SOMALIA - TFG APPREHENSION ABOUT UPCOMING IGAD

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NAIROBI 002380 SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/E AND A/S FRAZER E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/16/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI PTER SO SUBJECT: SOMALIA - TFG APPREHENSION ABOUT UPCOMING IGAD SUMMIT Classified By: Special Envoy John Yates. Reasons: 1.5 (b,d). Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) In an October 15 meeting, visiting Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Abdisalam Adan worried about Ethiopia's plans for the October 27 - 29 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Summit on Somalia. Adan reported that the TFG and transitional parliament were awash in rumors about the impending event, among them that the Ethiopian Government would seek to oust TFG President Yusuf. He confirmed that all 275 parliamentarians would come to Nairobi for the Summit, and hoped that, whatever occurred, it would further the Djibouti Process which, he said, Somalis continue to support. Abdisalam lamented the TFG's continued lack of institutional capacity and resources, and urged enhanced international community assistance while giving a considerably rosier glow to TFG "success" than most observers. He reported that al-Shabaab in Mogadishu was increasingly fragmented and on the defensive in the wake of its unpopular closure of Mogadishu's airport. Popular resentment of AMISOM remained high following several incidents that had produced civilian casualties, Abdisalam said. Needed in Mogadishu were jobs for the many unemployed youth who, otherwise, easily became guns for hire. End summary. IGAD Anxiety -------------- ¶2. (C) Visiting TFG Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Information, Youth and Sports Ahmed Abdisalam Adan told us October 15 that the TFG and its parliamentarians were worried about the Government of Ethiopia's (GOE) plans for the IGAD Summit on Somalia to be held in Nairobi October 27 - 29. The fact that all of the 275 transitional parliamentarians had been invited had fueled rumors that they would be asked to vote on something, perhaps the future of TFG President Yusuf or an extension of the TFG's Charter, or that the Summit would be used to announce the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) exit from Somalia. (Note: Many of the 25 parliamentarians who attended an October 6 - 9 National Democratic Institute-run workshop in Nairobi had expressed to us great frustration with Yusuf's presidency.) Abdisalam implied that the USG was aware of and had endorsed the GOE's plans for the IGAD event. He hoped that the IGAD meeting would, in the end, support the Djibouti process, although he did "not see the link" between the two tracks, and he thought that the international community was focused "too much on procedure" in its concentration on summit meetings like IGAD. Abdisalam, and others in the TFG, believed that the Ethiopians' lack of transparency meant at a minimum that "something fishy was going on." TFG Succeeding Under the Circumstances -------------- ¶3. (C) Abdisalam suggested that the TFG was doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Hampering it were lack of institutional capacity and resources. The key issue was security, and Abdisalam returned numerous times during the conversation to the need to employ Mogadishu's youth, who were otherwise guns for hire. ¶4. (C) Even absent resources, Abdisalam was somewhat optimistic about recent developments in Mogadishu, where he had been until October 10. He described increasing impatience with al-Shabaab and its allies since their closure of the capital's airport. The economic hardship the closure caused provoked "challenges" in the mosques. Improved behavior by ENDF troops and the TFG's militia had further isolated al-Shabaab, Abdisalam alleged. AMISOM Increasingly Unpopular -------------- ¶5. (C) Abdisalam said that although some condemned al-Shabaab's targeting of AMISOM troops from residential areas, AMISOM's lack of restraint in retaliating had badly damaged its reputation in Mogadishu. While all understood that the AU's troops were being provoked, their NAIROBI 00002380 002 OF 003 disproportionate response meant they were increasingly seen as enemies of Somalis. In Mogadishu, many have begun to see AMISOM and the ENDF in the same light, he said. Abdisalam alleged he had been active on behalf of the TFG in attempting to end the cycle of violence. He had met with AMISOM representatives, and urged restraint, and he had held a press conference, where he had spoken out against the closure of the airport and al-Shabaab's intimidation of CARE and the International Medical Corps. Thoughts on al-Shabaab -------------- ¶6. (C) Abdisalam thought that al-Shabaab had evolved into a very loosely connected network of cells, whose impact far exceeded its numbers. Its operatives moved quickly around the country, creating havoc. He likened their strategies to insurgent groups operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reducing their ability to hire mercenaries and interfering with the small number of key operatives could rapidly limit their influence, he thought. To that end, Abdisalam proposed that the international community provide a discretionary fund that the TFG could use to create an employment program for young people. ¶7. (C) Abdisalam also believed that al-Shabaab had to be aggressively challenged if progress were to be made. He noted that he and the Prime Minister had landed at Mogadishu airport after al-Shabaab had declared it closed. The TFG, Somali businessmen, and local clan elders had similarly set a date, in defiance of al-Shabaab, for the opening of the airport. Their determination had forced al-Shabaab concessions, Abdisalam believed. ¶8. (C) The ENDF and TFG's efforts to force disarmament in Mogadishu had been a "mistake," Abdisalam thought. Citizens who were not threats had either relinquished or hidden their weapons, but al-Shabaab and the city's criminal class had not been affected. The TFG hoped to institute a weapons registration procedure, and to license "security firms," as a way of correcting the problem. A registration procedure would, once implemented, allow humanitarian aid escorts to operate without interference. (Comment: The Somali owner of the trucking firm that suffered hijacking of a WFP shipment it was transporting asserted to us that guilty culprits were Union of Islamic Court militia; not TFG, warlords, ENDF, or al-Shabaab. End Comment). New Twist on Benadir Administration -------------- ¶9. (C) Abdisalam claimed that the negotiations over a Benadir Administration were going well. He described a complicated system that seemed to merge a clan-based delegate distribution system with a geographically-driven arrangement of the region's sixteen districts. Abdisalam claimed that the new system would offer representation to clan elements who have been opposed to the TFG in the past. However, it will not afford Mogadishu residents the opportunity to participate in a direct electoral process. (Note: Whatever the process, implementation of the August Addis agreement on this point is more than a month behind the stipulated 15-day deadline. End Note). Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Abdisalam, and TFG Ambassador to Kenya Mohamed Ali Nur, who was with him at the meeting, had no apparent strategy for the IGAD summit, and seemed to have made little effort to find out from the Ethiopians what it might mean for the TFG. Although Abdisalam made a strenuous effort to portray the TFG as active and relevant to recent developments in Mogadishu, many of the successes he claimed credit for --recent backtracking by al-Shabaab for example-- are more plausibly the work of Hawiye elders, popular dissatisfaction, and Mogadishu-based businessmen, in addition to miscalculations by al-Shabaab. Abdisalam frequently criticized President Yusuf, going so far to allege at one point that there were "two TFGs, just as there are two ARSs." He traced lack of TFG influence in Mogadishu to Yusuf's unwillingness to cooperate, and he said nothing during the meeting to suggest that the TFG was actively developing a NAIROBI 00002380 003 OF 003 strategy for the remaining twelve months of its mandate. The TFG's Council of Ministers had not met for months, Abdisalam noted, and given the controversy over the implementation of the Addis agreement, uncertain how many ministers constitute the current cabinet; none of which augurs well for the future. RANNEBERGER