GEESKA AFRIKA NEWS

The HAN Monitoring the Somali's Intellectual Engagements for Somalia Crisis

Djibouti (HAN) August 28, 2004 Contact Editorial Group at: hornafricanewsline@geeskaafrika.com

HAN Editorial Comment - "The continued marginalisation of the intellectuals from the collective and constructive participation in the political, economic and social agenda of the nation is a common knowledge. This exclusion has been deliberate and systematic. To date, Somalia 's political systems only recognize the intellectuals to the extent that there are mere pawns and the foot soldiers in pursuit of political power."-notes from their point of view.

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1)The TNG failed: Because of systematic marginalisation of the Somali intellectuals, artificial peace, too much interference from outside actors, lack of comprehensive recovery plan and misunderstanding of problems and their solutions

Most of the Somali people are fervent supporters of the current peace reconciliation conference in Kenya . The people are optimistic that the conference is on the right track towards establishing a national government that would end 14 years of armed conflict. Many are holding broad and earnest discussions about the forthcoming government. From these discussions, one would observe that majority of the people are apprehensive about the expected government's future ability of bringing about peace and reviving the country's devastated infrastructure. A significant number of Somalia ' intellectuals are forewarning the repetition of the acute problems that led the TNG from Arta Conference to fail leading the country back to normality.

Somalia has been without a proper government since the civil war broke out in 1991. As a result, it experienced bitter political calamity and insecurity, which debilitated the country, suffocated its economy, disrupted its public and private sectors, dispirited foreign investments and subjected distress and adversity on its people.

Since 1991, the number of days, weeks, months and years that Somalis have spent reconciling their differences baffled the world. The chronological record of these meetings and their outcomes will attract academics and historians for a long time to come.

This is a precarious time and an important one for this nation to shape its course in history towards the betterment of not only the lives of its citizens but the role that Somalia plays in a wider regional political issues, economic development and security. If we are to learn any lessons from Arta conference and its outcomes – Abdiqasim's TNG – the future leaders need to take a closer look of why the TNG failed. They need to thoroughly study what went wrong and find the right path to achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace. The TNG failed to bring law and order back into the capital, Mogadishu , let alone the whole country. It failed to complete what remained of the reconciliation process by putting aboard the few warlords that stayed away from the Arta conference.

Instead, much effort was wasted on international relations and chasing foreign aid, while domestic issues that matter the most such as reconciliation, disarmament, reconstruction and confidence building among warring factions and groups were ignored. In short, the TNG failed because of systematic marginalisation of the Somali intellectuals, artificial peace, too much interference from outside actors, lack of comprehensive recovery plan and misunderstanding of problems and their solutions.

Intellectual Engagement

The continued marginalisation of the intellectuals from the collective and constructive participation in the political, economic and social agenda of the nation is a common knowledge. This exclusion has been deliberate and systematic. To date, Somalia 's political systems only recognise the intellectuals to the extent that there are mere pawns and the foot soldiers in pursuit of political power. To reverse this trend Somali intellectuals must plan and program future policies of the country and they need to get the blessing of their people and the goodwill of the countries in the region. The infamous 4.5 power sharing formula adopted since Arta as basis of forming a national government shouldn't be interpreted as the panacea of every problem that we face. It is time to let the intellectuals find appropriate remedies for our acute problems.

Artificial Peace

Believing that 2500 or so many people participated in Arta conference makes its true reconciliation is myopic. "There can hardly be reconciliation without an acknowledgement of the wrongs being done to the victims of human rights violations, without the nation as a whole participating in the healing process… it is a fallacy to believe that reconciliation can be built on the basis of collective amnesia" (Christie, 2000).

Reconciliation is not about forming a government but facing up the truth bravely. The Arta conference had never granted amnesty to the perpetrators of heinous atrocities against the Somali people. However, President Hassan's administration did not try to establish the truth about past human rights abuses. To restore trust and move forward, it is important to remove the widespread resentment that is clearly present within the Somali society and that can only be done when the truth is heard. "There is a need for understanding, but not for revenge, a need for reparation, but not for retaliation, a need for restoration, but not for victimization" (Graybil, 2002). It is difficult to foresee how the would-be government will be able to address the human right abuses when those who perpetrated most of the human right abuses in Somalia are forming the central planks of this government.

External Actors

Somalia is not the first failed state or in complete turmoil. Soon after the cold war, many countries failed to function without the support of the superpower countries. Unfortunately, Somalia was put in a ping-pong position between those who it shares with borders and those it shares with ideology. However, the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 have let some countries to consider Somalia as a failed country, which terrorist networks use as a safe haven.

