Kick the bums out By Gamal Nkrumah
The Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) headed by the redoubtable Sheikh Hassan Dhaher Aweis who also doubles as the leader of Al-Hizb Al-Islami (Islamic Party), one of the main political opposition groups and most powerful of military forces in contemporary Somalia, is determined to turf the forces loyal to the Transitional National Government (TNG) of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed out of their strongholds in central and southern Somalia. Aweis is facing stiff competition from the even more militant Al-Shabab (Youth) organisation, vying for power and the hearts and minds of Somalis.
The turgid religious discourse of yesteryear, when both Aweis and Sharif were esteemed judges in the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), has long been forgotten. Against the sorry backdrop of the retreat of the Somali state from the arena of social welfare provision, the allies of yesterday have made ample political use of this neglect and are carving out niches of relative autonomy.
This week witnessed an intensification of the power struggles for political hegemony in Somalia. The UIC has always been prone to in- fighting and internal splits. Fighting intensified in Somalia this week with Al-Hizb Al-Islami apparently losing control of the strategic town of Beledweyne, central Hiran region. Al-Hizb Al-Islami described its defeat as a "tactical retreat".
The African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISCOM) is helpless. AMISCOM troops hail from Burundi and Uganda, predominantly non-Muslim African nations. Somalis, an overwhelmingly conservative Muslim people, do not take kindly to infidels in their midst, especially when the outsiders assume the role of peacekeepers.
It is in this context that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner this week announced that the European Union is prepared to train Somali security forces in keeping law and order and combating terrorism. Ironically, Al-Shabab is currently holding two French security advisors. Kenya and certain Arab League nations expressed an interest in assisting the EU train Somali security forces.
Ethiopia, too, has become embroiled once again in Somali internal affairs. The Ogaden National Liberation Front insurgency in Ogaden, Ethiopia's easternmost region inhabited by ethnic Somalis. Many Somali factions want to see Ogaden re-united with the rest of Somalia in a Greater Somalia that encompasses not only Ogaden, but also Djibouti, northeastern Kenya, which is inhabited by ethnic Somalis, and the breakaway autonomous regions of Somaliland (northwestern Somalia) and Puntland (northeastern Somalia).
Ethiopia has long harboured territorial and military disputes with Somalia over Ogaden. In more recent years, Ethiopia also nurtured political and ideological conflicts with armed Somali opposition groups in part because Addis Ababa is seen as interfering in domestic Somali affairs. Ethiopia is also denounced by its Somali critics for its unsolicited and unconditional support for the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, the beleaguered administration of the moderate Islamist cleric turned politician Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a onetime ally of Aweis when they both belonged to the UIC.
Indeed, Ethiopia's rubber stamp parliament has been supportive of efforts of its Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's untiring efforts to contain the threat posed by militant Somali Islamists to his country's political stability and territorial integrity. "Parliament hereby authorises the [Ethiopian] government to take all necessary and legal steps to stave off a declaration of holy war and invasion by UIC against our country," the Ethiopian parliament recently declared, pledging its full and unqualified backing for Premier Zenawi. The Ethiopian political establishment, government and opposition appear to be virtually united on this issue.
Cross-border clashes between Ethiopia and Somalia are nothing new, and neither are incursions into Somali territory by Ethiopian armed forces, the largest albeit not the best equipped in Africa south of the Sahara. The first incursion by Ethiopian troops into Somali territory after the demise of the Somali strongman Siad Barre and the subsequent dissolution of the Somali state was in August 1996. In March 1999, Ethiopian troops crossed the Somali border in hot pursuit of members of Al-Itihad Al-Islami, the now disbanded militant Islamist organisation with close links to Al-Qaeda. Ethiopia insisted that its incursion into Somali territory was in self-defence and part of the global war on terrorism.
Indeed, the struggle to contain militant Islamists in the Horn of Africa has become the overriding concern of the governments of the region. They are determined that under no circumstance can Somalia emerge as the new Afghanistan of the Horn of Africa. Leaders like Aweis and the uncontrollable Shabab are unequivocally unacceptable.
This situation poses pertinent questions that impact the political future of Somalia. Somalis want to chose their own leaders and couldn't give a toss about what the outside world thinks. The militant Islamist groups mushrooming in Somalia today are introducing new variables for understanding forms of Islamic governance.
However, what most Somalis deeply resent is the 20 July 2006 entry of the Ethiopian army in a poignant infringement of Somali territorial integrity, ostensibly to safeguard the then beleaguered transitional government of former Somali president Abdallah Youssef. The fighting between the various militant Islamist factions this week will undoubtedly determine the definition of the political in Somali terms. Contradictory impulses, political misunderstandings and allegiances mark the Somali peoples' experience of the lack of central government and the explication of power in contemporary Somalia. Militant political Islam in the country is seen to undermine the transitional government of Sheikh Sharif, the "moderate" Muslim cleric, in its multiple forms. Somalis are witnessing, albeit in a tragic manner, the dispersion and penetration of various mechanisms of militant political Islam into the nooks and crannies of the decaying Somali political body.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/958/fo1.htm
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