Watching a State Fail in Somalia

By Thilo Thielke in Mogadishu, Somalia
Islamists could soon gain control over all of Somalia. The United States is alarmed, but the Somali population welcomes its new rulers, who promise to bring at least a modicum of security to a country still reeling from a decade and a half of chaos.
Every morning, as the pale sunlight reaches into the desolate ruins of Mogadishu, long lines of cleaning women march through the Somali capital. Shouldering shovels and brooms and wielding the Koran they follow the green flags of the Prophet Muhammad and the blue-and-white flag of the republic, calling "Allahu akbar" -- God is great -- into the morning light, throwing their fists into the air as they chant.
Many of the members of these broom-carrying brigades are covered from head to toe, peering out at the world through narrow slits in their veils. The discipline with which they maintain their marching formation stands in strange contrast to the apocalyptic landscape. They march past burned-out buildings, mountains of debris the size of soccer fields, remains of bullet-riddled walls and patches of giant weeds. This wasteland served until recently as a hiding place for the militias of warlords who would fire their automatic weapons at anything that moved and, high on drugs, play God with life and death.
But everything changed when the "Supreme Islamic Courts Council" -- an Islamic militia -- took control of the city more than two months ago. After 15 years of anarchy and civil war, Mogadishu was getting a new lease on life.
More than 1,800 women have already joined Allah's cleaning crews, working hard under the relentless African sun in return for nothing more than a bit of drinking water. And yet more and more volunteers are coming forward to help clean up this ruined city. Young men from other parts of the country are also making their way to the capital to join the holy warriors' militias.
Somalia's new rulers have even garnered support from abroad. Two aircraft apparently touched down at the city's international airport two weeks ago with their Kazakh national markings painted over. There have been rumors ever since about the planes' origin and cargo. Some say neighboring Eritrea sent a shipment of weapons to help Somalia's Islamists fight their common enemy, Ethiopia. No one really knows. But the city's decrepit port is expected to resume operations soon.
"We have a bright future ahead of us," says Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, one of the new ruling group's two leaders, during a visit to one of Mogadishu's new cleanup crews. "We are cleaning up the city. Things are moving forward." Then he tells the women: "You are the future of the country. You are true Somalis."
"Stop shooting into the air," he suggests to a group of armed men standing nearby. "Airplanes will be landing here again soon, and we don't want to shoot them out of the sky."
Finally, he warns foreign powers, especially Ethiopia, against invading the country. Then he disappears into a throng of armed men sporting turbans and long beards.
Calm in the streets
Things have quieted down in Mogadishu since Allah's warriors came on the scene. The other, ragtag militias that had terrorized the country since the early 1990s and are said to have killed about 300,000 people have vanished from the city's streets. A few hundred were apparently taken to hidden reeducation camps. The rest have retreated to the southwestern city of Baidoa, where Somalia's transitional government nervously awaits an uncertain future.
Its members are in an uncomfortable position: The supposedly uncorrupted Islamists are being celebrated in Mogadishu, while the deeply divided transitional government -- formed in neighboring Kenya in late 2004 -- camps in the hinterlands. It was supposed to bring together Somalia's warring clans and warlords and put an end to the bloody chaos that has plagued the country for so long.
The various delegates from Somalia's influential clans elected the leader of the Puntland Autonomous Region, Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed, as president. Yussuf is a colonel trained in Moscow and a follower of former communist dictator Mohammed Siad Barre, who ruled the country until the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Things have moved ahead on the Horn of Africa since Yussuf was officially named president, but not quite as planned. Shortly after being elected, from his hotel in Nairobi, Yussuf asked for 20,000 international troops to secure his return to Mogadishu. Ethiopia -- which is predominantly Christian -- agreed to provide the troops, which turned out to be a fatal turn of events. The prospect of Ethiopian soldiers in their country tilted ordinary Somalis toward the Islamists. Somalia, after all, had waged two bloody wars with its neighbor in the 1960s and 1970s -- territorial wars over Ogaden, a region in southeastern Ethiopia settled mainly by ethnic Somalis.
The international community lost control over the situation. Western countries had played a key role in the formation of the Yussuf government, but soon they recognized that what looked like a peace process had played into the Islamists' hands.
An increasingly nervous United States financed what it called an "anti-terror coalition" against the Islamists, a loose alliance of warlords whose militias had long plagued the country. But Washington's support for groups that many despised as little more than bandits only increased popular support for the Islamists. Now Washington fears that Somalia has become a hotbed of foreign al-Qaida activists.
Meanwhile, the Islamists pose as peacemakers in Mogadishu, while the government in Baidoa steadily falls apart.
Brawls in parliament
The temporary capital of Yussuf's transitional government is under a constant state of high alert; military personnel armed with antiaircraft guns and heavy automatic weapons are stationed everywhere. Forty cabinet ministers and deputy ministers had resigned by late last week after an unknown assailant gunned down the minister for constitutional affairs in front of a mosque.
Delegates routinely hurl insults and come to blows in the temporary parliament building, which is a former warehouse. The surface issue is a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi. But the underlying dispute hinges on whether the government should ask for Ethiopian assistance in its struggle against the Islamists. Both Ghedi and the president are seen as friends of Ethiopia, which accounts for the chaos in the provisional government. One parliament session almost became an all-out brawl, while guards outside nervously fingered their guns. In the end, the police quelled the uproar by arresting a few members of parliament.
The population has been apprehensive for weeks over rumors that thousands of Ethiopian troops have already invaded parts of the country. UN security coordinator Julien Buckmire even claims to have heard aircraft and helicopters. But there are no photos of these supposed troops, nor have any Ethiopian uniforms been spotted on the streets of Baidoa -- not even on the road to Waajid, a town near the border where they are said to have crossed over.
Mohammed Nureni Bakar, the energy minister, admits that "what happened in Mogadishu was a popular resistance movement against the warlords. The people were hungry for calm and order." Bakar, whose family lives in Nairobi, spent years working for various oil companies in Dubai. Now he's a member of a cabinet holed up in Baidoa. With more and more cabinet members resigning each day, though, no one can say how long the government will exist. No minister seems to want to be there when everything falls apart.
But Bakar still hopes for a solution. "We have nothing against courts that rule according to Islamic law," he says. "Their authority is even written into the constitution." Both sides must now seek a dialogue and could even end up forming a coalition government, he says. For Bakar, this would be the only way to protect the country from a new round of suffering. And save his own skin.
If Ethiopians do march into Somalia, it could trigger a long war. If they don't, the Islamists will likely advance on Baidoa. The reopening of Somalia's harbors and airports all but guarantees the Islamists' ability to beef up their forces with fresh supplies and troops.
While Prime Minister Ghedi has managed to stave off a no-confidence vote after endless debates in the temporary parliament building, the Islamists have gained control over another of the country's cities, Cadaado, not far from President Yussuf's native Puntland.
And because alcohol is strictly forbidden, the Islamists' jubilant supporters in Mogadishu raised victory toast with Coca-Cola, the beverage of choice of the reviled Americans.
Translated from German by Christopher Sultan.
Source: Spiegel Online