Rules differ among local governing groups
By Edmund Sanders
Los Angeles Times
Sunday, October 15, 2006
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advertisements MOGADISHU, Somalia - The public execution was set for 9 a.m., and thousands of men, women and children raced toward a sandy dune where the previous government killed its political enemies. A man accused of fatally shooting a Mogadishu businessman in a dispute over a cell phone two weeks earlier knelt and prayed in front of an eight-man firing squad, as impatient spectators whistled, hooted, stood on cars and scrambled up trees for a better view. The death sentence had been imposed swiftly by a local Islamic court. No attorney. No appeal. |
The first blast of gunfire didn't do the job, so an officer stepped forward and shot the accused in the head. Then the crowd broke through security lines and rushed toward the body, many yelling, "Allahu akbar," or "God is great."
Four months after they seized control of Somalia's capital, Islamists have won widespread praise for re-establishing order and stability in Mogadishu and surrounding areas following 15 years of anarchy.
On Saturday, the Islamic militia repulsed an attack by pro-government forces to recapture a vital seaport and took control of a sympathetic coastal town, The Associated Press reported, in further signs of the central administration's weakening grasp.
A militia loyal to the defense minister tried and failed to retake Kismayo, three weeks after losing Somalia's third-largest town to Islamic fighters who have seized the capital and most of the south. The Islamists continued to expand Saturday, with the symbolic takeover of Brava, a coastal town 125 miles southwest of the capital, and one of the small pockets in the south still outside their control.
The Islamists are by no means uniform in their application of justice. In Islamist-run southern Somalia these days, how you live, and sometimes whether you live, depends largely on where you live.
In one Mogadishu neighborhood, court officials banned cinemas and satellite television as immoral, and have punished criminals with public lashings and executions, such as the one last month.
Under a different court less than a mile away, pornographic films are shown at night and residents are free to watch CNN and Hollywood movies. Islamic leaders there have no stomach for public punishment, instead sentencing criminals to prison.
"They don't all have the same vision," said Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Hassan Ali, who was appointed by Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government but has struggled for authority under the Islamists. "They don't even know each other that well. Now they're trying to set an agenda and it's creating some culture shock."
After their surprising victory over warlords thought to have U.S. support in June, the Islamic Courts Union reopened the airport and seaport, dispatched uniformed security officers who won't take bribes, and reintroduced consumer protection laws, such as halting the import of spoiled food, which unscrupulous businessmen had been dumping in Somalia for years.
But a clash of ideologies has emerged between leaders of the Islamist union and nearly three dozen smaller, semiautonomous courts that function as local governments throughout southern Somalia. These clan-based courts, some of which have their own militias, sometimes pursue distinct and competing interpretations of Islamic law.
On big issues, such as opposition to bringing foreign peacekeepers to Somalia and strategies to reach a power-sharing agreement with the transitional government based in Baidoa, the Islamists show few signs of discord. Most also support, in theory, the installation of an Islamic-based government.
But as Somalis begin debating how to implement such a system, cracks are beginning to show.
In Jawhar, north of Mogadishu, the local court last month banned love songs and Western music on the radio, though such fare still plays in the capital.
In an interview at his modest home in Mogadishu, with laundry hung across the courtyard and children playing, Islamic Courts Union leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys insisted differences inside the movement were minor.
"There may be some division," he said. "But there is no challenge to the authority and administration of the court. Our ideology is one."
Aweys is head of the 91-person shura, a de facto parliament that includes representatives of factions and clans. He shares power with Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a former teacher who serves in a presidential function for the union.
Ahmed is thought to represent the moderate side of the courts, though he has rarely differed from the more hard-line Aweys in public.
Both men said the disputes were being magnified by outsiders, including the Bush administration and Ethiopian government, who Aweys said were plotting to "divide and conquer" the fledgling alliance.
Islamic leaders said they planned to disband the local courts and replace them with one body that would provide consistency throughout Islamist-controlled regions. But to avoid alienating either side, Islamic leaders have skirted thorny issues, such as cinema and radio closures, leaving lower courts free to continue issuing and enforcing religious rulings as long as they don't conflict with the council.
Aweys believes there is no room for compromise under Islam. When asked what sort of model he would use to govern Somalia, Aweys said he would turn back to the 7th century.
"Our model is to go back to the government during the life of the prophet Muhammad," he said.
To him, that includes amputating limbs of robbers, executing killers in public and stoning adulterers to death -- a far more conservative vision of Islam than has been practiced in Somalia.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Source: LA Times, Oct. 15, 2006