At the Crossroads of Failure

[Fyr]

At the Crossroads of Failure

 

Addis Tribune (Addis Ababa)

 

COLUMN

July 23, 2004

Posted to the web July 23, 2004

 

Ali Ibrahim

 

 

The protracted and often acrimonious proceedings of the 14th Somali peace and reconciliation conference at Embagathi, Kenya, is finally winding down to its eventual fait accompli. Twenty months into the making, the stark reality facing Walaweynian Somalis is another failed attempt at peace- making - not any different than the thirteen previous conferences. The international community and the regional governments provided both the moral and material support to bring back some semblance of human civility to the chaos of Walaweynian Somalia.

 

Unfortunately, the parties to the conflict do not have the ethical and moral integrity and/or the credibility to engage themselves in a genuine and sincere dialogue to settle their dispute at the negotiating table. The failure of all these never-ending conferences are basically the culture of the society. It is a culture that rejects any sense of responsibility for its behaviour. The irony is this: The architects who engineered the demise of the old Somalia are negotiating to resurrect a new nation from the ashes of the old one!

 

The Aftermath of Arta Fiasco

 

The undeclared agenda of the Arta peace conference of 2000 was based on a rather erroneous political gamble based on the premise that if the H***** , according to Salad Qassim's contention, are granted the position of life-time presidency, the rest of the Somali clans will immediately fall in line and the Somali conflict will be over within months. Of course, that was a very naive and short-sighted miscalculation by the new elder statesman of the region. Four years later, Salad Qassim has proven himself to be a character of no credibility with his own H***** clan.

 

The rest of Southern community withheld their support and collaboration with Mr. Qassim's made in Djibouti transitional national government. That is why Mr. Qassim's administration is confined to mere 1km by 1.235km area in north Mogadiscio. This boils down to the fact that the man lacks the basic credentials to run a modern nation state.

 

The Prelude to the 15th Peace Convention

 

To shore up the sagging fortunes of the Embagathi convention, Mr. Abdulrezak Haji Hussein and his sidekick offered the former of the Somali National Movement the presidency of upcoming Somali state. The objective was to create suspicion, uncertainty, and chaos in Somaliland.Once that attempt has backfired, the former Prime Minister has set his real intentions in motion. In a recent article, Mr. Abdulrezak wrote, " The D***** and the H***** clans should relinquish the position of the presidency and the office of the prime minister in favour of other clans." On the surface, it is a categorical admission that the root cause of the current quagmire in Southern Somalia, as well as the ultimate failure of the Somali state, has been mainly due to the irreconcilable and always antagonistic political ambitions of the said two communities. A coronation of sorts, shall we say, for some at the twilight of his political dreams and a point for political pundits and historians to ponder for years to come.

 

However, the flipside of the ex-prime minister's statement is a carefully well-timed prelude to a much sinister and a farreaching hidden agenda. The corollary to Abdulrezak's article is this: Tthe rivalary between our two communities has failed to accomodate each other; let us entice the I*** group to act as bulwark between us; let us explore this option for the last time."

 

This article has definitely refocused the disarrayed and hapless Somali pseudo-politicians. It surely has revitalised the moribund quasi-intellectual communities with an unprecedented sense of duty and responsibility to the suffering of the Somali people. This new-found dose of latent energy is reawakening the hypernating Greater Somalia dream. The hordes of people heading for Mogadiscio these days is a direct response to this bold new intitiative from the former prime minister. The message has really struck a raw nerve.

 

To evade and avoid the suspicion and wrath of the regional neighpors, this new masquerade is camouflaged and billed as the beginning of a new construtive dialogue initially between Somaliland and Somalia. This process will be eventually expanded delegates from the Northern Frontier District of Kenya, the Eastern Hararghe region of Ethiopia, and the Republic of Djibouti. The Arab League ( via the Egyptian government) is the financial backer of this new radical initiative. This idea has been circulating around for a while. Now, it is gaining urgency as well as momentum simultaneously and it is intended to break the cycle of missed opportunities.

 

The aim and the sole objective of this new dispensation is to short-circuit Somaliland's rendezvous with its manifest destiny: the destiny to chart our own course regardless of the wishfull dreams of our southern neighbours.Walaweynian Somalis will go to any extreme to blame their incompetence on the absence of Somaliland from the negotiating table.

 

 

To our walaweynian neighbours to the south i shall say: the drumbeat of the sanctity of somali unity is resonating periodically across the landscape. for those of you who are still looking for the holy grail or king solomon's ring,the search is gradually winding down to empty handedness on both counts. this is what you have to reckon with:

 

Why did the Somali state fail in the first place? Who is responsible for this failure? Siad Barre alone is not the culprit. Those who promoted him to become the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and later encouraged him to overthrow the civilian government, are equally responsible as well.

[Fyr]

This definitely clarifies things that have been going on in Somaliland and Somalia, these past days.