Nigeria Content Online

A country bound to violence

Somalia’s chaos did not start
today. It started 20 years ago when the then military government of
Mohammed Barre, was over thrown by factions who are from different
regions and from different areas of Somalia – each one fighting to
liberate the part they were in. Unfortunately, they never united. So,
since 1991, we have a number of fighting groups, on clan basis, each
one trying to overcome the other clan. Then, there was a period of US
and UN intervention from ‘92 – ‘93.
Unfortunately, they didn’t stay
long enough to create peace and stability, so in a way, that made this
chaos to be protracted and to go further until today.
Then came the warlords’ era, which
ended in 2006 or 2005 when the Islamic courts took over Mogadishu. At
that time, of course, the transitional government, which was elected in
Nairobi in Kenya in 2005, was in a place called Johar, not far from
Mogadishu. The parliament was in Baydawa in another regional capital.
Apparently the Islamic courts tried to get rid of this transitional
federal government. Then of course, the fighting started again between
the forces of the TFG, supported by Ethiopian forces, and that’s when
eager countries and the AU created AMISOM. Since then, the government
took over Mogadishu, but it never had the possibility really and the
support from the International Community and the United Nations
Security Council who always dilly dallied in sending any troops there.
The only relief was 5000 African troops, African mission. It was
supposed to be 8000 or so, but that has never been completed. The
Somali government, as late as a few days ago, even Kenya and Uganda,
the East African group, are asking the Security Council to approve a
number of UN peacekeeping force to be added to the AMISOM to have a
hybrid force like in Darfur. We hope, if that succeeds, that
stabilisation can come in due course.

Brief stay of UN peacekeeping forces

The mandate of the UN peacekeeping
force is to bring peace and stability. In places like the DRC and the
Congo, they have been there for a long time, although they are talking
about reducing their number. In Somalia unfortunately, it took them
about three years, four years maximum. When the UN left, then the
vacuum was taken over by warlords. Mogadishu alone had about four
warlords. This created the disintegration. It was not created by the
UN, but the fact that they left before stabilisation brought
deterioration, far more deterioration than what was there before.

International concern over piracy

Piracy did not begin from the
start of the conflict. As the internal war for dominance continued and
the nation’s government disappeared, the coasts went undefended and
became fair game for big fishing companies, encroaching on the
livelihood of Somali fishermen. When they turned to piracy and that
proved successful, more young men out of work and armed with guns took
to the seas to find their loot.
Now in 2007 and 2008, the whole
world began to realise that this was a huge problem. They created a
coast guard system, but when these young men have tasted the profits of
ransoms, they started going farther – up to the Seychelles, up to
Kenya, Tanzania and the Comoros – as far as that, so that the whole
western part of the Indian Ocean has become infected or infested. The
courts can deal with those who have been captured, so it will see the
pirates at the final end, not at the beginning. The beginning happens
on land, so it doesn’t stop them. It will never stop them.

Thinking of a way out of the crisis

The way out is first of all to
give support. The government now has trained the forces, a number of
them, which combined with AMISOM. And, if fortunately the Security
Council approves the United Nations’ peacekeeping component, they can
cope, even this will take us to the piracy issue. They have trained
about 1,000 coast guards, but there is no equipment, there are no
supplies. They need all the supplies and equipment they can get.
Furthermore, even salaries, which were promised by the international
community to pay these forces, are not forthcoming, even for AMISOM
soldiers. It took them a long time before they were paid, and up till
now, there is no security of payment from month to month. So these are
bottlenecks that again create further deterioration of the situation.
When people have no salary to survive on, how can they go and fight
people who have all the political and religious motivations? They get
all the equipment, they get the supplies, they get all the money. So
how can you overcome this when you have only few – six thousand maximum
armed forces that are not even regularly paid?
As a way out, we need to build
really functional, well-equipped national forces, security forces. We
need to reform the judiciary and do something about the young people in
the country. These young people are now surviving by the gun, so you
have to give them jobs. You have to attract them (lure them away) from
the war and piracy.
The UN secretary general has
proposed three phases, but we are still in the first phase. The first
phase was to send in humanitarian forces.