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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Jul 30 2010 - 17:07:09 EDT
World Focus: Surrender to al-Shabaab may be first step to victory for
Somalia
The government has no authority and exists only in embassies and summit
rooms out of the country
By Daniel Howden
Friday, 30 July 2010
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Whatever its failings the transitional government in Mogadishu has to be
preferable to an absolute takeover of Somalia by the radical Islamists of
al-Shabaab. This has been the red line that cannot be crossed in
international thinking about the devastated Horn of Africa nation.
It was reflected in the decision this week by African Union (AU) leaders to
bolster the peacekeeping force in response to bombings by al-Shabaab in
Uganda.
The AU, whose Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers are all that prevents
al-Shabaab from defeating the government, could not back down in the face of
Islamic terrorism and withdraw its troops.
Instead the strategy is to increase the AU peacekeeping force to more than
10,000 and push back against al-Shabaab to create space for the government
to govern.
Despite the predictable tough stance at the African leaders' summit, and
increased financial support from the US, there is mounting scepticism about
whether the red line is still worth defending.
First some harsh truths. There is no peace to keep in Somalia. The current
incarnation of the transitional government has failed. All foreign
intervention in the last 20 years has made the situation worse.
Al-Shabaab controls most of south and central Somalia with the
foreign-backed government hemmed into a few streets of the capital, where it
is attacked daily - there is no truce to defend.
The government of former geography teacher Shaik Sharif Shaik Ahmed has not
delivered on coherent government; on basic services; on building security
services; or on alliances with other factions. His government has not acted
as a rallying point for Somalis and has instead barricaded itself into the
presidential palace where it has indulged in wasteful infighting.
The last time Somalia had a functioning central government was a
dictatorship which fell in 1991. After that, a disastrous small-scale US
intervention against competing warlords ended in ignominy with dead US
soldiers trailed through Mogadishu. The larger UN mission that followed was
also a failure.
The even more calamitous Ethiopian invasion in 2006, backed by Washington,
created al-Shabaab. In each case the presence of foreign forces has served
to galvanise Somalia's warring factions and helped to radicalise a country
with no history of Islamic extremism.
Now the battered AU force of 6,000 - whose shelling of residential areas in
Mogadishu in response to insurgent attacks has made it unpopular - will be
reinforced. The strategy is not bankrupt, its backers say, as a tougher
approach will give the government a chance to turn the situation around.
Another approach, that of "constructive disengagement" is being called for
more loudly than before.
In this scenario the AU would stage a phased withdrawal and the failed
government would fall. Al-Shabaab would declare victory. Rather than
spawning an "al-Qa'ida state" this would be a hollow victory for the
Islamists who would be submerged in their own divisions and vulnerable to
collapse.
What this strategy recognises is that the government has no authority and
exists only in embassies and summit rooms outside the country.
Chopping off heads and hands, stoning women and girls to death, blowing up
medical students and switching off music and sport has left al-Shabaab
feared but not loved. A triumphant march into Villa Somalia could be the
beginning of the end for the complex alliances inside the group.
The real alternatives may lie in increased support for Somaliland, where a
democratic election was successfully staged last month, and the
semi-autonomous region of Puntland, which has resisted the Islamic militia.
Other armed factions such as Ahlu Sunna already fight al-Shabaab more
convincingly than government forces.
Foreign-sponsored state building has failed Somalia and the "more of the
same" strategy is really aimed at containing the violence, regardless of how
bad it gets.
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