Thami Dickson
Ali Mohamed Ghedi, the prime minister of Somalia's interim government, has made an emotional appeal to the United Nations security council to intervene with immediate effect in the war ravaging his country. Ghedi has met with the leadership of the UN and the security council members at the organisation's headquarters in New York.

He pleaded with the UN to assist the African Union (AU) to re-establish its failed peacekeeping mission in Somalia. His visit comes just after the latest fighting has claimed many lives and left scores injured in the Mogadishu, the capital.

Somalia under siege
Somalia is under siege from terrorists who are using imported weapons and the UN must intervene and rescue its people and restore peace. This was Ghedi's key message in his meeting with the UN leaders. His challenge though is that the UN had made it clear that it cannot deploy troops in the midst of blazing guns and volatility in the Horn of Africa.

The rules of the UN say, "Let there be peace first, and peace keepers shall be deployed to keep it.

"It is not fair for the international community and the UN to say 'make peace first and then we will come and keep it'. It is not right to ignore and neglect the interest of the Somali people. They also have rights," said the Somalian prime minister.

Ghedi, reminded the security council and Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary general, of the promise they made last year of assisting the AU with finances and logistics to establish a peacekeeping operation in his country. The agreement was that after six months, the fully fledged AU operation in Somalia would be handed over to the UN.

Plan collapsed
However, the whole plan collapsed as African countries failed to contribute the eight thousand troops needed for the mission. Only Uganda contributed 15 hundred troops. Ghedi says that the UN must honour its promises for the sake of the people of Somalia.

"The issue here is that the UN and the international community must support the AU to deploy its peace keepers in Somalia and that will pave the way for the UN to take over.. We are fed up of promises, we want action now," he said.

For now the Somali interim government is depending on the Ugandan and Ethiopian troops for protection. Ghedi says that he is going to raise the matter with the AU leaders in their forthcoming summit in Accra, Ghana next week.