ANALYSIS-New battle frustrates Somalia's 14th stab at peace

22 May 2006
By Andrew Cawthorne
NAIROBI, May 22 (Reuters) - Its powerless government sits in an old grain warehouse. The capital has regularly been littered with corpses. And few foreigners dare enter the country. So what hope for Somalia?
More than a decade after the spectacular failure of a U.S.-led attempt to pacify the anarchic Horn of Africa nation -- depicted in the Hollywood movie "Black Hawk Down" -- Somalia is back in the spotlight, again for all the wrong reasons.
Three bouts of fighting in Mogadishu so far this year between Islamic militia and a self-styled coalition of anti-terrorism warlords have killed at least 250 people.
The last and most fierce battle claimed some 150 lives.
The power struggle in Mogadishu has set back the 14th attempt to establish central government since the 1991 toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre ushered in an era of chaos and inter-clan fighting.
It has also taken on a dangerous international dimension, with some viewing it as a new proxy battle in the global war between Islamic militants and the West.
The Islamic militia, linked to powerful sharia courts which provide a semblance of order in lawless Mogadishu, say the warlords are funded by the United States. Many believe that.
PEACE A PIPE-DREAM
But the coalition counters that their opponents are extremists who have links to al Qaeda and are inviting foreign "jihadists" into the fray. Washington has stayed mum on the specific accusations but repeatedly said it reserves the right to back groups fighting terrorism in Somalia.
Whatever the truth on the ground, one thing is certain: peace for Somalia's 10 million people still seems a pipe-dream.
"The new fighting in Mogadishu is yet another infection into a very ill patient," said British-based Africa analyst Tom Cargill, of the Chatham House think-tank. "It is likely to polarise the situation, and it may be just a beginning."
The fighting could not have come at a worse time for the new interim government of President Abullahi Yusuf.
Weakened by internal splits since its 2004 formation in the relative security of Kenya, followed by disputes over its 2005 relocation to Somalia, the government had just seemed to be getting its act together.
Yusuf and his Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi had made up with a so-called Mogadishu faction led by parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan.
And legislators who came to blows in front of the world's cameras in Nairobi had begun their first sessions on home soil -- in the temporary seat of government, Baidoa -- with relative unity and some progress on law-making. "The situation was just starting to look a little less critical, but now a whole new hornet's nest has been opened up," said a Western diplomat who tracks Somalia.
WHO'S BREAKING U.N. EMBARGO?
With both sides commanding plenty of fighters and large stashes of guns and heavy weaponry, it is impossible to predict who if anyone will win overall control of Mogadishu.
The warlords -- who count four government ministers in their ranks including those for security and militia disarmament -- appear to have been strengthened by an injection of support around the turn of the year, Somali and foreign sources say.
That development fuelled suspicions they had U.S. backing.
But the Islamic militia may grow stronger in the longer-term as the perceived U.S. intervention rallies support among Muslims inside or outside the country, analysts say.
Bethuel Kiplagat, a Kenyan diplomat who helped mediate the peace process that led to the new government in 2004, said the only way forward was for outside involvement to go through official channels.
"If anyone in Somalia wants to combat terrorists, then the best way to act on that would be to deal with the government, to use the existing institutions," he told Reuters.
The United Nations should urgently investigate nations violating an arms embargo on Somalia, which is flooded with weaponry, Kiplagat added. Guns are suspected to be coming via Ethiopia and across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen.
"They are fighting because they are getting arms from somewhere," he said. "There is so much rumour the United States is funding these warlords. ... The Americans have to categorically deny this."
For some, the focus on insecurity is dangerously overshadowing the critical humanitarian situation for Somalis, particularly those in the most arid and conflict-riven regions of the south and east. Their plight has been worsened by recent drought across the Horn of Africa.
"They (the Americans) should help deal with the humanitarian problems and not only concentrate on terrorism," Ghanim Alnajjar, the U.N.-appointed rights expert on Somalia, told Reuters from Kuwait University where he teaches.
"It's difficult to accept the human suffering there." (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed)