‎‎By YOWERI MUSEVENI

Somalia seems to be suffering on account of a confluence of three factors:

A failed government under Siyad Barre that could not defeat or keep under check the various rebel groups; incapable resistance groups to that government of Siyad Barre; and, more recently, the infiltration into the area of reactionary ideology from the Middle East (what some people call extremism or fundamentalism).

The Siyad Barre government collapsed in January 1991. I do not have time to go into why it collapsed. I have not even done enough research into that subject. However, collapse it did.

This was factor number one in the Somali problem.

Factor number two was that the armed opposition groups that were fighting Siyad Barre seemed to have been having ideological problems and had also problems in grasping strategy.

I visited General Aideed and Al-Mahdi in Mogadishu in 1992. One of the questions I asked General Aideed was: “Why did you attack the city (Mogadishu) if you did not have the capacity to control it?”

It was clearly a mistake to shift from rural guerrilla operations to attacking the city and attempting to seize power there if Aideed did not have the fire-power and the accompanying organizational capacity to capture it quickly and retain control.

Those Somali groups seem to have been suffering from the mentality of “putschism” — wanting to seize control even when you do not have the capacity.

This is apart from the more fundamental ideological issues of those groups basing themselves on clanism as a base of political organization. This created a proliferation of warlords based on clans. These warlords disintegrated the unity of the country and turned it into fiefdoms.

Agreed to share power

At some stage, former President Daniel arap Moi started mediating among the Somali groups. After a long time, they agreed to share power in the transitional government that was supposed to last some years and, then, go for elections.

This formula has worked in both Congo-DRC and Burundi.

The IGAD countries supported this formula. If any Somali group was interested in helping, this was the easiest way out of the problem.

Such a group or groups should have prepared for elections so that legitimacy is re-established. This, however, was not to be. Some Somali groups, supported by reactionaries from the Middle East and Central Asia, introduced a new problem.

Somalia had to become what they call a fundamentalist Islamic state governed by Sharia.

Women had to cover themselves from head to toe, otherwise they will tempt men into immorality; people must not watch television because that is some form of atheism, and so on. All this must be achieved by coercion. Besides, this model should be exported to the rest of Africa.

The UPDF got involved after the Somali clan factions agreed to form a transitional government. The African Union (AU), the IGAD and the UN gave the mandate to us to help the Transitional Government by doing two things:— Guarding some strategic points (Port, Airport and State House) as well as help in training the Somali Army, along with others from the rest of the world.

It is, therefore, sacrilege for anybody to fire at, let alone assault, an AU Force on a capacity building mission in Africa.

Who are these who dare to fire at an AU Force? They can only be agents of external, non-African forces trying to impose a new colonialism on Africa. We defeated European colonialism and we are going to defeat this new form of colonialism.

The Somalis are part of the ancient African peoples. They are a Cushitic people — part of Nilo-Saharan group of languages. Some of their words are even to be found in the Bantu dialects.

Stop disturbing the peace

Africans believe in a philosophy of live and let live. They never try to impose anything on anybody. If the Somali reactionaries want to implement Sharia law in Somalia, let them stop disturbing the peace of their country so that the Transitional Government organizes elections and they can put their agenda to the people.

If the people decide to impose Sharia law on themselves, that will be their choice.

Anyway, in the immediate, the main issue is our mandate to the AU Force to assist the Transitional Government by guarding the State House, the Airport and the Port.

Guarding them well, we have done.

The Somali reactionary groups, supported by their foreign leaders, have attacked us many times and we have defeated them.

The cowardly act of attacking our merry-making non-combatants on July 11 will make their situation worse. In the past, we were only guarding the three installations as per the AU Force mandate.

These reactionary groups have now committed aggression against our country. We have a right of self-defense. We shall now go for them.

These agents of mindless, cowardly Middle-Eastern terrorism will discover that Africa has got its defenders if their failures when they attacked us in the past, have not shown them that already.

The Somali people are the ones with the key for the solution to this problem. We can only play a supportive role. Many of the Somali people have voted with their feet by running away from the oppressor. They need to be organized so as to defeat the reactionaries.

The neighboring countries and the AU also have a responsibility to the people of Somalia when dealing with these murderous groups.

If the internal forces are still in formation, it is the duty of Africa to stand with the Somali people. This is the experience of Africa in the last 50 years.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is the President of Uganda.

Source: Saturday Nation, Saturday, July 31, 2010

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