Why are wrong numbers never busy? That’s about a similar question you might ask about Somalia where everything is on the downslide.
Events in the past two weeks have left political analysts baffled as to where a permanent solution lies.
Baffling is where the problem lies as it narrows down to the fight for power where the ordinary Somalian gets trampled on. The rope is being drawn between the government of President Sheik Sharrf Sheikh Ahmed and the radical al-Shabab movement whose code is backed up by al-Sharia Laws.
The scale so far is tipped on the side of al-Shabab and there seemed to be little chances that it would change shortly unless there is a consolidated approach by the African Union supported by Western powers for Somalia not to trip.
Cities and towns are fighting like packs of cards to the al-Shabab onslaught. And not only that, Laws have been imposed as a showcase that al-Shabab is in charge.
Arms, legs and other vital parts of mobile snatchers and part time thieves are being sliced off after hurriedly held trials. Heavily armed militias roam the range. The government is boxed in areas around the capital and few isolated spots forcing it as just a token authority.
What happened to the nearly 70 percent solidarity shown by heavyweight Somalians at the election of the present government in Nairobi?
The history of Somalia however remains a cat’s prowl.
After the overthrow of strongman President Siad Barre, most Somalians saw the promise of a better deal eclipsed into oblivion and hopes of an extended prosperity evaporated into nothing.
Somalians had accused Barre of running the country as his vineyard with diehard supporters milking the country’s wealth. Barre’s overthrow was aimed at polishing the face of Somalia, taking it out of the then Soviet or Communist orbit and reconnecting it to the West.
The out-of-box thinking without doubt has failed along the years, leaving the country up to now in the trails of poverty, famine, insecurity, lawlessness, and repeated setbacks in peace talks.
My Somalian colleague talks of wounds sustained by combatants in the almost daily fighting being held together with safety pins. Corpses whose fingers and toes are sticking out like mini-sausages.
Those not yet injured seemed only to be waiting for their turn to get hurt. It remains an appalling picture as they are gripped by a strange paralysis as to when they would be next. On a nightly basis, Somalians lie on their beds not our conventional meaning of bed though asking themselves questions they cannot answer.
That’s why many will tell you that the best trip they make every day is the kind where they could be home before mid-afternoon. Otherwise, they would be shooting ducks for the trigger itching gunmen, who shoot first and ask question later— if you survive.
People understandably keep fleeing the country; sooner the country’s Legislature will be without a quorum as more than half of the 550 Parliamentarians would be found in Djibouti, Kenya, the United States and elsewhere.
Nearly 400,000 refugees from Somalia are now in camps in Kenya. In such a tangled situation, the present government needs the prop up of the African Union which so far is absent. The presence of the African Union force in Somalia remains noticeable to the point where lawless gunmen randomly take pot shots at them as a practicing target.
Many nations that had gingerly promised to give troop support are now hesitant, forced by the current insecurity to re-think their commitment. Getting the two sides together in the Somalian conflict is like using fire to put out fire.
The current government however seems amenable to talks but the al-Shabab faction, political researchers say, want to sit at the dinner table, eat the food while the other side look on greedily.
The al-Shabab posture is that all foreign troops should leave Somalian soil. In the Somalian issue, there seemed to be no bone on which the puppy can shape its teeth. The certainty of it all however is that when the history of Somalia comes to be written, it will begin “many tears ago.”
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