Somalia: Who are the real terrorists?
June 22nd, 2006When a people have suffered for a long time under a dictatorship the tendency is to declare that nothing could be worse than what they were experiencing. Lived experience does teach a different lesson. No matter how bad the situation is it could always be worse. But the opposite is also true. No matter how good it is it can always be better.
Who would have thought that the jubilations at the exit of Somalia’s long term dictator, Mohammed Siad Barre, in 1991 would quickly turn into a prolonged nightmare for his compatriots who have not known peace or even enjoyed the protection of a legitimate government since then. Siad Barre lies reburied in Mogadishu after his body was returned from Nigeria where his life ended peacefully after being given a ‘safe haven’ by the Nigerian government. The country he led with ‘iron fists’ and ‘velvet tongue’ for more than two decades is wasted and wasting between different pretenders to Barre’s crown, who are all warlords well-equipped to destroy states but possess no skills for building a nation.
Somalia also tragically epitomises a number of contradictions for those of us who proclaim ‘African solutions to African problems’ and Pan Africanism, rightly eschewing external meddling by imperialist powers in African affairs but sometimes ambiguous about the sub imperialist meddling of fellow African states. One, is our loyalty to a state or to peoples? The state of Somalia has collapsed and probably may never be one state again, but somehow the international system has kept it existing because it remains the unit of discussion whether at the AU or UN. Somali peoples, like all victims of colonialism, are divided among many countries: Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti in addition to Somalia itself. In Somalia itself the south is claiming to be Somaliland while Puntland is also claiming to be independent of both Somalia and Djibouti. Though the Somali state has collapsed the Somali people continue to exist.
Two, it is not about fixing the Somali state but actually looking at it beyond the colonial borders and finding a regional solution to it. It points to federal and con-federal arrangements of the East and Horn of African states. But this logical political conclusion challenges the basis of all our states. That is why even the laudable work of the IGAD states backed by the AU and supported by genuine friends of Africa internationally is falling short of achieving peace and stability in Somalia and the region. They are looking at it as a Somali problem (and a hard dose of prejudice of them being ‘difficult’ Muslims prone to clan violence) instead of being a Pan African problem.
If we respond to it boldly it will not be limited to Somalis. It will address the historical problems of being part of but not belonging, of many arbitrarily nationalities across this continent: Banyarwanda, Banyamulenge, Bafumbira, Ewes, Ja luos, Ba samia, Hausa, Yoruba, Tswana, Basuto, Tigre, to mention just a few. But it will also change the map of Africa. It is the lack of political will to face the inevitable that is making our leaders engage in half-measures that often give disproportionate influence to war lords at our negotiating tables. IGAD states did a great job in patiently facilitating and negotiating for peace in Somalia, leading to the formation of the transitional government two years ago. However the reality now is that that government has been overtaken by major political developments. To insist on it and deal with it as though it is a normal government risks making not just the TFG but also the IGADD and the AU irrelevant in resolving the Somali issue.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, though the TFG is the result of tortuous and complex negotiations that seemed all-inclusive, the warlords had more power and influence in the shape of it. Their crimes, many of them qualifying as ‘crimes against humanity’ were rewarded with impunity.
Two, precisely because they were rewarded instead of them changing their old ways they continued business as usual in Mogadishu, trying to gain advantage over each other. That’s why the TFG has metamorphosed from a refugee government based in Kenya into an internally displaced government first hosted by the warlord, Mohammed Dheere, in Jowhar, but now relocated to Baidoa, and why the interim president, Abdulahi Yusuf, is being hosted by yet another war lord.
Three, while the TFG enjoys the diplomatic and political recognition of the AU and internationally, it does not seem to enjoy popular legitimacy and it is unable to impose its legal authority at home. Can the world force Somalis to accept a government that is ineffective and doomed to remain ineffectual? This is the context which some of the neighbours of Somalia and global geo-political power mongers are exploiting. While officially publicly offering support for the TFG their actions have helped to undermine and erode its fragile legitimacy. Chief among these are the US and Ethiopia.
