As we are all aware, the Somali Reconciliation
Conference, which continued in Kenya for the last seven
months, overcame many difficult and controversial situations
through the collective efforts and the dedication of
the IGAD Technical Committee, the Somali Participants
and IGAD Partners Forum (IPF), specially the European
Union.
The Conference is approaching now a crucial third
phase that require us to redouble our commitment and
coordination needed for its successful conclusion.
Representatives from concerned governments and multinational
Organizations are expected give this peace process
the final push it needs.
Unfortunately one representative from the European
Union Somali Desk, Dr. Walid Muse, choose to do more
harm than good to this Somali Conference. His activities,
ideas and lobby seriously damage and complicate the
whole Somalia conflict resolution process.
From the beginning, Dr. Muse put significant financial
resources from the generous European Union donations,
his ideas and efforts in creating parallel committees
and processes to all the official ones: to IGAD Technical
Committee, to the official Somali delegates, to the
Somali political leaders that he prefers to call them
"criminal war lords" that should have no
role in the national conflict resolution and leadership,
and most recently, to the four months deliberations
of the six working committees. Against the official
position of the Somali political leaders and the six
working committees, Dr. Muse has spent money of the
donor community and engineered to produce a parallel
charter of his "vision" of Somalia that
caused a diplomatic raw and major controversy among
the Somali delegates.
Its not unprecedented that in world crisis spots,
there are international Lords of Poverty who, one
way or the other, try to prolong the misery of the
people they are sent to help. Somalia is no different.
Thirteen years without national government, there
are those who obviously enjoy their personal gains
with lavish basement entertainment bars, six figure
salaries and other bonus and the power to dispense
millions of dollars with little or no accountability
on its effectiveness for the intended.
Dr. Muse's so called expert advice among the Somalis,
the IGAD TC and the IPF focus on one self serving
strategy: marginalize the apparent Somali political
and militia leaders and forge and invest in hand picked
cronies, all in the name of forming civil and democratic
government. Insisting on democratization before conflict
resolution and before committing the leaders that
this civil war has produced to a constitutional process
is a thinly veiled strategy of ensuring the failure
of any government formed, as was the case in the previous
attempts. This strategy yet again entails people like
Dr. Muse to remain as war tycoons and the lords of
the poverty of Somalia.
Here the logic of Walid Muse is very simple: exploit
the anger and frustration of the Somali public and
International Community towards the militia leaders
(war lords as he likes to call them), marginalize
or eliminate them in any Somali conflict resolution
conference, and create your own buddies mainly from
the Diaspora and the Somali NGOs giving them the appearance
that they "represent" the civil sectors
of the Society, form a government from them, send
them to Mogdishu where the gun and the militia leaders
rule, and than, when it fails, hold responsible the
war lords and the Somalis as a whole, and than, continue
the war tycoon status. This simple strategy worked
for Walid Muse more than a decade. It worked because
it is in Africa, the Capitals and the governments
that provide this multi-million dollar, and give Mr.
Muse a presidential salary and bonus, are far away,
and the ignorance of the Somalis.
In the light of this sad situation, here is some
advice to the generous and the kind hearted European
Union donors: removed Dr. Walid Muse from the Somalia
affairs; it's about time. Work towards conflict resolution
and institution building before democratization; be
cautious in using project brokers as a primary source
of analysis, information and advice.
WRITTEN BYCONFLICT ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION CENTER,
Email: conanar02@hotmail.com
May 20, 2003
