Monday, June 12, 2006
Philadelphia Inquirer
Lee Cassanelli – Professor of history and chair of the African Studies Committee at the University of Pennsylvania
The reported takeover of Mogadishu by Islamic militias last week raised fears that war-torn Somalia might be on the verge of turning into another Afghanistan.
Somalia has experienced more than a decade of misrule by predatory warlords and their locally recruited militias. Armed gangs terrorize Somali civilians and extort money from travelers at roadside checkpoints, and a weak central government has been unable to establish its authority beyond the provincial town which serves as its temporary headquarters.
It was just such conditions that enabled the Taliban to seize power and establish a rigid Islamist regime in Kabul. But Somalia is not Afghanistan, and the Islamic Courts Union forces now in control of Mogadishu have little in common with the Taliban militias.
To begin with, the Taliban drew support from believers who had been mobilized to fight the Soviet occupation a decade earlier. Provided with training and weapons by foreign governments, these zealous fighters were subsequently joined by like-minded militants from the Arab world and elsewhere. The Taliban also enjoyed strategic support from Islamist elements in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
Somalia’s Islamists, in contrast, represent a homegrown movement. The Islamic court system from which they spring initially operated as an extension of Somalia’s complex clan system. Set up after the withdrawal of U.S. and United Nations peacekeepers from Somalia in 1994, the courts applied Sharia law to help to mediate intra- and inter-clan disputes. The courts’ judges were themselves clansmen, representing the various factions that controlled Mogadishu, as were the militiamen who helped to enforce their rulings.
Although the courts were sometimes criticized for targeting petty criminals while ignoring warlord abuses, they won considerable popular support for reducing looting and extortion, and for protecting schools and hospitals.
In March, Mogadishu’s warlords formed an alliance, allegedly to combat what they claimed was the growing influence of radical Islamists in the court system. Somali skeptics saw this simply as a ploy on the part of the warlords to shore up their position against sub-clan rivals who had gained influence through the courts, and to increase their weapons arsenals by obtaining aid directly from Western antiterrorist agencies.
The bottom line is that the recent confrontation between the Islamic court militias and the warlords appears to be a product of local political infighting rather than of instigation by foreign Islamists with radical ideologies.
Dire predictions that the Union of Islamic Courts may extend its power throughout Somalia are misplaced. Mogadishu’s new masters would face serious resistance in other districts of the country, precisely because most Somalis see the Union as a front for the advancement of sub-clan interests. Moreover, neighboring Ethiopia is likely to intervene militarily if it senses that an Islamist leadership is poised to overthrow interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who has benefited from Ethiopian diplomatic support and weaponry.
It is equally unlikely that the Union’s surprising victory in Mogadishu will open the door to al-Qaeda terrorist cells. Somalis are notoriously resistant to foreigners of any nationality who try to dictate to them. If radical Islam did not succeed in rooting itself in Somalia during 15 years of near anarchy and a decade of international neglect, it is hard to imagine it happening now when the U.S. Task Force in Djibouti, the governments of neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, and Somalia’s own self-styled Alliance against Terrorism are scrutinizing the Islamists’ every action.
A sensible policy, then, would be to side with the citizens of Mogadishu who have demonstrated courageously against the warlords and who seem ready to accept the reality that security enforced by Islamic court militias is better than no security at all. Fortunately, several Western leaders appear ready to acknowledge the new Islamic leadership. The next step might be to extend cautious assistance to the courts as they attempt to restore order in Mogadishu, predicated on their respect for human rights and rejection of terrorism.
Indeed, other than the oft-asserted but still-unsubstantiated claim that Somalia has given sanctuary to al-Qaeda supporters, there are few reasons for the United States to bemoan the departure of the warlords. The worst that can happen is that the Islamic court leaders and their militias will turn out to be nothing more than a new set of local bosses with a different array of clan and sub-clan supporters. This would be a tragedy for the long-suffering Somalis, but far from the Taliban-like takeover that some observers were ominously forecasting.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, June 12, 2006