The militias in Mogadishu have used both countries’ unprincipled alliances in Somali politics and their obsession with ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ to gain support. Meanwhile Somalis fed up with the militias and wanting a ‘law and order’ environment and a guarantee of personal and group security for their lives and property turn to their culture, traditional structures and religion. The Union of Islamic Courts led by an ordinary teacher Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed, is the umbrella under which ordinary Somalis have united to get rid of militias and warlords backed by various foreign interests. The ease with which they have moved from Mogadishu to other areas of the country should caution us from joining the sponsors of defeated and fleeing warlords who call them yet another ‘Muslim fundamentalist’ group. They are giving indications of being a popular movement . As yet they are unclear of their purpose as a government and probably ill-equipped to govern a modern state but they are able to bring security and peace based on notions of Islamic rule of Law and social justice. They have rendered the TFG a dead horse. For how long are we going to be insisting that Somalis ride this dead horse?
What is now happening in Mogadishu, Beledweyne and other cities is quite similar to what has happened in Somaliland, where a coalition of similar Islamist forces (up to now not recognised by any other state in the world) have managed to maintain peace and security based on a mixture of cultural order and conservative Islamic values. Neighbours and other foreigners should not be allowed to hide their sub imperialist and imperialist interests behind support for the TFG . There are reports (denied by Addis Ababa) that Ethiopia has sent troops to Baidoa and is arming the TFG, while the Americans have also denied supporting the defeated and fleeing warlords. Two of them, Bashir Rage and Sudi Yallaow, were allegedly rescued by American marines off the coast of Somalia while they were fleeing. Another war lord, Mohamed Abdi Qanyare is reported to have fled to El-Dheere while his name sake Mohammed Dheere is reported to have fled to Addis Ababa.
Meanwhile the other warlords in Mogadishu, Hussein Aideed and Ali Ato, have willingly surrended themselves to the Union of Islamic courts, hoping to join ‘the storm’ thy could not stop. Ato reportedly compared the highly successful routing of all the warlords by the Islamists to being ‘hit by hurricane’.
As the AU meets in Banjul, Gambia next week our leaders have to reflect very seriously on the admittedly difficult challenges posed by the latest twist in the tragedy of Somalia. The IGADD states and the AU need to be sufficiently flexible and nuanced in handling this new situation. It is possible that the Union of Islamic courts may cooperate with the TFG but as long as the TFG does not insist on formal legalism. The TFG could also use the Union to build a popular legitimacy if they are seen to be cooperating. So far the Union has not been imposing leaders – rather they ask all the residents to choose their leaders to work with the new order. In some cases, significantly in Mogadishu itself, where people have opted for the leader put there by the TFG, the Union has not refused to honor that choice, hence the mayor of Mogadishu remains the same.
There needs to be clarity as to who will have sanctions imposed on them. Is it those who are now restoring order or the fleeing former warlords? If the AU encourages Ethiopia, the USA and other meddlers to continue to arm the TFG in the name of being the legitimate government it will be fueling more death and destruction and giving the fleeing warlords a new lease of life. For decades, the Somali state has been formed and reformed and deformed around the interests of various militarised local elites and various external geo-political interests. Now the voice of the people of Somalia seem to be coming out loud and clear. So the fundamental question is: Are you for the state or the people? Who are the terrorists in Somalia? Those who have held the people to ransom for two decades or those who have chased them away?
July 4th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Thanks for this
The website’s looking great these days!!
