As reasons for their success and you can see the success for peace afterwards, many TFG troops including the spokesman of the TFG army in Gedo Mohamud Sayid Addan have said the locals got tired of the oppressive rule of Shabab and wanted the ability to move on with life being open to the outside world. I have interpreted that to be the locals wanted access to foreign investment and support which was denied to them by the Shabab group. So economic incentive became a foundation for conflict resolution. The locals are more likely to accept the rule of law, as they have shown, and less likely to entertain conflict or support Al Shabaab's attempt to use them.
Another example, Exhibit #2, is another small scale investment that was laid when Al Shabab and the TFG were still fighting in Gedo Region, and that investment not only became an incentive for the locals to turn against Al Shabab's isolationist extremist authority but also helped maneuver the Gedo Region relatively stable across the recent drought lessening the likelihood of famine:
Some of what you said is right, but so is what Union and I have said which is peace is co-dependent on economic incentive and tackling disparities. In many instances, rather than peace leading to economic security, it is economic and social empowerment that leads to peace in conflict prone locations and keeps the peace for that matter.A harsh drought swept the Horn of Africa this year, turning several southern Somali regions into famine zones where thousands are reported to have died, but the small farming region separated from Ethiopia by the river Dawa was spared.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) started a project last year to clear nine hectares of land -- extremely fertile, but abandoned to the wild since 1964, when Somalia and Ethiopia fought over their common border.
Now a pump gushes out water from the river, irrigating tomato plants, beans, watermelons and onions -- just a few miles from a camp for displaced people, forced to flee from the country's famine-struck regions.
"We could have died if the aid had not been given," said Hassan Arab Barre, the village chief, adding that while before the project "life was not good," he can now sell surplus crops in the local market.
"We have harvested for the past two seasons because we had a water pump but before we were not able to do so," Barre added. "The whole area was a forest but we have been digging, and now it is a farm with a good harvest."
Nor is this the only programme here: 244 similar farming projects in the southern Gedo region have been launched, benefiting 4,400 families.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 2a7426.3c1
We certainly see that in the Gedo Region and if one can see how that investment has contributed to peace in the region, one can only imagine what more investment will yield now that some form of peace has been garnered for what is arguably one of Somalia's most civil war impacted regions in the far south. The possibilities are endless.
