The transitional government in Somalia can succeed, if Canada and the international community support it, says an Etobicoke MP who just returned from the war-torn African country.
"The transitional government has the capacity to succeed to bring peace to Somalia," said Etobicoke Centre MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj. "Yet, Somalia is not on the international radar screen. If we do not act, Somalia will once again fracture into civil war and famine.
"Simply put, we can invest today in real resolution, or pay tenfold down the road to save any survivors."
Last month, Wrzesnewskyj became the first foreign parliamentarian to visit the working government in Somalia.
He met with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Ghedi and dozens of cabinet ministers and parliamentarians during a three-day fact-finding mission to Jowhar, the seat of the new government.
There, he found Somali parliamentarians living and working eight or nine per 400-square foot room in an old schoolhouse. None had been paid in months, he said, noting many left lucrative careers in the developed world.
Hope - and determination - is high among Somalis and parliamentarians that peace takes root this time, Wrzesnewskyj said.
After more than a decade of war, Somalia is today, nominally, a country in a peace process with a new government, but one that is fracturing again, along clan lines.
The country is without infrastructure, institutions, policing or organized health care and education. Fifty per cent of Somalis are younger than 20; all they've ever known is war and anarchy.
"There's very little brick and mortar left - just bits of walls, all pock-marked (by bullets)," Wrzesnewskyj said Friday.
"There are virtually no roads. What madness gripped people to lead to this devastation? It's like the Gates of Hell opened up."
Fourteen previous peace efforts failed; the power of the warlords could never be overcome.
"The reality on the ground right now is that the peace process has not produced anything," said Jabril Abdulle, the co-director of the Somali capital Mogadishu-based Centre for Research and Dialogue, in an interview this week. "And the history of Somalia suggests that when the peace process failed, every indication is that there will be civil war. People kill each other."
The centre is an on-the-ground, UN think-tank dedicated to generating policy ideas to aid the international community in developing concrete ways of assisting Somalia.
Importantly, the centre also fosters dialogue between the two factions in Somalia to reduce tensions and to aid understanding between the two groups, Abdulle said.
But the cost of the centre's work is high.
Well-respected Somali peace activist Abdulkadir Yahya Ali (fellow co-director of the centre) was murdered in Mogadishu on July 12. Ali and Abdulle worked side-by-side, as co-directors of the centre for six years.
Ali's murder shocked the international community. Somalis in attendance at Ali memorials throughout Canada (one held recently in North York) and the U.S. lauded Ali's efforts to produce peace.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said of Ali's murder that such acts of violence undermine the prospects for peace and reconciliation in the east African country.
"The work needs to be continued," said Ali's friend, Abdulle. "Yahya was a good role model and he paid the ultimate price."
Ali was shot dead by men who stormed his home.
"The threat is always there," Abdulle said. "Me and Yahya were under threat, but we never thought...the sophistication of this (Ali's murder) shocks us. Every time the opportunity goes up to come to a solution (peace), peacemakers like us become a target of groups that don't see a viable peace."
Those groups are ones that benefit from Somali's war economy, he said. Peace threatens their existence.
Among them is Al Qaeda, says the Brussels's based watchdog International Crisis Group.
"Since 2003, Somalia has witnessed the rise of a new, ruthless independent jihadi network with links to Al-Qaeda based in lawless Mogadishu and led by a young militia leader trained in Afghanistan," said a recent report from the ICG.
What does this lawlessness look like?
"In the rubble-strewn streets of the ruined capital of this state without a government...Al Qaeda operatives, jihadi extremists, Ethiopian security services and Western-backed counter-terrorism networks are engaged in a shadowy and complex contest waged by intimidation, abduction and assassination," the ICG said.
Wrzesnewskyj said Mogadishu "still plays host to drug trafficking, arms smuggling and counterfeiting that undermines the nation's very future."
While hope is high among Somalis that the peace process takes hold this time, many - including Abdulle - say it won't happen without the involvement of foreign governments, including Canada.
Great numbers of Somalis are living outside the country in refugee camps or emigrated to other countries. An estimated 250,000 moved to Canada, with a large population living in the central Etobicoke area.
"Canada could play a leading role, even though it doesn't know the history of Somalia," Abdulle said. "The Canadian government could appoint an envoy as a first step. Is the Canadian government ready to do that? The community in Canada needs to mobilize, to ignore Somalia right now is a critical mistake."
Wrzesnewskyj agreed.
"I'll be working very hard to convince our government that we can provide the right vehicle (to aid the peace process)," he said Friday. "Somalis are asking for our expertise to build their government and their infrastructure."