By Jay Rey
News Staff Reporter
Unfortunately, this is no fairy tale.
Somalia may be the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Pirates roam the waters, kidnappers lie in wait and rebel militants rule much of the country. There's recurring drought, more than a third of the population relies on food aid and infant mortality is among the highest in the world.
What's worse, the country has become a breeding ground for terrorists, making the future of this nation on the Horn of Africa an international dilemma.
And there, tasked with the Herculean job of stabilizing the most unstable of countries, is a guy from Buffalo -- a University at Buffalo graduate, a father of four from Grand Island, a state Department of Transportation employee with an office on Main Street.
"It's not easy," said Mohamed, 48. "There has not been an effective government for 20 years, and you're fighting against a highly effective al-Qaida regime without Western support. It's very, very difficult."
Mohamed spoke briefly with The Buffalo News by phone from the Somali capital of Mogadishu, where he has been since October, when this relative unknown took Somalia by surprise and was appointed prime minister.
His sudden, improbable rise began in September.
Mohamed, a Somali native who resettled in Buffalo more than 20 years ago, traveled to New York City, where he managed to speak with Somalia's president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who was giving a speech at the United Nations.
"When the president came to New York, I visited him to give him some ideas and suggestions about how the Somali community can be helpful to the government and their homeland," Mohamed said.
"At the time, he was looking for candidates for prime minister. I gave him some suggestions, also my background and experience working for the government of Somalia in the past, and he thought I might be a candidate," Mohamed said. "He asked me to submit my resume. I was shocked."
He has called on a friend from Amherst to help.
Mohamed recently appointed an 18-member cabinet, which included Abdiweli M. Ali, of Amherst.
Ali, a fellow Somali, Harvard graduate and an associate professor of economics at Niagara University since 2003, will serve as Somalia's minister of planning and international cooperation.
"I know he's very capable and highly respected," Mohamed said. "We need someone who can do some economic forecasting and planning. I thought he'd be very good at that."
Mohamed spoke mostly about the problems facing Somalia, and what he wants to do as prime minister, a position that lasts only until August.
"My first priority is to provide law and order, and to bring peace and stability to Somalia," Mohamed said. "The second thing is to create an effective government without any corruption. There's a lot of corruption."
It's an overwhelming job, and way too big for someone who has lived outside Somalia nearly half his life and has no experience in international politics, said one foreign policy analyst. For the sake of Somalia, and international order, one hopes Mohamed can accomplish more than his "hapless predecessors" did in the 15 interim Somali regimes since 1991, wrote J. Peter Pham, a professor at James Madison University.
But don't count on it.
"In statecraft, it is generally not prudent to count on miracles happening," wrote Pham, vice president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York City. "Given the enormous challenges the new prime minister faces -- to say nothing about his rather flawed record to date -- a backup plan is definitely called for."
Struggling for support
The country of 9 million people is roughly the size of Texas, and has not had a central government since 1991, when the president was overthrown and much of this coastal nation along the Indian Ocean was thrust into lawlessness and warfare.
A U.N.-backed transitional government was set up, but is generally seen as weak, corrupt and headed by ineffective leaders who have failed time and again to reconcile a nation divided by clans.
"The root cause is always the same," said Hodan Isse, a Somali native and finance professor at the University at Buffalo. "Each government that was established, they mostly thought about their own self-interest, empowering their own clans and getting themselves rich."
In reality, the fragile transitional government -- guarded by several-thousand African peacekeepers -- controls only a small portion of the southern capital, and fights for survival against an Islamic insurgent movement.
The al-Qaida-connected Al-Shabaab dominates much of central and southern Somalia.
"They are free to move around, because they are in control," Mohamed said. "My government is serious about destroying this group, but I don't think we can do it without the resources."
In that sense, Mohamed said, Somalia is not unlike Afghanistan, but the country struggles to get more financial support from abroad.
"The only way you can get a job is to join the army," Mohamed said, "and if we don't have the resources to pay a decent salary, they will join Al-Shabaab."
Can he handle his new role?
Mohamed remains positive, as he tries to build an army and build morale.
"Everything I do here is a success," Mohamed said, "because there's nothing as far as government institutions."
'A very good guy'
Mohamed has a knack for positioning himself, beginning as a young man working in the office of the Somali Embassy in Washington during the late 1980s.
His country's political upheaval prevented him from returning home, and he sought asylum in the United States, where he eventually earned citizenship.
He resettled in Buffalo, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from UB in 1993, and worked his way into local political circles.
He served as a commissioner for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, then was a case manager for City Hall's lead-abatement program under the Masiello administration. Mohamed worked on Joel Giambra's Erie County executive campaign, and in 2000 landed a job as minority business coordinator in county government.
"He was a good listener, he had good leadership skills and he understood American politics," Giambra said. "He had a desire to be helpful to the people from his homeland that were here, and he became their advocate."
Mohamed became a leader in the Somali and refugee communities in Buffalo.
"He's a very good guy, very honest," said Mohamed Haji, 26, of Hamburg.
"He's soft-spoken," said Hassan Farah, 24, of Buffalo, "but he's very persuasive."
A civil rights manager with the DOT since 2002, Mohamed earned a master's in American Studies from UB last year and had aspirations of one day seeking state office, said his younger brother, Hassan.
But Mohamed always kept one eye on his homeland, where he still had ties to officials and his clan in the south.
"He was very reluctant to go, but he finally decided," Hassan Mohamed said. "I'm very proud of him, and I hope he helps Somalia, because Somalia has been suffering for a very long time."
The situation is dangerous and volatile.
Is he scared?
"No," Mohamed said. "If I was scared, I wouldn't be here."
A community victory
Mohamed has brought pride to the local Somali community, which has grown by the hundreds in recent years as more refugees are resettled in upstate cities like Buffalo.
Somalis recently celebrated their homeland's new prime minister in an Amherst banquet hall.
"It's like a victory party," Haji said. "It's the same way I felt about Barack Obama being elected president."
Mohamed's success will ultimately depend on whether he can win the confidence of the Somali people and work with the 500-plus members of parliament, Isse said.
But so far, she likes what she sees from her friend, Mohamed.
He has included Somali women in the dialogue, spoke out against child soldiering and reduced the size of his cabinet from 42 to 18, she said.
And she liked his choice of cabinet members: her husband is Ali, the cabinet member from Niagara.
Friends also point to the recent release of a British husband and wife, who were captured by Somali pirates.
"I don't know the details," said Warren Whitlock, Mohamed's boss at the DOT, "but I would have to believe Mohamed played a significant role in the release of that British couple."
Mohamed misses his wife, Zeinab, and four children, ages 8 to 19, who have remained behind in Western New York.
So why go back? Why take the job?
How could he not, Mohamed said.
"When I hear piracy, when I hear children dying, when I hear starvation, when I hear al-Qaida functioning there, all of these things bother me," Mohamed said. "I thought that I had some responsibility to come back here and contribute."
jrey@buffnews.com
Source: Buffalonews.com
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