ARMS NO USE IN PORT DISPUTE: SOMALIA
Mogadishu, 11 Rajab 1434/21 May 2013 (MINA) – Somalia’s new government said on Monday it was pursuing talks to resolve rival claims for control in the south that have stoked fears of a return to the clan wars that pitched the nation into anarchy two decades ago.
A local assembly on Thursday declared a former Islamist warlord, Ahmed Madobe, president of Jubaland. Madobe is not viewed favourably by Mogadishu and within a day two other men had pronounced themselves president, including Barre Hirale, a former warlord and defence minister seen as pro-government.
How the fate of Jubaland and its port city Kismayu is resolved will be a litmus test for Somalia as it rebuilds from the ruins of war and cements a fragile peace, a quest hampered by the central government’s weakness outside Mogadishu. But guns have stayed silent so far and the government’s stated determination to seek talks could help it stay that way.
“It will take time but there is no going back to civil war. That is not an option,” Ahmed Adan, a spokesman for Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid, told Reuters, calling for “peaceful and authentic negotiations”.
On the ground, several Kismayu residents said they still feared a resurgence of the gun-toting militias that carved up the Horn of Africa state after civil war erupted in 1991, the Independent Online quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
“Kismayu is returning to the era of warlords. It is each clan and its own might,” Dahaba Olad, a mother of eight, said by telephone. “We don’t want war, but it is inevitable.”
Shopkeeper Safia Ali said she was doubtful southern Somalia’s clan rivalries could be overcome.
“Sooner or later there will be civil war in Kismayu,” Ali said.
A analyst, J. Peter Pham of the U.S.-based Atlantic Council said that Kismayu is perhaps the biggest prize to be had in Somalia. It has the biggest working seaport in the country, two airports, and is surrounding by potentially rich agricultural lands.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s cash-strapped federal government exerts little authority beyond Mogadishu. How to divvy up power between the centre and regions is a thorny issue, particularly when Kismayu’s lucrative port is at stake.
The prime minister’s office said a high-level government delegation was in negotiations with the rival parties. There is, though, a widespread feeling among Somalia’s southern clans that Mogadishu is not listening to their demands.
Even so, a mixture of exhaustion with conflict and a desire to capitalise on Kismayu’s trade flow could help peace to hold.
“Among the clans I don’t think there is any appetite for civil war. There is, though, a real appetite for control of power and resources,” said Abdi Aynte, director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies. (T/P09/E1).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