Many countries are accused of meddling in Somalia 's internal affairs covertly. An overtly, Somalis are expected to form a government under the auspices of IGAD and this will definitely have a long-term impact on the future of the region. It is not easy to have a failed state on the doorstep but however one may want to keep Somalia in a feeble position, one has to remember that the costs of security, economy and socially outweigh any political calculation and Somalia is only accountable when there is a functioning government. The future government must recognise the importance of neighbouring countries and should not be torn between League of Arab States and African Union.

Comprehensive Recovery Plan

Somalia 's problems derive from a difficult intertwined set of issues, which need to be dealt with simultaneously. Any political rehabilitation must be lumped together with e conomic recovery plan, a process of disarming the militia, and the right to return course of action. At the same time the forthcoming government must develop a long-term strategy that will allow neighbouring countries to regard Somalia as an equal and peace-loving partner. Of course it will not be easy for a government with virtually no infrastructure or institution to carry out all these concurrently and it must prioritise its workload. The institution-building process in Somalia is a huge endeavour and there is not much to work with at this point, nevertheless, the emphasis here is the importance to develop a comprehensive strategy rather than operational activities.

Problems and Solutions

Long-term problems need wide vision and long-term solutions. Likewise, short-term problems need quick fix and short-term solutions. The best achievement of the TNG was that it did not add many aggravating factors to our already much troubled country. But it failed to find solutions to the prevailing problems that ravaged the country. If the forthcoming government is charged to lead the country for four years, it must plan accordingly and minimise the gap between realities and what people expect. Naturally, politicians opt for instant gratification and results but those who will lead this country back to normality are not normal politicians, they are literally the godfathers. If a crack appears, it should be dealt in earnest and it should not be regarded a blip on radar otherwise the structure will collapse again and we will have Arta 3, God forbids.

Finally, Somalia is not beyond redemption, but it is an axiomatic that a lot of resources are needed to lead Somalia back to normality. F ortunately, Somalia has the necessary human and natural resources to stabilise and recover the country. It is about time to let those who use their minds creatively and do not normally make decisions based on instincts and emotions lead us. The prolonged peace conference amongst the political leaders in Kenya is not true and meaningful reconciliation, therefore, there must be a national reconciliation process to heal the wounds of the civil war. In other words, the true reconciliation process must immediately start as soon as the new leaders go back to Somalia . Somalia should not wrestle choosing between neighbouring countries and offshore friends. Future policies must be purely formulated with its national interests. Those policies must be part of a comprehensive recovery plant to prevent a recurrence of the misfortunes of recent years. A government that does not only exist by name must carry out those policies in order to create suitable conditions for reconstruction and development.

Not Arta 2 By: Mohamed Mukhtar Ibrahim
London, UK E-mail: Mohamed323@hotmail.com

The Geeska Afrika Online Key Notes for Somalia's core instability Problems:

Somalia was a victim of U.S.-Soviet cold war rivalry.
The country was flooded with arms and its military dictatorship kept in power by both superpowers.
A combination of power vacuum, draught, and competition among rival militias for scarce resources led to the crisis of famine and warfare of the early 1990s.

For many in the U.S., Somalia is viewed as a powerful symbol of United Nations peacekeeping failure. The inability of the international community to respond quickly to Somalia’s mass famine and internecine warfare in the early 1990s (which followed the collapse of a .S.-backed military dictatorship) is often cited by U.S. critics of the UN. But the situation in Somalia is far more complex.

2)Disarming Somalia Militia How? Somalis point of View:

I have received an email message from two European officials who said they were working at the UN team of arms experts assigned by the UN Security council to work on how best to disarm the Somali militias. The email message told me that the two men approached me because they found my articles very interesting and they thought I could be of good source of information that could be of help. They said that they would be checking into the Intercontinental hotel in Dubai and would be glad to meet me.

Next day, I received another email message informing me of the safe arrival of the team and their contact number. I called the hotel and through an exchange of couple of words , I found myself sitting at the food court of intercontinental hotel Dubai , facing two middle aged Europeans.

My suspicion of why arms experts would jump all the way from New York just to have a chat with me was reduced when the two arms experts told me that they sat at a hotel in Nairobi for weeks , discussing with several Somali people to collect the Somali intellectuals’ point of view of the over all situation in Somalia conflicts , how best to stop the flow of arms to Somalia and disarm the Somali militias.

