Jew World Order

“Somalia has suffered so much from warlords, pirates and terrorists,”
he said. “Our capital city was destroyed. So much blood has been shed.
The dreams of generations of our people have been destroyed.

“So when there was a chance to rebuild my country I knew I had to do it.
We can make this a decent place. I am a hard worker and I want this task.”
The outlook was grim indeed when he arrived in 2008, with the
al-Qaeda-backed militia Shabab, a kind of African Taliban, poised on the
verge of victory.

Since then African Union troops have pushed the Shabab out of the capital in a
grinding, bloody campaign, and with some kind of normality returning to
Mogadishu’s streets the crucial business of forming the first proper
government in 21 years can begin.

In mid-May there will be a series of crucial meetings of tribal leaders,
ex-warlords and clan power brokers, men who, if they can settle their own
differences will be the key to fixing the broken nation. It will be
Somalia’s moment of truth, and getting it to work will be a daunting test
for Mr Osman and the prime minister he serves, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

The stakes are high. For nearly thirty years every attempt to broker peace and
get Somalia back on the road to recovery has failed. If the power-brokers
cannot agree next month, their nation will be doomed to sink back into
bloodshed and misery – with dangerous implications for the West, and for
Britain in particular.

The weight of responsibility weighs heavily on Mr Osman, but despite
everything he is an incorrigible optimist. Some kind of normality is
returning to Mogadishu’s streets and markets, the diaspora is returning to
look for business opportunities, and the mood is genuinely hopeful. A sense
of momentum is building and instead of just thinking of survival, Somalis
are starting to believe they may have a future.

“The Somalis have had enough of war and warlordism, and they don’t want
the Shabab any more. At the beginning they did because they brought order,
but the Shabab treated the people harshly and didn’t allow them any freedom,”
Mr Osman said. He lists a series of small towns around Somalia which have
been “liberated” from Shabab control in the past six months, with
the help of soldiers from half a dozen African armies. The enemy have been
pushed into the scrub miles outside Mogadishu, although there are still
suicide bombings.

Food aid has arrived in large amounts from Muslim nations, easing the
semi-permanent famine which has ravaged Somalia for years. Being able to
feed the people has boosted the government’s fragile credibility.

“What we need now is more support from Western nations. We need to build
schools, clinics and police stations, so people can see the benefits of
peace. Then they will support the government,” he said.

“Even a pilot project would help, if we could point to one place and say,
see the benefits of peace.” Britain has taken a leading role, with a
budget of £60 million for aid this year. William Hague, the Foreign
Secretary, visited in February and Her Majesty’s first Ambassador to
Mogadishu for 21 years has been appointed.

The money is not being spent for purely altruistic reasons.

“A large number of young British-Somalis come here to fight jihad,”
Mr Osman said. “While that happens there is a danger of terrorist
attacks in Britain. With more resources, we can win the support of the
people and then wipe out the Shabab. The only way to do this is to have an
effective, popular government in Somalia.” There is an alternative,
argued for by many Western anti-terrorism experts; Special Forces raids and
drone attacks to pick off the most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives. In
Pakistan such a strategy has had a terrible human cost and rallied popular
support for al-Qaeda. It would mean abandoning Somalis to their fate – and
perhaps turn them to the Shabab.

But although the West has quietly committed itself to nation-building lite in
Somalia, so far little of the funding that was promised at the London
Conference on Somalia in February has arrived.

Mr Osman admits that the Transitional Government would soon collapse without
foreign support. In particular they rely on the African soldiers from Uganda
and other nations who have fought and died in Somalia. But the more
difficult task is persuading Somalis who have grown used to anarchy to
change their ways. “People had to adapt to warlordism. We are trying to
change their culture after 21 years, and there are lots of competing clans.
People here just haven’t seen the benefits of government yet.”

He does his best to get the message across. In Mogadishu, the former council
official patiently explains the lessons he learnt in Ealing to Somali
warlords, ruthless men who saw off the US military in 1991 and since then
survived years of internecine bloodletting.

“In London I was dealing with noise nuisance, neighbourhood disputes,
youth gangs, domestic violence, serious criminality,” he said. “It
meant getting people to resolve their differences and learn to live
together. Actually it was quite a lot like working here in Somalia.” Of
course, even the toughest criminal in Ealing didn’t have machine-guns or
rocket-launchers, or a private army of cut-throats to call on. But the
principle was the same.

Mr Osman toured the schools of West London explaining to pupils why they
should stay out of trouble, listened to the complaints of tenants on some
dreadful council estates, and did his best to improve the lives of people
who were often in despair.

It was painstaking and unglamorous, but it worked.

His proudest achievement was managing Golf Links, a rundown estate which
sounds like a mini-Mogadishu without the guns. By persuading the community
to work together, life got better for everybody.

Of course Somalia has problems that make the worst inner-city estate in
Britain look like a paradise. But Mr Osman believes that with patience,
foreign help and determination, a miracle can be worked.

“We cannot remake our nation in a year or two,” he said. “It
may take many years. But we can do it.”