Jan 23, 2010

Next week’s “high-level” international summit on Yemen is likely to follow a pattern familiar to those who have watched countless similar conferences on the Somalia crisis in years past.

High-minded dignitaries will fly into London from around the world, millions in aid will be pledged and a pre-prepared statement will be issued at the end of the deliberations saying all the right things about how important a country Yemen is and how committed the “international community” is to finding a solution to the country’s myriad of problems.

The lesson from Somalia is that very little will in fact change on the ground one year after the summit. Take the most recent EU-UN donors’ conference on Somalia held in Brussels last April.

The meeting yielded a commitment of $85m in EU aid and a promise that international multilateral organisations would help to “reinforce the capabilities of the Somali institutions” and “strengthen the capacity of Somali national forces and police”.

Yet the reality on the ground in Somalia today is grimmer than it has been for years. The Al-Shabaab insurgency continues to gain momentum. The group has carried out some of its most audacious attacks in the Somali capital in recent months and thousands have fled the country, further contributing to the region’s worst refugee crisis.

The World Food Programme recently announced it was pulling out of large areas of the country due to the demands of the various militias that hold sway in sections of the country, leaving millions of people who depend on WFP rations in danger of starvation.

The failure of the numerous interventions by the US and EU to resolve the Somalia crisis illustrates the inadequacies of a foreign policy approach that focuses too narrowly on short-term crises – such as piracy and terrorism.

As Brian Whitaker has pointed out, the beneficiaries of this aid are often just a handful of leaders such as Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, who the west sees as a partner they can work with but who view implementation of meaningful reforms as a threat to their own power.

In the case of Somalia, it is scarcely believable that the EU, the UN and the Africa Union persist in believing the myth that the weak and disorganised Transitional Federal Government is their “partner for peace”. The TFG enjoys little public support or legitimacy and only controls the few kilometres of the capital, Mogadishu, fenced in by African Union troops. This has not stopped the US and EU from sending millions of dollars in aid and weaponry to the TFG. Given the disorganisation in its ranks and the low levels of loyalty it commands from the fighters on its payroll, it is little wonder that some of the weapons sent in have reportedly found their way into the hands of the very militants the west hopes they will be used against.

As many Somali watchers, including Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group, have argued, peace in Somalia is not unattainable due to the length of time that the conflict there has dragged on for. The key to it is ensuring there is a coherent, well supported peace process which must above all be inclusive.

The main flaw in the Djibouti talks that led to the formation of the current government was the exclusion of some of the most important figures in the country such as the controversial Sheikh Dahir Aweys.

The Djibouti accord was aimed at accommodating the leaders who formed the Islamic Courts Union, a grouping that had won the support of many Somalis by ousting the unpopular warlords that have held sway in the country since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991. They imposed Islamic law and were well liked for imposing some levels of order after years of anarchy. Their time in power was short as they were routed by a US-backed Ethiopian force only months after taking control.

The removal of the ICU by forces from Somalia’s historic rival predictably gave rise to an insurgency that led to some of the worst fighting the country has seen in the last two decades. The talks in Djibouti aimed to end the insurgency by bringing the ICU leaders into government. But the US was adamant that the ICU’s spiritual leader, Aweys, could not take part in the peace process because of his connections with al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, a group the US says has links to terrorist groups. Aweys has always denied this.

The outcome of the Djibouti talks, the installation of an Islamist leader, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed as president, has worsened the situation, a fact analysts put down to a clash of egos between Sheikh Aweys and Sheikh Ahmed. In the Somalia cultural context, Aweys, who is almost two decades older than Ahmed would not agree easily to an arrangement where his young protege in the ICU would be leader. This clash of egos resulted in the rise of the Al Shabaab movement as Sheikh Aweys returned to Mogadishu to whip up the Islamist soldiers into fierce resistance against the Ahmed-led government that almost led to the collapse of the TFG last April.

Whatever the truth about Aweys’ background, most analysts agree that leaving figures such as him out of peace negotiations means the process has little chance of success. Parallels can be drawn with the refusal to negotiate with Hamas in the Israel-Palestine peace talks, a position which most realists will point out makes little sense.

The Islamist movement in Somalia is divided. On one hand are pragmatist leaders whose aims are mainly nationalistic. They seek to take over the running of Somalia but also impose Islamic law in the country. This group is ranged against a more dogmatist wing whose leaders typically have a background in the al-Qaida training camps of Afghanistan and whose goals are more belligerent. They are persuaded by the al-Qaida vision of an Islamic caliphate in the Arabian peninsula.

The path to peace in Somalia lies in separating these forces and pursuing a settlement with the more political and realistic members of the Islamist movement. Analysts such as Abdi place the likes of Sheikh Aweys and his Hizb Ul Islam offshoot of Al Shabaab in this bracket.

If the pragmatists in the Islamist movement are persuaded to join a government of national unity that can craft some sort of peace deal, that would make a bigger difference than any number of millions of aid poured into the country after an international summit.

Considering the mistrust in which the US is held in Somalia today, an inclusive peace process can be led by an international group such as the Organisation of Islamic Conference, with the UN providing support.

A neutral state such as Qatar could also play the role of mediator considering the fact its officials have been active in back-channel negotiations aimed at bringing in more moderate Islamists into the peace process in the past.

It has often been pointed out before that most Somalis follow the moderate Sufi brand of Islam and are appalled by the Salafi Jihadists in al-Shabaab who have introduced suicide bombings and intolerance in the country in the last few years.

That claim to moderation may not last long if a peace deal is not struck soon. As things stand, the scatter-shot approach to diplomacy which the major powers have employed in Somalia, and which may well soon be applied in Yemen, will only mean the youth in those desperately poor countries will see radical Islam as an attractive path in their lives.

Source: Guardian