Bring the warlords of Somalia to justice

[ANWAR]

This is to exhort and appeal to the international community that the warlords of Somalia be taken to justice. For more than 15 years, the Somalis thought that ultimately the warlords will be taken to justice or that justice will come to them at their fortified houses. Both options did not happen, and the notion ended as dreams in the minds of the ordinary Somali public. The world is watching as the warlords of Somalia are butchering and brutalising their people, and fomenting wars that left hundreds of thousands dead, and thousands more raped and maimed since 1991. The recent war in Mogadishu is an example of war that killed more than 70 and wounded more than 200, and shattered the lives of thousands who already lived in poverty.

 

The so-called authorities in Jowhar, Mogadishu (warlords and war entrepreneurs), Marka, Kismayo and Baidhaba are all authoritarian warlords who dictate by the rule of the gun. These warlords are the most feared in Africa, and they are just there because they intimidate the local people of the regions they exist. The warlords are mostly not locals to the areas they terrorise, and they are not elected by the people, nor do they stand there to deal with economical, social, development issues of the people. They are there for power, endless greed and self-interest. They need to be stopped.

 

Can the warlords transform their authorities to become local self-governments in which local democracy will thrive? This is what the UN and the international community hoped for, but the hopes must have faded in a span of 15 years adequate to prove that the hypothesis can not work. Now it is time that the warlords of Somalia be constrained and restrained in terms of movement, sanctions and access to resources, and even hunted down to be taken to face justice.

 

However, the opposite had occurred recently in the Mogadishu warlord-wars. The US attempted to use the warlords to carry out a proxy war to hunt and kill suspected Islamists who might have links to Al-Qaieda. The result was not encouraging for the US as the warlords lost the battles, and they could not hand-in a single known terrorist. The effect of such wrong policy is that the general public will rally behind the Islamists and that Somalia will become more radicalised and marginalised internationally. It is very sad to know that America breaches on the spread and strengthening of democracy on one hand while it supports warlords in Somalia, just to catch few suspected Islamists, without giving due consideration to what happens to the residents of Mogadishu, a city of more than one million who live in poverty or at the brink of poverty.

 

It is definitely a wrong policy to support criminals who violate human rights. The warlords are simply against human rights and democracy, and they need to be halted. Somalia needs support in apprehending the warlords and taking them to justice, just like what happened to warlord Charles Taylor of Liberia. He is now sitting in a prison cell waiting for trial on human rights violation, following the likes of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. That is what Somalia needs in terms of warlords.