INSIGHT-Somalia's old problems litter path to new future
Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:31am GMT
* Concerns incumbent leaders manoeuvring to keep power
* U.N.-backed process aimed to usher in new political chapter
* Tainted vote may help struggling al Qaeda-linked rebels
By Yara Bayoumy
MOGADISHU, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Yusuf Garaad left his comfortable home and job
as head of the BBC Somali Service in London to run for the presidency of
Somalia when the Horn of Africa nation embraced a plan to shed its image as
the archetypal failed state.
He is one of several new faces who have returned home to try and lead the
country out of two decades of lawlessness and violence at the hands of
gun-toting militias, fanatical Islamist militants and rapacious pirates.
"I watched for so long from afar, not doing anything but reporting and
pretending it was not up to me to do something," Garaad told Reuters in his
villa in the capital Mogadishu.
Since the outbreak of civil conflict in 1991 there has been no central
government control over most of the country, but now there is opportunity to
close that long chapter in a regionally brokered and U.N.-backed roadmap.
As part of that process, a speaker of a reformed parliament and a new
president should have been elected before Aug. 20.
In spite of heavy cajoling by donors, that deadline has been missed, though
Western diplomats hope the delay will be just a few weeks. The bigger
question is whether the new government can represent a break from the string
of ineffective interim administrations of recent years.
Garaad and other newcomer contenders for the presidency are up against a
determined phalanx of old-guard politicians. The top leaders of the existing
transitional federal government (TFG) are all competing to be president.
So while the end of the interim administration is being touted as a new dawn
in Somali politics, there are fears the new government will look much like
previous ones, with the same security problems, corruption and fractious
clan politics.
"If the current TFG leadership succeeds in manipulating the outcome, the end
of the transition will be in some ways a distinction without a difference,"
said Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert and professor of political science at
Davidson College.
By Monday, a new slimmed-down parliament is expected to convene, though not
all members will have been appointed. About 220 of the 275 parliamentarians
have so far been selected.
"I think the probability is that essentially the same cast of characters
will be reflected by the new parliament, and many of the challenges that the
TFG has faced ... will continue to plague the new government," the
International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa project director, EJ Hogendoorn,
told Reuters.
FAILURE TO DELIVER
Many say the current administration has failed to deliver lasting security
gains and basic services or improve living standards, yet President Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed, a former rebel leader in power since 2009, as well as the
prime minister and parliament's speaker, are all bidding for the presidency.
They also face allegations of massive corruption outlined in a report in
July by the United Nations' Somalia monitoring group which found that $7 in
every $10 received by the TFG from 2009-2010 never made it into state
coffers.
Ahmed, in an interview with Reuters, rejected the report's allegations as
"fabricated" and "a lie".
In war-scarred Mogadishu, where street lights, walls and cars carry
billboards, banners and posters of the presidential hopefuls, many citizens
worry the current leaders have hijacked the reform process to maintain a
grip on power.
"This current government has been awful. They haven't given people their
rights," said Fartoun, a fully veiled 21-year-old shopping in the open-air
Hamarweyn souk where thousands of men and women jostled to buy gifts for the
Muslim holiday of Eid.
"We don't want him (President Ahmed) back because he doesn't help; he just
takes all the money and leaves nothing for his people," she said, near a
billboard that purports to show the choice facing Somalia. One half of a
human figure carries a dove, surrounded by fruit. The other half, a
skeleton, is surrounded by bombs and images of destruction.
SIGNS OF REBIRTH
Nick Birnback, chief of public information at the U.N. Political Office for
Somalia, says parliament's convening with a majority of lawmakers is an
important step forward for the nation. "But it is just that ... A lot of
hard work remains in the days ahead."
It is easy to be pessimistic about Somalia.
The United Nations, which is loudly supporting the "transition to
transformation", has accused "spoilers" of trying to disrupt the process.
Augustine Mahiga, the U.N. Special Representative for Somalia, has not
accused anyone directly of using intimidation and bribery, but he says some
in the process have "a vested interest in maintaining the status quo".
Tribal elders from Somalia's complex clan structures have been nominating
legislators who must have no history of violence, and at least a secondary
education. A third of them must be women.
The lawmakers are vetted by a committee that includes members chosen by the
top three leaders including the president.
There have been reports that some on the committee have received threats
over their work.
One of the presidential contenders, Abdulrahim Abdulshakur, who was once
Somalia's representative at the Arab League, says the whole electoral
process is flawed.
"It's a process where the referee and the players are the same. It's useless
to watch the game," he said. "Somalia is at a crossroads ... The new leader
will determine whether Somalia is going forward or backwards," he added.
There are some reasons to be hopeful.
Mogadishu, once synonymous with chaos and violence - the infamous shooting
down of two Black Hawk helicopters and lynching of U.S. troops happened here
in 1993 - is trying to shed its war-torn skin.
Until last year, Islamist al Shabaab militants in the capital dug tunnels
and used abandoned, pockmarked homes as hideouts to fight African and Somali
government troops manning the frontlines that carved up the coastal city.
