Somalia Task Force Issue Paper #3
April 1995
Ken Menkhaus and John Prendergast
What follows is a draft of an article that the authors have submitted elsewhere for publication. We are releasing this draft as an Issue Paper of the Somalia Task Force to stimulate comment and debate about some of the current policy debates in Somalia among Task Force participants and other interested parties. We strongly encourage feedback on the specific points contained herein directly to the authors, whose contact numbers are below. If you would like to participate in the e-mail network of the Somalia Task Force, please send your name and e-mail number by fax to Paige Hull at the Center of Concern at 202-832-9494.
Ken Menkhaus (717-245-3289) John Prendergast (202-635-2757 x32)
April 10, 1995
In the aftermath of the international intervention in Somalia, the most significant and complex feature of the Somali political landscape is the radical localization of its politics. Though many international and Somali players view these localized polities as symptoms of a political crisis ("anarchy") to be resolved through the revival of a central state, this paper argues instead that the many localized polities now evolving in Somalia:
The challenge to the international community -- NGOs, multilateral donors, states, and the UN -- is to attempt to work with this 'stateless' political reality in Somalia rather than against it. This constitutes a challenge not only because international organizations and states are accustomed to dealing with and through states (indeed, some multilaterals refuse or are unable to deal with Somalia at all until a recognized central state is re-established), but because these radically localized Somali polities are fluid in structure and authority, overlapping, and situational in nature, not easily amenable to the needs of international donors for fixed and constant authority structures. Donors and diplomats whose first inclination throughout the international intervention in Somalia was to ask of Somalis the timeless request "Take me to your leader" found that to be a problematic and even quarrelsome demand in the Somali context.
The legitimacy of these polities should be judged on the basis of their local support, performance, and adherence to standard norms of "good government" (including respect for human rights), not on the cognitive and bureaucratic needs of foreign donors. While it would be unfeasible and unwise to treat these polities as though they were conventional governments, it is also inappropriate to interact with them as though they were little more than a variation of a "local NGO." Instead, donors will need to develop flexible and creative new ground-rules for working with sub-national polities in collapsed states like Somalia.
Most analyses of the prolonged collapse of the state in Somalia focus on flawed political leadership as the cause of Somalia's woes. Blame falls on the divisive tactics of former leader Siyad Barre, who left a legacy of deep clan animosity; on current factional leaders in Somalia, who, in their quest to replace Barre, fuel clan animosities and who are seen as the main obstacle to national reconciliation; and on diplomats in the international community -- particularly the United Nations -- for pursuing inappropriate diplomatic strategies in premature efforts to revive a central Somali state.
While myopic leadership both within and outside of Somalia has unquestionably contributed to that country's problems, a more penetrating explanation for the prolonged collapse of the Somali state must take account of structural impediments to the resuscitation of central authority. Simply stated, centrifugal forces in contemporary Somalia -- political, economic, and social -- currently outweigh centralizing ones.
Economically, there was never in Somalia's history a sustainable material basis for a viable central state authority. In the past, the Somali state was funded almost entirely by Cold War-driven foreign aid, leading to a bloated and artificial structure which collapsed soon after that aid was frozen in the late 1980s. There are no prospects for such large quantities of foreign aid for Somalia in the post-Cold War, post-UNOSOM era, which means that a central Somali state will have to subsist primarily off of resources extracted through taxes and modest amounts of foreign aid. But this is unfeasible. Somalis have little surplus capital or formal market activity to tax, and while they are often willing to contribute taxes at the local level, where immediate results are visible and where authorities are accountable, they will be fiercely resistant to national-level taxation. It is noteworthy that recent clashes between Issa clansmen and the Egal administration in the Northwest ("Somaliland") were triggered over Egal's attempts to displace local Issa taxation of commercial traffic.
Socially, the centrifugal power of clan politics overwhelms efforts to re-unite Somalis. Lineage-based alliances are notoriously prone to fissure, and are extremely unstable, as those who have attempted or witnessed attempts to cobble together broad coalitions are well aware. While ongoing efforts to promote local and national reconciliation may help heal some of the most fractious clan-based grievances, they will not eliminate them. Close observation of the ongoing Somali discourse over clan "rights" to territory and power are not reassuring on this score. Each Somali clan has vastly inflated notions of its relative demographic and political importance, claiming much greater portions of the "national cake" than can be accommodated in the zero-sum world of political representation. The fact that the national cake has shrunk dramatically as a result of five years of war and looting only exacerbates these tensions. Perhaps the most striking example of how small the "national cake" has become is the runway at the Mogadishu airport, which has now been carved up into several separate clan spheres of influence. Though the balkanization of the Mogadishu runway has been a source of humor for exasperated foreigners, it promises to fuel conflict as soon as planes begin to land there again, and competing "runway militias" demand a cut of landing fees.
