ANALYSIS-Africans warm to Sudan mission, but forget Somalia

By Andrew Cawthorne
NAIROBI, Aug 13 (Reuters) - African nations have been falling over themselves to pledge support for an expanded peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region under United Nations and African Union auspices.
At least six countries have quickly promised troops. And such is the enthusiasm that AU chief diplomat Alpha Oumar Konare says the continent can provide all the manpower needed for a 26,000-strong force approved last month by the United Nations.
But in arguably Africa's second biggest troublespot -- Somalia -- the rush to supply Darfur has a somewhat bitter ring.
"Of course we want to help our brothers in Darfur," Somalia's ambassador to Kenya, Mohamed Ali Nur, told Reuters on Monday. "But Somalia is the same thing. The African Union needs to look at us, and help us too."
Somalia's government has been waiting all year for the arrival of 8,000 AU peacekeepers promised to help stem a war that has killed hundreds, displaced tens of thousands and threatens regional stability in the Horn of Africa.
So far, only 1,600 Ugandans have turned up. And the reluctance of others to go in could hardly contrast more with the surge in commitments to the Darfur conflict since the Security Council on July 31 authorised a joint U.N.-AU mission.
"It is going to be much more difficult for Somalia now," said Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential newsletter.
"The interest in the Darfur crisis and the willingness is definitely going to dissipate the interest in sending troops to Mogadishu where, by all accounts, it is even more dangerous."
At the start of the year, various African countries tentatively pledged to support a Somalia mission.
But funding problems and unrelenting violence in Mogadishu, where Islamist-led insurgents are battling the government and its Ethiopian military allies, quickly changed their minds.
In theory, Burundi is supposed to send two battalions soon. But their arrival has been prematurely touted for months, with no movement on the ground.
"Of course we are disappointed more peacekeepers have not come to Somalia," Nur said. "We do not know why. We again appeal to the international community and African nations to make good their commitments."
MONEY AND GEOPOLITICS
One major reason may not be that complicated -- money.
African nations know that with the U.N. machine behind them, their troops in Darfur should be properly paid and equipped in the future. A 7,000-strong AU-only mission there since 2004 has been suffering from lack of resources, including pay.
The AU's early problems in Darfur chime with current problems in Somalia.
Ugandan peacekeepers were complaining about not being paid within weeks of arriving, and while that has now been resolved, regional officials say the international community has not come up with enough money for the Somalia mission.
Geopolitics are also playing their part.
With major Western leaders like George W. Bush, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy pressing for urgent and firm action on Darfur, the world has -- albeit belatedly -- taken a relatively united position on the need to protect Darfuris.
But there is a back-story to the Somalia conflict that makes countries reluctant to get involved.
A senior Western diplomat, who tracks Somalia from Nairobi, said Ethiopia's U.S.-approved intervention in Somalia at the end of 2006, to kick out Islamists from Mogadishu and replace them with the interim government, created diplomatic tensions.
"Many people think the way that Somalia has been handled -- as part of the U.S. so-called war on terror -- has made things worse. So they don't want to touch it now," he said. "The Darfur crisis has been much easier to define in terms of response."
And if further deterrent were needed for African nations in Somalia, they need look no further than history.
A militarily powerful U.S.-U.N. peacekeeping mission in the early 1990s ended in ignominious withdrawal with scenes of Western soldiers' corpses being dragged through the streets.
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi urged the U.N. Security Council this year to send peacekeepers to his country, but members told him they wanted to see political progress towards peace first.
Gedi questioned the fairness of saying, "Make peace and I will come and keep it".