By Andrew Cawthorne
EL MAAN, Somalia (Reuters) – The stabilization of Mogadishu after Islamist leaders ousted U.S.-backed warlords has dealt a blow to pirates and given a boost to business in the Horn of Africa nation, a prominent Somali businessman said.
“We never had business like this before,” Abdulkadir Nur, who manages the strategic El Maan port just north of the Somali capital, told Reuters as six ships from Dubai unloaded wood, sugar and cooking oil on the beach behind him.
Considered one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in Mogadishu, Nur is a staunch supporter of the Islamic Courts. Earlier this month, in battles that killed at least 350 people, their militia ended a 15-year rule of the capital by warlords.
“Before, there was theft of trucks, kidnappings, but since the Islamic Courts have taken over, there has been no trouble,” said Nur, who chairs the Benadir Maritime and Port Operation which runs El Maan, Somalia’s largest port.
“Now Mogadishu is 90 percent safe. Look at the price of munitions — down. That’s good for peace, and so for business.”
Support for the Islamic Courts’ militia from local businesses tired of being extorted by warlords was considered a critical factor in their defeat.
“I am happy with the outcome of the war. Our people are 100 percent happy,” Nur, who has a variety of business interests, added in an interview late on Friday on the shore at El Maan.
As well as increased trade, another tangible gain from the extra security since the Islamists took over was a reduction in piracy, Nur and colleagues said.
In the absence of government since the toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, local pirates had turned the waters off Somalia into some of the most dangerous in the world.
Now Nur’s colleague said the pirates are afraid.
“They heard that we have an army and that the courts have become active,” said Ahmed Moallim, a director of El Maan port.
“Before, we had two or even three attacks a day. Now, you see, the ships are coming in more safely,” he added, saying a new anti-pirate militia had been set up with more than 100 boats to patrol Somali territorial waters.
“NO THREAT TO WEST”
A bustling, natural port with 10,000 workers and an annual discharge of some 300,000 tonnes of food, El Maan’s facilities are an object lesson in Somali ingenuity.
A single, floating pipe offloads oil from a tanker just a few hundred meters offshore. Further down the beach, barges bulging with wood, sacks of sugar, and cooking oil containers ferry backwards and forwards from waiting ships.
The businessman said trade was hit but never stopped even at the height of fighting in Mogadishu in recent months. “Business never stops, war or no war, because without food, no one survives,” he said.
Like other supporters of the Islamic Courts, Nur was bitter about past U.S. support for the warlords, said by experts to be in the region of at least $100,000 a week.
“The U.S. have gone the wrong way, supporting criminals,” he said. “When their money comes in, brand new dollars, everyone knows. In Somalia there is no secret.”
He said the U.S. policy backfired by uniting the 14 courts in Mogadishu against a common enemy. “In the beginning, the Islamic Courts were very weak and clan-based. They (the U.S.) have created what they were looking for.”
He dismissed allegations the courts harbored extremists, including two — Adan Hashi Ayro and Hassan Dahir Aweys — whom Washington views as having terrorist links.
“He (Ayro) is a young boy, no threat to the West. Ayro and Aweys are very small in the community. They don’t have the influence people believe,” he said.
Nur, who spends half the year in Virginia in the United States, said he led a delegation to Djibouti in March to meet U.S. officials to try to persuade them their policy was wrong.
“We asked them why they are flying a plane every day over Mogadishu, bothering women and children, why they are funding people who are criminals,” he said. “They had no answer.”
Source: Retuers, June 17, 2006
