AFRICA
from issue no. 11 - 2004
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Somalia: the State is reborn
For almost 14 years the country was the arena of war-lords. After thirteen failed attempts, the international community has succeeded in creating agreement between the tribal heads. Thus in October a president was elected and, since December, Somalia has a new government
by Davide Malacaria and Giovanni Cubeddu
Nairobi: the new Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, right in the photo, with Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, president of the Somali Parliament
For Monsignor Giorgio Bertin, Bishop of Djibouti and Apostolic Administrator of Mogadishu, the danger of fundamentalism played an important role in the success of the lastest peace process, which got underway about two years ago. We met him in Rome in the Casa del Clero in Via della Scrofa. Bertin explains: «This time there’s a greater hope because the world seems to have realized that to leave Somalia in this situation is dangerous for everyone. Last year I was in the United States, thanks to the good offices of the former ambassador of Djibouti and I spoke to the team which had the task of preparing the documentation for the US administration. They were obsessed by terrorism. And someone even aired the hypothesis of a “surgical intervention” in the country. I objected that among the Somalis religion and politics have always been separate and the people had never looked favorably on fundamentalists. Of course there has been some infiltration, but they are isolated elements. But, if they’d attacked them they’d have welded them together with the rest of the population. I explained that a unified state needed to be backed, one that would be able to fight the threat more efficiently. The election of Yusuf took a lot of work but it’s a step in the right direction. Let’s hope it’s the good one». A laborious peace process which succeeded when armed US intervention in 1992, at the time of Bush senior, failed, as did the unfortunate – over-hasty perhaps – mission Restore Hope, which was followed by the long engagement of UN soldiers, under the aegis of Unosom, that ended in 1995, though notwithstanding everything it did save thousands of lives. Later came other, vain attempts backed by the UN. William Tubman, United Nations representative for Somalia, claims «we learned something from all the previous failures, we and the Somali people and the other countries in the region. The lastest attempt was born under a luckier star: in fact, for the first time in the peace process not only the various local leaders but all the countries of the region became involved. Naturally some tribal leaders are still unhappy but they won’t find backing from the bordering nations».
Somali refugees in Mandera, Kenya
The reconciliation process was encouraged by the countries of IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional body geared toward the development of the countries of East Africa, to which Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda belong), in turn supported by other countries and international bodies, what are known as IGAD partners, including the European Union and the Arab League but also, one of the oddities of politics, Japan. Italy, Tubman says, made a big contribution (and for that matter ties with the former colony have never been completely cut). The United States on the other hand stepped aside, limiting themselves to merely observing. But the peace process went ahead anyway. In the first place internal points of contact were identified, given that Somali society is divided into a variety of tribes, clans and factions difficult to make sense of. So four large traditional tribes were identified, to whom minor sub-tribes and factions were joined. These were asked to elect their own representatives in Parliament, the site of which, for reasons of security, was provisionally established in Nairobi, in Kenya. The 275 parliamentarians took up office on 22 August and, after having elected a president of the Assembly, Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, they proceeded to the elections for the nomination of the Somali president. There were two contenders: Abdullhai Yusuf and the defeated Ahmed Addou, former ambassador to the United States. According to the analysts, what worked in Yussuf’s favor was his past as an opponent of the regime of Siad Barre, as well as the prestige he derived from being president of the Somali State of Puntland, a region of the Horn of Africa which, in 1998 declared itself autonomous. Tubman observes: «A definitely positive fact is that the candidates for president signed a document at the time of the elections in which they committed themselves to disarming their clans and to support whoever got elected». In effect the disarming of the militias is the first point on the order of the day for the new president. According to the estimates given to his staff there are about two million weapons, counting light and heavy, circulating in Somalia. Difficult to think of a minimum of safety with so many instruments of death around. That is why it was decided the new government would remain provisionally in Nairobi and why Yusuf asked the African Union to send a contingent of 15-20 thousand soldiers. Tubman continues: «The UN Secretary, Kofi Annan, made a similar request to the Security Council. But that must go ahead hand in hand with the creation of internal security forces to flank the foreign troops in a very difficult undertaking. In Somalia there are many ex-members of the security forces who could be trained and fitted to the purpose. Of course this is only the first step. The country needs to find order and stability again, so as to create the conditions for attracting investments and implementing new opportunities for work».
The succeeding stages are already fixed: the current transitional government will remain in charge for five years, years during which there will be an attempt to create within the society political parties to participate in the succeeding elections. Further, the international community will support and sustain the initiatives of the new government through a special committee. The question of Somaliland must also be sorted out – a region of the north more or less corresponding to the territory of the former English protectorate – which, in 1991, declared itself independent and which did not join in the process of reconciliation. In order not to further complicate the process of normalization of the country, the question of the relations between the government of Mogadishu and Somaliland was wisely postponed to a second stage, and will be dealt with autonomously by the respective governments.
