Saturday, June 24, 2006
NAIROBI (Reuters) – The Islamist defeat of secular warlords in Mogadishu could be a turning point in Somalia after 15 years of violent anarchy, a senior Italian envoy said.
“There is a real window of opportunity because the defeat of the warlords makes the situation not easier but simpler. The warlords were a factor of destabilization,” Raffaelli told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.
“Of course there will be a lot of problems but for the first time this is a real turning point,” he said.
The secular warlords, kicked out of Mogadishu on June 5, are widely believed to have been backed by the United States. Washington has neither confirmed nor denied supporting them but has said it will work with groups seeking to fight terrorism.
“Whoever supported these people made a mistake because the outcome of this support was exactly the increasing capacity of the radicals to be players in Mogadishu,” Raffaelli said.
The warlords, who ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and had ruled Mogadishu in private fiefdoms ever since, were widely unpopular among the population they victimized.
Raffaelli said when they formed a self-styled anti-terrorism alliance early this year, in what was seen as a ploy to curry U.S. favor, it increased support for the Islamic courts.
FIRST STEP
Raffaelli called Thursday’s agreement in Khartoum, in which the Islamists and Somalia’s internationally recognized interim government recognized one another, a “first but important step”.
He said the Mogadishu delegation contained representatives not just of the Islamic courts but also of civil society and business who did not want an Islamist or radical government.
“I don’t agree with people who think we have in Mogadishu now a Taliban power or we have the Islamic radicals and nothing else,” said the Nairobi-based envoy, who often visits Somalia.
He said Somalia was awash with weapons despite a 1992 U.N. arms embargo and the government, based in the provincial town of Baidoa because it is too weak to move to Mogadishu, should be granted an exemption to form an army and police force. This would also help combat pirates who prey on shipping off Somalia.
“We have to remove this situation in which the embargo is not working or is working only against the legal government,” Raffaelli said.
Source: Reuters, June 24, 2006
