Somalia's Islamists:
"...HERMAN COHEN, Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs: Well, when the government disappeared in 1991, there was anarchy, so local clans in Mogadishu essentially said, "We've got to do something to protect our security and give us some basis for public health and what have you."
So each clan formed their own Islamist court to provide justice and a little bit of security. And over the years, they've become stronger and stronger, because people felt, "This is all we have."
And, lately, they've formed a union and started to work against the warlords. And happily they've kicked most of the warlords out. That is a wonderful piece of news, that the...
MARGARET WARNER: Why is it a wonderful piece of news?
HERMAN COHEN: Because the warlords have caused tremendous hardship. They have roadblocks, shoot-outs, exactions. People were permanently insecure under the warlords, and it's very important to keep those warlords from coming back into Mogadishu....
ABDI SAMATAR: I think Herman Cohen is absolutely right. It's great news, not only for Somalis, but for the international community, that the warlords are out and hopefully will remain outside of the city and the country.
The reason why the Islamic courts and the population have been able to succeed in doing this is because there are three groups who are involved in this business: One is the Islamic court; the other is a huge number of very successful businesspeople who have tremendous amounts of weaponry; and, thirdly, there's a very widely distributed civil society movement.
It's these three groups who are holding the fort, so to speak. And the reason I think they have been successful in defeating the warlords is because the people of Mogadishu and Somalia have gotten sick and tired of the violence which has been visited on them, as Secretary Cohen earlier on. And finally they decided they had enough of this and, therefore, decided to go along with the Islamic people.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, could you explain, Professor, why the business community in Somalia is supporting the Islamists? That might seem to, you know, outside observers a contradiction.
ABDI SAMATAR: I would like to call these people Islamic practitioners, rather than Islamists. Islamists has the connotation that they are incredibly politicized and of the kind that you can expect from the Taliban's.
These folks, in my estimation, are far away from that and quite different. The reason why the businesspeople have decided to join forces with this is because the businesspeople have to protect their businesses and their property, and so they literally have to have their own security systems.
If there was a state and if there is peace in Mogadishu, then they wouldn't need all of that. And, secondly, they were also the victims of the warlords, in terms of prosecution, looting, and what have you.
The civil society groups have joined the Islamic courts in large measure because they are the ultimate victims of the war in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country, so you have a coalition of people spearheaded by the Islamic courts who are doing this at the moment.
Abdi Samatar
Abdi Samatar
University of Minnesota
What they want to do is create the conditions in which the Somali people, and particularly the people of Mogadishu and the Banadir region, could be able to have determination as to which way they want to go.
Should the world be worried?
MARGARET WARNER: So if all of this is the case, Secretary Cohen, then why is the U.S. government apparently -- though they've never confirmed that the U.S. has been supporting the warlords financially -- why is the U.S. so concerned about this Islamic group?
HERMAN COHEN: I think the U.S. government panicked. They saw Islamic group; they said, "Taliban is coming."
Also, there are friends in the region, like the Ethiopians, who probably are feeding false intelligence about terrorists being hidden and that sort of thing, because the Ethiopians are deadly afraid of Moslem control and also they have their own Moslem problem among the Oromo ethnic group in Ethiopia.
So they want to keep the Islamists out of power, and they will bring the U.S. into it, if they can.....
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