The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

in the crossfire between government and AU forces and the religious
opposition groups.
Of all the warring groups including warlords, the religious opposition
groups felt that they were the legitimate force for bringing good governance
and justice to Somalia. Initially, the warlords who fought against
the military government felt that they were liberating the people of Somalia
from dictatorship and that they would restore democratic state institutions,
where the Somali people would be able to participate fully in
decision-making. The armed religious opposition groups such as Al Shabab
and Hisb-ul-Islam present themselves as the only legitimate groups
that can restore order and the rule of law through the adoption of Sharia
Law and the establishment of an Islamic state in war-torn Somalia. They
also see the TFG under the leadership of Sheikh Sharif as an illegitimate
state, and claim it is their duty to destroy it by all available means. The
presence of AU peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi, supported by
the international community and the UN, has enabled the TFG to establish
its presence and to operate from Mogadishu, and it has also encouraged
and increased the militarized violence there. Without the military
support of the AU backed by the international community, the TFG
would not be able to defend itself from the hostile armed opposition
groups.
However, the presence of the peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi
provides the armed opposition groups with the justification to use violence
as a means to achieve their political goals – to defeat the TFG and
drive these external forces out of Somalia regardless of the human cost.
The groups oppose international aid agencies, humanitarian and development
aid, and the international peacekeepers’ presence in Somalia.
Somali religious groups see humanitarian aid agencies as the institutions
that perpetuate the dependency of Somalis on food aid, rather than allowing
them to build their capacity to become self-reliant. They accuse
international aid agencies of enriching warlords who have destroyed the
country. Aid agencies are labelled by these armed groups as the actors
that impoverish the Somalis by making them rely on the hand-outs of
foreign entities rather than on their own strength. In their own areas, international
aid agencies are banned from operation, thus affecting the
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