In the past, the centrifugal tendencies of clan politics were overcome through a combination of foreign aid-fueled patronage and military coercion. While militia leaders still have the ability to intimidate local community leadership, they are nowhere near to possessing the kind of well-funded and intrusive security apparatus of the Barre regime. Neither patronage politics nor coercion will be available to future national leadership on a sufficiently large scale.
Politically, there continue to be powerful vested interests in statelessness. These interests include those who profit from an economy of plunder, mafia-like extortion rackets, and various other unlawful economic dealings; militia leaders ("warlords") whose power base rests on conquest, mobilization and fear, not on popular referendum and peace; the mooryaan, young armed men whose status and wealth would be dramatically reduced in a civil society under the rule of law; and entire clans which have benefitted from the occupation of new and valuable real estate in Mogadishu and the river valleys, and who would stand to lose considerably in a peace which might involve the return of stolen property. These conflict constituencies have thus far been successful in blocking movements towards national reconciliation.
By contrast, centripetal forces in Somalia are weaker, though not inconsequential. They include, first, the Somali political class -- former civil servants, high-ranking military officials, and ministers - - whose often lucrative livelihood in the past was within the state apparatus. This class of politically active individuals continues to operate on the belief that national reconciliation will enable them to re-establish a state structure that afforded them all the economic opportunities of the past. It is not at all clear that they have yet had the collective epiphany that, with far less foreign aid pouring into the state coffers, positions in a minimalist state will be much less attractive than in the past. Second, Somali faction leaders, especially those who calculate they may be able to win control over a central state, struggle against the centrifugal forces that divide their constituencies and challenge their authority. Third, a growing number of Somali entrepreneurs are perceiving that their business interests will now be better served by the creation and recognition of some central authority, though one which will co-exist rather than challenge the mafia-based economy on which these merchants profit. The need to reduce insecurity and uncertainty, and to keep major roadways and ports open for commerce, has driven merchants in Mogadishu to re-align themselves to establish a "Peace Committee," which establishes multi-clan control over the seaport and airport (discussed below). Finally, there is the international community, especially the donor community and the UN. Their state-centric diplomacy and the future potential for aid to or through a national government are invariably two of the most important centralizing political forces in Somalia. But it is not at all clear that their influence will be sufficient to overcome Somalia's many centrifugal forces pulling at the seams of central authority.
The centrifugal forces outlined above have taken their toll on the Somali factions, which the UN had hoped would produce a cross- clan alliance capable of holding together a transitional national authority. Throughout much of 1994, the UN sought out factions and factional leaders who appeared to be politically ascendent, in order to assist them to form the backbone of a national government. The most prominent of these UN efforts was the attempt, though numerous peace conferences and informal talks, to broker an axis between Generals Morgan and Aideed and Col. Abdullahi Yusuf, whom UNOSOM felt could provide the military backbone for a state stretching from Kismayo through Mogadishu to the central region. The UN's subsequent frustration and failure was due in large part to the fact that none of the political factions, including the Somali National Alliance headed by General Aideed, was sufficiently broad- based and authoritative to implement accords of national reconciliation. Instead, all of the factions faced serious erosion in their power bases, a trend that only worsened as UNOSOM finalized its withdrawal, depriving the Mogadishu-based factions of millions of dollars of contracts which had done so much to shore up their patronage system through 1993 and 1994.
