Africa Confidential
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www.africa-confidential.com 23 November 2001 Vol 42 No 23 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL TANZANIA 2 SOMALIA Mkapa winds it up By meeting most of the opposition Moving target Civic United Front’s demands for A state in turmoil offers no safe haven for terrorists fleeing the electoral reform in Zanzibar, onslaught in Afghanistan President Mkapa seems to have won an end to the political stand- If Usama bin Laden and his comrades headed for Somalia, they could find it even less comfortable than off on the islands. Now attention Afghanistan. American and French ships patrol the coastline and blockade some ports. There are turns to the race to choose his reports of German troops joining them, a deployment unprecedented in modern times. Bossasso port in successor next year. Puntland is a particular target. The unrecognised but de facto state is already at war. Heavy fighting broke out on 21 November between supporters of the deposed President, Colonel Abdullahi Yussef Ahmed, RWANDA/UGANDA 4 and backers of Jama Ali Jama, elected President by the Garowe conference of elders last week. Intelligence sources spoke of an Ethiopian invasion. Washington backs neighbouring Ethiopia, which Brothers at war is itching to defeat Islamists and Oromo rebels, and to settle old scores. Muslim Somalia itself, while Personal rivalries and battling for plagued by its own Islamists, overflows with anti-Islamist militias with no love for Usama. influence and spoils in the Congo So why is Somalia widely perceived as Usama’s next base and an upcoming target for the US-led war have stretched relations Coalition against Terrorism? So fragmented is the state, with its new Transitional National Government between Kigali and Kampala to the (AC Vol 42 No 22) forming only one authority among several, and such is the military experience of the limit. A summit meeting under numerous clan militias, that it would seem rash to seek refuge there. Yet the anti-terror warriors are Whitehall’s auspices helped bring the two sides back from the brink interested for three reasons. but the underlying distrust remains. Homing in Firstly, we hear that Al Qaida has indeed been assessing Somalia as a potential home, stirring fears in ZIMBABWE 6 Washington that Somalia will be ‘the next Afghanistan’ – in terms of civil strife and Islamist rule, rather The killing of Cain than US bombing. The US military intervention in 1993 ended in humiliation, with GI corpses dragged through the streets; this fuels wariness in most policy-makers and a desire for revenge in some soldiers. President Mugabe has thumbed Secondly, the White House’s latest Executive Order freezing terrorist assets, on 7 November, named his nose at foreign critics and room for dialogue is shrinking. After several Somali individuals and firms. Many were branches of Al Barakaat, headed by a Dubai-based declaring one of his murdered war Somali, Ahmed Nur Ali Jimale, whose assets were also ordered frozen. It runs (among other things) veterans, Cain Nkala, a national banks, bureaux de change, telecommunications and trading. The closure of its exchange offices on four hero, Mugabe accused Britain of continents has left many ordinary Somali exiles with no means of sending money home. Some other conniving with the opposition MDC money-transfer offices with Islamist links are busy covering their tracks. to kill him. Foreign efforts to secure free elections are still not working. Another prominent Somali whose assets were frozen this month is Col. Hassan Dahir Aweys, well known for over a decade as active in the politics of the Habr Gidir clan and of Islamism. He is also well connected in Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; he is described as especially close WTO 7 to some Islamic charities. The third reason for Coalition interest concerns Ethiopia. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government No new order yet sees the ‘government’ in Mogadishu as largely Islamist and wants to get rid of it; Addis Ababa also Africa’s delegates went to the accuses Puntland of Islamist activity. Ethiopia’s special target is Somalia’s main Islamist organisation, World Trade Organsation talks at Al Itahaad al Islamiya (Islamic Union), which has long destabilised both Somalia and Ethiopia, Doha with a lengthy wish list. But especially in the Ogaden. Some Washington sources fear their own government depends too heavily on they won just two demands: that the intellectual property rules Ethiopia for its intelligence in the region. The USA already helps Ethiopia with training, logistics and should not stop poor countries growing political support. President Daniel arap Moi has complained that Kenya, neighbouring both getting cheap medicines and, states, would suffer from increased Ethiopian intervention in Somalia, with yet more refugees and a heavy secondly, that