When Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was sworn in as Somalia’s new president earlier this month in Kenya, cautious optimism was expressed at the fact that a new chapter appeared to be opening for the embattled East African country.
Diplomats and political analysts warn now that it is essential for Yusuf to return to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, as soon as possible to cement the legitimacy of his government.
To date, security concerns have kept Yusuf and his country’s new parliament in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where peace talks have been underway since 2002 to end conflict in Somalia. The country was carved into fiefdoms after its central government collapsed in 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled.
”Discussions about creating a secure environment for the transitional national government in Somalia must be focused on how to enable the new president to return to Mogadishu,” said Britain’s Minister for Africa, Chris Mullin, during a press conference in Nairobi on Friday.
”He (Yusuf) will look more like a president when he goes to Mogadishu, rather than in a hotel in Nairobi,” he added.
However, any effort to set up a central government in Somalia is likely to be bedeviled by the fact that 13 years of conflict have left the country awash with arms (regional aid groups put the number of weapons at over 500 000).
”Mogadishu is full of armed militia — not only armed with AK 47 rifles, but more serious arms,” said Mullin.
The ready flow of cheap weapons has fuelled disputes between the faction leaders who took control of Somalia after Barre was ousted — and so deepened the effects of disease and food scarcity on the country. Aid groups claim that about a million lives have been lost in the Somali conflict.
About two million Somalis have also fled their country. Somalia is currently the main source of refugees travelling to the United Kingdom, according to Mullin.
He said the circulation of weapons in Somalia had also made the country a source of regional instability — a point noted earlier this year by the former minister of foreign affairs, Kalonzo Musyoka.
Addressing a conference on small arms that was held in Nairobi in April, Musyoka said that about 60 000 weapons had been smuggled into Kenya from Somalia.
In addition, the violence and lawlessness in Somalia have reportedly made the country a centre for terrorists.
International terrorism has taken a toll on East Africa, notably during the 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In 2002, a suicide bomb attack took place at an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa.
In light of this, Mullin called on the new Somali government to embark on urgent disarmament programmes, adding that Britain was prepared to assist in this process.
”The Somalia government and Somalis themselves must play the frontline role in creating a stable nation. But we are ready to assist…What form our assistance will take, it is too early to say,” he noted.
On Saturday, Yusuf asked the African Union (AU) to send 20 000 peacekeepers to Somalia to help disarm militants. This request is to be debated by the AU’s Peace and Security Council on Monday.
However, with member states of the union already preoccupied with deploying troops to help resolve the crisis in Darfur, western Sudan, Yusuf may find that his request receives little more than a sympathetic ear.
Hussein Aideed, one of the principal faction leaders in Somalia and a candidate in the country’s presidential election, says the success of disarmament efforts will depend on the degree to which the various factions are consulted.
”All militia must be party to this arrangement since they are the ones on the ground with guns,” he said on Friday.
This provision is stipulated in the blue print on disarmament, which must be applied to the end. No short cuts — or else disagreements arise,” he added. Aideed controls southern Somalia and Mogadishu.
The ”blue print” in question was endorsed by a disarmament committee comprising members of all Somalia’s clans last year. It provides guidelines as to how disarmament should be carried out.
The creation of a lasting peace in Somalia may also be complicated by the situation in Somaliland, a north-westerly region of the country which declared its independence in 1991. In May 2001, a referendum held in the area upheld the decision to secede — and Somaliland has since refused to take part in the Somali peace talks.
More recently, Somaliland warned that it would resist efforts at reunification. Mullin was scheduled to hold talks in the region Saturday in a bid to defuse tensions around this matter.
In addition to grappling with the challenge of disarmament, Yusuf is required to appoint a prime minister by October 26 who will form a cabinet. The Somali president was elected on October 10 by members of his country’s parliament — which was inaugurated in August.
The negotiations that allowed a new administration to be established for Somalia have been conducted under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority on Development — a regional body comprising Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. — IPS