Currently, the factions are in a state of political crisis, either so riven by internal divisions that most are politically dysfunctional or so weak that they have become, for all practical purposes, fictitious. To cite a few of the most prominent examples:
Somali Patriotic Movement/Somali National Alliance (SPM/sna): This Ogadeni-based faction, led by Col. Omar Jess, has essentially ceased to exist since mid-1994, when the Absame clan began to reorganize itself politically at a series of clan assemblies in Dobley and elsewhere. In these conferences, factional leaders and 'politicians' (the latter is an especially hazy concept) were sidelined, and a council of Absame elders controlled proceedings. Since that time, the Absame have continued a series of clan-based assemblies both to overcome internal divisions (especially between Aulihan and Mohamed Zubeir leadership, and over relations with the Harti clan and General Morgan in Kismayo) and to present a common clan-based diplomatic representation in forging alliances with other clans, especially the Marehan and Rahanweyn. Virtually no mention is made any longer of the SPM/sna as a political entity. The Absame, meanwhile, remain scattered and weak since being driven by Morgan's militia out of Kismayo in February 1994. They occupy the west bank of the Jubba river up through the Middle Jubba region.
Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM): General Morgan's ad hoc SPM alliance, once composed of a wide array of clan elements, now is almost exclusively dependent on the Mijerteen clan in Kismayo, having lost support of some Absame clans and the Dolbahante. Morgan's relations with the Kismayo Marehan clan, in the past a key component of his faction, continue to be strained and undependable. Morgan can effectively lay claim to authority over half of the city of Kismayo, and little more. His political machine in recent times has chosen to present itself to international aid organizations as the "Kismayo District Council" rather than the SPM. It appears the SPM, too, has ceased to function.
United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance (USC/sna): Now known only as the SNA, General Aideed's once potent faction has been hit hard by internal dissent, manifested in a failure in November 1994 to pull together agreement on a national interim government. Already in the summer of 1994, it was clear that Aideed's SNA alliance carried only a small percentage of the overall Somali population, and was in no position to declare itself capable of forming an interim government. The alliance was weakened by outbreaks of fighting between Habr Gedr and Hawadle clan militias in Lower Shabelle, Mogadishu, and Hiran regions, and by very strained relations between erstwhile Ogadeni and Habr Gedr allies. Aideed's ill-advised attempt to convene an SNA congress to form an interim government in November 1994 constituted a serious political setback.
Since that time, matters have not improved for Aideed. Not only have the Habr Gedr Ayr broken ranks with the SNA, but Aideed's financial backer Osman Ato has pursued independent policies, a move which has produced at least one round of armed confrontation between their respective militias (reputedly when Ato's forces prevented Aideed's militia from staging an attack on the airport while US forces were present). Ato and a number of other influential Habr Gedr figures participate in the Mogadishu "Peace Committee" that is working to maintain joint management of the city's port and airport. This group appears to be in control of the political process in Mogadishu. They are openly critical of Aideed, and while they have no intention of completely marginalizing him, he has a dwindling base of support and perhaps only a modest role to play in future Somali politics. If the Peace Committee is successful in establishing a Benadir regional authority (to be led by Ali Ugas), this would transfer still more authority away from the factions and into alternative hands. Deprived of direct regional authority, Aideed and other factional figures like him would only be left with national-level political arenas. But, as Matt Bryden recently observed, "in UNOSOM's absence, national issues -- 'Aydiid and Mahdi's principle domain -- have lost most of their importance." The departure of UNOSOM also robs him of a convenient political instrument for fomenting anti-UN sentiments; his confrontations with the UN earned him considerable political capital in the past.
In addition to these problems, the SNA has found itself increasingly unable to control the rise in power of Islamic courts in south Mogadishu.
The SNA remains the most organized and militarily powerful faction in Somalia; it controls (at least nominally) more territory than any other faction, and has only rarely suffered direct military losses to other militias. But the SNA at this time is quite a narrow coalition, composed mostly of Habr Gedr Sa'ad, some Murosade, and some Gaaljaal militia. In times of danger to the clan, it is likely that current divisions within the Habr Gedr will dissipate, and the clan will rally around Aideed. But unless and until that happens -- and there are now important and powerful constituencies in Mogadishu trying to prevent the escalation of hostilities -- his power base remains narrow and contested. United Somali Congress (USC): When the USC Chairman, Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, broke with Ali Mahdi and the Group of 12 in September and realigned most of his Murosade clansmen with Aideed, the USC's weakness as a viable faction was further exposed. Qanyare's move ignited fierce street fighting in Mogadishu between Abgal and Murosade clan militias, and resulted in the Murosade's eviction from the Medina neighborhood. But the fighting did little good for unity within the coalition "Group of 12," of which Mahdi is representative. His credibility as the leader of the G-12 had already been thrown into question in the summer of 1994, when other factions in the G-12 refused to allow him to attend meetings in Uganda to negotiate on their behalf, saying that this role was beyond his responsibilities within the G-12.
