Published On: Mon, Sep 3rd, 2012

Americans Didn’t Make Me President, the Somalis Did, The Independent

INTERVIEW

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed spoke to The Independent’s Andrew Mwenda.

Mr. President, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to interview you. Now Mr. President you were the leader of the Islamic Courts Union. One of the things I have heard is that the Islamic Courts Union was the first Movement in Somalia to transcend the politics of the clan and establish a common identity of all Somalis around religion rather than around the clan. So why have you now retreated to the use of the clan, which is a very divisive instrument, rather than the use of religion, which is a very unifying instrument within Somali society?

The current political system within the continuous interim governments that we head is based on the formula 4.4 which is ultimately representative of the clan-base communities in the country. Now the idea is to complete this process and we will ultimately go to the process of one-man-one-vote. So we want to complete this process and then go to the next political stage.

Given the thinness of the TFG army in its ability to control the whole country, do you think it will be possible next year to achieve a one-man-one-vote?

I believe that we can do this within two years.

Given that the al-Shabaab were an offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union which you used to lead, do you still have contacts with them; do you try to establish communication with them so that you can possibly bring them to the negotiating table?

I don’t think the al-Shabaab are at the moment open to the idea of negotiation because even during the time of the Islamic Courts Union, which they joined later, they never had the same objectives and since then it has have become even more radicalised and it’s not inclined to the Somalia objectives. So therefore I don’t think they are up for negotiations.

So what type of solution to the al-Shabaab do you envisage; an outright military confrontation until they are defeated and do you think that will create peace?

We want two processes going side by side. One is the military operations, and we want that to continue. But another one is to make sure that we rehabilitate the defectors from al-Shabaab and any al-Shabaab who are willing to participate in the peaceful process.

We have read reports from the donors complaining that 70% of the money they give to the government of Somalia and about 70% of your own revenues is always stolen by your officials. What do you have to say about that?

We think those are baseless rumours; there are no facts to it and the idea behind this is political, to damage the leadership of this country but also to make sure that it slows down the current process in terms of the political and security progress that has been done in this country.

Your critics say that you were the leader of the Islamic Courts Union and when you took power the Americans came and bombed you out of power and once they had chased you out of power, they found you in exile and compromised you and then brought back not to do the prophet’s bidding but to do the Americans’ bidding.

I want to tell you one thing, Americans didn’t make me president; the Somalis did. And I am the same man as I was yesterday. Yesterday I was looking for peace; today I am looking for peace. Today I am looking for peace, government, and religion and unity.

Now that you are running for president again, what is your vision of Somalia? What do you want to see happen? Let me begin with the economy. What do you want to do for Somalia? What are the plans to rebuild such a devastated economy?

This country has a lot of resources in terms of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, minerals and the idea is to develop these. We also want to encourage investments by Somalis and the international community.

And assuming you are elected president, what will be the first things you would like to do to reconcile a country?

We have already started this programme in the capital, a lot of people who left 20 years, are coming back now to the city and we want this to be a national policy to go countrywide. But we also want to build and strengthen public institutions and provide all the services that people need

Mr. President I am told that there is a lot of inter-clan mistrust and mutual suspicion. How many of your closest advisers and people who stay in your inner circle are from clans other than your own?

The interpreter is from a different tribe and the state minister here is from a different tribe from the president and the deputy protocol. And this is the face of the State House that represents the country and this is the president’s vision for the country.

Do you think many Somalis like the state minister there in his office would have the same diversity and mixture; is it something you are trying to enforce across all government offices?

Very much so because we have seen the benefits of it. Somalis prosper together when they walk together. So we want this to be a national policy; a policy that we carry forward.

What do you think of the work of AMISOM, specifically the Ugandan troops here?

AMISOM have done a tremendous job. First when they got here they played an important part and of course we are forever grateful and we thank them.

Are there any problems you have encountered with AMISOM?

Nothing, nothing at all. We have a very good relationship.

