The Egos in the Way of Somali Peace

The recent collapse of Somalia’s peace talks threatens to undo all the good that the world has accomplished in that Horn of Africa nation.

The roads have been opened. Relief supplies are now available where they are needed. The crops are growing. Public markets are thriving. However, the factional fighting is resuming, and this resurgent contest between warlords over who will govern Somalia threatens to plunge the nation back into anarchy. The intractability of the clan leaders could doom millions of innocent people to another round of civil war and crippling hunger.

A year ago, the international community responded to the famine and fighting, but no nation promised to stay forever. The window of opportunity is closing. U.N. peacekeepers remain, but their ranks will thin substantially when U.S. and other troops pull out in the coming months. Eventually, Somalis will be left again to their own devices without international aid or security. Unfortunately, the high stakes have not prompted most factional leaders to put aside either egos or arms in the interest of peace and stability.

The powerful Mohammed Farah Aidid initially refused to attend the informal peace talks. He finally went to the conference in Ethiopia after the United States bent over backward, supplying a jet and a military escort--all this for the man suspected of orchestrating the deaths of scores of U.S. and U.N. peacekeepers and whose followers dragged a murdered American pilot through the streets of Somalia’s capital.

Washington acted to keep the political process going, recognizing that no deal can be cut without Aidid. But instead of being similarly accommodating to his rivals, Aidid continues to grandstand. On Tuesday, he rejected formal talks that had been scheduled tentatively for next month and that held out the best hope for major progress before the United States’ March 31 withdrawal deadline.

The January peace conference had been expected to build on an agreement signed in Ethiopia last March by representatives of 15 Somali factions. That accord would allow the factional leaders to set up a federal-style Transitional National Council in which all of Somalia’s 18 regions would participate. That council would govern for two years and function as the nation’s central administration prior to national elections. But no government, democratically chosen or otherwise, can be established absent a dialogue.

What will it take to resolve Somalia’s ancient rivalries, exacerbated during the Cold War when first the Soviets and then the Americans pumped in sophisticated arms--tools of war that remain plentiful? What will it take to get beyond the bitter legacy of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre’s reign of terror and favoritism toward his own clan?

More talks are in order, as soon as possible. But talks will accomplish nothing until Somali leaders can find common ground.