Mahdi's tactic in the past 6 months has been to attempt to consolidate his authority within his Abgal clan rather than rely on Darod allies. To this end, he has encouraged the proliferation of Islamic courts in parts of Mogadishu under his authority, as a means of re-establishing "law and order." While the tactic has produced a remarkable difference between bandit-free north Mogadishu and the violence and chaos of south Mogadishu's neighborhoods, and while many of the residents of north Mogadishu seem to appreciate the return of peaceful street life brought on by the strict imposition of sharia law, it is not at all clear that Mahdi will profit politically from this move in the long run, and may well find himself sidelined by it. The tactic insures his survival as leader of the Abgal for now, but opens the door to vastly increased influence of political Islam in Mogadishu.
The Mogadishu Peace Committee and the embryonic Benadir regional authority now under discussion has exposed the fact that several key political and financial figures in Ali Mahdi's Abgal clan (Imam Mahamud, Mohamed Dheere, and Ali Ugas) have charted an independent course of action that will leave Ali Mahdi, and his USC faction, weaker than ever.
The slow demise of factional politics in Somalis does not, however, indicate that Somalia is in a state of anarchy. On the contrary, at the local-level -- in urban neighborhoods, agricultural villages, and pastoral ranges -- there exist dynamic and diverse "polities." Local communities have adapted to the prolonged collapse of the state by developing and in some cases rediscovering a variety of informal systems and mechanisms which, to varying degrees, provide minimal functions of day-to-day governance. They are not ideal -- most are fragile and of limited effectiveness, and some (the more zealous of the Islamic courts) are reprehensible in their practices -- but this mosaic of localized polities is and will remain the defining feature of the Somali political landscape for some time to come.
The challenge for international donors is to come to a clear understanding of these localized polities and to determine to what extent aid could and should be channeled through them. In this regard some may argue that any aid which strengthens local authorities risks promoting clannism and the atomization of the Somali body politic, making it even more difficult to revive a central state in the future. Donors must be sensitive to this concern, lest they expose themselves to accusations that "foreigners are trying to break Somalia up." Yet at this time there is ample evidence to suggest that no politically meaningful central state is in the cards for Somalia in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, donors have little choice but to work with what authority exists in Somalia. And that authority is at the local level.
Evidence from around the country points to the fact that local polities are quite diverse, varying considerably from one locale to the next. The legitimacy and effectiveness of particular social categories -- elders, faction leaders, intellectuals, clerics, district council members, businessmen, militiamen, former civil servants, women's groups, local NGOs -- are immune to sweeping generalizations. The fact is that their legitimacy as social and political leaders is fluid -- it varies from one place to the next; it is prone to change over time; and it depends very much on the type of authority one is seeking. So, for example, while clan elders are almost always central players in clan reconciliation and conflict mediation, they may not be the most effective or appropriate actors for managing and overseeing a demobilization program. District councils which have survived the departure of UNOSOM may not be strong enough to serve as local decision-makers in the allocation of scarce resources, but may be an effective implementing body for decisions made by elders. And, though generally extortionate and disruptive, under certain conditions militias have proven to be forces for stability.
In practice, these localized polities can vary considerably. In the case of the Medina neighborhood in Mogadishu, for instance, several neighborhood security and judicial systems overlap. One way that neighbors living within a few blocks of each other maintain security is through use of a neighborhood watch system. If armed outsiders are seen in the area or a crime is occurring, whistles are blown by residents, which alerts neighbors. Since nearly every household is armed, this system can quickly form a lethal local posse, and is quite an effective deterrent to crime. Most Medina neighborhoods also provide payments to local armed youth (who otherwise might be terrorizing them) to serve as a private security force in their area. This can include small payments to young, unarmed boys to "keep watch" on the area and report anything suspicious. Collectively this web of radically privatized, quasi- vigilante security arrangements provides reasonable deterrents to crime -- for those who can afford them, and who hail from sub-clans with adequate power to reinforce the deterrent factor. Indeed, for those Somalis possessing valuable commercial property, especially vehicles, the best insurance against theft is the certainty that their own clansmen will exact revenge on any other clan which attempts to steal their property. However imperfect this security system may be, it is and will remain far superior to any police force in coming years.
