The Economist - UK (2022-06-04)

42 Middle East & Africa The Economist June 4th 2022

Foreign leaders have also rushed to sup-

port the new man. Kenya’s president is to

attend the inauguration—a sign that dip-

lomatic relations, so prickly under Far-

maajo that they were severed entirely for

several months, may be on the mend. “We

cannot afford any outside enemies,” Mr

Mohamud explains. Meanwhile America,

which in February took the unusual step of

banning visas for Somali officials who dis-

rupted the electoral process, says it will

send hundreds of troops back into Somalia

to help the government fight al-Shabab.

“[Mr Mohamud] is somebody we can work

with,” says an American official.

But he can expect a rough ride. Al-Sha-

bab, which was knocked back in his first

term, is resurgent and still controls much

of the countryside (see map). “Most of the

districts we liberated have been lost again,”

he laments. Though al-Shabab rejected the

election, it may well have hoped that Far-

maajo would win. On his watch it was

widely believed that the jihadists had infil-

trated state institutions, especially the se-

curity apparatus. “The previous govern-

ment had no plan to fight al-Shabab,” says

Mr Deni. The group has spread across the

country. Few places are safe from the jihad-

ists. To journey just a few hundred metres

down the road from the international

“green zone” by the airport to meet the

president, your correspondent had to be

accompanied by seven soldiers in a jeep

and a mounted machinegun.

Al-Shabab is well entrenched in the ter-

ritories it controls. Its people still extort

cash from businesses and conscript chil-

dren into their guerrilla units. They also

run courts and provide basic goods and

services. The new president says that al-

Shabab today collects more tax revenue

than the federal government does. Local

businessmen say the group mediates legal

disputes more cleanly and efficiently than

the official courts. “They’ve established a

state within a state,” says the president.

So does he have a coherent plan for

fighting them? “To defeat al-Shabab the

government must out-compete it on ser-

vice delivery,” argues Ahmed Abdullahi

Sheikh, a former commander of the Danab,

an American-trained fighting unit. Mr Mo-

hamud, a moderate Islamist with links to

the Muslim Brotherhood, also stresses ide-

ology. “Our vision is to take the Islamic

narrative from al-Shabab and show the

people that the state protects their faith.

This means waging a multi-front war.”

That may be a bit glib. A lasting solution

will probably also require negotiations

with al-Shabab. During his previous term

Mr Mohamud tried to win over defectors

with promises of an amnesty, mainly in

vain. Now he concedes that the battle will

end at the negotiating table—but not yet.

The last big offensive against al-Shabab

was in 2019. Mr Mohamud says he intends

to launch a new one, first to contain the

jihadists, then to push them back deeper

into the countryside. In theory talks could

then begin. In practice this could take

years. Al-Shabab has certainly proved re-

silient as well as ruthless.

Mr Mohamud’s previous term was a

mixed bag. His cabinet was fractious and

unstable. Corruption was especially ram-

pant. Like his successor he failed to organ-

ise a direct election on time, settling in-

stead for an indirect one whereby mem-

bers of parliament were elected by dele-

gates chosen by about 14,000 clan elders.

He too was indirectly elected. This time,

though, he comes armed with experience

and a reservoir of goodwill. He will need to

seize advantage of both. 

SOMALILAND

Jubaland

Mogadishu

ETHIOPIA

DJIBOUTIDJIBOUTI

SOMALIA

KENYA

INDIAN OCEAN

Gulf of Aden

*Claimed by Somaliland and Puntland

Disputed

area*

DJIBOUTI

ERITREA 200 km

Hargeisa

Kismayo

Bosaso

Government

Al-Shabab

Mixed, unclear

or local control

Local militias,

mostly pro-

government

Areas of control

May 2022

Source: Polgeonow.com

Pu

nt

la

nd

Congo, Rwanda and Uganda

Roads to hell

B

arely twomonths after the fanfare

that greeted the Democratic Republic of

Congo as the seventh member of the East

African Community (eac), making it a bloc

of 300m people stretching from the Indian

Ocean to the Atlantic, blood is being spilt

again in the troubled north-eastern corner

of that vast, mineral-rich but chaotic coun-

try. The club’s other members had high

hopes that, by pulling Congo’s economy

eastwards, an array of infrastructure deals

including roads and electric power lines

would boost trade and prosperity across

the region (see map on next page).

They also agreed to create a joint mili-

tary force to sweep away the dozens of

armed groups that impede such happy pro-

gress. But the latest burst of violence

shows how hard it will be to fashion the

eac into a coherent diplomatic and trading

power. Indeed, Congo’s membership may

exacerbate rivalries, especially involving

Rwanda and Uganda, within the club.

The latest ructions have been caused

mainly by a group of rebels known as the

m23, named after an earlier Congolese

peace deal signed on March 23rd 2009.

Largely dormant since their defeat in 2013,

they are on the move again from their hide-

outs in the volcanic mountains of Congo’s

North Kivu province which abuts Rwanda

and Uganda. On May 26th they attacked a

military base 40km (25 miles) from Goma,

north-eastern Congo’s commercial hub,

grabbed a swathe of territory and forced

thousands of terrified civilians to flee.

Congo’s government has blamed Rwan-

da for inciting the rebels, who are led by

ethnic Tutsis and whose previous insur-

rections relied on support from Rwanda,

whose strongman president, Paul Kagame,

is a fellow Tutsi. His people in turn accuse

Congo’s army of firing across the border

with Rwanda. Another blow-up between

Congo and its neighbour would renew hav-

oc in the region, which has suffered a stri-

ng of devastating conflicts in the past quar-

ter of a century.

Mr Kagame, who has led Rwanda since

overthrowing the government that com-

mitted the anti-Tutsi genocide of 1994, pre-

sents his tiny country as a peacekeeper.

Last year he deployed his army, one of the

most effective in the region, to the north of

Mozambique, to help quell a jihadist revolt

there. He resents competition for status

and influence, especially from his next-

door neighbour, Uganda, which in the past

has backed its own favoured Congolese re-

bel factions. The m23’s latest surge may

have been sparked by Mr Kagame’s anger at

a recent Ugandan military operation, at

Congo’s request, to attack the Allied Demo-

cratic Forces (adf), a Ugandan jihadist

group allied to Islamic State that has also

been lurking in north-eastern Congo. Last

year the adf carried out suicide-attacks in

Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

The Ugandan army has so far failed to

hunt down and nail its leaders, instead

NAIROBI

Congo wants to join East Africa. Men with guns object