rich countries should impact on Kenyan Somalis. agree to cut subsidies that lock out The main potential foe in Somalia is Itahaad, long seen as close to Sudan’s ruling National Islamic poor countries’ farm exports. Front (a.k.a. National Congress). Its links to 1998’s US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania emerged in this year’s trials, along with links to the killing of GIs in 1993. President George W. Bush’s POINTERS 8 team ordered Itahaad’s assets frozen in September. However, an internal Congressional memorandum suggests that Itahaad may not have the regional reach implied by such a move and emphasises concern South Africa/Sudan, in Washington that it has not targeted US interests. Several officials fear that the USA may be dancing UK/Africa, Algeria & to an Ethiopian tune. This chimes with a seemingly growing sense among some US officials that an important phase in the Africa/Airlines defeat of Al Qaida is ending as the Taliban fade away in Afghanistan, so that the time has nearly come 23 November 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 23 to move on to other enemies of the USA (Iraq in particular) rather than The CCM refused the CUF’s demand for a re-run of last year’s concentrating on the nebulous Islamist International. This is just what elections but under the terms of the agreement the opposition party the Islamists want to hear. would get ambassadorial posts and jobs in various state institutions. Some officials also worry that the USA is playing into the hands of By-elections would be held in the 16 constituencies declared vacant the NIF in Sudan, a country as large as most of Western Europe. It after their CUF representatives were expelled from parliament for offers both hiding places and a fully fledged, compatible Islamist state boycotting its proceedings. There would be an independent enquiry, system, of which Usama was once an integral part, alongside Khartoum’s to be concluded by next April, on the riots. Talks about a coalition present rulers. After 11 September, the NIF cosied up to Washington, government were to start not later than June 2003, under a ten-person promising a flood of intelligence on Islamists. The Central Intelligence Joint Implementation and Monitoring Committee, whose powers are Agency has duly been deluged with files. We hear, though, that Africa not clear: it could be interpreted as reducing the CCM’s absolute veterans Robert Oakley and Charles Snyder returned disappointed power to rule under Zanzibar’s President, Sheikh Abeid Karume or from their recent trip to Khartoum. Sudan’s name has begun to else as a mere advisory body. After the signing, 109 criminal cases reappear in the media, with stories about its alleged chemical weapons related to January’s unrest were dropped, including a murder charge capability and tales of discoveries of Sudanese links in the piles of against Juma Duni Haji, Assistant Secretary General of the CUF. documents left behind by fleeing Islamists in Afghanistan. Amidst the euphoria, it was reported that legislation to set up the For the moment, neither Somalia nor Sudan look like direct US Joint Committee, drafted by the Zanzibar Attorney General, Iddi military targets. The NIF’s future may depend on what more the Pandu Hassan, was not consistent with some terms of the accord. The Coalition discovers of its Islamist activities, past and present. Somalia proposed legislation was alleged (in what may have been a leak) to say is likely to be the target of Ethiopian incursions turning into a US- that the agreement was between the political parties and that the backed (but not led) invasion. Yet it presents very few clear military Zanzibar Government had the right to examine the agreement if it felt targets. After Ethiopian attacks in the mid-1990s, Itahaad stopped the security of the state was at stake. The Attorney General seemed to lining up on the border and dispersed its forces. Ethiopian troops – let have omitted provisions allowing the Committee to question defence alone American ones – stick out like a sore thumb in a country like and security officials, to consider a coalition government and to hold Somalia. Some special operations will be tried, presumably including monthly discussions with Karume. Punishment for those who the murder of selected individuals. Yet giving Ethiopian forces a free ‘distorted’ the agreement was, apparently, also excluded. hand would fuel instability well beyond Somalia’s borders. African Promptly, at its national conference in Zanzibar on 14 November cooperation in the War against Terrorism is already strained by (more than 1,000 delegates were paid for, in the new spirit of amity, perceptions that the help is far too one-sided. by the government) Seif Hamad said the CUF would withdraw from the agreement if these changes were made. Later, the two parties met and agreed to restart their dialogue on the content of the bill.