Monsignor Giorgio Bertin
In the wait for order to return to Mogadishu some of the warlords are flexing their muscles, those who want it understood that they don’t accept the peace, those who want to put up the stakes. And the gristly accountancy of the murdered must be brought up to date daily. At the UN they say the actual number of victims of this conflict will only be known with the return to normality. But various unofficial estimates suggest that between 1991 and today the dead number between 300,000 and 500,000 and the refugees 2 million, without counting those dead of starvation and disease which in this chaos have increased out of all proportion. A slow draining away which the bishop of Djibouti, who has been in Somali for years, has watched from close up. «One time here the Church was an imposing and visible presence: it ran schools, health services and much besides … Then in 1969 came Siad Barre’s coup and the birth of the Democratic Republic of Somalia, socialist in tendency. Its revolutionary proclamation was printed by the Catholic press … Well, it was the best». He smiles thinking of the whirlagig of destiny. And he recalls that regime without resentment. Basically, he explains, it was like the others, with its lights and shadows. Among the lights, certainly, was the introduction of the written Somali language and the alphabetization of the country. Then came the nationalization of schools and all the private school buildings, including Catholic ones, were expropriated. And also the houses of missionaries, if linked to the former. That was the context that Bertin found when, after being in Somalia from 1969 to 1971, he came back as a young priest in 1978. «There was a period of chaos. A great many of us found themselves without work, or at least without that which they were used to doing, and they left. It was a bad blow, but, even if an institutional presence was over, the Catholic presence was not finished and in the new situation it was called upon to be present in another way, as a service that is. For me, who was a Franciscan, it was a return to what Saint Francis says in the so-called unofficial Rule where he explains that there are two ways of going on mission to the Saracens, as they were then called: the first is not to quarrel with anyone, to be subject to the authorities and declare oneself Christian. The second, if and when it pleases God, is to announce openly that there is no other savior apart from Jesus Christ. We struggled to make the transition, but then, little by little, the nuns were reintegrated in the state hospitals and public schools. A dynamic that was intensified after the unfortunate war with Ogaden, when, in 1977, Somalia was defeated by Ethiopia. The years that followed were difficult, also economically. Barre’s regime grew weak. In those years there was an attempt at rebellion, under a young official then unknown to me, Abdullahi Yusuf. The attempt went badly and Yusuf took refuge in Ethiopia from where he continued the struggle. Then the distant effect of the Iranian revolution hit the country, stirring opposition to the regime on a religious basis. But the armed revolt against Barre came from the tribes: various centers of rebellion came into being which little by little wore down the regime, until its collapse in 1991».
These last years were particularly hard for the Church. On 9 July the bishop of Mogadishu, Monsignor Salvatore Colombo, was killed. Bertin recalls: «At the time I was vicar apostolic. The murder was blamed on the Moslems, but I’m in no way convinced of that. I believe it was a sort of state murder: it’s probable that Barre, or someone in his entourage, wanted to draw the eyes of the West to the danger of Islam. We carried on, deluding ourselves that they wouldn’t bother us further. But then, in 1991 they set fire to the cathedral and we were forced to leave. And along with us 90% of the Christians, who were for the most part foreigners». The prelate recalls that, for a certain period, some catechists remained in the country, and carried out their pastoral work in relative tranquility. But they were soon overwhelmed by the changing fortunes of the warring bands. Now about forty Christians are left in Somalia. Monsignor Bertin tells of fleeting meetings during his apostolic journeys, of exchanges of letter, of prayers in common snatched amidst a thousand precautions. But the Church has not ceased its service to the Somali people because of this. In Mogadishu the Missionary Sisters of the Consoled are at work. He and other priests come and go from the country. «Given the situation, it’s impossible to imagine an overt presence,» Bertin says: «But the Church has remained close to the people, in ways dictated by measures of prudence, because in that chaos it’s easy to become a target. For the most part the Christian presence in Somalia is entrusted to lay people, people such as Annalena Tonelli, killed in 2003, who was there inspired by her faith. Or like Graziella Fumagalli, director of the humanitarian intervention of Caritas in Merca, killed in 1995, on World Missionary Day itself. These are only the most impressive examples of a Christian presence which has branched off into the most diverse directions, especially through work within the international organizations».
