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by Abdulkadir Mohamed (Ato)
July 25, 2008
The Alliance of the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) split up into two rival splinter groups after the tardy attempt to patch things up failed in Yemen. Hassan Dahir Aweys, the hardliner Islamist boss sacked Sheikh Sharif, his moderate Islamist sidekick and crowned himself as the ultimate leader of the Somalia's Islamic opposition movement. What was Sheikh Sharif's cardinal sin? He talked to the enemy and signed a dubious agreement with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that, according to the hawkish elements within the ARS, is not practical and objectionable to the Somali and Islamic cause.
From the outset, many Somali observers were unconvinced about the marriage of unlike groups of moderates, hardliners and nationalists with divergent agendas. Their effectiveness was questioned and it seemed that the whole thing of forming such shaky alliance was rushed and not well-thought of.
Some followers of the messy Somali affairs believe that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is the face of the Islamic movement in Somalia and the man behind the establishment of the Islamic Courts union in Mogadishu and Southern Somalia opposes any peace deal with the warlord-infested government of Somalia as long as he remains in Bush's terror list. Others suggest that the hardened Sheikh, by strongly opposing the same group he shaped and molded, is committing political suicide and is risking playing into the hands of his enemies whose sinister plot was to craft a wedge within the Islamic movement. Who knows, maybe, Sheikh Aweys and his Asmara wing seem to have stronger convictions in their pursuit of liberating Somalia. Probably they oppose the peace initiatives of Sheikh Sharif and his Djibouti wing for the fear that their liberation program and their political agenda would be eclipsed under the rubric of spurious call of reconciliation that promises nothing other than legitimizing collaborationist warlords whose mandate is running out in 2009 without accomplishing anything except to create more havoc and carnage in the capital.
The conduct of Sheikh Sharif, so far, shows that he is a different kind of leader, good natured, softly spoken, highly intellectual and convincing in his arguments. Despite these admirable qualities, some of his detractors say, in politics, especially the messy ones in Somalia, where alliances shift and loyalties are improvised; he is a neophyte who is out of touch in the Somali reality. They accuse Sheikh Sharif of being a flip-flop and political gambler and that he sometimes conforms to pressure. The political pragmatism of Sheikh Sharif is not a liability and is indeed what is needed to save Somalia today. Sheikh Sharif has not betrayed the Islamic Courts and in fact he advances them and promotes their name and cause. Talking to the other side of the Somali conflict, the Transitional federal Government (TFG) when they are specially represented by equally good natured and compromising individuals like Prime Minister Nur Adde and his deputy Ahmed Abdisalam is not a betrayal of the Islamist cause. Realizing that the Ethiopian occupation is supported and bankrolled by the powers-that-be and that Meles Zenawi is not alone in this "war on terror" is perceptive prudence and not a betrayal of Islamic principles.
Now the question many people are asking is what would happen to the good Sheikh Sharif and his peacenik group? Would he still be able to represent himself as the face of the opposition? Would Sheikh Sharif's perceptible passivity, diplomacy and good intentions affect a change on the ground? So far, things seem to be not working in his favor and his only vindication rests with the implementation of the accord he signed by the powers-that-be. If that fails, then the good Sheikh would have to re-invent himself again and join hands with the hardliners once again. Until then I would advise the supporters of the Asmara group to halt their rash criticism of the good Sheikh and give him a chance to pursue his admirable goal of driving the occupying forces out of Somalia through diplomacy and negotiations.
The collapse of the ARS hasn't produced any tangible gains for the Transitional Federal government of Somalia and its backers, the occupiers from Ethiopia. Al-Shabaab group, the young Somali freedom fighters, is more or less independent of the political separation and constraints of the splinter groups of the ARS in Asmara and Djibouti. Any residual influence the ARS, or what is left of it, may exercise will have negligible effect on those in the ground, fighting inside Somalia against the Ethiopian occupation and the warlord-infested government militias.
The fighting would go on, blood would be shed, suffering of the innocent Somali people would continue and the world community, as usual, would close their eyes to the worst humanitarian disaster in Africa and the carnage in Somalia.
Abdulkadir Mohamed (Ato)
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