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Published: April
28 2009
Somalia is a graveyard for bungled foreign interventions. A succession
of US, UN and regional attempts to engineer an outcome to the civil war
raging since 1991 have exacerbated problems they aimed to solve.
Global leaders have been forced to weigh their options once again by an
epidemic of piracy off the Somali coast. This has brought an age-old
scourge to the heart of one of the world’s busiest trading corridors.
The Somali pirates must be stopped. But policymakers must also ensure
the way they go about this does not backfire onshore.
An eclectic fleet of naval vessels now patrolling the Gulf of Aden may
limit the number of hijackings. But only the formation of a Somali
government capable of re-establishing the rule of law will curtail the
problem in the longer term.
There have already been 14 failed attempts to reconcile the country’s
warring clans. A perception has thus taken root of Somalia as a land
without hope. There is a bit of hope, however, now. It is a precious
chance that should be seized.
The situation in the country is as treacherous as ever. A two-year
occupation by Ethiopia, which ended in December, radicalized the
Islamist coalition it sought to contain. It also helped to globalize the
movement, attracting funding and recruits from jihadists around the
world. Radical Shabab militias are now active in much of the country’s
south. Were it not for divisions among them, they would probably be in a
position to overthrow the UN-backed transitional government and create a
haven for extremists.
Yet the dynamics have been changing since Ethiopia withdrew. In January
parliament elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as the country’s new
president. His profile is different from the warlords and politicians
associated with past attempts to create a government. An Islamist
himself, from a family of Sufi clerics, he has reached out across
Somalia’s clan divides to the large diaspora and to the wider world.
Last week his government made Islamic Sharia law the national law. This
could undercut support for his jihadist rivals.
Donor nations are taking note and have pledged funding to a new national
security force. It will take time for results and the temptation, if
acts of piracy continue, will be for foreign governments to take more
muscular action on land and sea. History shows this would fan Somali
nationalism and deliver more support to the Shabab. The surer route to
ending piracy will be to assist efforts to rebuild the state, but from a
distance. It would be foolish to tackle one of Somalia’s problems, only
to worsen another.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
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