Somali Truce Agreement Offers Lean Hope to Peace Process

While United Nations-sponsored peace talks between the Somali government and the opposition alliance based in Asmara has been concluded with an agreement to end the ongoing insurgency in the beleaguered Horn of Africa country, but it looks likely to offer only a lean hope to the prospects for peace.

The signs do not seem to be quite positive, with the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), a broad-based group covering both moderates and hard-line Islamists, being divided on the truce agreement, with Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is a member of ARS and believed to be a hardliner who has suspected links to Al-Qaeda, rejecting the peace agreement on Tuesday.

“It is sure that the talks in Djibouti ended in futility as there were no delegates representing the ARS. We saw no developments from those so called peace talks. Our Mujahidin will carry on attacks until we liberate our country from the Ethiopians. We will not recognize what they have said that they have achieved. We will in no way to support them; the Islamic struggle is our main ambition and the Somali people want wide-range conformity,” Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys told a Mogadishu-based Radio Shabelle from Asmara.

However, the Somali transitional federal government has called the deal a step forward and said it was planning to hold reconciliation talks with any opposing side that can stop the crises in Somalia, including Al-Shabaab, the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union, who the United States government in March added to its list of terrorist organizations.

“The government has its own strategy for the reconciliation process, to sit at the same table with all opposing sides to discuss about the solution to Somalia’s problems, and Al-Shabaab is among those. The government will always try to talk with any side in order to bring about peace. Whether we have a private deal or common deal, we have to discuss with them because they have a role in the country. It is compulsory to talk because we are all Somalis and it would be better to understand each either,” Abdi Hagi Gobdon, the government spokesman told APA by telephone.

The ordinary people of Somalia have some positive impressions about the peace deal, but many of them have been talking about it with scepticism. Since the agreement was signed on Monday, it was virtually the only topic of discussions in restaurants and other meeting places, including schools.

“Really, the new truce agreement will turn the blood-soaked capital Mogadishu into peaceful city if all the opposing sides stop any kind of violence against the Ethiopians and the government forces. It will also help if both the government soldiers and their Ethiopian allies confine themselves to their military camps, and to withdraw from all the civilian areas. Then those who fled their homes would return, and the agreement will become effective,” Dr. Ali Sheikh Abdi, a school principal, told APA.

Sheikh Abdi said the Somali people are exhausted from the ongoing violence and they are extremely happy to hear a peace agreement. “This is the only golden opportunity to break the political deadlock between the warring sides since the international community, with the help of the United Nations are now sincerely engaging to overcome Somalia’s chronic violent conflict,” he added.

Somalia had been plunged in anarchy after the overthrow of former president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, when warlords used their clan based militias to fall over the dictator then fought each other for power, leading to constant inter-clan war which left thousands killed and millions displaced.

By Hamsa Omar, APA correspondent in Mogadishu, Somalia

Source African Press Agency

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