In the past, disputes between residents of Medina were usually taken to a respected elder or group of elders for mediation or arbitration. In serious disputes, elders representing the two parties to the conflict would meet directly to try to contain the dispute and keep it from spilling over into inter-clan fighting. Importantly, this time-honored practice of elders mediating and arbitrating disputes served as the primary "judicial" system even before the collapse of the Somali state. The disintegration of formal state governance in Somalia has had relatively little impact on the ability of the Medina community to adjudicate.
However, since the outbreak of the civil war, and now again with the withdrawal of the UNOSOM forces, a new system of policing and judging crimes is emerging in Medina and elsewhere -- namely, the Islamic courts. Empowered by well-armed and well-disciplined young men, fundamentalist mosques have effectively maintained the peace in some neighborhoods by imposing sharia law on offenders. Before the UN intervention, areas which were controlled by fundamentalists in Medina were known to be safe and weapons-free, and were sought-after locations for residence as a result. Now they are returning to activity, and are spreading their reach throughout neighborhoods in Medina and north Mogadishu. It is at this time impossible to know how their jurisdiction affects other, secular systems of policing and dispute settlement, but it is reasonable to assume that their simultaneous operation is triggering tensions in the community.
International concern has been raised that the departure of UNOSOM forces will trigger renewed civil war in Somalia. However, it has already been often observed that this is an exaggerated concern, in that Somali militias were never prevented from moving against one another in the last year and a half of UNOSOM's presence.
It is unlikely that the country will revert to wide-spread and sustained civil war. There are and will continue to be a number of flashpoints for armed conflict in Somalia, however. Importantly, though, most political conflicts in contemporary Somalia continue to take place within clans and communities, not between the major clans and factions, and are usually non-violent. Nearly all of the political energies of Somali leaders are spent in a perpetual struggle to consolidate power internally against a wide range of challengers that includes not only rival political and militia leaders within their clan, but also the representatives of civil society -- the elders, intellectuals, businessmen, clerics, and so on -- whose claims on political authority are often at odds with one another. While these internal power struggles rarely erupt in violence, and hence attract less international attention, they are in many respects much more significant than the periodic flare-up of inter-factional clashes. Though international diplomats have taken pains to appear "neutral" with regard to inter-factional and inter-clan conflicts, they have generally been strikingly ignorant of their impact on these internal struggles over authority and legitimacy.
Any armed conflict which is likely to occur in the post- UNOSOM period will likely follow the pattern that has emerged in the past 18 months. That pattern suggests that armed conflict is most likely to occur in territory "occupied" by new clans (Lower Jubba; Lower Shabelle; Mogadishu); that those conflicts will tend to involve competing "occupiers" rather than long-time residents; and that the armed conflict will be relatively short-lived and will not widen into heavy, protracted fighting. In these contested zones, which tend to possess a relatively high economic value, property and commercial rights tend to be in a greater state of upheaval, more prone to dispute, and more likely to be resolved through recourse to arms than through negotiation. It is also the case that local elders, who normally would be instrumental in mediating disputes before they flared into armed communal conflict, are often impotent in dealing with grievances involving young militiamen from outside their clan and region.
