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Somalia: Negative Reactions to Talks Don't Make Much Sense
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The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION
5 September 2007
Posted to the web 4 September 2007
Jackson Mbuvi
THE MONTH-LONG SOMALIA peace and reconciliation conference closed in Mogadishu on Friday with a raft of resolutions and a time-table for implementation.
But the ink on the resolution document was hardly dry before critics poured cold water on it, dismissing the entire effort as much ado about nothing.
However, let's examine the arguments raised by critics one by one. The first is that security in the capital, Mogadishu, is still a nightmare, and in that sense, the peace parley was a waste of time.
True, the streets of Mogadishu are still as dangerous with an explosion almost every three days, but surely nobody expected the peace congress to bring instant peace after 15 years of chaos. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
The second criticism is that the peace talks only concentrated on reconciliation among the clans and ignored the broader issues of national security and reconstruction.
THAT LINE OF ARGUMENT CAN ONLY come from someone who is either ignorant about the Somali problem or dishonest about it. The truth is that this problem can be summarised in two words: clan rivalry. If this issue can be sorted out, 80 per cent of the problem would be over.
The third argument is that the peace parley was not all-inclusive, since the Islamists and some sub-clans among the majority Hawiye were left out.
The Mogadishu meeting was attended by 2000 delegates drawn from Somalia's four major clans and from a coalition of minority clans.
True, the radical Islamists were not invited. Nor were the extreme sections of the Hawiye. And granted, the two would not have attended the talks anyway since they don't recognise the legitimacy of the Somali government, the convener.
But most important, in the theory of peace-making, one has first to build a consensus of the moderates, who then move on to negotiate with the extremists. Otherwise, where both groups mix at the initial stage, the radicals always carry the day by disrupting the entire effort.
That is precisely what has stalled peace in the Horn of African country for the last one and half decades.
The groups that met in Mogadishu make the critical mass needed to return Somalia to sanity. The challenge now is to implement the resolutions passed.
Once that is done, the peace-makers will have the upper hand when negotiating with the minority extremists. Alternatively, they can march right on and give the radicals the contempt card.
The fourth argument is that the talks could not achieve much because they were held in Mogadishu, which is not a "neutral" venue as it is controlled by the transitional government.
But surely, if Somalis cannot talk peace inside their own country, what is the use of such peace in the first place? The warring factions can negotiate in Nairobi, Washington or the North Pole. However, at the end of the day, they will still have to go back home and implement the peace there.
The last argument is that no meaningful peace can be negotiated as long as foreign troops - the Ethiopians - are still on Somali soil. Of course, that argument is coming from the Islamists who were chased out of town in December by the UN-recognised transitional government. True, the TFG got massive assistance from Ethiopians, but the Islamists themselves had only managed to entrench themselves because of similar help from Eritrea.
ETHIOPIAN TROOPS SHOULD LEAVE Somalia as soon as possible and let Somalis run their affairs. The transitional government has said as much many times over. But there is the legitimate argument that Ethiopian withdrawal must be preceded by deployment of a functional international peace-keeping mission, which, too, should leave once Somalia has built a national security apparatus of its own.
Considering that the Islamists are still heavily armed and operating from safe havens in Eritrea, one reads abundant mischief in the demand that Ethiopians leave Mogadishu before any peace talks can take place.
A scrutiny of opinions expressed in dismissing the Somali peace parley shows one thread running through: that because the effort ended up with a half-empty bottle, the bottle should be broken into pieces and thrown in the dustbin.
But why not strive to fill the empty half to make a full bottle?
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Mr Mbuvi is a security consultant.
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