Are we learning the wrong lessons from the Somali crisis, asks Gamal Nkrumah In a few short months, the Ethiopians have instilled a sense of calm and concord in Somalia, and especially so in the Somali capital Mogadishu. The next plank of the Ethiopian strategy was to totally neutralise the power of the militant Islamists. But sensing blood, the Ethiopians decided to further advance their robust approach. Among the first fruits of these efforts is the convening on 15 July of the national reconciliation conference in which tribal and clan leaders, community elders and representatives of all the various components of the Somali nation are expected to participate. It is worth the effort for us to study the lesson of Somalia quite closely. On the whole, it is an upbeat, refreshing story -- and we all hope with a happy ending. "I am optimistic," the Somali Ambassador to Cairo Abdallah Hassan Mahmoud told Al-Ahram Weekly. However, pessimism can be just as effective a tool of restraining belligerent forces. Are all prominent warlords going to participate at Sunday's national reconciliation conference? "There are no more warlords, no factions, no Council of Islamic Courts [CICs]," insisted Ambassador Mahmoud. "Somalia is today a fully-fledged state, with a government fully in control and a parliament," he stressed. With a decade of hindsight, it is clear that the Somali crisis is no simple matter. A furious row could well break out over who was to blame for the violence that tore the country apart. "The security situation in Somalia has improved tremendously," Ethiopia's Ambassador to Cairo Ibrahim Idris told Al-Ahram Weekly. Ethiopia's exploits in Somalia have not yet attracted sufficient attention. The Ethiopians, however, have moved backstage and the African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops, predominantly Ugandan at the moment, have taken charge. So while the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) wants to pretend that the crisis that started a decade ago has ended happily, its lasting legacy continues to have a profound impact on the Horn of Africa and East Africa as a whole. On the face of it there is little sign of a resurgence of the CICs -- they seem to have been thoroughly pacified. Somali President Abdullah Youssef is in a most powerful position. The bet on his domestic opponents has become somewhat redundant. It is obvious that he has powerful backers and the passionate devotion of the Somali people to Islam is not sufficient cause for them to opt for the CICs. This is not to argue that suppressing the militant Islamists is the panacea for all Somalia's ills. On the contrary, if their political demands are not taken into consideration more trouble can be expected to erupt in the months ahead. However, the agenda of the CICs may prove to have been insufficient or even irrelevant to Somalia's immediate political future. The initial resistance of the CICs soon petered out and they failed to take a strong stand against the Ethiopians. This in turn produced a mix of misleading signals. Both the Somali president and his prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, are widely seen as yes men of Addis Ababa and Washington. The hard fact is that the international community at large, Somalia's neighbours and the US are fearful of the ramifications of such a strategically-located country under the hegemony of Islamist militants -- the CICs. What it really means, is that the CICs cannot be permitted to come to power. Several regional observers believe that the TFG may end up paying a heavy political price for their flirtation with the United States and Ethiopia. Somalia's troubles were made worse by maverick warlords, and despite assurances of the ambassador, they do exist, and even though most of them are now lying low, they might spring to life at any moment. To understand what has been destroyed by the Somali civil war, you have to witness the Somali people's sympathy for the CICs. Instead of treating this as a symptom of the war- fatigued Somalis, the Western powers took the opportunity to exacerbate the deepening rift between secularists and Islamists in Somalia in particular and the Horn of Africa generally. It is, in my humble estimation, a question of hitting the wrong levers. It will not be long before the CICs resurface. In Western eyes, the effective policing of Somalia is inextricably intertwined with the fight against terrorism and militant Islamism. And many of Somalia's own neighbours subscribe to this view. Ironically, Somalia has already fallen victim once to the international rush to exit back in 1992. The Western powers may lend themselves to facile expectations. The Somali people do not, however, assent to this view. They have a far more penetrating perspective of their own situation. Looking to raise the political pressure on President Youssef, his opponents might try to ruin the national reconciliation conference. The failure of the Somali peace conference would be interpreted as a case of partisan deadlock. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweis, Somalia's chief Islamist ideologue, is still at large. And, the atmosphere in Somalia is still acrimonious, but we all hope tempers would have cooled sufficiently to permit a practical discussion on the Somali peace process at the proposed reconciliation conference on 15 July.