keep up the good work
greetings to all at JusticeAfrica.org
July 21st, 2006 at 9:59 pm
[...] Today [21/07/2006] the BBC reported that the Ethiopian army (the US ally in the Horn of Africa region) had officially crossed over into Somalia. This new development has occurred in the context of the recent military victory in Southern Somalia of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). We were told that ordinary people in Mogadishu supported the ICU because the alternative they faced was the 15 year ineptitude of so called secular warlords. These same warlords were recently supported by Ethiopia/US and the UN to form the present transitional government, yet rather than bringing order, warlords continued to act with impunity. On the other hand, the ICU has brought stability to Mogadishu for the first time in 15 years. So, although some sections of the ICU would like to import a form of Saudi Wahabism into what is a largely Sufi practicing country, the victory of the ICU must still be seen as a partial victory for ordinary people. However, under the pretext that the ICU threatens stability in the Horn of Africa and the transition in Somalia, the Ethiopian state has decided to move into Somalia. This is a weak pretext given that residents of Mogadishu have been waiting for 15 years for a transition! Today, it is clear that there is a complicated proxy war happening in the Horn of Africa (one that in fact has been happening throughout the 90\\\’s). In this war the US plays a heavy hand despite their supposed absence from the scene after Black Hawk Down. The Ethiopian state has traditionally been the strongest state in the region, even in the early European colonial era (until the 1930\\\’s). Also it is important in this present conflict to know that until the 1974 Ethiopian revolution the country\\\’s state claimed to be a Christian orthodox state in communion with the pre-Chalcedonic, so called Oriental churches (Coptic, Armenian, etc) and with unbroken rule since the 4th century. What ever else this history/myth may be it allows the contemporary Ethiopian state to project a particular kind of Christian image to itself and the West despite the fact that its demographics might tell a different story. But, more importantly, what we can see is that such a strategy of extraversion by the Ethiopians, for what ever justified or unjustified reasons radically changes the internal meaning of cultural identities so that those who were once neighbors must inevitably become enemies. Thus, the other context to the Ethiopian incursion into Somalia (which often uses ethnic Somali Ethiopian Soldiers) is the unfettered support of the Ethiopian regime by the US government despite the fact that in the past year the Ethiopian state arrested the entire opposition as well as social justice activists, and shot and killed hundreds of ordinary demonstrators. In fact what is clear today is that the US has decided that the present regime in Ethiopia is the only desirable strong man in the Horn of Africa. One may even go so far as to say that the US indirectly instructed the Meles Zenawi regime to arrest any alternative vision and players for the region, and thus to arrest the opposition members. The ICU is the first major sustained challenge to both the current Ethiopian state and current US policy in the region, but part of the price paid for their slight victory is that Somalia will be invaded, and equally importantly, the Ethiopian Prime-Minister will continue to strengthen his hand in the region through the total demolition of the Ethiopian opposition, and all those who may have an alternative, inclusive vision for the region. What all this means is that it is impossible for local people to use local institutions to solve problems that manifest to them as local but really in the final analyses are the sinister machinations of the war on terror. For instance, it is our understanding that some Women\\\’s organizations in the Horn welcomed the arrival of the ICU; yet, they also said that they would challenge the creation of any new law that claimed that they should dress and act in a tradition that has nothing to do with their mothers. Instead, local civil society groups favoured the broad interpretation of customary law (pre-Islamic) together with Sharia law, and western law as the basis of a new civil code in Somalia (as is happening in present day Somaliland and which is different from Somalia proper). In any case this has been, willy-nilly, the practice since the colonial era, but always without the consent of ordinary folks. Now, because of the Ethiopian/US incursion it is doubtful that we will ever hear the voices of those women who were the most likely people to be capable of articulating a just peace for the Somali people. These afore-mentioned women could have used the space opened by the ICU to debate their fate, but under the current incursion by Ethiopia it is most likely that we will have a winner takes all situation, another form of authoritarianism where everyone will be the loser. Below is a series of articles we have collected that might paint a picture of some of what is going on in the Horn of Africa. Amnesty is also calling for an urgent action on behalf of two professors that are in prison in Ethiopia. One of them was a student of Anwar Sheik, and the New School has also organized stuff on his behalf. See links below: A good analyses of the ICU: http://www.justiceafrica.org/blog/2006/06/22/somalia-who-are-the-real-terrorists/ Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/5198338.stm News story describing events http://www.ethiomedia.com/carepress/surrender_in_somalia.html Story about failed CIA invlovement in Somalia just before the ICU victory http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/africa/08intel.html?ex=1151726400&en=8dce70330129a8f1&ei=5070 article on political Islam in the Horn of Africa http://conconflicts.ssrc.org/hornofafrica/chasing_ghosts/ Amnesty call to action http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/ethiopia/document.do?id=ENGAFR250182006 News on Ethiopian Freedom act now before congress http://www.ethiomedia.com/carepress/tplf_war_on_hr5680.html Ethiopian opposition view on the war by proxy http://www.addisvoice.com/why_should_ethiopians_die_in_som.htm US troops in strange places http://www.addisvoice.com/article/US%20troops%20in%20odd%20places.htm [...]