The Amisom is highly unpopular with Al-Shabaab which has openly declared that the AU force's departure is its priority if it takes power, writes Gitau Warigi

African Union summits always have an agenda heavy with the endless crises that are always happening on this or that place. This year is no different, from the standoff between Chad and Sudan to the International Criminal Court's indictment of Omar Hassan al-Bashir to the persistent unconstitutional order in Mauritania, Guinea and Madagascar.

Still, the mess in Somalia was expected to take centre stage.

On this issue, two particular proposals were reportedly being pushed by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the eastern Africa grouping.

One was for a change of the peackeeping mandate of the weak AU military mission (called AMISOM) into a robust fighting force that can confront the Islamist insurgents. A second proposal was about reversing an earlier ruling that prohibited Somalia's immediate neighbours, like Kenya and Ethiopia, from contributing troops to AMISOM. The peacekeeping force currently comprises about 4,300 troops from Uganda and Burundi.

The peacekeeping mandate is already a major step forward for the AU, which has traditionally avoided getting entangled in internal matters of member states. (There is presently another AU peace-keeping mission in Darfur, Sudan.)

Naturally Kenya and Ethiopia, which have threatened to invade Somalia to prop up the Transitional Federal Government, are central to any position IGAD decides to take,

"I think IGAD will push the African Union to continue and strengthen its role in terms of political will from the wider body. Now we might be seeing increased political will as the situation aggravates. So Somalia might be one of the areas where we might see something significant coming out of it, particularly because there is this push from IGAD," Kenneth Mpysi of the Institute of Security Studies in Addis Ababa was quoted by the Voice of America as saying.

"The Somalia peacekeeping mission is the AU's toughest and most dangerous undertaking in Africa today," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. But he cautioned that the AU should ensure against being drawn into cases of abuse.

To be fair, AMISOM is not guilty of that. In any case, it is the one on the firing line of the Islamists. Some months back, 13 Burundi peacekeepers lost their lives in a suicide bomb attack.

AMISOM is highly unpopular with the insurgents and Al-Shabaab has openly declared that the force's departure is its priority if it takes power. The peacekeepers now spend most of their time protecting the TFG President and ensuring that key sea and airports remain open.

Somalia's case is complicated by the rampant sea piracy going on along its shores.

"The worst case in Somalia would be a return to a stateless situation and incessant fratricidal attacks," warned AU secretary-general Joan Ping (he is half Chinese, from Gabon). The international community is particularly concerned on the negative effects of the sea piracy to maritime trade.

Another item on the summit agenda will be an attempt by some member states to express the continent's unified opposition to the war crimes indictment against Sudan's al-Bashir.

The pending ICC (International Criminal Court) indictments were a hot topic at the last meeting in February. But an attempt to forge a consensus failed at a pre-summit session in Addis Ababa last month, when only a handful of countries supported a Libyan and Sudanese-backed initiative to withdraw in unison from the ICC's founding agreement.

As a sign of Africa's growing importance to the wider world, a powerful guest list was expected, from Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to Brazil's President Ignacio Lula da Silva. China and the United States were sending high-level observer teams, of course.

Also dropping by was British Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown, who agreed that Somalia would take centre stage during summit deliberations.

Specifically the TFG has asked for a strengthening of AMISOM, perhaps by adding 4,000 extra troops. Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Malawi are seen as candidates for offering troops, but whether the AU has the appetite to push for this is unclear.

In the past, African countries have been very reluctant to join peacekeeping forces, especially in a dangerous and deteriorating situation like that in Somalia.

In fact, Malawi and Nigeria were among those who at the onset had promised to enlist into AMISOM, which they never did. As usual, Gaddafi will push for his pet theme of a unity government for Africa, which many countries merely pay lip service to. Gaddafi may have his controversial moments, but he always lays out lavish AU summits. His frequent hosting of African gatherings is popular because of something else: the generous allowances he pays to visiting delegates.

Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduekwe, has expressed the hope that the next AU Summit would make more progress in concluding the formation of the African Union Government.

On the eve of the summit, he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, "Hopefully, progress will be made in concluding the issue of the union government".

He also revealingly talked of camps which he described as comprising so-called realists, gradualists and the accelerators. "That gap is not healthy. There is need to have a continental government someday but we need to establish benchmarks, define milestones more clearly and build on solid achievements of regional economic blocs. We think the meeting in Libya should succeed more than any other because we do not want to come back to each meeting starting all over," the minister said.

In reality Nigeria has been on the side of the skeptics on the union government idea. Kenya, as usual, has kept he position vague.

Gitau Warigi is a Sunday Nation columnist

Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group's Africa Media Network Project.