Another bid to frustrate the reconciliation process: Sheikh Sharif luring more into Pseudo peace keeper’s killer Net

By Abdikarim Haji Abdi Buh
March 16, 2009

Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad reads a statement at the end of a clerics’ conference in ‎Mogadishu.‎“ Somali clerics demand of the new government to send back AMISOM troops and declare moderate Islamic law in the Horn of Africa within 120 days starting from 1st of March."



My heart, as the author of this article, goes with the families and friends who lost their love ones as a result of the most recent clashes between AMISOM/TFG and the Islamists which caused the death of 11 Burundian soldiers and over 100 Somali civilians. This was an unfortunate incident which took the often presumptious international community, despite that such action to happen sooner than latter was a common knowledge among the voiceless citizens of Somalia and to some extent the commanding officers of AMISOM. To understand the cause we need to look objectively the underlying factors which precipitated this avoidable violence and to concentrate our efforts in finding a sustainable remedy to this mammoth scale institutional failure.

I believe Ambassador Augusto, the chair of African Union peace and Security Council, in fact addressed the burning question in relation to AMISOM troops in Mogadishu in a rational way that is free from the rhetoric culture of the international civil servants of the AU. His recommendation for the AU to re-evaluate AMISOM project in general and its mandate in particular strikes the right key towards untangling the mission caught in the killer net.

The Ambassador’s call for the reassessment of AMISON project, although late, was the first step in the right direction. To entertain the thought of AMISOM contingent will be able to withstand the attacks from the forces that chased away the powerful army of neighbouring Ethiopia is just incomprehensible and is as laughable as the statement of the AMISON commander, Gen. Okelo “the situation on the ground is under control, despite the incident”.
At the time of this writing half of Mogadishu is recovering from fire and the death toll among the civilians is mounting by the hour as the injured are vanishing in a make shift hospitals and yet the General in charge of the operations is barefacedly spreading disinformation in the comfort of his beautiful office in Addis Ababa instead of exploring the quickest way to save the day by pulling out his troops while the opportunity exists –shaky truce.


Dr Jean Ping,
Chaiperson,
African Union Commission

"the minimum we expect from Mogadishu residents is to embrace UNISOM soldier’s extension of tour of duty with flowers and kisses because we are best placed to know what is good for you as attested by both Mr. Yussuf and Sharif with out reservation.”

But again, as always, the project is being hijacked and immediately given automatic extension by Dr. Jean Ping in response to the relentless pressure exerted on him by the American government and the UN, without taking stock of the realities on the ground – the unequivocal fatwa (religious verdict) of the top echelon of the clergy and Mogadishu elders who demanded the withdrawal of AMISOM troops. This extension of tour of duty of the detested troops is just an apple of discord among the factions which might eventually do away the lull Mogadishu has been enjoying for the last two weeks and impeding any hope of reconciliation and dialogue as this amounts to declaration of war in the eyes of some of armed factions and the civil society.

The recent casualties on AMISOM troops and the Somali civilian population is a prelude for countless body bags and live hostages to come in the very near future, because the contingent is no longer working in the safety of the buffer zone created by the Ethiopian army. The TFG troops are fighting alongside them as they used when the Ethiopian army was in the firing line and of course they should expect to meet most probably far worse fate than that of the Ethiopian army. Unlike the AMISOM contingent, the Ethiopians have the strength to withdraw to their borders in the time of their choosing and in an organised way without a call out for international rescue and assistance.

The resultant sad loss of life can be pointedly credited squarely to the incompetence of the AU. The AU must be held responsible for all that have happened and what will ensue in Mogadishu and its surroundings as this is the consequence of a poorly conceived and blindly implemented policy from the side of the institution which claims to stand as the sole authority of African affairs. The blame should be directed where it truly belongs and I have no doubt it is no one else other then the AU who sent the AMISON troops without a clear and definite mandate – TFG Military wing, peace keepers or peace enforcers.

To be eligible for a credible peace-keeper, the unavoidable prerequisite is to obtain duly signed document, to that effect, by the belligerent parties which the AU calculatingly ignored chiefly for the purpose of appeasing the American government’s demand which was confined to its war on terror campaign. AMISOM is certainly not a peace keeping force as it is devoid of the consent of the legitimate local resistance Somali factions. It is also true that it is too weak to be labelled as peace enforcer and thus can rightly be identified, with a healthy dose of confidence, as the TFG’s military wing in the eyes of the Somalis and non – Somalis alike, sparing those highly paid civil servants who work for the faceless and unaccountable organisations such as the UN, AU and the likes.

AMISON at its inauguration was a force assembled and tasked to prop up and install in Somalia a foreign entity manufactured in Kenya and later reinvented in Djibouti by foreign nations and marketed under the brand name of TFG to further the American and Ethiopian agendas only. AMISOM by design and mandate can’t be seen remotely as impartial force but the military arm of the imported TFG which makes it a legitimate target for the national resistance forces as its presence is tipping adversely the balance of power in Somalia on the one hand and prolonging the violence and the civil war on the other hand.

The current AMISOM is the third and remarkably the weakest version of the so-called peace keeping forces even if it is strengthened further to 10,000 or more as they will only be confined to fortified garrisons which serves no meaningful purpose. The unilateral American intervention ended in Black Hawk down, UNISOM equally gone in failure. This AMISOM contingent is in limbo as its back is already broken when Ethiopia’s mighty army was forced to withdraw in to the safety of their own borders.

