Zawaya

Somalia strives for a political solution

By: Mahmoud Belhimer

The African Union, the Organization of African Unity, and the entire international community should have played a greater role in Somalia since the collapse of the regime of President Mohammed Siad Barre, who ran away from the country on a tank in 1991. But Somalia has been left ever since mired in a devastating civil war that has completely destroyed the country.

African leaders and other major powers have not cared about the happenings in Somalia during almost 18 years (the U.S. forces left the country in 1995). This has resulted in a complicated situation that is difficult for the African Union to resolve alone now. The situation requires serious attention from major powers who should not persist in the mistake they made from the outset of turning a deaf ear to the happenings in Somalia, due to their belief that fighting there is not a threat to their security and interests. However, these major powers have woken up to the appalling disaster: the country has become a haven for extremist (terrorist) organizations that represent a security threat not only to neighboring countries, but also to major countries including, the United States. The Horn of Africa has become a hotbed of sea piracy and jihadi organizations that are linked to al-Qaeda.

Only now has the situation in Somalia become an international concern because Islamic extremist organizations, such as “the Young Mujahideen Movement”, are leading a war following al-Qaeda’s way, by accusing the government of Sheikh Sharif, who led the Islamic Courts, of “apostasy.”

It is hard to expect the African Union to be successful in Somalia if it focuses only on military and security aspects. There are currently around 5,000 African peacekeeping soldiers in Somalia out of 8,000, but that’s not enough. The Union does not have sufficient means to resolve the turmoil taking place there militarily speaking due to many reasons, namely: the Somali hatred for foreign forces on their land, the complexity of the ongoing war between the extremists and the fragile and inconsistent central transitional government, which lacks the necessary means to achieve security, the existence of squabbling tribes vying for power in addition to external forces (mainly Ethiopia) that have ambitions at the expense of Somalia.

The African Union may play a successful role in finding a solution to the Somali crisis, not only by supporting the transitional government on the military level, but also by playing an active role in connecting the channels of political dialogue between the various competing forces there. The solution should be political in the first place, and consist of persuading the warring parties that their interests are protected under a State that preserves the rights of all. Africans can play a key role in this direction, provided that there is military support for the political solution on which the most important Somali stakeholders agree.

The efforts of the African Union for a stable Somalia need the support of major powers rather than ill-considered interventions, such as the American support for the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia to hunt down the Islamic Courts led by Sheikh Sharif, accused of extremism, then clearing the latter of charges of terrorism and recognizing him as the President of the Transitional Government today.