Bishop cautions against foreign force

NAIROBI--The international community should not hurry to intervene in Somalia following the growing control of the country by the Union of Islamic Courts, a Catholic bishop cautioned. Bishop Giorgio Bertin OFM of Djibouti and Apostolic Administrator of Mogadishu said the best thing to do was to wait and see how the situation develops in the coming days. “Outside interventions can sometimes make things worse rather than better. It is enough to see what happened in recent months when support offered to the ephemeral War Lords’ alliance proved to be [the] ulterior incentive for the Islamic Courts,” the bishop told FIDES.

The Islamists - accused by the United States of having links with the al-Qaeda terror network - control much of southern Somalia. A weak UN-backed interim government headed by President Abdullahi Yusuf wants peacekeepers and a lifting of the weapons ban to rebuild security forces. President Yusuf only controls small parts of the country.

But Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has said there is no need for peacekeepers, saying his UIC have reunited the capital under their control after 15 years of anarchy and conflict. Somalia has been without a functional government since 1991.
“Somali society is extremely complex” Bishop Bertin explained. “It is very difficult to intervene from outside without upsetting things. It remains to be seen if the Islamic factor succeeds in overcoming traditional Somali clan traditions.”

Peace talks between the interim administration and the Islamists were planned for this week in Sudan. President Yusuf initially opposed the talks, but later changed his mind following pressure from the parliamentary speaker and diplomats meeting in Belgium under the auspices of the International Contact Group