constituted a greater threat to the KDF… than Al Shabaab that had just been routed in Kismayu” as “difficult to appreciate.”

In its report, it asserted that “it was far more likely that exporting charcoal would exacerbate clan tensions and resource interests, leading to much broader conditions of conflict.”

Without giving concrete evidence, the report accused Kenyan soldiers of facilitating illegal charcoal exports from Kismayu, saying that “the shareholding of the charcoal trade at the port was divided into three between Al Shabaab, Ras Kamboni and Somali Kenyan businessmen co-operating with the KDF.”

The Monitoring Group’s “collusion thesis” is based on three arguments:

First, Al Shabaab is alleged to still control and benefit from the charcoal trade even after the Kenyan Amisom contingent and Madobe’s Ras Kamboni militia kicked out the insurgents from Kismayu.

The second is that the “nature of the business enterprise forged by Al Shabaab continues with Al Shabaab, its commercial partners and networks still central to the trade.”

Thirdly, the “revenue that Al Shabaab derives from its Kismayu shareholding, its exports and the taxation of ground transportation, likely exceeds the estimated $25 million it generated in charcoal revenue when it controlled Kismayu.”

However, it is not succinctly clear why Kenya would continue abetting a vanquished enemy with whom it is still at war, or collude with the enemy’s financiers.

Finally, the report accuses another of Unsom’s prospective partners, the new federal government, of “rampant corruption,” which Mogadishu has disputed.

Prof Peter Kagwanja is the CEO of the Africa Policy Institute. This article is part of the Institute’s Diplomacy & Dialogue Project.