The Somali tragedy continues being played on the open stage of the Horn of Africa without an interlude. Of late, only the dramatis personae have changed: exeunt Abdullahi Yusuf, Nur Adde, et al; enter Sheikh Sharief, Omer Abdurashid, et al.  The new cast of actors are supposed to work under the label of “Transitional Federal Government” but prefer to call themselves a “Government of National Unity” – an empty claim that bears no relation to the reality on the ground and is devoid of any legitimacy derived from the inflated parliament, much less the ‘National’ Reconciliation Conference held in Djibouti early this year.The organizers of that conference, haughtily overconfident, dismissed outright some important players and ignored the administrations in Hargeisa and Garowe. 

Abdullahi Yusuf	Shiek Sharief

Foreign hands were as ubiquitous as ever, and none was so ubiquitous as the hand of Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Somalia, and a previous protégé of Boutros-Ghali who called him an ‘eel’ in his memoirs, Unvanquished, and whose aide called Ould Abdallah (as related by Boutros-Ghali in the same memoirs)
a ‘despicable turncoat’.  The Somali people together with their politicians, warlords, TFGs and spectators of their drama have long lost confidence in and respect for the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS).  They consider it a place where the considerable monitory assistance earmarked for building peace and advancing reconciliation in Somalia is mismanaged and misappropriated on a scale hitherto unseen; and where every effort – including bribery and corruption – is employed to thwart honest efforts in order to prolong the life of the goose that lays the golden egg on a regular basis.  In fact, neither the UNDP office for Somalia nor UNPOS (both of which are based in Nairobi) has been spared the execration of enlightened Somalis. 

Ordinarily, Somalis have a soft spot for their co-religionists and had therefore high hopes at the outset that their brother, Ould Abdallah, would change the old ways and embark on a dynamic, fruitful course in order to push the peace process forward relentlessly and without fear or favor.  His long diplomatic practice and his experience in similar situations in Burundi, the UN Office for West Africa and as a ‘Special Envoy’ to the Sudan on Darfur also suggested that he would apply

some tested skills to the gnawing problems staring him in the face. 

His job, before all else, was to gain the trust of all parties and establish himself as a neutral, impartial arbiter; his method should have been the use of the force of persuasion; and his influence should have emanated from the force of his example.  To do all this, a certain degree of detachment was required of him – not too close to anyone and not too distant from anyone.  He was required to put himself far above the petty quarrels of his daily interlocutors on the Somali side, but far below the dizzy height of his exalted bureaucratic level.  It is a difficult balance to maintain, given the intensity of interaction and the human capacity to love and loathe.

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Ismail Ali Ismail
Email: geeldoonia@gmail.com

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