When the transitional federal government (TFG) of Somalia sits down for the next round of peace talks with its Islamist rivals in Khartoum on Monday, the main objective will be to hash out the terms of an arrangement to share power. But much more is at stake. The clouds of regional war are darkening.
In the past few weeks, the Consultative Council of Islamic Courts (CICC), the Islamist faction that seized control of Mogadishu on June 5, has rapidly extended its reach across the south, capturing the port of Kismayo and Burhakaba, an important staging point on the corridor between Mogadishu and the government’s stronghold of Baidoa. These points form the critical triangle of terrain that has been fought over repeatedly by rival armed militias since the collapse of Somalia’s last viable central government in 1991.
With the help of Ethiopian troops, the interim government re-captured Burhakaba, but lost it again to the Islamic Courts soon after the Ethiopians receded. On Wednesday Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared that his country was ”technically” at war with the Somali Islamists after the latters’ declarations of jihad against Addis Ababa.
Notionally, Somalia has had a government since 2004. The product of a process led by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, however, the TFG was forged in exile and never managed to gain more than a tenuous foothold in Somalia. It was forced to set up shop in Baidoa when armed factions in Mogadishu proved too hostile. When the Courts took power in the capital in June, ordinary Somalis embraced them, hoping that the CCIC’s moderate leader, Sheikh Sharif, would forge a stabilising coalition with the interim government. The initial signs were encouraging. The two sides agreed to a cease-fire.
Mogadishu’s newfound calm, however, turned out to be a mirage. Hard-line Islamists, led by former al-Ittihad al-Islamiya leader Hassan Dahir Aweys and aided by arms from Eritrea and funds from Iran, quickly eclipsed the moderates and the Islamic Courts took a more militant turn.
As the two sides return to the negotiating table, the CICC is gaining power and growing more belligerent. Several members of the new Parliament have crossed over. It is increasingly clear that if a unity government were to emerge from that process — which is by no means guaranteed — it will be Islamist in character.
This would represent the worst fears of the United States, which has long assumed that Somalia would become a focal point for al Qaeda after the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That fear is probably unfounded. Although Somalia functioned as a staging ground for the 1998 and 2002 terrorist attacks in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, lawlessness and lack of infrastructure would inhibit al Qaeda’s operations as much as they do every other organisation.
The bigger concerns are domestic and regional. The CICC has issued a number of increasingly draconian edicts, banning political gatherings, demanding control of foreign humanitarian assistance — a vital currency of conflict in Somalia in previous years — policing social activities and intimidating civil society groups.
More broadly, the rise of the CICC has encouraged a sharp increase in external meddling. Ethiopia has sent in troops to protect its borders and support the interim government. Eritrea, according to the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia, has sent at least three caches of arms to the Somali Islamists. Saudi Arabia has encouraged the growth of Wahhabist Islam in Somalia, and Iran has shown increased interest as well.
Beyond the Khartoum peace process, the other major international initiative on the table is a regional peacekeeping force sponsored by the African Union. Uganda has promised 1 000 troops, but the proposal is hampered by sharp divides among vested interests. Libya, Kenya, Egypt and Djibouti support the proposal. Saudia Arabia, Iran and Sudan do not.
Washington, meanwhile, has strangely lacked a coherent policy, particularly considering the post-9/11 environment. It supports the interim government in the peace talks and has cultivated cooperation on counter terrorism with neighbouring states. Earlier this year, it blundered badly by supporting the armed militias in Mogadishu in an attempt to thwart the Islamic Courts. That covert initiative, which Washington has never denied, has been costly in terms of credibility.
What, then, is the way forward? There are four immediate policy options:
First, disentanglement and containment. The first priority has to be to prevent regional war. This means encouraging Ethiopia to roll its troops back to the border, putting pressure on Eritrea to stop sending arms shipments, and de-escalating tensions between these two regional players over their own border dispute. The goal must be to contain Somalia’s conflict within its own borders. This approach rests on the recognition of one abiding characteristic that has been borne out by the failure of more than a dozen previous international attempts to install a new central government in Mogadishu: Somalia’s clan-based ethnic rivalries infuse its politics and there is little if anything that external players can do to resolve this. Somalis must work out the balance themselves.
Second, encourage Saudi Arabia to lift its ban on Somali livestock which was put in place after an outbreak of Rift Valley fever in 1997, by creating a system to verify the safety of such exports. This would revitalise a critical economic sector in Somalia.
Third, recognise Somaliland. The northern part of the country has achieved noteworthy stability and progress in nation-building. In a troubled region, acknowledging that achievement would send an important signal and promote broader goals of security and counter terrorism activity.
Fourth, engage Somalia’s moderate Islamists. Whether Washington likes it or not, groups with ideologies it does not like are rising to power. Isolation is an increasingly problematic strategy. The growth of Islamism in governance requires a new approach to constructive engagement.
Kurt Shillinger is a research fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs, where he runs a project on security and terrorism in Africa