Here is a transcript of an interview I did with the Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in London on 3 February 2013.
You are now in London as part of your ‘world
tour’. How are your international visits going?
The international
community has been with Somalia for more than 22 years but now this is a time
that Somalia is different. Ending the transition, permanent government, new
vision – this is what we have brought to the international community. I have
been in America, in Brussels and this is the third place in the West I have
been to.
I think I wouldn’t be wrong in saying you have
one of the most difficult jobs in the world, being president of Somalia. Would
you agree with that assessment?
Yes I do. Somalia is a
unique country. There is no other experience like that anywhere else in the
world, particularly in the post-conflict environment. I know that it is that
level of difficulty, and when I was standing for the election I was aware of
that, and that I had a challenge to face.
The morning after you had been elected, when
you woke up, and you realised you really were the president of this broken
country that hasn’t had an effective government for more than two decades, were
you scared? Did you feel ill? Were you excited?
Well, I was preparing
myself for this position for the past 22 years that I was in Somalia, because
of learning and knowing what is Somalia. Being a researcher, being a
peace-builder, being a civil society activist, being an academician and a
teacher in Somalia… And for the last two years I was actively involved in
politics, preparing myself to take the position, so I was not scared when I
became president. But I sensed the real challenge I was facing, and proof of
that was on the second day after I was elected, I was attacked by suicide
bombers. So I was aware of the seriousness of the matter. But even then I am
quite satisfied and quite confident that I can do it.
You have been president now for several months,
since September 2012. If you had to give yourself a mark out of ten about how
you are doing, what mark would you give yourself?
These past couple of
months have been preparatory. We have been working to prepare the ground. I
would give myself about 90 percent. 90 percent of the activities I have been
involved in have proven to be successful or promise to be successful soon.
And what’s the 10 percent that has been a
failure?
That 10 percent is the
time-consuming issue of building institutions, and that’s where we have been
lagging behind schedule for the past five months.
How can you really be called president of
Somalia when you as president and your government and security forces don’t control
even half of the country? You control Mogadishu and a few other areas. The rest
belongs to other people, so how can you rightfully have the title of president
of Somalia?
The case goes back to
the idea of the cup being half full or half empty. Somalia has been in a
situation whereby, in 12 years of transition, the government was controlling
Mogadishu only and sometimes even a very small strip of Mogadishu. This is a
time when the Somali government is getting out of Mogadishu and controlling a
number of districts and regions, that’s number one. Number two, I feel a
legitimate president of Somalia because I came out of a process whereby all
Somalis got together and agreed to move in that direction. We still have many
obstacles and many activities to do but my legitimacy is not questionable
because it was consensus based. It was not one man one vote but it was through
a consensual process, and I came out of that consensus. So far our movement at
building the Somali polity is still based on consensus and we are working on
that.
You are not afraid that some of the old guard,
the wily, experienced politicians of the past, who basically have their own
private armies, are going to come back to try to destroy you?
The matter is the
other way around. The Somali people have been in this situation and have
developed a lot of experience. A lot of lessons have been learned. The matter
is the society. These warlords and difficult people you are describing, they
were enjoying the support of the community, the local people. Now this is
something myself and my government are enjoying, getting popular support. It is
the people’s mindset that has changed now. We have had a sort of paradigm
shift. We are moving away from the old practices, old beliefs and old ways of
doing things, and this is what makes people believe we are pushing the country
in the right direction. Whoever gets the support of the ordinary citizens will
be the ultimate winner in Somalia. The warlords, Al Shabaab and others, they
somehow cheated the people. Now this is the time the people have tried many
different options and those options never delivered. This is a time that the
people are convinced that the only way out they have is to have a functioning
state in place, and that is what I am leading now.
What about Al Shabaab? They have left most of
their urban strongholds but they are still very much present in rural areas. Is
the best solution to talk to them or try to defeat them militarily?
To defeat the
militarily is absolutely very, very important, or to weaken them which is
already done. There are two different ways. The boys and the girls who have
joined Al Shabaab for different reasons, for different root causes are Somalis
citizens who deserve to get back. But the ideological core team who brought the
idea of Shabaab and the idea of extremism to Somalia, since they don’t have any
political agenda, I don’t see what we have to negotiate with them. There is no
political capital that we can have over them. This is an extremist group with
an ideological background. We will negotiate with the community elders, the
religious scholars and the civil society to attract and give space to those
young boys and girls who joined Shabaab for different reasons. But the core
team and the foreigners who have no political agenda. Any Shabaab member who
denounces violence and comes up with a political agenda, we can negotiate with
them and we can accommodate them. Those who are not criminals by their
activities of the past, it is very delicate. So far we don’t see any issues we
can negotiate with them. We cannot negotiate with Al Shabaab when they say the
country belongs to all Muslims, when they say that foreigners rule the country,
when they say they will use violence as a means to an end. These are very, very
difficult issues that we cannot negotiate. But if they denounce all these
issues and come back as Somalis, we can talk to them.
What will you do about the hardliners?
First of all, we have
nothing to do with the foreigners. They have to go. If they don’t go, the only
option we have is to create an environment or a situation that compels them to
go away. Those hard core Somalis, if they denounce their positions, then there
is a subject to discuss.
At the moment, Somalia has basically outsourced
its security to African Union forces, Ethiopian forces, some Western forces
helping. You’ve got foreign navies patrolling the seas to try to get rid of
pirates. Isn’t this a massive problem and an embarrassment for you, to have a
country whose security is dependent on foreigners?
