Beyond the military defeat of UIC: Could Somalia avoid the Iraqi paradigm
By: Jealani H.Omar

The removal of the danger posed by the Islamic Courts military ascendancy by the allied forces of TFG and the Ethiopian brothers, so decisively and promptly was an epoch making event that would bring to light on the way ahead out of the dark tunnel the south had been experiencing for the last 16 years, underlining a historical closing stages of the era of the failed state, towards an opening of a window of opportunity to ending the cycle of despair and  undertaking a genuine reconciliation process.

The ten day military campaign led by Ethiopia has put Somalia, and indeed the whole region at the doorstep of a new historical cross roads either to a shift into the direction of stabilization and pacification of Mogadishu as well as other southern territories freed by the allied forces or continuation of lawlessness anarchy and human misery. Realistically, however, one should not expect an abrupt way out and ready made solutions as in both cases time and efforts will certainly be involved, which would need to loads of sacrifices before a satisfactory degree of the desired goal is achieved.

Indeed, the challenges and the tasks ahead are both immense and complex as the time calls for a new logic and new approaches in order to resolve the outstanding problems in a reasonable time frame to pave the way to a new period of national revival, reconciliation and democratic governance for Somalia. The first move to this direction should be dealing with the following urgent challenges:

As recent events have developed in to a level of acuteness that made direct military   confrontation with ICU-Alqaeda alliance a matter of necessity, and as the political battle has just began in full scale, building of national and regional coalitions and alliances against terrorism and religious extremism turns out to be a historical imperative. This alliance ought to be included true secular states in the region.

On the internal front in Somalia itself, there is a need to a national constituency conference for all clans, civil society actors, tolerant religion leaders, and politicians to be called in and long and serious deliberations on forgive-ness arrangement through which unlike all previous conferences and processes which were organized out side of the country, a broad based national transitional state   institutions be established: a bicameral parliament (legislative body having two chambers), Council of Ministers,  president and prime minister would be elected. This National constituency conference would mark the first genuine reconciliation process on self-motivated and self-reliance basis. Such a conference should be built on bottom up and grass-root grounds similar to that of Somaliland experience. The outcome of such a conference should accommodate all political forces who accept the peaceful transition of that country.  

On the other hand, a significant groundwork should be made for an arrangement that embraces an initiative of reconciliation between Somalia-TFG and Somaliland. In this respect, the need to easing of tension in the relations of the two sides as a prelude to the required healing process is to be worked out by both parties. Yet the key to this initiative would preferably commence with TFG authorities take-up addressing the major concerns of Somaliland, that the freewill of Somaliland people commensurate with the universally accepted right of self-determination of any people on earth. This is in view of the historical fact that Somaliland had been a Country of its own as sovereign state before it had been united with the Italian Somalia in 1960, and thus taking into consideration that the marriage of the two Somali states in 1960 had been confronted with serious crises and irreparable impairments.

It is time for TFG to face the moment of hard truth that requires enough realism and pragmatism in order to be able to take a brave steps towards generating an environment favorable for reconciliation course of action, which could pave the way to conducive state of affairs where another devastating war between Somalia and Somaliland similar to that of 1981-1991 could be avoided. The whole idea of reconciliation between the two Somali sides must be seen as a necessary lead-up to construction of two democratic Somali states instead of recycling the same internal conflicts and regional war. Such a raison d'être   would become feasible only if and when Somali politicians consciously abandon the extremist ideology which manifested itself in Greater Somalia concept as an aggressive political agenda for the southern ruling classes. This ideology and related practical policies had caused the peoples of the region protracted wars, all of which were at the expense of development and human progress. The eventuality of such moderation would be to building of a broad based platform for a regional front against the common enemy, the religious extremism and terrorism.  

The real and decisive battle against this common enemy calls for an immediate action to be undertaken simultaneously by the all states of the region for dismantling and uprooting the infrastructure of fundamentalism and their brain-child, the terrorist organizations. In this respect it would be essential to take over all Madersas, schools, universities and the entire educational centers including Mosques, and to outlaw all activities that contradict with the peace and harmony of the peoples of the region, and to put under screening procedures to all related financial institutions, and cut the fellow of funds from out side sources to these organization.

Beyond the military defeat of UIC to cross the line of the Iraqi paradigm TFG needs to win the political battle that has just come to the forefront position to lead events to its own rationale, and which calls for an immediate shift towards political settlement, which unlike the military resolution would necessitate different approaches and attitudes that leads to focusing on possibilities, means and ways to acquiring your yesterdays political enemies as today’s partners, in view of being able to build a broad based coalitions in the national front as well as regional and international levels