They don’t call you the most dangerous place on Earth for nothing.

“The whole country has become a breeding ground for warlords, pirates, kidnappers, bomb makers, fanatical Islamist insurgents, freelance gunmen, and idle, angry youth with no education and way too many bullets,” wrote Jeffrey Gettleman in a breath-taking, thought-provoking article.

Somalia is a chaos that yesterday’s panel discussion at London’s Frontline Club was trying to make sense of. “Somalia on the brink – again”, less graphic and colourful than the (only?) film Black Hawk Down, brought together representatives of Somalia’s government, African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM), and AU/UN Information Support Team.

What’s the good news, Minister?

“No one would choose to start today from where we are, but we have to,” said Abdirahman Omar Osman, Minister of Information of TFG of Somalia. TFG, or Transitional Federal Government, is internationally recognized as the official government of Somalia.

Interestingly, the TFG has 34 ministries, the Ministry of Women Development & Family Care, the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife among them. It has international support (AMISOM for one, plus UN), and it claims to have its people’s support. With a task to bring peace to a completely torn place, they are called the biggest optimists in the world.

“What has your government achieved, Minister?” asked Angus Walker from ITN News who was chairing the discussion.

This and that. …established links with Somali diaspora… we’re trying… peace and security…

“The real achievement is the very survival of this government. You can laugh, but it’s true,” said Simon Haselock, project director of AU/UN Information Support Team. Try operating on a monthly budget of $1m or so in a chaos that is Somalia. The country has not had a stable, functioning government for 20 years, since the fall of the military dictator Siad Barre in 1991 and the civil war that followed.

One thing that is so striking is the complexity of it all: a deep dark hole in which it is so hard to really understand what is true and who is right in Somalia. Most importantly, how to solve this blood-red puzzle, which gets even worse when you think that the worst has already happened.

“It is extremely difficult to get information out of Somalia,” said Simon. “It’s voyeurism rather than much else.”

So the world is a voyeur, if it bothers to watch at all.

But at least we watched the World Cup in South Africa. Somalis were not given that entertainment. “The World Cup was considered to be improper by al-Shabaab, so people were banned from watching it,” Simon said. Not that this was new or surprising. In April, Somalia’s radio stations were told to stop playing music and jingles because an insurgent force decided music did not comply with Islamic principles. Only Radio Mogadishu, protected by African Union peacekeepers, and another UN-funded radio with HQ in Kenya resisted the ban. In an ironic response, one broadcaster aired a recording from a warzone as a jingle before the news.

A dialogue between Angus the chairperson and Abdirahman the Minister of Information:

-  Minister, is your government corrupt?

-  It depends on what you mean by corrupt…

(The audience laughed. Somalia is the world’s most corrupt state, according to Transparency International.)

Pirates, terrorists and refugees

Somalia has not one problem, but many.

Pirates. Could it be that they are a product of our own negligence, ignorance, and vice? The UN convoy for Somalia confirmed to Al-Jazeera that the UN has reliable information that “European and Asian companies are dumping toxic waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coastline.” With no government in place to stop them, this is quite easy: you arrive, dump your waste, and leave. Those who live there can suffer the consequences. Or how about pushing locals to starvation by stealing their food resources? “We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs,” wrote Johann Hari.

Terrorists. Al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgency group which controls parts of Somalia and its capital Mogadishu, said they had links to al-Qaida. The US, the UK, Canada and Australia all define it as a terrorist organisation. Killings, kidnappings, executions, torture are all daily life in Somalia.

Refugees. According to Refugees International, Somalia is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Almost half of the population, more than 3.6 million people, are dependent on external assistance. As of 2009, there were approximately 1.5 million internally displaced people in Somalia and over 500,000 Somali refugees in neighboring countries. It is one of the most dangerous places for humanitarian workers, which makes it extremely difficult to provide the aid needed. A leaked UN report earlier this year showed that up to half all the food aid aimed at starving Somalis is stolen, meaning the aid never even reaches those who need it most.

Failed state? A state?

Somalia might be fighting the forgotten war, but it is not a failed state, or at least its President doesn’t think it is.

In March, TFG’s President Sharif Ahmed published a letter called “Somalia is not a failed state”. In it, he argued that “there is nothing Somali about this violence”, that Somalis are committed to peace and that it is the extremists “waging war against our Somali flag”. He admitted the TFG cannot bring peace alone, and that it needs international help.

But readers were not convinced. Somewhat word-playing, one said: “Somalia is not a failed state. It is a failure, not even a state.” Some suggested letting Somalia fail completely, if it hadn’t already done so. Or allow all the regions which want to separate, separate.

However, panelists at the Frontline Club refused to admit failure.

“But seriously, is there hope for Somalia?”

“Yes!”

Apparently, the insurgents have been pushed back, and they’re more divided now, which makes the task for international forces easier. But they need more troops, and more money.

The truth is out there

Al-Shabaab’s criminal record is doubted by few, if any. The TFG says Al-Shabaab is their main enemy and once it’s defeated, Somalia will have a chance of a possible life.

But are the good guys really good? What about the allegations that the TFG itself is a criminal institution?

A Human Rights Watch report claimed exactly that: “[Our] own research has uncovered a pattern of violent abuses by TFG forces including widespread acts of murder, rape, looting, assault, arbitrary arrest and detention, and torture. Those responsible include police, military, and intelligence personnel as well as the personal militias of high-ranking TFG officials.”

“Al-Shabaab propaganda,” said the TFG Minister of Information. For the TFG, even one civilian casualty is too much, he continued. Al-Shabaab is using civilians as human shields, and that’s how they get killed, he explained.

And what about the New York Times report that the TFG recruits child soldiers to patrol its check-points? The accusations that the TFG is in such a critical position that it recruits whoever can carry a gun?

“Not true.”

The future?

So what does the future hold for Somalia? Is it going to be the Sphinx in the Horn of Africa? Or a never-ending human, environmental, political catastrophe? Who is to take responsibility? Is the international community doing the right thing? Is this place savable at all? Do we need more international intervention, or less? Is Somalia as it is now capable of making peace possible? Should it be left alone to deal with its problems? Should we just wait and see what happens? Can we afford to accept failure?

Oh my.

“Is the influence from outside only making matters worse?”

Maybe it is. Maybe it’s such a vicious circle that it cannot be broken without a total destruction. Consider this quote from an arms dealer in Somalia: “The Ethiopians are arming the Sufi militias; the Europeans and US are arming the government; the Eritreans are arming the Hizb; and the government officers sell us their weapons, and we sell it to al-Shabab.”

“Who benefits from all this chaos and violence?”

Possible answers: a) African Union (money and power), b) arms industry (money), c) Al-Shabaab (power), d) all of the above.

Whatever already happened in Somalia, cannot un-happen. Now, “The international community has to help Somalia make its own way,” said Simon. Asked if the TFG has a sustainable action plan in case the world doesn’t provide the money and troops to fight for peace, the Minister of Information said: “We will continue what we are doing now.”

What exactly that is, nobody knows. Probably a simple survival.

Photos: beautiful black&white taken in Mogadishu airport in 1992 by John Martinez Pavliga, aka Monica's Dad, fighters by ctsnow, all via flickr on CC.