SECOND TAKE - The Guardian

London, August 29, 2006 – ON FRIDAY Somalia’s major port — in the capital Mogadishu — saw an unusual scene: a cargo ship unloading there for the first time in more than a decade. The city’s international airport reopened last month. Yet so much bad news has emerged from Somalia since its collapse into anarchy in 1991 that few expect to hear anything positive. That may change. Events in Somalia could spark a war in the Horn of Africa, but there are signs of a better outcome as the country regains the trappings of a functioning society. How things go depends on how Somalia’s neighbors and the world react.

The worry is that the outsiders, through a mix of misunderstanding and malice, will block progress. The country is fractured, into near-independent Somaliland in the north and the chaotic south. But the three factions fighting for control in the south became two in June when an Islamic movement drove out the warlords who dominated Mogadishu. For all the talk of a Somalian Taliban, a loose alliance of Islamic courts has brought a sort of order to southern and central Somalia.

It faces the legitimate but impotent United Nations (UN)-backed government in Baidoa. Reconciliation between Islamists and the weakened government could give it a single source of authority and a prospect of development. The UN is calling for talks. But two dangers lie ahead. The first is the Islamists may fall further into the hands of extremists and fight on rather than talk. The second is the interim government could break apart into violence.

Somalia’ neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, are stirring the pot. The danger of a conflagration in Somalia as a proxy for an Ethiopian-Eritrean war is acute.

Recent US backing for a Somalian defense force, as opposed to the divisive issue of foreign peacekeepers, suggests there may be a way forward. There is talk of an African peacekeeping force. But the answer to the country’s agonies must come from within.

Source: The Business Day

Home | Contact us | Links | Archives