Above, Nairobi: a session of the Somali Parliament; below, Militia in Mogadishu
It may be the prospects opened up by the peace process, it may be for contingent reasons, but the flow of refugees returning to Somalia in recent times seems to be increasing. In this year alone the United Nations has succeeded in repatriating 13,000 from Ethiopia and Djibouti. The refugee camp in Hartisheik (one of the largest in the world), in Ethiopia, which at its height housed more than 400,000 refugees, closed down in June. The problem of the exiles is one strongly felt by Angelo Masetti, responsible for the Italy-Somalia Forum for peace and reconstruction, which is working behind the scenes to facilitate reconciliation. Masetti affirms: «The civil war drove about 80% of the professionals, out of the country and now they live mostly in Western countries. A huge loss in terms of human resources. Our project is to identify, through elections, representatives of the diaspora who can give support to the peace process, and who can give Somalia a contribution in terms of economic, intelligence and know-how indispensable for the rebirth of the country». There is an urgency in his words. Not least because, while diplomacy laboriously attempts to rise up above the din of arms, people continue to die in the Horn of Africa. The tragic humanitarian situation of the country was registered in the last UN report, made public on 8 October. According to the document, various Somali regions have been gripped by drought for the last four years: there are about 670,000 people in need of immediate help. Also, a conflict between tribes in the lower valley of the river Juba has forced different aid workers to get out, despite the fact that a shortfall in harvests has been reported. Soon the population of the area will be starving: the survival of more than 165,000 people is at stake. Nor can the report measure the psychosomatic suffering weighing on children. The document limits itself to recording that Somalia has one of the lowest schooling levels in the world. Various international organizations try as best they can to check the disaster and bring a minimum of relief to the exhausted population. One of the agencies is the COOPI (International Cooperation), an NGO from Milan founded by Father Vincenzo Barbieri and entirely run by lay people. COOPI has been operating in Somalia for about twenty years. Efrem Fumagalli supervises the activity. He explains: «To offer aid in a territory where no state exists is more difficult than elsewhere. To begin working one has to reach an agreement with the local faction heads, and the work undertaken is always at risk. This year we had to evacuate our staff four times. However in Somaliland, where we concentrate our work, the situation is more tranquil. Here we run various hospitals, among them that of Borama, and recently we’ve also concluded an agreement to run the aid center for those suffering from tuberculosis, set up by Annalena Tonelli. But in a place like this there’s need of everything. For example we’ve begun two projects, one in the south and one on the shifting border between Somaliland and Puntland, for vaccination and veterinary care of livestock and for the creation of watering places along the cattle routes. It is a way of giving sustenance to many families who live from droving. Our aim is to set up projects the benefits of which do not end in themselves: so our health and administrative personnel work in with locals, to help their training and, at the same time, where possible, we try to get our medical supplies from local traders so as to encourage the revival of business». The five Sisters of the Consoled also work for an NGO, the SOS Kinderdorf aid organization. Sister Marzia, the superior, has been in Somalia for 36 years. Her voice, at the other end of the line, is soothing. She says that one of the sisters is now outside the country, in Nairobi, where the Congregation runs a school for nurses with eighty students. «They are very good», she adds happily, and goes on: «Here in Mogadishu we have a village for orphan children and a hospital with maternity and pediatric units.We hep women and children. It’s the only hospital in the area. People travel even five hundred kilometers to come here. We give treatment and medicine free. There’s much to do and the emergencies are continuous». She tells us that they wear the religious habit without it causing any distrust, on the contrary. People are used to seeing sisters in hospitals, they say that it’s thanks to them that the hospital works. For them, who only see a priest when conditions permit, it’s difficult to attend mass. So every day they meet to pray, read the Holy Scriptures and worship the Eucharistic. That’s how it is in such difficult situations. She says that the nomination of the president has raised a wave of hope among the poor, but without international backing this effort also is doomed to failure. «These people have been through unspeakable suffering», she goes on. «But if they had work, a job, an alternative, everything would change». We are cut off, we call back. Sister Marzia continues and politely scolds us, we journalists; only concerned, she says, with sensational things: «Whereas no one ever talks about the goodness of heart of these people. If Somalia is still holding up, it’s indeed because of mutual help among the poor. It’s heartwarming… if a particularly needy person comes to us, the others make a collection, they scrape together something from their few possessions and slip it into the hand with delicacy … For example yesterday there was a woman here and the others gave her some shillings to buy something. She got up, went out, and immediately returned. I asked her why she hadn’t bought anything and she explained that she had given those shillings to someone else who had more need than her. There, these things don’t make news, but they are fragrant flowers, which are easy to see being here».
«They say I am a warlord», the president declared in his first official speech: «From today you will know me as a man of peace.» On 1 December, the Somali prime minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi, nominated by Yusuf, announced a government of national unity in Nairobi. Certainly, the reconstruction of the country will not be an easy business. But today, in Somalia, the small, tenacious hope has a new fragrance.
