NAIROBI, 8 February 2005 — When Somalia’s new president gave its top warlords government jobs under a peace deal, he joined forces with the most well-armed people in the failed state.
With friends like those, the theory went, it might be possible to restore government to the only nation without one, and crush any violent challenge to the clan-based administration formed last year at peace talks in Kenya.
But some of President Abdullahi Yusuf’s Cabinet colleagues are his former enemies, and it is taking time to build trust among strong personalities who thrived amid the chaos of war after the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
Yusuf’s solution has been to ask a foreign peace force to help restore order, hoping history will not repeat itself in a volatile country where clan fighters in flip-flops humiliated US forces during a UN peace mission a decade ago.
His Cabinet on Saturday agreed to ask the African Union and Arab League to send a combined force of 7,500 men to deploy for a year to help with peace-making, guard ports and offices, and possibly also train a new army and help disarm the militias.
Foreign troops could also help shore up Yusuf’s position in Mogadishu where as a northern militia leader he is considered an outsider. Looked at one way, introducing neutral troops is a pragmatic solution to the problem of how to disarm the rival militias that have plunged the country into 14 years of anarchy. Peacekeeping medics and engineers could also rebuild vital infrastructure and tend the sick, Yusuf’s aides suggest.
But the eye-catching choice of strategy, analysts say, also has to do with a lingering flaw in Somalia’s peace process — namely the failure of two years of negotiations to bring any real reconciliation to date between contending clans. “All of us in the Cabinet have spent the past 15 years of war leading very different lives. It will take time to learn new habits,” said one senior Cabinet member.
With trust still brittle among Yusuf and key associates, fighters loyal only to their clans may well come to threaten his administration if headstrong ministers fail to gel as a team.
“When they joined the government, the warlords in theory ceased to exist as warlords and had to give up their ports and airports and lose their political independence,” said Matt Bryden, a senior analyst at the Crisis Group mediation body.
“There was no reconciliation to speak of at the peace talks. There isn’t one leader ready to surrender arms and lose economic influence. So there’s a contradiction: How do you join the government, surrender your weapons and maintain your power?”
An example of a warlord breaking Cabinet ranks occurred last week when Commerce Minister Muse Sudi Yalahow, a prominent Mogadishu warlord, spoke out against the deployment of African peacekeepers, saying they might seize power and spread AIDS.
Muse Sudi’s remarks echo those of radical Islamist groups in the capital who oppose plans for foreign peacekeepers.
“Our militia are our national forces,” Muse Sudi added, diverting yet further from government policy. “The president should come to Mogadishu without foreign troops.”
Hundreds of thousands, including influential clan leaders, have fled the country since 1991. Fighters in trucks prowl the arid landscape and famine, disease and violence have killed hundreds of thousands more who stayed behind. Two years of stop-start talks in Nairobi culminated in Yusuf’s election in October but his administration has yet to move formally to Somalia.
Analysts say Yusuf risks leading a government in exile if he is unable to return quickly, and that his legitimacy hinges on gaining control of the capital.
The government is in a dilemma. Until it moves successfully to Mogadishu, it is unlikely to receive significant funding from skeptical donors. But until it gets funds, it will lack the means to provide services and pay salaries. “There’s a genuine desire among ordinary people to have a government. The problem is that the peace conference ended with no clear plan for implementing the agreement we reached,” Deputy Prime Minister Mohamud Ali Jama told Reuters.
“The international community wants us to put together a plan for recovery. And there has to be real change. But we remain at Ground Zero: We have no civil service, and no resources.”
Bryden said Yusuf would improve his image with donors by moving to Mogadishu and sharing authority with ministers but delegating key tasks in a broad-based team was not his style. Yusuf’s spokesman, Yusuf Ismail Baribari, said the president and his team agreed on the need to consult each other fully about the return to Mogadishu and the issue of peacekeepers.
“It’s not true that there are differences among the Cabinet. But there is need for a truthful and sincere dialogue among ministers so that lasting solutions can be achieved,” he said.
