IRIN Webspecial: A Decent Burial

Part Five: Dilemmas of the reconciliation process

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More than 12 internationally hosted and sponsored reconciliation conferences for Somalis failed in the decade following the collapse of the Barre regime. But in August 2000, Djibouti-hosted Somali talks - based initially on clan representation and civil society groups, and including former politicians, faction leaders and military officers - resulted in the election of the Transitional National Government (TNG) and President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan.

Both the Somaliland and Puntland administrations boycotted the Djibouti peace talks, citing among other reasons the fact that "known war criminals" and members of Barre's regime were participating. The administrations pointed to the fact Abdiqassim himself was a former minister of interior under Barre, and that the parliament contained former military men who had been in command in northern territories, overseeing repressive counter-insurgency policies.

In an early response after his election, Abdiqassim said that almost all Somali political players had worked for the previous system at some time - including those now in the Somaliland and Puntland administrations.

Established in Mogadishu since October 2000, the TNG is still struggling to establish dialogue with the Somaliland and Puntland administrations, and opposing factional leaders in Mogadishu and the south. Many of the fundamental differences between the opposing groups concern issues of justice and abuses relating to the previous system, or the factional wars of the 1990s.

"The dilemma is that peace can probably only be achieved through the agreement of faction leaders, but their prominent participation in a transitional government would have serious human rights implications and cast doubt on ... the peace," Amnesty International said in 1995, in 'Somalia: Building human rights in the disintegrated state'. Like anywhere else in the world, there should be no question of implicitly condoning gross human rights abuses or accepting total impunity in Somalia, international human rights organisations have argued.

"How the abuses of the past 25 years are eventually dealt with in respect of former state officials and security officers and the subsequent faction leaders and their militias will need extensive discussion... among many sectors of Somali society," Amnesty said. It suggested various routes, including a "truth-telling forum", or embarking on formal judicial proceedings with evidence when an effective and impartial criminal justice system was established.

For those who oppose further investigations of past abuses at this stage, this is an important reason to wait. "Truth commissions and investigations into past abuses are usually carried out by established governments that have the mechanisms to deal with the fallout", a humanitarian worker, dealing first-hand with conflict resolution issues in Somalia, told IRIN.

With the TNG only precariously established in the capital, there are also questions over the ability to establish, at this stage, an effective and impartial criminal justice system. Similarly, justice systems designed specifically to address crimes against humanity and war crimes established by the independent administrations would also be considered inadequate and unrecognised. Taking the lid off the past is likely, furthermore, to be used for damaging political propaganda rather than reconciliation, warn some observers. "The greatest danger is that the issue of war crimes would be immediately politicised and used to further divisions and extremism," a senior UN source said.

There is also concern that the ability of forensic teams to pursue investigations in more secure regions may lead to assumptions in traumatised Somali communities that atrocities were being recognised "selectively" by the international community.

While there is rarely fundamental disagreement that atrocities against Somalis should be independently investigated by an impartial body, the debate now among humanitarian agencies hangs on when and how. One suggestion within UN political circles is to make it part of the peacebuilding mission recommended by the UN Security Council this year. The only way to properly investigate, said one UN source, would be to have mass graves investigated by an independent body, technically equipped, and with the authorisation of the Security Council. An alternative would be to do it through a peace and reconciliation commission, or for it to be taken up by an international tribunal, the source said.

Others warn, however, the longer it takes to address the issue of war crimes and human rights abuses, the more damage is done to reconciliation attempts. A researcher with the US-based Human Rights Watch organisation told IRIN that she believed it was essential to examine the evidence as soon as possible, and that such investigations were a vital component of the peace process. "Far from undermining the peace process, it is impossible for the peace process to go ahead properly until these issues have been properly investigated and the culture of impunity is halted", Binaifer Nowrojee of Human Rights Watch said.

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? 2001, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. All rights reserved.