Excluding key players won’t end Somalia conflict

[Abwaan]

By ZACHARY OCHIENG

Special Correspondent

 

The Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the National Governance and Reconciliation Commission (NGRC) that organised the recently concluded Somali National Reconciliation Conference may be in a celebratory mood, but the reality on the ground is a different story altogether.

 

The scenario that emerges is similar to last month’s consultative meeting between the parties involved in the Darfur conflict.

 

Like the Darfur consultative meeting held in Arusha, which left out key rebel leaders, the Somali conference also left out major parties in the conflict, including the dominant ****** clan and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). From the beginning, it was apparent that all would not be smooth going as the conference had to be postponed three times from April onwards and was still boycotted by key protagonists when it finally kicked off on July 15.

 

By excluding the UIC from the conference, the convenors conveniently forgot the conditions that led to the emergence of the courts — notably the alienation of the ****** clan from the structures of the TFG and the city’s lack of security and basic services.

 

Notably, President Abdullahi Yusuf could not even persuade some of his detractors within the TFG itself to attend the conference. Under the circumstances, achieving a lasting peace in the Horn of Africa nation in the near future remains a pipe dream.

 

The convenors also conveniently forgot that 15 national reconciliation conferences held over the past 14 years have failed to generate a state capable of establishing law and order for the whole country, with powerful warlords insisting on maintaining their bases of power.

 

By locking out key parties from the conference, the convenors missed an opportunity to bring peace to a nation that has been without a stable government since 1991, when former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted by militias. They also missed an opportunity to restore order in a nation that had its last constitutional government in 1969, when President Abdurashid Ali Shamake was killed by his bodyguards.

 

Indeed, the internally fractured TFG has been suffering legitimacy problems since its inception. It has continued to send mixed signals on its willingness to broaden its base of support and legitimacy.

 

Formed in exile in Nairobi in December 2004, it has been unable to assert any real control beyond its original base in Baidoa. When in June 2005, the Somalia government finally left Nairobi, the international community thought it would be the right time to start reconstruction in the country.

 

But the real challenge had just begun. Insecurity in Mogadishu and the provincial town of Jowhar, 90km north of Mogadishu, where the government initially established a base, remained a thorny issue.

 

Signs that all was not well emerged on June 13, 2005, when President Abdullahi Yusuf’s plane failed to land in Jowhar. Instead, the plane landed in Djibouti, rendering Yusuf’s return a homecoming that never was. Whereas the official explanation given was that the plane could not land in Jowhar due to poor visibility, what later emerged clearly was that Yusuf’s security could not be guaranteed in Jowhar. From Djibouti, he proceeded to Yemen for talks with his embattled parliamentary speaker, Shariff Hassan Sheikh Adan.

 

After his return from Yemen, Yusuf landed in the northern port of Bossaso. The government later relocated to the southern city of Baidoa, where it operated until March 2007, when it finally moved to Mogadishu.

 

The problem of insecurity remains a major challenge to the embattled TFG. Part of the reason is that no efforts were made to conciliate the former warlords, who now sit together as Members of Parliament. Then there is the challenge of disarming militias, who are still mounting illegal roadblocks in some parts of Mogadishu.

 

Not to be forgotten is the fact that both President Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi have had attempts made on their lives on more than one occasion. Landmine attacks are still commonplace, as are organised murders and other crimes.

 

The current situation in Somalia does not augur well for regional or global peace. It only confirms earlier fears for peace in the Horn of Africa nation following the installation of President Yusuf, himself a former war lord and self-declared president of the breakaway northern province of Puntland.

 

While critics in Somalia accused him of being the first person to wage an armed struggle against the government of the day, Western diplomats in Nairobi expressed fears that the election of a former factional leader would give rise to a club of warlords who would in turn gain respectability instead of being held accountable for past human-rights abuses. This has now come to pass.

 

Despite the recently concluded conference, there is still a real threat to peace as the TFG has only precarious hold on Mogadishu.

 

The United States Institute of Peace says in a recent briefing paper that there is a possible emergence of dual insurgencies emanating at once from alienated clan militias, ideologically driven Jihad fighters and the remnants of the radical core of the UIC, whose leadership is now dispersed in southern Somalia, Kenya and the Saudi peninsula, with networks still alive within Mogadishu.

 

Notably, the dismissal of Speaker Adan, who opposed Ethiopia’s military intervention and called for talks with former leaders of the UIC, did not augur well for unity and tolerance within the TFG or broader reconciliation with remnants of the Islamist movement.

 

Still, though the conference was to be an all-inclusive affair, bringing together all the parties to the crisis, the TFG reduced it to a clan affair, dictating the list of attendees and insisting that it be held in Mogadishu, a venue many considered not to be neutral. Yet the fragmented and unpopular TFG continues to sit in Mogadishu, installed and protected by Ethiopian military forces, some of whom are still in the city.

 

Last month, a round table discussion for 13 Somali intellectuals in the US with a view to developing recommendations on how the international community should understand and respond to the current crisis.

 

The consultation — chaired by Prof Hussein Adam of the US College of the Holy Cross — came up with a raft of recommendations.

 

Top on the list was that the international community should strongly discourage other states, like Ethiopia, from sending troops into Somalia, even if invited to do so by Somalia’s TFG, as the Somali population is intensely suspicious of the agendas of Ethiopia and other foreign powers.