Fatun Mohamed Hasan: Somalia's U.N. Delegate Without a Government

By Ian Williams

"Sometimes I become very ashamed to speak to people about what is happening in my country," says Fatun Mohamed Hasan, charge d'affaires of Somalia at the United Nations. Her situation as a woman representing an Arab League country is unusual. She has had the almost unique problem, however, of not having a foreign ministry to refer back to since the Somali government disintegrated. She was a counselor at the mission when the ambassador left.

"We are a member state so we have to keep the seat until there is an organized government," she explains. "We have to keep representing the whole Somali people, regardless of faction or clan."

Since there has been no money from Mogadishu since 1991, the mission is open only because some friendly Arab countries help with the telephone and utilities. Staff members rely on the traditional Somali extended family for subsistence.

Ms. Hasan stresses that having an woman in such a position is not an anomaly for Somalis. In fact, all of the remaining staff are women.

Not an Anomaly

"And I'm not the only female diplomat," she adds. "We had a Somali ambassador in Geneva and we had women in the higher levels of the government."

Her difficulties arise from representing a country that has not government. "I'm getting support both from the Somali community and the international community at the U.N.," she says. "They know how difficult our position is. I have written to give some background to the Security Council, and I attend meetings there.At the very least, we are struggling to keep the mission open."

The Somali diplomat comes from the former British Somaliland in the north, where some factions have declared independence. "We have five regions in the north, and only two regions declared secession," she explains.

Of all the nation-states in sub-Saharan Africa, Somalia, with one language, one people and one religion should have been the big success story in a continent of arbitrary colonial boundaries and patchwork ethnicities. Instead, the country has self-destructed.

"In Lebanon, they were fighting over religion," Ms Hasan says. "In other countries, they fight for ideologies. But here, we don't know why they are fighting. This was just a burst of emotion, after all these years of dictatorship. For 12 years, one clan monopolized power so there was such a hatred between the clans. This is a traditional society with traditional clans and families, so it is difficult to compare with other countries. It is a very complex society. There are four major clans and 26 or 27 sub-clans, and even in the north the sub-clans are fighting each other."

Many clans agree above all on one thing—they do not want Mogadishu to be the capital.

The one thing that united the country was distaste for the regime of Siad Barre. Outsiders make conventional and erroneous assumptions that the fighting in Mogadishu is for control of the national government. Fatun Hasan is at pains to explain that it is simply a squabble between sub-clans for control of the territory which happens once to have been the national capital. It involves no pretensions to national authority at all.

"Every clan, everybody, hated the institutions of government," she says. "That's why they refused to have anything to do with the institutions. In the past, everything was concentrated, if you wanted a passport, education, health care, you had to go to Mogadishu.

"Now many clans agree above all on one thing—they do not want Mogadishu to be the capital. When the fighting in Mogadishu started, they drove out everyone except their own clan members. But to much of the rest of the country, it is not so important.

"Each clan has its own place, its own territory. We are a nomad society, 75 percent of us. The factional leaders represent only the 25 percent in the towns. The traditional leaders represent the 75 percent majority. The fighting was caused by the faction leaders, but now everybody is involved, since once a clan is involved, its members join in."

A Proposed Solution

Her solution to the impasse is for a cease-fire to be followed by serious reconciliation of the factions and clans. "In my first letter to the Security Council I said that there is now communication of sorts between factions," she explains. "The U.N. at this stage is only involved in the humanitarian aspects, but maybe the next stage should be to bring together some people from each clan, in Djibouti or somewhere like that, for reconciliation.

"At that level, maybe the traditional leaders will come. But unless there is communication between the factions, then it means that each clan will be saying, 'I have to have my own place.'

"The most important people are the traditional clan leaders. For the last 20 years they didn't play any role, but at least now they can start. Among their people, they are the only ones who can control clan members. What will happen if you are a factional leader, and the traditional leaders take away all your supporters?"

She remembers wistfully the days when Somalis were proud of their newly won independence. "My father never allowed my brothers to leave Somalia, because he thought they should stay and help build the country."

She contrasts that with the gruesome present. "My grandfather died in Mogadishu, from malnutrition," she says. "Before that, he took my mother to the north, to Berbera, but then fighting broke out there as well."

Clearly still unable to believe the disasters that have overwhelmed her lightly populated country, Fatun Hasan concludes, matter of factly, "It is really unfortunate, because we are only one people in Somalia."

Ian Williams is a British journalist based at the United Nations