Somalia: Will Latest Peace Accord Succeed? | Voice of America - English
Violence continues to grip the East African country of Somalia despite a recent peace agreement between its transitional government and an Islamist opposition faction. Most analysts are skeptical that the U.N.-mediated accord would succeed where previous initiatives have failed. Some insurgent factions and opposition hardliners have already rejected the deal.
The agreement was signed in Djibouti on June9 between Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and a faction ofthe opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS). The dealcalls for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops within 120 days ofimplementation, contingent on the deployment of a sufficient U.N. peacekeepingforce in Somalia. Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in December 2006 to helpTFG forces remove an Islamist administration. Ethiopian and Somali forceshave been grappling since then with an insurgency that has claimed more than8,500 lives and displaced more than a million people. Somalia has not seena stable central government in more than 17 years, and previous efforts torestore stability have failed. It is against this backdrop that former U.S.Ambassador to Ethiopia, David Shinn, hopes that the latest peace accord willsucceed. "It was a step in the right direction. And itdeserves support, although there are some Somalis who vehemently are opposed toit. It's really the only proposal or arrangement on the table that has any hopeof accomplishing anything," said Shinn. "Everything else is just a continuation of the , which is a horrible humanitarian situation in the country that impactsmost Somalis negatively, no chance for peace, no chance for any kind of agovernment of national unity and little chance that the Ethiopians willdepart." Shinn, a George Washington Universityprofessor of international affairs, says the agreement has promise, althoughsplinter groups that oppose it are likely to continue fighting. "The big problem is the fact that a significant element of the Alliancefor the Re-liberation of Somalia did not sign the agreement [and], in fact,actively opposes it, and has the support of Eritrea in that opposition and hasat least the moral support of al-Qaeda," said Shinn. "And if you can convince therank and file of people who oppose the agreement that there is a significantcomponent of the ARS that favors discussions with the Transitional FederalGovernment and thinks that it might be possible to create a government ofnational unity and have peace in the country, you, in theory, could undercut alot of this opposition." But even aunited opposition would still object to the continued presence of Ethiopian troopsin Somalia. James Paul, Executive Director of the Global Policy Forum, a groupthat monitors U.N. policies, says an Ethiopian withdrawal was a key demand inDjibouti and one that the peace accord does not fully satisfy. "What's interesting is that there was news that the Ethiopian forces weremoving out of the central region of the country. And this is, of course, amajor issue of contention," said Paul. "So, the accord has been interpreted, certainly bymany, including the rebels, to mean that the Ethiopians would be leaving. Andthe government has been saying that that isn't necessarily the case. So, can wesee the Ethiopians move out? And if so, what is going to be the response of therebel groups? And what about the government? What about the African Unionforce? What about the U.N.? These are all question marks." Many analysts dismiss any notion of an imminent Ethiopian withdrawal fromSomalia. The reason for that, says Karin von Hippel of the Center for Strategicand International Studies in Washington, is that Ethiopia worries thatSomalia's Islamist factions could threaten its security. "If Ethiopia is moving troops around, it's more likely tobe doing so because they are being defeated in one area or they are trying toretrench and fight back in another area. So I think that theirstrategy has been to try to make sure that their borders are secure. NowSomalia could easily become a protracted conflict for them. It could becometheir own Vietnam. But they are very worried that if they leave, they willleave behind a vacuum until we can get more African Union troops in Somalia," said von Hippel. "Now,we don't have enough African troops and I doubt we will in the near futurebecause, who would want to deploy in the middle of fighting?" The African Union already has about 1,200 peacekeepers inSomalia. But von Hippel and other Africa experts like Johns HopkinsUniversity's William Zartman say the African Union is unlikely to send moretroops to Somalia any time soon. "The African forcesare particularly reluctant to come in a place that has shown itself to be asmurderous as Somalia. We are not talking about a peacekeeping force in the U.N.sense of the term. We're talking about walking into a hornet's nest. I must saythe long-term prospects of this going on are really very high. The only people who care about it are the Eritreans and the Ethiopians, and theycare in order to fight a proxy war," said Zartman. "If they didn't care anymore, then nobodywould care." Some analysts fault theinternational community for leaving Somalia's volatile situation to thecash-strapped African Union. And George Washington University's David Shinnargues that even the deployment of a large international peacekeeping forcewill not solve Somalia's problems. "This isn't veryrealistic. It takes many, many months for that to happen, far more monthsthan are included in this three-month long peace agreement," said Shinn. "So the realsolution is trying to convince a majority of the people who are now skepticalabout the Transitional Federal Government that this new arrangement has some hope of achieving peace in the country and to get behindit. And if it doesn't accomplish that goal, then you are going to have acontinuation of the violence and the conflict that we've seen in Somalia prettymuch sporadically since 1991." Shinn and otheranalysts and U.N. experts say the problem with this scenario is that thecountry's deepening humanitarian crisis and the millions of Somalis who couldface starvation by the end of the year cannot survive another failed peaceinitiative.