S H A S N A  MediaWatch
 

Nairobi, Kenya
[November 22, 2002]

Eldoret, Kenya: Witness the Warlord Mayhem
Warlords, Extremists and the Somali Peace & Reconciliation Process

For well over ten years the international community, IGAD, the EU, USA, and the Arab world have been witnesses to the sufferings, deprivations, mutilations, massacres, pillaging, and property confiscation visited upon innocent Somalis by none other than Mogadishu's notorious warlords and their invader class drugged militias. They have committed unthinkable atrocities against innocent and helpless mothers, children, elders and other unarmed civilians. To this day, they continue on their very profitable mayhem in southern Somalia.

During 1992-1995 as a multinational force, organized and led by the United States of America, had been authorized to establish secure environment for humanitarian relief operations to warlords deprived and starved Somalis, the warlords did the unthinkable again. This time, the same warlords and their al-Itihad allies stopped delivery of humanitarian supplies dead on its tracks. Not only did they, but they viciously bit the hand that fed them; and in Mogadishu's dusty streets, al-Itihad and warlords dragged the dead and half-mutilated bodies of those that came to help and feed the feeble southern Somalia masses.

Since their successful venture of March 1995 that drove out UNOSOM II, and for every subsequent Somali peace and reconciliation process, it was always the criminal warlord class that insisted upon "it is our way or no way." With the help and funding of some extreme Middle Eastern interests, they have blocked every conceivable peace process from prevailing; they have destabilized where stability prevailed; where secularism and traditional clan independence was the rule, they have imported al-Qaeda and extremism to Somalia; they have grown drugs where none ever existed before; they have turned kidnapping and ransom taking into an art form. And to this day, without tangible public support and reliable political base, they still expect not to be tried, but treated with respect.

Unfortunately after all of that, the same warlords together with their now emboldened al-Itihad funders and supporters, who for the last eleven years have held Somalia hostage, are also today holding the Somali peace and reconciliation process in Eldoret as another hostage and may be as their ultimate prize. The Taliban might have been defeated, but in Somalia, their students and supporters are encouraged and are growing better and bolder by the day. In recent weeks, in Eldoret just like the Arta process in Djibouti, the al-Itihad al-Islamiya together with their warlord class have brought in an estimated $450,000 and is allotted for the advancement of their political agenda. Will this new-found confidence of al-Itihad and friends dampen the Eldoret peace and reconciliation process?

So far, certain Mogadishu warlords, as a front for al-Itihad and for the Arta  Faction, have failed at every turn. They have failed to drive a wedge between Somali clans; they have failed to drive a wedge between the SRRC and other political groupings; and they have miserably failed in their attempts to flee the venue as they have explicitly, for the first time, been "threatened with arrest." However, Mogadishu's warlords and their friends will not take these threats lying down and they will attempt, at every turn, to obstruct the peace process.

In the meantime, with almost all of Somalia's predominant clans on the negotiating table, except certain northwestern Somalia sub-clans, and now that the peace process has entered its third phase, the question is: what clan/sub-clans do these warlords and friends represent, and are they really needed any longer? The answer is in the negative; they are no longer needed in Eldoret. Let the world and IGAD recognize that these warlords have never been a key to any Somali peace process; they have never agreed to any one; and no matter what attempts and other sweat-heart deals by IGAD Technical Committee, ultimately, the warlords will never agree to this peace process either. These men are hardened war criminals to be presented to and persecuted in international war criminal courts. They surely don't belong to Eldoret or to any other peace and reconciliation venue.

Let us hope it is Arusha time! Please support peace, unity and justice in Somalia...to be Continued...stay tuned!