They withdrew last August, forced to regroup elsewhere mostly due to
sustained pressure from U.N.-backed troops of the African Union mission
(AMISOM).
Twelve months on, Mogadishu buzzes with energy, reflected in the renovation
of bullet-riddled houses and crowded markets.
Though its alleyways are still a patchwork of potholes, main thoroughfares,
lined by shops decorated with colourful graffiti, are paved. Alongside
rickety station wagons, dubbed Islamic tanks because they were the favoured
transport of al Shabaab fighters, gleaming four-by-fours race through the
streets.
Hotel guests can dine on fresh lobster hauled from the Indian Ocean, but
first must clear checkpoints and body searches while goats pick through
garbage-strewn streets.
CLAN VIOLENCE
U.N. and donor officials believe sustained international support can push
Somalia in the right direction, away from clan power struggles and the
political chaos that allowed the emergence of militant Islamists.
"There will be a period after the transition, if it's seen to have been
credible, in which I think there will be greater renewed international
interest in Somalia," a Nairobi-based diplomatic source told Reuters.
But the source warned: "If these new institutions that emerge are seen to be
tainted by a badly flawed process ... that's going to make it much more
difficult."
That could reignite clan rivalries that al Shabaab might use as a rallying
call to revive the battle against AMISOM and government forces, which remain
ill-equipped and badly paid.
"The indication is the hardline wing of al Shabaab has reorganised in south
and central Somalia in an effort to take advantage of clan grievances,"
Hogendoorn said.
While AMISOM has advanced significantly beyond Mogadishu, and Kenyan and
Ethiopian troops continue to drive out the rebels from parts of southern and
central Somalia, the central government exerts little control beyond the
capital.
Hogendoorn says the problem is that the territorial gains made by AMISOM and
its allies have created areas of political vacuum that are not being
effectively occupied and administered by the federal government, but by
allied militias.
"As in the past, (al Shabaab) will play the clan card to create support and
appeal to the losers of the political process," he said.
Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a popular former prime minister who goes by the
name Farmaajo and is now campaigning for the presidency, says he remains
hopeful the new parliament will vote for a new kind of leadership.
"There's a definition of insanity that says it's if you do the same thing
over and over again and expect a different result. They need to lead the
change that the country needs."
INTERVIEW-Somali president hits back at U.N. graft charges
Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:42am GMT
(Repeats story without changes)
* President says corruption report "fabricated"
* Somalia on cusp of landmark presidential election
* Ahmed promises to step down if loses vote
By Yara Bayoumy
MOGADISHU, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Somalia's president dismissed a U.N. report
that accused senior leaders of corruption and defended his record as he
campaigned for re-election in a landmark vote.
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who took over as head of a Western-backed transitional
government in 2009, also promised he would step down if he lost - in an
apparent answer to some critics who are concerned he could be planning to
cling on to power.
Mired in conflict for more than two decades, the Horn of Africa state is on
the cusp of a presidential election that will end a succession of United
Nations-backed transitional governments, in place since 2004.
Western and regional states have pumped in millions of dollars in aid, and
sent African troops to help crush al Qaeda-affiliated militants.
But the United Nations' Somalia monitoring group in July said it had found
that, out of every $10 received by the transitional federal government (TFG)
between 2009-2010, $7 never made into the state's coffers.
"We regret this report. It is a fabricated report and a lie. Those people
who compiled it are intent for Somalia to stay as it is," Ahmed told Reuters
on Thursday in the plush garden of Villa Somalia, his official residence in
Mogadishu.
"If money had been seized, Somalia would never have reached the stage it has
today," Ahmed said, citing progress in security conditions.
Ahmed, the current prime minister and parliament speaker are all contesting
the election due to take place on or around August 20, the end of the TFG's
mandate.
Under a complex procedure, tribal alders are in the process of nominating
members of a new parliament. Those parliamentarians, once vetted by a
committee, will then vote for the president who will start a four-year term.
CORRUPTION CHARGES
While donors are frustrated by the widespread graft, they are unlikely to
wash their hands of the largely lawless country seen as a fertile breeding
ground for Islamist militants.
Decades of fighting and a series of droughts have also left millions
homeless and in need of food aid.
The U.N. report said that in 2011 almost a quarter of the government's total
expenditure - more than $12 million - was absorbed by the offices of the
three top leaders.
"It is clear from the Monitoring Group's investigations that the political
will to enact ... reform is lacking in the highest echelons of government,"
the report said.
Ahmed denied that funds had been misappropriated, saying they had been spent
to lift Somalia out of its interminable state of crisis.
Privately though, Somalia-focused diplomats in Nairobi say Ahmed, a former
leader of an Islamist rebel group, has failed to deliver on security gains
and basic public services.
International observers say it is too difficult to predict who will win the
election in a country where clan politics, rather than political
qualifications, often determine an individual's political future.
Ahmed, whose mandate was supposed to end in 2011 before being extended by
another year, said he had no intention of holding onto power.
"We are ready to accept the outcome, whatever it is," he told Reuters.
(Editing by Richard Lough and Andrew Heavens)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Tue Aug 21 2012 - 08:49:54 EDT
