Commentary

By Farah Ali Hassan, Ohio

The Chatham House report, The rise and fall of Mogadishu's Islamic Courts (chathamhouse.org.uk) contains inaccuracies, selective focus on Somalia's pre and post state collapse situation. This review article aims to bring to the attention of policy makers the report authors' bias and sketchy knowledge of the Horn of Africa.

It is a well known fact that Islamic Courts' leaders are power hungry religious and semi-religious men who tried to use a worn out patriotism card. Poor leadership made them blind to their obligations to the international community and the very people they wanted to rule.

Unlike autonomous administrations — Puntland and Somaliland — who placed emphasis on institutional development and peaceful coexistence, Islamic Courts aimed to extend their influence through the barrel of gun long before the war ravaged people in Southern Somalia got used to peaceful existence .

The report writers argue that "multilateral efforts to support Somalia have been undermined by the strategic concerns of other international actors – notably Ethiopia and the United States," Barnes and Hassan wrote.

Lumping Somalia together is strategy used to describe the Islamic Courts as the most politically viable entity that could restore law and order in Somalia while deliberately ignoring local initiatives that predated the rise of Somali Courts in Mogadishu. The Islamic Courts former defense chief's call for foreign Jihadists to arrive in Somalia shows that the Courts were handed a franchise destabilize the Horn of Africa under the cloak of religion.

Another inaccuracy in the report surfaces when report authors aim to discount the link between Abdiqasim Salat Hassan (former Somali president) and Islamic Courts. They argue that "despite constant accusations, primarily from Ethiopia, that Abdiqasim's government was beholden to the Islamists, this was never the case." After The Courts' capture of Mogadishu and Kismayo, Abdiqasim was interviewed on Universal TV; he described the rise of the Courts as a popular dream coming true and divine intervention.

The Ethiopian element

The Chatham House report writers' bias come to the fore again when they discus the role of Ethiopia in the Somali politics. Barnes and Hassan write:

Ethiopia was no stranger to intervention in the internal affairs of Somalia, as is clearly revealed in its intimate involvement in the long career of the President of the Transitional Federal Government, Colonel Abdillahi Yusuf.

The support for this argument comes in the form of a footnote: "Abdillahi Yusuf's political connection with Ethiopia can be traced back to his escape to Ethiopia in 1978 following a failed coup attempt to topple Siyad Barre's government after Somalia's defeat in the (1977–8) war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden region. Exiled in Ethiopia, Yusuf helped form the Somali Salvation Front for which Ethiopia provided bases and military assistance. Though imprisoned following a detente between the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and his Somali counterpart Siyad Barre, Yusuf regained his freedom in 1991 when Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front came to power. Ethiopia immediately assisted Yusuf's actions against an Al-Itihaad bid for power in his native Puntland region of northeast Somalia."

Before state collapse in Somalia, the military regime led by the late Major general Mohamed Siyad Barre supported armed fronts that waged guerrilla war against the Ethiopia's ousted Dreg regime whereas Ethiopia supported Somalia armed opposition movements such SSDF, SNM and USC. To call this mutuality an Ethiopian intervention is terribly misleading. President Abdillahi Yusuf's arrest by Ethiopia in 1985 had nothing to do with the détente between Mengitue and Siyad Barre. Both leaders met in 1986 in Djibouti and agreed on cessation of (a) hostilities and (b) support for each other's armed opposition fronts.

TFG is not unpopular, its enemies are

Federal structure of new Somalia, is a basis on which stronger and peaceful Somalia can be built despite the Chatham House report's characterization of the TFG as simply not trusted by the populace, nor does it represent the powerful interest groups in Mogadishu," is totally inaccurate for they are implying that some Mogadishu anarchists can bring the TFG to an end.

It is the interest of Somalia and the international community to support the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. It is based on a political formula that avoids repeat of past political failures. Those against the TFG has no a reliable alternative other than wishing Somalia to plunge into proxy wars similar to the one the defeated Islamic Courts started.

email - Farah.alihassan@gmail.com