Clan Uprising “to reverse Al-Shabaab courts’ rulings on property disputes”

Mogadishu (Commentary) — This week’s clan meetings and statements from Mogadishu political leaders point to the direction anti Al-Shabaab popular uprising is taking. General Hadole, former leader of Salvation Forces against the Federal Government, claimed that “we were more at peace with each other during the heyday of warlords than we are now” although he forgot that warlords’ US-funded ’anti-terrorism alliance brought Union of Islamic Courts into existence.

Abdikarim Guled, the former Galmudug President, said it was time to get rid of Al-Shabaab whereas the Mayor of Mogadishu urged Ma’wisley (volunteer paramilitaries) to finish off Al-shabaab in one year.

That the Federal Government of Somalia had organised a clan uprising against a religiously militant organisation amounts to an admission that the so-called Somali National Army had failed to fight Al-Shabaab. In Mogadishu some constituencies are pinning their hope on weakening Al-Shabaab “so they can illegally reclaim properties on which Al-Shabaab courts have ruled”, as an influential clan leader said yesterday.

The Federal Government of Somalia is (unwittingly) empowering 1990s-like warlordism amongst clans and subclans who have never reconciled their differences. At one meeting in Mogadishu some participants voiced concerns about the possibility of either Al-Shabaab infiltrating paramilitaries or clan paramilitaries amassing weapons that could rekindle sub clan hostilities. The large number of weapons falling into hands of paramilitaries of one clan is nothing short of a declaration of a civil war praised by Africom.It is a decision that will irreversibly
damage the legitimacy of the new Federal Government of Somalia.

Organised clan militias evolved into militant groups who had become disillusioned with post-1991 political leaders responsible for triggering man-made famines among other predicaments. The Federal Government of Somalia, whose corrupt judiciary is overshadowed by Al-shabaab’s courts, is urging people to lodge complaints with local courts about cases settled by Al-Shabaab courts. The paramilitaries’ uprising is unnecessarily granting Al-Shabaab a moral high ground.