By Andrew Englandin Khartoum
The Financial Times
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Somalia’s weak transitional government and members of an Islamist movement have agreed to halt military activity after holding talks yesterday in a bid to avert further conflict in the violence-ridden nation.
The negotiations between the parties were the first since a group known as the Islamic Courts Union seized control of Mogadishu from an alliance of warlords allegedly backed by the US. The parties also agreed to recognise each other and resume dialogue next month.
“This is the first step for the development of Somalia,” said Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, who led the Islamists’ delegation. Their victory in the capital this month, as well as the courts’ influence in other areas of southern Somalia, has raised concerns in the west that fundamentalists could be gaining increasing influence in the Horn of Africa nation.
The US has cited Somalia, which has not had an effective government since 1991, as a potential haven for terrorists. Washington also claims that some members of the courts have sheltered three suspected al-Qaeda operatives who were allegedly involved in attacks on the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and a Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa in 2002.
The talks, held in Khartoum and mediated by Sudan and the Arab League, were seen as a positive step towards more detailed negotiations on possible power-sharing options and security agreements between the groups. The Islamists’ forces and the government, which sits in the central town of Baidoa, so far have not clashed.
However, tensions have risen between the parties with exchanges of belligerent rhetoric. The Islamists were upset by the government’s call for a peacekeeping force to deploy in the country and accused it of encouraging an unconfirmed incursion into Somalia by 300 troops from neighbouring Ethiopia. The government says the Islamic courts have received support from foreign fundamentalists.
The government delegation was led by President Abdullahi Yusuf, a veteran warlord whose forces crushed an Islamic movement in the 1990s and has close ties with Ethiopia, which is often accused of pursuing its own agenda in Somalia.
The Islamists have denied any links to terrorism, but it has been unclear what their next move could be. The courts are a coalition that joined forces to counter an alliance of warlords in Mogadishu.
Most Somalis follow a moderate form of Islam, but analysts say a minority extremist element has increased its influence in some of the courts and was critical to the Islamists’ battlefield successes.
A key issue is whether the moderates or extremists within the courts come to the fore. One diplomat said yesterday’s talks could provide an idea of the dynamics within the Islamic movement. “We have to see over time what the role of each [moderates and extremists] is.
In defeating the warlords, the courts became the first unified entity to control Mogadishu – Somalia’s most important city – for 15 years. In contrast, the transitional government, established in 2004 during the 14th attempt to bring peace to Somalia, has little influence and has been plagued by divisions.
It has been unable to sit in Mogadishu because of security concerns. However, it has legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.
Source: The Financial Times, June 22, 2006