Particularly dangerous and unresolved conflicts currently obtain in the following areas:
-- Lower Shabelle: Conflicts over control of lucrative plantation land, the export of bananas, and the port of Merka already spilled over into armed conflict between the Habr Gedr and the Hawadle in 1994 (with the Hawadle losing) and the local Biimaal of Merka and the Habr Gedr (with the Biimaal eventually losing). In the past several months, competition involving two rival banana exporting companies (the old Italo-Somali Somalfruit Company, and the new competitor Dole) has led to serious divisions within the Habr Gedr clan, and to armed conflicts between the militias of the two companies. While the prospect of Habr-Gedr clans realigning on the basis of competing multinational corporations (reer-Dole vs. reer-Somalfruit?) and starting a banana war has been a source of humor for some observers, the underlying competition to control valuable agricultural production in a militarily occupied zone will remain explosive. -- Hiran: The Hawadle clan was swept out of their home town of Beled Weyn by a Habr Gedr militia in the summer of 1994. Until control of Beled Weyn is resolved, it is unlikely that this region will remain stable. -- Lower Jubba: The Jilib area has been heavily contested by numerous clans, and has produced dozens of small-scale armed incidents. It remains an uneasy fault line between the Ogadeni, the Habr Gedr militia, and numerous other smaller militias, including the Biimaal, Hawadle, Gaaljaal, and Sheekal. -- Kismayo: The city remains divided between Marehan and Mijerteen, who co-exist uneasily but whose relations are affected by the Marehan's fluid relationship with the Ogadeni clan, which was driven out of the city in February 1994. It is unlikely that the Ogadeni will attack the city in the near future -- they are too dispersed and disorganized, despite the efforts of "Imam" Siyaad Hussein to try to rally the Ogadeni to reestablish their stake to Kismayo -- but eventually the Kismayo residents will have to reach an arrangement with them. Increased commercial or donor activity at the port will almost certainly be a flashpoint of conflict between Mijerteen, Marehan, and Dolbahante interests trying to control profitable activities. On the other hand, Gen. Morgan has been able to defuse chronic tensions in the past; for example, after a dispute between the Marehan and Mijerteen militias in Kismayo, Morgan appointed a Marehan to head the airport committee. Another longer- term source of tension will be the growing numbers of Somali refugees now being forced out of camps by the Kenyan government; most of the refugees are urban Darod, and will be unable to return to Mogadishu. Kismayo is the alternative choice for these urbanites. But their migration into the city and region alters clan demographics, and easily arouses communal tensions, as housing, water, and economic opportunities there are quite limited. Gen. Morgan has tried with some success to control the flow of returnees, welcoming only Mijerteen Somalis into town. Ogadeni returnees are swelling the population centers in the lower Jubba valley. Unless the Mogadishu problem is solved and that city opened up again, urban Darod pressure on Kismayo will grow and could easily spill over into open fighting. -- Mogadishu -- Control over the seaport and airport will be the most contentious issues in the coming months. Recent efforts by businessmen and "moderates" in the "Peace Committee" (described below) to establish joint control over the port and airport are welcome signs that conflicts over these resources may be contained, and an indicator that the merchant class may be calculating that its interests are better served by open and reliable trade routes than by a mafia-like economy of plunder and extortion. It remains to be seen whether this coalition has the strength to prevent militia leaders from pursuing disruptive tactics designed to polarize communities.
None of these flashpoints for armed conflict appear to pose a danger of widespread, sustained fighting.
In Mogadishu, the establishment of the "Peace Committee" to establish joint management of the port and airport, and efforts to form a viable Benadir Regional Authority, have been touted as the most promising signs that key political and commercial interests are shifting in Mogadishu, and that key political and commercial players now perceive that peace and a stable regional authority will better serve their long-term goals.
According to recent reports, the Peace Committee and the proposed Benadir Regional Authority involves discussions between a powerful set of Hawiye political figures, including Osman Ato (Habr Gedr); Ali Ugas (Abgal); Abdi Qaybdiid (Habr Gedr); Mohamed Dheere (Abgal); Issa Mohamed Siyaad (Duduuble); General Mohamed Nur Galal (Habr Gedr); Imam Mahamud (Abgal); and Muse Sudi (Abgaal). Their initiative, which is aimed at establishing joint control over the port and airport (the port is already being successfully managed through this arrangement) and creating a viable regional government in Mogadishu, clearly dilutes the power base of both Aideed and Ali Mahdi. Though it is still too early to tell if this development will bear fruit, the effort itself is a positive indicator.
It was not always so in the past. As was described above, during the civil war and famine the merchant class and political aspirants in Mogadishu and elsewhere found enormous profits in the economy of plunder. Though hiring their own private armies for security was expensive, this cost of doing business was more than compensated by the absence of taxes to pay or laws to answer to. It is worth recalling that the man who now spearheads efforts to forge a "pax commercial" in Mogadishu, Osman Ato, made millions of dollars dismantling state farms and other industries to sell for scrap metal, diverted millions of dollars of food relief intended for famine victims, and is alleged to have taken over state farms in the lower Jubba to grow and export marijuana. This diversified portfolio of investments that he and others have enjoyed has had one common theme -- it is business that thrives best in lawlessness and deprivation.
