Editorial»
Feeding on failed state
JAN 22 - Political solutions have been found for several longstanding conflicts in Africa in 2003 - in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Burundi. The political arrangements in these countries may not necessarily usher in permanent peace and stability, but they at least afford an opportunity to work toward such goals.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for Somalia, where anarchy, violence and chaos have prevailed for 15 years. A national reconciliation conference - the 13th of its kind - has been sitting in Nairobi for 15 months, unable to cobble together a transitional government. As usual, all possible solutions are stymied by warlords, warmongers and wannabe presidents.
Who are these foes of peace and reconciliation in Somalia?
The warlords are the worst of the lot. They carry primary responsibility for the agony of the Somali people. They frustrated the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia in the early 1990’s, and since then have been undermining all efforts to pacify the country or to set up an effective national government. Their armed militias have murdered hundreds of thousands of Somalis and forced more than a million into exile.
The warlords have neither an ideology nor a political agenda. Their actions are solely driven by the pursuit of illicit enrichment and war booty. The individual fiefdoms they have carved out are used as a base for the exploitation of confiscated properties, plantations, ports and airports, as well as for drug trafficking, the issuance of fishing licenses for foreign concerns and for arms trade. Because of the fortunes made by the first few warlords after the ouster of the dictator Muhammad Siad Barre in 1991, their numbers have been increasing in the last few years. In the capital, Mogadishu, there are no less than six warlords, each controlling a different section of the city and its rural hinterland.
The warlords are opposed to the creation of effective central or provincial governments, because of the danger such authority would pose for their illegitimate businesses. None of them, of course, would refuse if offered to head such a government, but none would accept a government led by another.
Then there are the warmongers, the financiers and business allies of the warlords. They run the plantations and manage the ports and airports; they organize the drug-trafficking and arms trade; they establish contacts with foreign companies for banana exports and fishing licenses. They promote the image of the warlords to the outside world as “faction leaders” or “clan elders,” and generally put their racketeering activities in a positive light.
Every year or two, they print new banknotes which are exchanged against the dollars or euros received by the impoverished population as remittances from relatives abroad. The warmongers are as loath to have a peaceful settlement of the Somali crisis as the warlords. An end to the chaos and warlord-created fiefdoms would sound the death-knell for their insidious power. Posted on: 2004-01-22 02:41
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