War and Peace in Somalia

Somalia has struggled since a civil war in 1991 to re-establish its central government. More than two years ago a transitional leadership was formed in exile but the closest thing to an actual government was the Islamic Courts Union, which took control over the capital, Mogadishu, and much of southern Somalia. The Islamists eventually were ousted in fighting with Ethiopian troops who had intervened in the country. Yet Muslim insurgents have been attacking those troops and Ugandan soldiers stationed in Mogadishu as part of the African Union's peacekeeping mission. In short, the violence that has wracked Somalia since 1991 continues and there is still no effective central authority to provide law and order or basic services to the population. Yet in a small, almost forgotten corner of Somalia, in 1993, there was an unusual place where United Nations forces in the country at that time were not deployed and where clan struggles had subsided. It was a place called Lugh, and it was controlled by Muslim fundamentalists. I traveled there in October, 1993, and reported Lugh's Islamic leaders just wanted to be left alone to run things in peace, according to their religious beliefs --- something they appeared to be finding increasingly hard to do.

Sheikh Mahmoud Ahmed does not like fugitive Somali faction leader Mohammed Farah Aideed, and he does not like the United Nations military operation in Somalia, either. The Sheikh's Islamic militia drove General Aideed's forces from the Lugh area over a year ago. His aides threaten to resist any attempt by UN soldiers to move in.

So far, dispatching troops to Lugh is something the UN has shown little inclination of doing -- and that has left Sheikh Mahmoud and his group of Muslim fundamentalists known as "the Islamic Association" in effective control of this small district in southwestern Somalia's Gedo region, near the country's borders with Kenya and Ethiopia.

As a result, the Sheikh, who is called the regional commissioner, and his several hundred close followers who control the local administrative machinery and the police, have been able do things their way -- imposing Islamic rules of behavior, such as banning alcohol, tobacco and khat, the mildly narcotic leaf widely chewed by Somalis.

In return, the Association has guaranteed security in the area, in part by imposing a strict ban on the possession of firearms and explosives, leaving the only weapons in the hands of the police. Although there are occasional crime problems like looting, foreign relief workers in Lugh say there have been remarkably few incidents compared to other parts of Somalia. And they credit the Islamic leadership for working with UN authorities deployed in neighboring districts when such cooperation is needed to apprehend fleeing bandits.

The restoration of peace in Lugh has enabled thousands of Somalis who fled into neighboring Kenya to return to their homes, many of them to resume farming in this fertile stretch of land along the banks of the Juba river.

The population of the town of Lugh, which had fallen to just two to three thousand a year ago, has since surged to more than 25-thousand, with more than 100-thousand people now estimated to be living in the entire district.

That sudden population growth has generated problems which clearly have Lugh's Islamic leaders worried. They say their main concern is that there is not enough food to feed all the returnees. Moreover, they say there are not enough jobs available even to offer the returnees a chance of earning a living. They want the United Nations and other relief agencies working in the area to provide more assistance.

Foreign relief workers suggest the local leaders' complaints about the burden posed by returnees may in fact have their roots elsewhere. These aid workers report there are increasing signs of resistance among the new arrivals to the Islamic rules -- especially to the ban on khat and cigarettes.

They say one man was shot and wounded not long ago in a confrontation with police over his continued use of khat. And they report cigarettes can still be found, sold clandestinely on the black market.

But overall, relief workers and residents alike credit Sheikh Mahmoud with trying to defuse most problems arising from the imposition of Islamic law peacefully and through a policy of gradualism. First-time violators of the ban on cigarettes, for example, receive a warning and have their cigarettes confiscated. Second time violators spend a day in jail; third time violators three days. There have been no fourth-time violators.

The Sheikh and his followers take pride in what they have accomplished in Lugh. The central marketplace is full of food and other goods, schools are operating, war-damaged buildings and other facilities like irrigation pumps and bridges have been repaired, the people are receiving medical care. They say members of different clans and former supporters of various factions are living together peacefully.

They believe their Islamic way of doing things could be a model for all of Somalia. But for the moment, their main concern is preserving the way of life in Lugh from outside interference.