Re – the Somalia Conflict Resolution
Your honour, Mr Prime Minister: The Somali people are rejoicing everywhere from Dubai to Dar El Salaam and from Mogadishu to Minneapolis following your successful Conference on Somalia yesterday, and my hope is that you will see it through to completion. Despite Britain’s lack of interest in the Somalia conflict over the past couple of decades, I watched on Somali television yesterday evening as Cool Britannia Union flags were intermittently planted in the dusty sands around the Internally Displaced People’s camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu. The Somali people responded promptly and positively to the outcome of the Conference, this is indication that the overwhelming majority of the Somali people have already rubber stamped your initiative. But the next few weeks and months are crucial and the world is holding their breath. Hope is at last here for the Somalia people.
With the heightened threat from Somalia to peace and security in East Africa and the world as a whole following the merger of Al Shabab and Al Qaeeda this month, a matching response is extremely urgent to counter the changing rules of the game at the London Conference on Somalia. The new Al Qaeeda- in- Somalia will now make their top priorities on how to acquire the knowledge and the skills of the real Al Qaeeda. From now on, new lines of communications are to be sought by Al Qaeeda-in-Somalia from their newly upgraded friendships with the South Asian, the Middle Eastern and the North African franchise terror enterprises.
In order to be successful with the outcome of the London Conference on Somalia, however, an important starting point should be the replacement of Mr. Augustine P Mahiga, the UN special representative for Somalia. Mr Mahiga’s style of leadership fell way short of what the International Community assigned him to do in Somalia. In fact his lack of knowledge about Somalia and the Somali social and political discourse had made his position untenable; he should have updated and reported to the International Community the modern Somali social, religious and political narratives within six months of accepting to lead this highly sensitive office. A firm and skilled diplomat must not also be bogged down in the nitty gritty arguments of a socially fragmented country. A robust leadership was expected from Mr Mahiga to assert his authority and help break new grounds in finding lasting peace to this violent conflict, which has the potential to destabilise the entire East Africa region and beyond.
Furthermore, Mr Mahiga’s rough handling of the competing Somalia groups had brought the entire Somali peace process into disrepute. He conducted his office in a manner that is far too relaxed and shockingly undisciplined to the extent that he recently called for the recognition of Somaliland, the self declared state in northern Somalia as an independent country. For example, in a recent statement in Hargaisa, the Somaliland capital Mr Mahiga had effectively departed from the United Nation’s official policy: ‘That the Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected.’ There is a long list in Mr Mahiga’s numerous other errors of judgements. Mr Mahiga’s very undiplomatic style of favouring the illiterate Sharif Hassan, the current leader of the Somali parliament over the highly educated Diaspora members of the government also shows his lack of understanding about what the International Community is trying to achieve in Somalia. Ever more urgent to relief Mr Mahiga from his post is the fact that the dynamics of the Somalia conflict has developed dramatically into a new strategic entity after the Shabaab announced their merger with Al Qaeeda this month.
I suggest that the highly respected diplomat, the former head of the world body, Mr Kofi Anan be asked to serve in the International Community’s hour of need in the campaign to bring the Somalia quagmire to a successful conclusion. Mr Anan’s tough and skilful diplomacy on the world stage and particularly in Africa makes a potential appointment suitably timely and extremely necessary in carrying out the objectives of the London Somalia Conference forward. We all know that without Kofi Anan’s expertise in the African conflict managements that the Kenya election violence of 2008, where thousands were killed in a matter of weeks, could have developed into a full blown civil war.
As we prepare for the implementations of the LSC programmes, we must also be on the lookout for the arrival in Somalia of more foreign fighters with the help of sleeper cells in Somaliland and elsewhere, thereby complicating the efforts to curb the flow of the Shabaab activities from the north of the country and into the south. My sources tell me that ‘say nothing, hear nothing policy’ has been recently adopted by some members of the Somaliland administration in order to give free passage to Somali and other foreign fighters who want to join in the Shabaab in Somalia, as long as they don’t cause problems in their territory or stay within their borders.
These new fighters will bring new skills and important tools with them in order to prolong the conflict in Somalia, and, unless we move faster, they will be able to take on any new measures that are designed to defeat the terrorist organisation. It is an open secret among the Somalia observers that the International Community is many steps behind Al Qaeeda-in-Somalia in the war for the hearts and minds among the Somali people. It is also public knowledge that the global Al Qaeeda are very resourceful in their drive to hypnotise the young people for the sole purpose of grooming them so that they blindly obey their distorted version of Islam, and they are not short of highly effective educational materials, some of which were written nearly a century ago by Mr Wahab, the Saudi born fundamentalist. These religious educational materials are clandestinely printed in Pakistan with Saudi Arabian money and shipped to Somalia and to other conflict hotspots around the world. And, once on the ground in Somalia, some of the Wahabi literatures make their way to Western Europe and North America, where large and settled Somali communities live, significantly increasing the number of AlQaeeda sympathisers there.
The most important missing link: The Republic of Djibouti
The second most important element, which has been ignored by the International Community over the past couple of decades, is the recognition of the Republic of Djibouti as the biological young family member of Somalia. The world can no longer afford to ignore the contributions of this sisterly county at this critical point in time. I am British national who originally came from the Somali Republic but I am positive that the Republic of Djibouti has no conflicting national interests in Somalia and naturally, she stands out from all the other countries in the region in this regard. Find out for yourself and ask any Somali in London, Mogadishu or Dubai who all will be in agreement with my statement.
Djibouti has properly functioning and efficient national institutions and the headquarters of the regional authority, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development is based there. The Combined US Army’s Joint Task Force for the Horn of Africa region also has its headquarters in Djibouti. Therefore, I very much urge the members of the interested parties in the new Somalia Stabilisation Programme to give greater voice to the Republic of Djibouti and establish some of the Somalia operations there. Djibouti’s social engineering skills and other programmes that are designed to steer the young people away from terrorism is crucially valuable in the search for a Somalia solution. I would like to remind you that the overwhelming majority of the population of Djibouti also speak Somali. Despite her size and the limited financial resources available to it, the Republic of Djibouti had previously hosted several successful Somali Reconciliation Conferences, all of which were later prematurely dismantled by the other competing regional powers.
Moreover, had the UN based their Somalia operations in Djibouti rather than in Kenya, the Republic of Djibouti would not have been indifferent to the disastrous twenty years long failures of the United Nation’s Political Office for Somalia. The Africa Union Mission for Somalia, the Amisom and the Somali Transitional Federal Government are working at their best to rid the country of the AlQaeeda linked Shabaab, with the very limited resources at their disposal. But the UN personnel at the Political Office for Somalia, which commands far larger financial resources, had been hampering their efforts by deliberately confusing their strategies.
With Mr Mahiga out of the way and the work of the UNPOS directed towards relief and other humanitarian activities and perhaps, Djibouti playing her natural and important role, the International Community will be able to dislodge the Al Qaeeda-in-Somalia from their stranglehold in this socially fragmented and politically chaotic country. Only then will we see effective central government in Somalia, and finally a Somalia that is free of pirates, terrorists and famine.
With regards,
Abdul Ghelleh - Dubai, UAE
Email: abdulghelleh@gmail.com
http://samotalis.blogspot.com/
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