Africa envoy, MP Pekka Haavisto, does not expect quick peace in Somalia

“Darfur war looks increasingly like a fight between Chad and Sudan”

Pekka Haavisto

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Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is not a familiar name to most Finns. On Saturday he was chosen as the new President of Somalia at the Kempinski Hotel in Djibouti, where many Somali politicians live in exile.
      Finnish MP Pekka Haavisto (Green) met Sharif the next day at a meeting of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital Addis Abeba.
      “A moderate Islamist, doesn’t speak English”, is how Haavisto describes the 42-year-old Sharif Ahmed, whom he has also met on previous occasions.
     
Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition Party) named Haavisto as his special envoy to Sudan and the Horn of Africa in January. The aim of the move was to raise Finland’s profile in mediating in the crises of Africa, and the competition for the rotating membership of the United Nations Security Council.
      Having an official status makes it easier for Haavisto to continue to maintain contact with the various sides of the crises in Sudan. The contacts were established when he was the EU’s special envoy in Sudan in 2005-2007, and later as the advisor to the UN’s special envoy.
      Haavisto became acquainted with the crisis in Somalia with the support of FinnChurchAid, the foreign aid organisation of the Finnish Lutheran Church.
     
Haavisto returned from a week-long trip to the area on Tuesday. He has an exceptional amount of knowledge of the details of the lengthy wars in the area.
      “The international community now fully supports Sheikh Sharif. But if half of the Parliament is in exile in Djibouti and half in Nairobi, the President in the Villa Somalia, and 80 per cent of the country under the control of others, Sheikh Sharif will not succeed, and peace will not come.”
      Villa Somalia is the official residence of the President in the capital Mogadishu. African peacekeepers manage to protect it, and a few other blocks in the capital, and not much else.
     
Haavisto does not believe that the peace process will move forward before all groups are involved in it. The most important group to have stayed out of the process is the so-called Asmara Group, which has a base in exile in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
      Contrary to other international players, Haavisto has held talks with the Asmara Group, visiting Asmara four times in the past year.
      “The group includes radical Islamists, but also secular Somalis, such as Somalia’s former ambassadors to the UN and London.”
     
“Western countries polarise certain conflicts by not wanting to talk to certain groups for ideological reasons. A mistake may have been made with the Asmara Group, as it has been seen as merely a tool of Eritrea.”
      As a special representative of the Foreign Minister, Haavisto plans to visit the Horn of Africa and Sudan every few months.
      In Sudan he will follow the crisis in Darfur especially closely. He says that Darfur is increasingly looking like a manifestation of tension between Chad and Sudan. "Chad and Sudan are engaged in an indirect war through rebels in each country."
     
The situation has escalated again in recent days. Sudan urged international peacekeepers to leave the city of Muhajeria before a bombardment. The UN refused to abandon civilians who were looking for protection.
      Muhajeria is controlled by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
      “It is now the most aggressive rebel group in Darfur, and the support that it gets from Chad is increasingly transparent”, says Haavisto, who has met with the JEM leadership several times.
     
Haavisto says that the plight of the civilian population in Darfur is worse now than it has been in a long time. Access by aid organisations to the civilians could become more difficult than before, if the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
      During the weekend, Haavisto also shook the hand of al-Bashir in Addis Abeba. For now, it seems, the Sudanese President is not afraid to venture out of his country.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  MP Pekka Haavisto named Foreign Minister´s Africa envoy (16.1.2009)
  Finnish MP Pekka Haavisto to hold talks with warring sides in Somalia conflict (18.11.2008)
  Haavisto: Afghan and Darfur operations do not rule each other out (10.8.2007)
  UN asks Finnish MP to go to Darfur (30.5.2007)

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