By ABDULKADIR KHALIF
Special Correspondent
The East Africa
Over 150 people were killed and 100 people were admitted at Mogadishu’s Madina and Banadir hospital on June 9 and 10 following fierce fighting between the forces of the Islamic Courts Union and militia from the Sa’ad sub-clan loyal to warlord Abdi Hassan Awale alias Qaybdeed and Hussein Mohamed Aideed.
The latter also happens to be the Interior Minister of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
The fighting spread to the medical facilities with mortar shells and gunfire surrounded Madina hospitals creating a new emergency. The proximity of the hospital to Zona K and the Akara neighbourhood of south Mogadishu, where the worst fighting took place, has made it vulnerable.
This latest round fighting was more intense than that of early May, when the Islamist forces and the militia of the so-called anti -terrorism coalition fought for a week at CC area, (locally pronounced as Sii Sii) killing160 people and wounding hundreds.
The latest hostilities ended when Col Abdi Qaybdeed’s militia were trounced by the Islamists compelling the leader to flee, leaving behind an array of armoury that was proudly displayed by the victors lot on July 11.
Somalis were confident that the government that emerged from the Mbagathi peace talks in Nairobi, Kenya over a year and half ago was a panacea to the country’s political instability.
Things, however, began to go wrong when a group of parliamentarians lead by warlords who became Cabinet ministers rejected proposals by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed seeking to have African Union (AU) peacekeepers in the country.
The AU peacekeepers were sought by the president and Prime Minister Professor Ali Mohammed Ghedi as a neutral group that could help foster stability.
But the warlords-cum-ministers and their supporters left Nairobi for Mogadishu only to tell Somalis and the rest of the world that seeking foreign peacekeeping forces was unpatriotic and unnecessary.
They argued that that need for AU forces for the country’s stability was an invented one. Instead, they promised to demobilise militias in the capital, and set up an administration in 90 days.
The people cheered these pronouncements from the defiant warlords. It will be recalled that thousands of Mogadishu residents people lined up the Mogadishu-No 50 Airstrip road some 50km southwest of the capital, to welcome the warlords who were out to show that the president was unpopular, especially for his request for AU peace keepers.
To those in Mogadishu who hated the return of state institutions, suddenly, some of the most hated warlords became great sons of the capital. Muse Sudi Yalahow, Mohammed Qanyare Afrah and Osman Hassan Ali “Atto” became darling of the local FM radio stations. Their rude remarks against President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and his Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi were cheered on and re-broadcasted.
Meanwhile, the city’s Islamic courts were being transformed from clan-based disciplinary institutions into a network of indoctrinated political force best known as the Union of the Islamic Courts. Their sudden display of well-trained militia surprised military strategists at home and abroad.
While the warlords were only out to fight against President Yusuf, the Islamic Courts had a nationwide agenda.
Their war games took on the winner-take-all scenario. The Islamic Courts emerged winners.But are the Islamist Courts fit to rule the country?
Since the Courts are determined to exert their rule over the city’s two million inhabitants and expand to Somalia’s eight million populations or even to the Greater Horn of Africa region, the ambition is more likely to draw more enemies than friends.
The Courts will probably find many people sympathetic to their down fall because of objection to their strict Wahabi sect. To survive opposition, they will have to jump over one stone after another with the great possibility to stumbling over one giant rock.
In Somalia, it has been fashionable to solve problems by means of killings. The only way to stop that is the international community supporting and empowering one group to overpower the others. The greatest contenders for a central government are the Transitional Federal Government and the Union of the Islamic Courts.
This leads to a showdown between two former colonels of the defunct Somali army. Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, now the Transitional President of Somalia is being challenged by Colonel Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, now the chairman of the UICs’ Supreme Council (Shura).
No doubt that Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf detests his archenemy, remaining confident of defeating Sheikh Aweys, taking advantage of his international unpopularity for being accused of having links with terror group al qaeda. Meanwhile, Sheikh Aweys, appears relaxed that President Abdullahi Yusuf will never set foot on Villa Somalia, the state house in Mogadishu, citing that he is locally unpopular, besides being labelled as an Ethiopian marionette. The two men may never shake hands.
Whichever is chosen, the international community ought to provide the magic formula, initially suggested by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda when he chaired the Intergovernmental Agency on Development (IGAD). He envisaged Somalia’s problems to remain static unless the UN arms embargo was partially lifted, peacekeepers deployed, financial assistance provided for reconciliation and rebuilding and a warrant from the International Criminal Court is issued against anybody posing obstacle to the federal institutions.
The only heroes in Somalia today are the doctors and medical staff at the Madina hospital and other medical facilities in the city. For 15 and half years they have been nursing the sick and operating on the wounded selflessly.
Unless the international community takes serious and unanimous measures, with respect to deployment of peacekeepers, residents of Mogadishu will continue to be killed and maimed.
Source: The East Africa, July 17, 2006