But no relationship can be perfect. Would you find any weakness you have seen in AMISOM or advice you would like to give them through this interview?

For me up until they have been absolutely great.


About the Author

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There have been no elections in Somalia since 1967 and there won’t be any this year either. But the country has a new parliament (appointed on the advice of clan elders) who have elected a new president, and the new government actually now controls a significant part of the country. The world’s only fully “failed state” may finally be starting to return to normality.A failed state is a horrendous thing: no government, no army, no police, no courts, no law, just bands of armed men taking what they want. Somalia has been like that for more than 20 years, but now there is hope. So much hope that last month the United Nations Security Council partially lifted its embargo on arms sales to Somalia in order to let the new Somali government buy arms, and last week the U.S. government followed suit.The new government replaces the “Transitional Federal Government”, another unelected body that had enjoyed the support of the UN and the African Union for eight pointless years. Then last year a World Bank report demonstrated the sheer scale of its corruption: seven out of every ten dollars of foreign aid vanished into the pockets of TFG officials before reaching the state’s coffers.Fully a quarter of the “national budget” was being absorbed by the offices of the president, the vice-president and the speaker of parliament. The fact that after all that the TFG still only controlled about one square kilometre (less than one square mile) of Mogadishu, the capital, while the rest of the shattered city was run by the Islamist al-Shabaab militia, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, also contributed to the international disillusionment.That tiny patch of ground, moreover, was being defended not by Somali troops but by thousands of Ugandan and Burundian soldiers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Unisom). More than 500 of them had lost their lives defending the useless TFG, and the foreign donors were losing faith in the mission. But the Unisom soldiers did achieve one major thing: they fought al-Shabaab to a standstill in Mogadishu.In August 2011 the Islamist militia pulled its troops out of the capital. That created an opening, and the international community seized it. It ruthlessly initiated a process designed to push the TFG aside: Somali clan elders were asked to nominate members for a new 250-seat parliament, which was then asked to vote for a new president and government.It was obviously impossible to hold a free election in a country much of which was still under al-Shabaab’s control, but this process also had the advantage that it allowed the foreigners to shape the result. The corrupt officials who had run the old TFG all re-applied for their old jobs, but none of them succeeded.The new president who emerged from this process, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, is a former academic and human rights worker who only entered politics in 2011. No whiff of corruption clings to him, and he has worked tirelessly to bring about national reconciliation. And he has the wind at his back: just after he was chosen last September, a Kenyan force evicted al-Shebaab from Somalia’s second city, Kismayo.That still leaves about 95 percent of the country’s territory and three-quarters of its population beyond the government’s direct control. Al-Shabaab still rules in most rural parts of the country, and Ethiopian troops and their militia allies control much of the western border areas. Pirates with a lot of guns and money effectively dominate much of the north.One whole chunk of the country, calling itself Somaliland, has declared its independence (and runs its affairs much more peacefully and efficiently than any other part of Somalia). No other country recognizes its independence at the moment, but it used to be a British colony, quite separate from Italian-ruled Somalia, and in principle it can make exactly the same case for independence as Eritrea did when it broke away from Ethiopia.The worst problem facing President Mohamud is the venal and cunning politicians who have exploited the clan loyalties that pervade every aspect of Somali life to carve out their own little empires. Some are frankly and unashamedly warlords; others, including all the senior officials in the defunct TFG, masquerade as national politicians but work for their own interests.They have not gone away, nor have the clan rivalries that kept the fighting going for 21 years. Drawing up the rules and sharing out the power for a new federal Somalia (none of which has yet been decided) will give them plenty of opportunities to make trouble for the new president and regain their former power. Mohamud definitely has his work cut out for him.Nevertheless, he has strong UN and African Union support, and he now has a chance to create a spreading zone of peace in the country and start rebuilding national institutions. So last week the United States declared that it was now willing to provide military aid, including arms exports, to Somalia. Weirdly, that actually means that thing are looking up in the world’s only failed state.Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.