The Sharif’s colossal blunder

The defeated TFG, which is repackaged as TFG – Djibouti as opposed to TFG – Kenya, is so beaten down and barely controls no more than few pockets in the capital city while its antagonists control with consent most of Southern and central Somalia. The Sharif (moderate Sheikh) unlike his predecessors is seen by the active Islamists as a traitor who sold their blood to the Ethiopians and Americans. The most recent verdict or Fatwa issued by the most prominent sheikhs who were tasked on the reconciliations between the TFG and the other parties in the conflict is not reassuring either- the imposition of Islamic Sharia law and the unconditional withdrawal of African Peace keepers from the country.

The current head of the TFG, whose experience in governmental affairs is extremely limited, immediately declared that he will rule the country according to Sharia in the misplaced anticipation that this premature declaration alone will enchant most of the Islamists to his camp – desperate ceremonial president without a solid agenda. The TFG members’ understanding of the Sharia is just nothing more then an amendment to the existing charter while the Islamists interpretation is suspension of all manmade rules and regulations in full and replacing it with the holy Quran – the gulf seems too wide to be easily bridgeable.

Political statement of that resonance should be reserved for at the concluding stages of a reconciliation process which has yet to start. The Islamic Sharia’s interpretation and execution at this juncture is creating more questions than answers as the different factions are not yet in a position to understand it in the same way – the telly tale signs are there that the stage is set for the repeat of the first phase of Afghanistan when the mujahidins turned on each other.

The so-called moderate president discredited his would-be government further by not declining the extension for AMISOM’s time of duty in Somalia yesterday; as such a political mistake is yet another nail on his coffin. Such disregard for the feelings of the Somali nation attracts the wrath of his foes and friends as they are united in par against the nuisance of foreign forces which earned bad name and reputation in Somalia.

How much destruction is enough:
Brief background to AU negative interventionist policy from Somali perspective




”I wish it was true” - Humanitarian activities have made AMISOM very popular among the local Somalis.

The Ethiopian forces invaded the country with the blessing of the AU, UN and the American Government under the pretext of paving the way for the forth coming AMISON forces on the one hand and protecting the TFG on the other hand. The Ethiopian factor was understandably narrow strategic plan based on flushing out the Islamists at any cost as their triumph would certainly destabilize irreversibly the long-established political order of Ethiopia – the Christian highlander’s divine rule over the Muslim sleeping giant- 40% Christians oppressing 60 % Muslims for centuries. The American logic was based astonishingly on capturing three terrorists alleged to be behind the bombardment of the American Embassy in Kenya which the Ethiopian secret service, who were in Somalia for the past 18 years, led them to believe that the Islamists were sheltering them- a conspiracy theory that ended in a dead-end like the weapons of mass destruction of Iraq.

The Somalis under the banner of Islamists exercised their legitimate right to self defence and fought back in earnest and within the ethical and moral guidelines universally accepted as self defence to drive away what they perceived as invading Christian forces under the guise of peace keepers. The invading forces showed no act of civility or humanity in their fight with the Islamists but naked annihilation of civilians. Whenever the Islamists engage them in action the occupation forces resort to training their artillery shells including white phosphors at the most densely populated areas which resulted the death of 19,000 civilians, destruction of the capital city and creation of one and half million internally displaced peiols (IDPS).

The magnitude of the atrocities committed by what is seen as the combined Christian invading forces is well documented by the International Human rights Organisations and is available on their websites. The degree of destruction and devastation caused by the so called peace keepers in Mogadishu will definitely put shame to Gaza – the difference is the former is less reported. If such a genocide, which could have landed Ethiopia’s prime minister in the so called International court of justice had he been a Muslim like Sudan’s president, is not enough to change the negative intervention from the international community; I wonder how many more trials and tribulations the international community has in store for Somalis?

Mogadishu and Gaza Islamists who were enjoying the popular support of their people and who were fighting legitimately against occupation with inferior weapons were labelled as terrorists-the obsolete tool of driving communities to extremes. The civilians who suffered so much in both cities at the hands of the occupation forces were compelled either to go through underground tunnels, in the case of Gaza, like rodents to get milk for their children or left to die in the open unsupported IDPs camps in and around Mogadishu. I very much wonder about the trajectory of this recently improvised polarization paradigm which is sucking humanity from the soul of mankind.

Conclusion
In conclusion I would like to remind my readers that the current Ugandan and Burundian contingent, who are tasked mainly to guard government facilities in the safety of the buffer zone created by the now defunct mighty Ethiopian force, have neither the strength nor the stomach to show their faces in the firing line. The facilities they are paid to guard can’t justify their pay check in any way – an old obsolete air strip, derelict presidential palace and the sea port. Their presence on top of the material cost exasperated the death toll of the innocent civilians and discouraged the returning IDP population of Mogadishu.. The AU, AMISOM and the TFG are thus players of an expensive no win game.

I deem that the AU should and must understand that it has legal and moral obligation to look after the safety and security of their soldiers as well as the Somali civilians. Soliciting American logistics to evacuate the force, while the fragile truce is holding, is the only rational venue open for AU officials; as the cost of overstaying volatile Somalia is becoming exceedingly expensive by the hour.

It is no surprise to keen observors of Somalia if Uganda lost four nil to Sudan in the current African foot ball tournament because Uganda sent her best players to start wars in neighbouring countries - Sudan, Rwanda, Congo and Somalia - without clear achievable objective. Uganda needs to pull out her troops from Somalia as well as from the other countries if it is contemplating to revers the tragedy that befell on it this year.

Abdikarim Haji Abdi Buh
WardheerNews contributor
Email: abdikarimbuh@yahoo.com