|
In last week’s editorial we shed some light
on how Somalia’s politicians often seek political advantage by forming
alliances with foreign powers, only to fall prey in the end to those
same sponsors. Since we already covered this subject, we would have been
inclined to leave it there and move on to other topics. But we are still
on the topic, and have not moved on, because we thought it pertinent to
bring to the attention of our readers two more incidents that confirm
our thesis. Both of these incidents took place last week.
First, there was the case of the former mayor of Mogadishu, Mohammad
Dheere who was one of the foremost enthusiastic supporters of Ethiopia’s
military intervention in Somalia, only to end up being jailed twice by
the Ethiopians, once in Mogadishu and the second time in Ethiopia
itself. Then there was the case of the reconciliation conference in
Mogadishu that was attended by some religious sheikhs while it was
rejected by others. Here too, one of the reasons that some sheikhs
supported the conference while others rejected it is that many of these
sheikhs answer to different sponsors each of whom has his own agenda.
Some Islamists are allied with the Egyptian Ikhwan al-Muslimin, some are
allied with Saudi Arabian Salafi groups, some are allied with al-Qaeda,
some are protégés of Yemen’s al-Islah party, and some are dependent on
other foreign entities. Thus, in this regard, Somalia’s Islamists are no
different from Somalia’s politicians. Both groups are linked to foreign
sponsors and must be careful not to offend the hand that feeds them,
lest they suffer the same fate as Abdillahi Yusuf and Mohammed Dheere.
|
