November 1, 2009
Robert Wright in London and Barney Jopson in Nairobi
The prime minister of Somalia’s weak transitional government has admitted that negotiations with its Islamist enemies represent the only realistic prospect of ending more than 20 years of civil war in the country.
However, Omar Sharmarke insisted during a Financial Times interview that large numbers of fighters were deserting from one of the two main groups fighting the government and that elements in both groups could be won over.
Mr Sharmarke was speaking during a visit to London this week when he met UK government officials and addressed Chatham House, the foreign affairs think-tank. He warned both that, without more robust international support, Somalia risked becoming controlled by the militant group al-Qaeda, just as Afghanistan had been in the 1990s.
“Guns really cannot solve this conflict,” said Mr Sharmarke. “I think it will be solved also through political negotiations. It will be solved as a result of information campaigns.”
Both al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, the main Islamist groups opposing the government, contained a core group of ideologues, he went on. However, both also contained individuals who were seeking political opportunities and poorer people seeking to earn money.
“I’m sure that those who have gone there for political and economic opportunity can be negotiated with,” he said. “But the core ideologue group have an agenda to destablise not only Somalia but also the region and the world. I don’t think those guys have any interest in negotiating or brokering an agreement.”
The government had always kept channels open with some insurgent groups, even when the conflict was at its most violent.
“We succeeded in bringing on board some of the Hizbul Islam leaders and we will continue to do so,” he said.
Mr Sharmarke’s visit to London came after Somali pirates seized a British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, from their yacht near the Seychelles in the latest of hundreds of attacks in seas round the troubled country.
However, the prime minister insisted that the pirates were acting for economic, not political, reasons after the collapse of the last national government under Siad Barre in 1991 allowed foreign trawlers to over-fish the country’s waters.
“The international community says piracy is a criminal activity and I agree with that,” Mr Sharmarke said. “But people outside Somalia must understand that piracy has become the only available means to survive for so many people who live in the coastal areas. They were affected by the illegal fishing that has become rampant since the fall of Siad Barre’s regime.”
It could be cheaper for foreign governments to fund programmes offering constructive work to people in coastal areas than to fund the large naval presences currently devoted to detecting and preventing piracy, the prime minister claimed.