First of all, when I
was coming to this position, when I was seeking the election to become
president of Somalia, I was aware of all this. It is there. Many of these
issues that you raised, the reason why these different forces are in Somalia is
that the Somali problem is not a Somali problem anymore. It’s a regional
problem. It’s a continental problem. It’s an international problem. But from
our perspective, what we want is to dismantle these interlinking issues and
problems that have been established in Somalia for all these long years, and we
want to make the challenges in Somalia a Somali problem that Somalis can
address. But this will take some time. We will go through a process. We are
here today to overtake those forces and control the destiny of Somalia.
How are you going to get the ownership back of
your own security?
One of the major
reasons we are in London today, and why we have been in Washington and
Brussels, is to get the support of the international community to have
well-organised, well-equipped, well-disciplined Somali security forces and
security institutions. That’s what we are going to build. Once we build that,
it will be very easy to take over.
In terms of the arms embargo that’s currently
in place, do you want that to be lifted?
Yes, we want to arms
embargo to be lifted, and we have requested the United Nations Security Council
to do that. We have told the friendly countries we met that we can’t build our
security forces if this arms embargo is in place.
And what was their response?
It has been very
positive so far. We are just waiting for the final response from the United
Nations Security Council.
I have heard some Somalis begin to say –
because I suppose the honeymoon period is slightly drawing to an end – that our
new president, our new government is very slow. Or sometimes they say it’s like
an NGO government. That you are people with good intentions but not politically
experienced enough to run this big mess that is Somalia. What’s your answer to
your critics?
There is no experience
to take for the Somali case. Nobody has ever been in a country or a situation
like Somalia so we are all learning, that’s number one. Number two is the
complexity of the problem in Somalia means that we can’t hurry or be very fast.
We have to be very careful. One simple mistake can take us back many, many
years. So we are cautious and we are taking the necessary steps. Somalia has
been without a functioning state for 22 years and we want to establish one now.
I don’t see any reason how anyone can expect miracles to happen in Somalia in
just five months.
You have had some problems with the port town
of Kismayo, which was I suppose taken over on your behalf by Kenyan forces
backed by Somali troops, but somehow ended up in the wrong hands. A group of
people, a clan perhaps. The first attempt your government made to visit the Kismayo,
they were not even allowed in. Isn’t Kismayo the latest in a problem of Somali
regions not wanting to have anything to do with you.
The case is not that
the Somali regions don’t want to have anything to do with us or with the
central government. The case is Al Shabaab was there for a long time and AMISOM
in collaboration with different Somali forces are there. The Somali government
forces are there and other forces are there of course. But negotiations are
going on. The Somali government has been visiting continuously in Kismayo. The issue
of Somalia and Somali security is not only a Somali issue. It is regional,
continental and international. What you are talking about now is only one small
example of how intricate and complex is the situation in Somalia. Soon the
prime minister will visit Kismayo. We are negotiating with different
stakeholders on the ground, including the local people, the elders, the civil
society. Soon a local administration will be established in Kismayo. I don’t
see any threat or any problem that Kismayo has that is different from so many
complex situations that exist in Somalia. Kismayo is no different from Galkayo,
Galmudug, Bay and Bakol, and Hiran. It all needs a lot of effort and a lot of
local negotiations, a lot of confidence building, and that’s what we are doing
now.
Isn’t that precisely the problem? That Somalia
is essentially balkanised. You have Somaliland which has declared independence
which it says its not negotiable, you have Puntland which is semi-autonomous,
all sorts of other regions. Aren’t you frightened that you’re going to end up
being the president of Mogadishu, with the rest of the country operating as
semi-independent states that don’t respect you?
I don’t deny that that
is the reality on the ground now. But one of the reasons I took office is that
the vision I have is to bring back all those bits and pieces and make one
unified Somalia. That’s the task we are going to undertake. It’s a reality as
you said. Some of those areas have been there for twenty years, some are
recent, some want to do the same right now, and we are working on them. We want
to organise those who are not organised well yet, and we want to negotiate with
the others, and those negotiations have started. They are at the early stage
but we have already established connections with different entities including
Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug, Ximan and Xeeb. We have already established
links with all of them, and negotiations are going on at different levels. It
is a matter of time before you see things changing on the ground.
Somaliland has said that its independence is
non-negotiable. Would you be prepared to let Somaliland go its own way and
become a completely separate country?
We respect the
self-determination of the people but Somalia became a united republic in 1960.
We have not yet agreed to separate from each other. We may have different views
on unity, but from our part, we have no hidden agenda. It is well known – it
was part of my campaign, it’s part of my principles, it’s still part of my
policies to see a united Somalia. But we don’t want that unity to come through
military coercion, through violence, through emotions or diplomatic pressures.
We want that unity to come through a dialogue, through understanding. There is
a lot of mistrust in place and resolving that mistrust is a long term issue.
Today we want to put in place tools and instruments to manage that mistrust, so
that in the long term that mistrust will go away. But for us, one of the six
pillar frameworks we established was to establish the unity of the country. We
are committed and we want to see a united Somalia. We will give it the time it
needs to get that goal achieved.
Somalia has been named the world’s most failed
state for the past five years in a row. Do you think it’s going to be the
world’s most failed state for a sixth year or will somewhere else take its
place?
Somalia has been given
different names, not only that one. It’s the one with the largest refugee camp,
that exports terrorism, the most corrupt, so all these adjectives are there.
But Somalia is a different place today, with a different hope, a different
leadership and our way forward, our agenda, our vision has been written down –
it is there in documents. For the first time in the recent history of Somalia,
our people have something to discuss, an agenda, a way forward. We are
expecting that another year, two years from now, what we have planned and put
in place, and have discussed with the Somali people and with the international
community is a different Somalia. We have a very clear picture of the type of
Somalia we want. It’s incremental and gradual, but we want to see a different
Somalia in 2015 and 2016.