The two men saw my eye brows were moving up and that gave them a hint that I was not fully relaxed with them. One of them took out his official business card and shoved it to me. It was the UN Security Council personnel card. I sensed that real politics was under my lab.

The two professional men went directly to the topic and told me that they wanted to listen to my view points about how to disarm the Somali militias.

The strong Nescafe started being effective and it made my head search for a quick report which went on as follows:

" If one wants to know how to unscramble a complicated and huge machine , one must know how it was first assembled together in the first place otherwise try and error attempt would bring a devastating result.

To come up with an efficient and safe disarming of armed militia in general , one must have a deep knowledge of how and why the militias got the arms in their hands , why and what keeps the arms in their hands ,etc.

In general, the militia hold arms and keep them tightly in their hands for various reasons namely:

Kicking a dictator president: A militia leader who is their tribal leader organized them to fight against a government based on injustices to replace it with their tribal government.

Because the country went into a chaos, it is necessary to take arms to defend their community. A tribal business group employed them to defend and protect the business activities of the group. The gun became the bread earning means to its holder and his family with no other source of income. They are part of an organized militia team for a certain political leader whose political weight is measured by their power and his control on it . since there is no regular salary from the political leader , they must turn to freelance jobs of squeezing money .

Having agreed on these, Somali militia is no exception. Militias are divided into people having one or two of above reasons in heart. The second point to be taken into account is that the militias are illiterate, immature young men whose strong belief is the breaching of the tribal militia leaders. To get the armed militia drop the gun and start living a decent life requires to fill in the gap where these above reasoning logics occupied and that is why you and me are today sitting here and trying to figure out how to fill them.; I took a good sip of the coffee, enjoyed it and reminded my European friends that Somali militias are part and parcel of the Somali society and the aim is not to outwit them and put them into the disadvantage basket.

Having assured the approval on the faces of my listeners, I went on : Now comes the tough point of getting the militia drop the gun while smiling.

The group of the militias that are strongly obedient to their political leader and whose moral objective is only the political success of their leader can be easily controlled. It takes an agreement with their political leader to ask them to drop the gun and become part of the patriotic citizens. The leader will be able to get them obey him by showing that they are counted. This means that they should get a source of income as a replacement of their discontinued source of income after dropping the gun.

Similar treatment is valid to those militias that were hired by the private business group or the one that is committed to defend his community as they need a convincing guarantee that if they drop the gun , things are going to be better . They would not starve to death or their community will not be harassed.

Since these groups proved to be honest by performing their jobs efficiently. They protected the business interests of their tribal rich men and hence have good ears that hear, thanks to the tribal obsessions. It again takes a commitment with the businessmen and their tribal elders to get them organized and drop the guns for a regular employment that earn them daily wages.

There are those who took the arms under the tribal umbrella but utilized it for their own looting and killing and never cared for the tribal elders or any leader. These are the most dangerous group who see vandalism as a source of enjoyment and fun. Event though their number is small yet they pose a greater threat to any attempt to arms removal processes in the country. The best approach to this group is to tempt them with monetary payments to drop the gun and join the society . The following actions would be the most appropriate steps towards the smooth realization of the objective of disarming and bringing everlasting peace to Somalia without any ill feeling or flash backs:

Every tribe and region should register the armed militias and their gun records - type of gun, ammunition, date of mfg, name of holder, etc.

The registered militia will be gathered in a training and orientation camps where uniform dress and training classes will be given for unlimited time period. The well disciplined and literate militia from each region will be registered for the training for the emergency police force that is to be deployed in every street that his community live for the first stage. The remaining militia in the camp will given different job oriented, personality development and religious studies courses so that they could be employed in various work fields.

I sensed that my Europeans listeners were in their turn raising eyebrows as a sign of wonder that I am claiming to manage all without foreign hand. "Of course international community and the UN should play a crucial role. They should support with logistics, financial support and training of the new police force with small number of high level military officials to coordinate with the Somali officials.

in conclusion the following factors play a big role in the disarming of the Somali militias. Full cooperation from the Somali militia leaders , tribal elders, civil society unarmed factions and political leaders . Funds, logistical support and personnel from the international community.

Good heart and genuine desire for everlasting peace and prosperity in Somalia from all concerned. Well satisfied with the report , my European friends wanted to stop taking notes and then thank me when I told them that the last but not the least factor that can discipline the armed militia and make them drop the gun proudly is the implementation of the love and peace gestures as preached in Islam.

Awes A.Osman, (Dubai Inter Continental hotel talks), 23 August 2004 email: thenewsomaliagroup@hotmail.com