Somalia's growing instability has set the country adrift as the comprehensive peace accord in Sudan falls into crisis, writes Gamal Nkrumah It has become a familiar routine. A row breaks up after the militant Islamist militias seize more Somali territory. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somali President Abdullah Yusuf and his prime minister protest and invoke the intervention of foreign powers. Then, a little later, the two -- the TFG and the militant Islamists -- patch things up. Does the TFG fear its end is nigh? It cannot even prevent elected lawmakers, ministers or other officials from running their private militias or defecting to the Islamist camp. Could the TFG really be so confident in its powers despite its virtual entrapment by militant Islamists in Baidoa, 200 kilometres northwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu? For a group of overzealous ideologues who see themselves as the front line in the struggle to defend Islam in the Horn of Africa, the Islamic Courts leaders have a surprising spring to their step. They captured Kismayo last week and view with disdain the snail's-pace towards democratisation and national-rebuilding of the TFG. For the TFG, there is little to celebrate. The Islamic Courts Union has hitherto assumed the role of the holder of the Somali patent on political purity, an increasingly embarrassing situation for both the Arab League and the African Union (AU). The capture of Kismayo has cast a cloud over the planned Somali peace talks taking place under the auspices of the Arab League in the Sudanese capital this week. For the TFG the past few months have witnessed one crisis after another -- as far as they are concerned ruling from besieged Baidoa has become just one damn imposition after another. The militant Islamists of Somalia are fast gaining ground -- both from the political and military standpoints. The TFG must now undo the harm its weakness has done -- its credibility is under constant threat -- and, it doesn't help that Ethiopia is widely seen as its main benefactor. Rightly or wrongly many Somalis fear that Ethiopia's objective is to dominate them -- and that unless Addis Ababa renounces its imperial past, its expansionist instincts will remain strong. Meanwhile, in the Horn of Africa's other flashpoint, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa flew to Khartoum on Monday to hold talks with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, encouraging him to permit the deployment of United Nations troops in Darfur. (Moussa will also discuss the Somali peace talks originally scheduled for later this week in Khartoum.) Sudan must put up with the usual squawking from Bush administration officials. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who flew to Cairo on Tuesday, stressed the importance of deploying UN peacekeepers in Darfur. Much to Washington's chagrin, though, highly-influential United Nations figures seem to be coming round to Khartoum's line. Last week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative Jan Pronk outlined a five-step solution to the Darfur crisis. Pronk stressed that Abdel-Wahid Nour's faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) "are out of the agreement and we need to bring them on board". Indeed, Pronk noted that there was a pressing need to "get everyone on board". After signing a peace deal with the Sudanese government, Arko Minni Minnawi, leader of a faction of the SLA, was sworn in last month in Khartoum as an assistant to Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Beshir, who promised to install Minnawi as head of an autonomous government for Darfur. Nevertheless, Sudanese State Security Forces raided the SLA offices in Khartoum last week and fighting erupted between the SLA and police in the Sudanese capital. "The situation in Darfur is becoming worse and worse," warned Pronk. "So much so that the fighting has now reached Khartoum -- yet another proof of how bad things are." Pronk and other top-level UN officials are now calling for the strengthening of the AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur, rather than replacing AU with UN troops as urged by Washington. "The international community should push instead for the AU's mission to be prolonged and reinforced," stressed Pronk. "Otherwise we are shooting ourselves in the foot," he warned. "Our priority must be to help the people of Darfur," Pronk concluded. In much the same vein, Britain's outgoing UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown told the British daily The Independent that the "megaphone diplomacy" of the US and Britain was "counterproductive". He said that Bush and Blair "need to get beyond this posturing and grandstanding" and warned that the Sudan sees itself as the "victim of the next crusade after Afghanistan and Iraq". Both Pronk and Malloch-Brown urged Arab, African and Asian powers to participate more intensely in resolving the Darfur crisis. China, a world power in its own right and a major importer of Sudanese oil, has already stepped into the fray. "The issue should be fully discussed and especially approved by the Sudanese government so that the peacekeeping actions can show real achievement," explained Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang. The spiralling instability in Sudan and Somalia have highlighted that the peace processes must produce results if poverty and development are to be effectively addressed in the region. Indeed, Sudan and Somalia are two Horn of Africa countries that have experienced the dark side of war for decades. Wars have obscured an even more serious message: conflict undermines development. Furthermore, issues of national identity have become the defining political vortex in the two countries. The current wave of alarm over terrorism among Somalia's neighbours has also reopened old wounds. Both Kenya and Ethiopia have sizable Muslim and ethnic Somali minorities and the fear is that a Taliban-like state in Somalia could spill over their borders. Such arguments over religion are poisoning wider regional relations. The chosen way out of these dilemmas for the two countries has been peace talks and negotiated settlements. Neither Sudan nor Somalia can afford to limp on in their present state of affairs indefinitely. There are lessons in all this for the rest of Africa and the Arab world.
