Sore Losers May Threaten Somali Deal -Mediators

Tue Aug 31, 2004 08:38 AM ET
By William Maclean

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Keeping the goodwill of the heavily armed losers will be as important as supporting the victors in forthcoming elections intended to restore government to Somalia.

Reconciliation efforts have made solid progress in recent weeks, boosting prospects for returning stability to the lawless Horn of Africa country of more than seven million people.

All but a handful of members of a new 275-seat parliament were chosen by a peace conference near Nairobi this month, lifting hopes of stability in a nation long plagued by anarchy.

But the process, due to culminate in the clan-based assembly electing a president who must then appoint a prime minister, is expected to test participants' goodwill to the limit.

That is especially true when many of the players are fractious militia leaders collectively responsible for 13 years of bloodshed. Any one of them, if sufficiently displeased at the outcome, is capable of playing a spoiling role, Somalis say.

"Assuming a government is elected, how to appease those who are left outside will be the first challenge," said peace negotiator Ahmed Isse Awad. "Some clans could feel disenfranchised."

While almost all of Somalia's warlords are members of the assembly, and all major clans will be represented in the government, not everyone will get a senior cabinet job.

Winston Tubman, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative for Somalia, said: "We will need to say that those who have not won have not lost, because Somalia as a whole has gained."

"Everybody, including the region, benefits from the return of stability and normality and bringing Somalia back into the family of nations."

CONFLICT, FAMINE

The talks, being held in Kenya because Somalia itself is too unstable for such a sensitive gathering, are the 14th effort to restore peace to the country, which descended into anarchy after warlords ousted then military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991


Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people since then.
The outside world remembers Somalia as a quagmire in which U.S. forces floundered a decade ago, and U.S. officials regard it as a safe haven for Islamic militants because it has lacked an effective central government since Barre's overthrow.

Potential pitfalls abound. There have been stirrings of opposition to the process from hardline Muslim clerics in Mogadishu, militia tensions simmer around the southern port of Kismayo, and some Somalis accuse neighboring Ethiopia of arming some militia allies, a charge Addis Ababa denies.

Similar complexities scuppered a previous attempt at peace, an Arab-backed transitional national government formed at a conference of elders in 2000. It enjoyed a honeymoon of a few months before clashing with major warlords. As a result, its writ never ran beyond a few streets in Mogadishu.

The current mediators want to return the new government to Mogadishu, home to an estimated 60,000 militiamen, only after it has been installed at a ceremony at the peace talks in Kenya.

They plan a foreign-funded Rapid Assistance Program to give an initial push to disarmament and demobilization in the city ahead of its return, to give the fledgling administration as smooth a start as possible.

Foreign ministers of neighboring states, who are leading the peace process, plan to address the U.N. Security Council in coming weeks to present a request for international assistance for the program and longer-term reconstruction.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

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