HARGEISA, SOMALILAND

It is eerie walking the streets of this wrecked city, once bigger and more prosperous than Mogadisho, eight hundred miles to the south. One recalls the of Charles Baquet, U.S. ambassador to neighboring Djibouti: "There is so much ordnance hidden away in the Horn of Africa, it's a wonder all Somalia hasn't broken off and sunk into the sea."

In the southern part of Somalia, U.S. troops are giving way to UN troops; here in the northern part, of which Hargeisa is the capital, no such troops were needed. The tribal chiefs of the former British protectorate of Somaliland had long ago beaten their spears and guns into plowshares, trading terror for talk since finally ousting the troops of Siad Barre's hated socialist dictatorship in 1991.

But Barre's forces did not leave quietly. Their retreat was preceded by a binge of looting, pillaging, and killing, virtually ignored by the rest of the world, that left Hargeisa and many other cities and towns in ruins and at least eighty thousand slaughtered.

Even today, fully half of the sparse traffic in Hargeisa consists of flat-bed trucks with a wide array of guns mounted on their backs: recoilless rifles, grenade launchers, 50-millimeter cannon, Korean War-era ack-ack batteries. These ungainly vehicles--called "technicals"--are manned by teenagers patrolling the streets in the name of law and order. Some reportedly impose "taxes" on the occasional commercant met along the way.

Hardly a home has emerged unscathed from years of war; streetlights, indeed electric lights of any sort, are virtually non-existent (there are perhaps twenty small generators in the city). Donkeys pull battered oil drums converted into water wagons that serve every dwelling and shop, as running water is equally non-existent. The central hospital has 300 beds for 450 in-patients.

And yet, every day a hundred or more citizens voluntarily return to Hargeisa and other northern towns from refugee camps in Ethiopia, fulfilling their dream to come home. They were joined on February 22 by Omer Arteh Ghalib and his wife, who ended a ten-year exile. [See "Somali Peace-lord," NR, Feb. 1.] The prime minister of the provisional government of the Republic of Somalia returned to his native Somaliland unannounced. But within an hour upwards of sixty thousand Hargeisans filled the streets and forced his convoy to inch through their massed, cheering bodies.

Although virtually everyone here remembers Arteh's career as educator, parliamentarian, and the country's most widely respected diplomat, there are those who are not completely comfortable with his long absence, and who feel he was too long an ally of Siad Barre. They neglect the fact that most Somali leaders collaborated with Barre in the early years, and they forget that Arteh spent six years in solitary confinement in a Barre prison.

Barre, from the southern Marehan tribe, had assumed the presidency of all Somalia in 1969, in a bloodless coup and with a unity pledge as his platform. Virtually all tribes were represented in the new government, and he assumed office with pledges of free enterprise and integration of all tribes and sections of the country.

Within five years he had swerved into the Soviet camp, reduced the parliament to a rubber stamp, and killed or imprisoned thousands of tribal elders, former government officials, and military and religious leaders. As the population resisted, Barre became more and more brutal, especially with Arteh's Issac tribe, which accounts for some 80 per cent of the north's population of 5.5 million.

But now Arteh has returned; and he finds his diplomatic skills sharply tested within the first two hours. Stopping at the Presidential Palace to pay his respects to regional Vice President Hassan Issa Chaman, Arteh and his small retinue are at first refused entry. After 15 minutes of delicate discussion, during which machine guns are leveled at his party by militiamen guarding the palace, they are grudgingly granted entry, to learn from the vice president that he had thought Arteh was attempting a coup.

Arteh breaks the embarrassed tension with a deep laugh and gently reminds Chaman that he has always preached peace and never more than now: "We have no time to be angry; we must concentrate all our energies on rebuilding the peace."

In the first days of his return, Omer Arteh acts swiftly and deliberately. On seeing the horrific state of the hospital, he sends his eldest son, Mohammed, out to scout for mattresses, and within hours one hundred have been found, purchased, and delivered.

To strident, nearly unanimous demands for independence from a hopelessly fractured Somalia, Arteh, who recognizes the increasingly nominal nature of his post as prime minister, keeps quiet, knowing that his people will not forget his long quest for some loose sort of confederation with the chaotic land to the east and south.

Hargeisa Mayor Omer Hamdullah Bobba, having battled the odds for two years and brought a semblance of rudimentary order to his city, is one of many who cannot control his bitterness: "We will never agree to stay with the south! It may take one hundred years, but we will eventually be free.

"Boutros-Ghali, all of Egypt, and the UN cannot convince us to stay in bed with with the likes of Farah Aidid and Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan [two of the south's notorious warlords]. We were wrong to give up our right to complete independence in 1960 when we gained independence from Great Britain. It was a mistake that cost us 100,000 lives. We cannot forget."

Later, a tired Arteh expresses empathy for his old friend the mayor. "He has every reason to be upset; I understand completely. I simply feel we should not even think about these issues, lest they distract us from the enormous duty of getting our people properly housed and cared for."

There is a Realpolitik instructing Arteh: no one has yet recognized the self-proclaimed independent Somaliland. Nevertheless, in the weeks since his return, his strategy seems to be succeeding: not just northern leaders, but more and more southerners are speaking out about the inevitability of Somalia's break-up.

Meanwhile, there is work to do. Arteh has formed a group of investors to establish a telecommunications service, and he is exploring different private-sector initiatives for banking, construction, farming, and so on.

The days in Hargeisa often seem to be going by slowly and painfully. The visitor is numbed by the destruction and suffering. But late in the evening, in a quiet so pervasive it can almost be heard, the peace of the place strikes home, in stark contrast to the uneasy truce in the south.

Given reasonable luck, and uncustomarily benign non-intervention by the UN's too forceful Boutros-Ghali, Arteh and his determined fellow Somalilanders can--and should--succeed in rebuilding their shattered land.

Mr. Alexander is a longtime observer of the Middle East.