Warlord Country

By John Elson

The beleaguered residents of Mogadishu had brief cause for rejoicing last week. Under the gaze of TV cameras, Somalia's leading warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohammed and General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, jointly announced that the so- called green line dividing the capital into separate sectors under their respective control had been abolished. Thousands of men and women cheered as the two rivals promised that for the first time in more than a year, people were free to travel across the capital. "Today is a great day," declared Ali Mahdi, whose gangsters control the northern part of Mogadishu. "Starting from this minute, the green line is no more."

Alas for Somalis, that invisible line may yet prove to be as formidable and lasting as Beirut's infamous divide of the same name. Vandals and free-lance thugs celebrated the event in their own special way -- with looting and shooting afterward. Several vehicles attempting to cross the green line were stolen by marauding gunmen. Journalists and relief workers who ventured near the line were robbed and threatened by teenage gangsters brandishing automatic | weapons. "Whatever the two men say," observed an aide to Ali Mahdi, "the people of Mogadishu will not mix. There is too much hostility."

Hostility in Somalia is more than an emotion; it is virtually a way of life. Some details began to surface last week about one of the civil war's worst atrocities, which allegedly began shortly before U.S. Marines landed at Mogadishu. In the port city of Kismayu, 250 miles southwest of the capital, up to 200 leading members of the Harti clan, including religious leaders, businessmen and doctors, were reportedly dragged from their homes and shot during several nights of terror. The killing spree was said to have been ordered by Kismayu's de facto boss, the warlord Colonel Omar Jess, who belongs to the rival Ogadeni clan and is an ally of Aidid's. According to an American diplomat, Jess may have ordered the massacre to consolidate his control over the city before relief forces arrived in Kismayu.

The attempt by the warlords to dismantle Mogadishu's green line was intended to show the world that they can resolve their differences without outside intervention. Western observers believe a gradual reconciliation among Somalia's warring clans would be an essential prelude to the restoration of some form of responsible central authority. The commanders of the U.S.-led military force insist that their mission is limited to ensuring the delivery of food to hundreds of thousands of starving Somalis and that political reconciliation would be a serendipitous by-product. But the Kismayu reports and the green line thuggery point up the difficulty of creating even a semblance of order. With no government to speak of, even the most powerful warlords have limited influence over their satraps elsewhere and no hope at all of exercising control over free-lance bandits. As looting and extortion are reduced in areas under military protection, the warlords are losing their means of paying the gunmen -- and that only causes their authority to erode further.

The rising tension is forcing American commanders to tighten the rules on confiscating Somali weapons. Until now, the troops have seized arms displayed openly and with hostile intent. Now the U.S. military is promising to take a more aggressive role in ridding Somalia of the heavier weapons and the "technicals" -- gun-equipped pickup trucks -- that have terrified the populace for the past two years. "Heavy weapons will be removed voluntarily or, if necessary, by force," a senior U.S. official told Reuters. "From now on, we're going to be doing more enforcement." That will still leave untold numbers of small arms in the hands of Somalis, since the U.S. military has given no indication that it is about to order the wholesale disarmament of civilians or the warlords' armies.

It is the warlords' struggle for power that must be settled before peace can return to Somalia. Robert Oakley, the U.S. special envoy, believes Ali Mahdi and Aidid may actually turn out to be irrelevant to an eventual political solution. "Right now they are factors in the political landscape," he says. "But the Somalis don't like domination by a single political party. When people aren't fighting, they don't need military alliances." A former Somali journalist puts the issue in blunter terms: "The U.S. has to deal with these people to stabilize the environment in the short term. But when peace and democracy return to this country, they will be tried as war criminals. They are political bulldozers who killed thousands of people and destroyed national unity."

Ali Mahdi and Aidid, meanwhile, are trying to create new images of themselves as politicians and statesmen. Last week's green-line rally marked the first time since the two sides went to war more than a year ago that they have appeared together at a public gathering. Since the Marines landed, however, they have had several private meetings. Both grandly declared that the day of rule by rifle was over. "I believe only in democracy," said Ali Mahdi in an interview with TIME at his seaside villa in Mogadishu. "Every Somali has the right to be President. If left to myself, I would like to be a businessman once again. But if the Somali people wish me to continue, I will do my best to serve them."

All the rhetoric is suspect, however, since the warlords' rivalries simmer on. Ali Mahdi blames continuing violence along the green line on looters from Aidid's sector. He also charges Aidid with having started the civil war that has killed tens of thousands and left Mogadishu in ruins. Because Aidid is a military officer, Ali Mahdi argues, he should be disqualified as a possible future leader of the country. "We do not want another general in charge of Somalia," he says, referring to Mohammed Siad Barre, whose corrupt, quasi- Marxist regime was overthrown in January 1991 after Ali Mahdi, Aidid and others joined forces.

If not the warlords, who might eventually rule? Oakley believes that elders of Somalia's numberless clans and subclans as well as religious leaders should be brought into the process. As evidence that this can be done, he points to Baidoa, in the center of the famine belt and a town that had been under Aidid's thumb. U.S. officials have organized town meetings attended by as many as 300 clan elders, representatives of women's groups and Islamic mullahs. Over the objections of Aidid's representatives, leaders at the meetings agreed to remove technicals from the town and set up subcommittees to oversee security. "There is a popular demand that has been dormant for a long time," says Oakley. "We think that it is now ready to emerge."

As important as more democratic governance is the need for a method by which clans can settle grievances without reaching for rifles and hand grenades. This week in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the U.N. is sponsoring the first of a series of conferences designed to set up an interim Somalian government prior to holding elections within two years. Of necessity, the major warlords are among the invited delegates, although some are not happy about the meeting. "The outside world cannot dictate or force us to do anything," says Mohammed Awale, one of Aidid's deputies.

Many Somalis think poorly of the U.N. for what they consider to be mishandling of earlier relief and peacekeeping efforts and kowtowing to the warlords. So far, the U.S. stands tall, but Somalis expect that the Americans will not only help feed the hungry but also rebuild the economy and infrastructure -- and that Washington has so far refused to do.

With reporting by Andrew Purvis/Mogadishu