Somalia’s warlords, who have caused so much suffering during their country’s 20-year conflict, will be brought to book if human rights groups have their way.
Local campaigners, backed by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights watchdog, have demanded that Somalia’s new government, which is expected to be set up in weeks, formulate measures to ensure that rights violators are brought to justice. One such measure will be formation of a South Africa-like truth commission.
Somalia is the only country in the world without a central government. Its administration collapsed in 1991 after the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled by warlords who have since been fighting over control of the Horn of African country.
The warlords, some of whom have divided the capital Mogadishu among themselves, have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including rape, kidnapping, arbitrary killing of civilians and looting. “Most cases of violations arise because lethal weapons have made their way to civilians and combatants,” according to a 2003 human rights report.
The report, prepared by Somali human rights groups and presented to the United Nations in April 2004, said: “The rule of the gun and bullet has become the easiest and most accessible mechanism for dispute resolution, exertion of power, governance and even access to and control of resources. The high armament recurrence in Somalia has posed grave challenges to the enjoyment and protection to the right to life.”
In 1999, the Red Cross, an international charity, estimated that Mogadishu’s 1,3-million residents possessed over a million guns of the about 550-million small arms in circulation globally.
The proliferation of the weapons has given rise to rape and kidnappings, according to local and international human rights groups. “The factions (warlords) have used rape as a tool of revenge against rival factions. Women and young girls have continued to get raped. Gang rape has also become widespread,” Nura Abdulahi Haji of the Group 10 Focal Point, a caucus of human rights organisations in Somalia, told IPS in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi on July 28.
The 2003 report also outlined horrific incidents of gang rape. “On June 26 in Baidoa, (18-year-old) Shukri Sheikh Cabdi Cabdullahi was gang raped by a group of militiamen, estimated to number between three and five, who stopped her and dragged her to a bush. Two boys she had been walking with were scared away by the militia. When she passed out as a result of the gang rape, one of the rapists stabbed her in the genital area. She was then dragged to the roadside and left unconscious,” said part of the report.
Haji says there are no clear figures of the number of rape cases but that her organisation has embarked on data collection exercise. She estimates that two women are raped every day, but in times of war between rival militias, the number increases.
Kidnappings are also common in Somalia, according to Amnesty International. Martin Hill, the organisation’s researcher for Horn of Africa, said about 300 kidnappings were carried out last year. “But the figure could be higher,” he told reporters in Nairobi this week.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of civilians have died due to arbitrary killings by militias in the past decade.
To reduce the carnage, human rights groups have urged the new government to set up a truth commission, which they believe will play a major role in uniting Somalia.
“Such a commission will help reconcile Somalis by exposing those who committed ills against their fellow countrymen and this will promote healing. The commission will also serve as an instrument to guard against further abuses of human rights in the new Somalia,” Haji added.
Hill said: ”Somalia’s new government must be committed to human rights … New human rights abuses must not be tolerated and those responsible for past crimes against humanity must be held accountable. Those implicated in the crimes (warlords) should not hold public offices.”
He called on donors to hold the new government to account. “Human rights (observance) must be prominent in donor assistance strategies, particularly to respond rapidly to civil protection needs in the first few months of a new government,” Hill added.
Somalia’s new government is a creation of peace talks being held in Kenya to restore sanity in the Horn of African country. The talks, being held under the auspices of a regional body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), opened in Kenya in October 2002. Igad comprises Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.
The talks, the 14th since the collapse of the Somalia state, have borne fruits; the first being a ceasefire declaration signed in 2002, though it has been constantly violated.
A transitional federal charter signed early this year provides a framework upon which the country shall be governed. It also contains, among other things, guidelines on human rights, which enjoys support of human rights organisations. The guidelines spell out the right to life, personal liberty, and security, as well as the rights to fair trials.
Some 366 delegates, comprising militia, political, religious and traditional leaders, as well as civil society organisations, are attending the Nairobi talks.
The delegates, who belong to Somalia’s four major clans of Hawiye, Dir, Darod, Digil-Mirifle, are now in the final phase of the talks, which entails selecting a 275-member parliament. Each of the four major clans has been allocated 61 seats, while the remaining 31 slots will go to the fifth clan (a conglomeration of 14 minority groups).
Once formed, the parliament will elect a speaker and two deputies, who will be charged with the mandate of electing the president. The president will subsequently appoint a prime minister, after which, a federal government will be inaugurated, according to Bethuel Kiplagat, chairman of the Igad Facilitation Committee, which brings together representatives of all the Igad states. — IPS