The fact that entrepreneurs like Osman Ato are now apparently viewing their longer-term interests to be served by more predictable and secure authority over commercial arteries does not represent a sudden conversion from "warlord" to "peacelord." Rather, it serves to remind us that, like law-abiding citizens, mafias too prefer routinized and predictable patterns of activity. For these Habr Gedr and Abgal political and commercial barons, the "deal" they are trying to strike on the port and on regional authority is a pragmatic arrangement, intended not to re-establish conventional "law and order" (which would land some of them in prison for their activities!) but to minimize expensive and unnecessary turf battles. It would not be too inaccurate to compare these initiatives to a meeting of the heads of mafia families in New York City.
As Charles Tilly and other historians remind us, the process of state-making itself is "organized crime," an adaptation by pirates and marauders to move away from random banditry to routinized expropriation, patronage, and service provision. Somalia is now moving into that sort of transitional period, in which the distinction between extortion and taxation, between vigilantism and policing, is increasingly unclear. Thus, while the work of the Peace Committee in Mogadishu should be welcomed by the international community, it should also be seen for what it is -- not a new, enlightened movement of Jeffersonian Democrats shrugging off atavistic warlords to bring peace to their people, but rather a shrewd, pragmatic mafia cartel agreeing to stake competing claims in the city without recourse to expensive gangland violence that might scare away foreign donors.
For in the end, much of the political struggle over control of Mogadishu, and especially its seaport and airport, remains a function of the foreign aid "cargo cult" that has become part of the very fabric of Somali urban political culture. Though instigating famine and then diverting emergency relief was very profitable for these commercial/militia interests, attracting the big development aid is the ultimate prize, and that can come only with the establishment of recognizable and formal structures of authority.
Beyond questions of the intentions and composition of the Mogadishu Peace Committee, more practical concerns remain. Specifically, can their initiative succeed, not only in bringing reconciliation and governance to Mogadishu, but also in promoting reconciliation and state-building nationally? Many Somalis and international observers have long assumed that the Somali crisis is, in the end, a Mogadishu crisis, and if the conflict in the capital is resolved, national reconciliation will be relatively easy. But there are potential problems with this assumption, especially as it is being instituted in the Mogadishu Peace Committee. First, in Mogadishu, the committee's group does not include a number of key Hawiye clans, especially the Murosade and Hawadle. As Bryden points out, it was in part due to the UNOSOM-sponsored "Hirab" peace conference in 1994 that these clans felt marginalized by Abgaal-Habr Gedr dialogue, and much of the subsequent violence involving those clans can be traced to their reaction to that marginalization. The Mogadishu Peace Committee may be committing the same mistake. Unless the other Hawiye clans are brought into the process, they can and will disrupt it. A partial peace in Somalia is not seen as a "first- step" toward a broader peace -- it is seen as a new coalition, threatening those excluded from the talks.
Second, even if the process is broadened to include other Hawiye clans, the Committee would continue to exclude non-Hawiye clans. Many other clans will complain that the capital city cannot be politically controlled by any one clan, that the proceeds from activity at the seaport and airport should be national revenues, not profits to be cornered by a single clan, and that the Hawiye initiatives are therefore invalid. This complaint will spill over into armed conflict if the parties to the Benadir Regional Authority attempt to lay claims to national government in Somalia and attract international recognition or aid.
Juxtaposed with the decentralization and localization of Somali politics is an opposite economic process: an increasing internationalization of the Somali economy through remittances, trade, investment, and the export of labor. This is consistent, though, with the minimalist polities which are arising locally throughout the country. Somalis are organizing the minimum infrastructure necessary to meet functional objectives. Hence, merchants and militia collaborate to keep roads and ports open; money changers travel throughout the Somali diaspora greasing the skids for maximum remittances; businessmen become NGOs to attract finance, or form larger companies to compete in the import-export business; large landowners clear irrigation canals, sometimes with the help of international agencies; elders ensure that inter- or intra- clannic disputes are resolved as quickly as possible, and they work with military-politico figures to maintain a civil defense capacity to protect clan or sub-clan interests and property.
Commerce is brisk throughout the country: internal as well as across the Kenyan and Ethiopian borders and through the ports of Kismayo, Mogadishu, Bosaso and Berbera. This thriving commercial sector also would have to include many of the Somali NGOs, which are much more suited for private business than social service provision (an advantage which might be seen in the future as an asset rather than a liability for the construction of social safety nets, which inevitably will largely be based on productive livelihoods).
Purchasing power is in part generated by increasing remittances from Somalis outside the country, historically a critical component of the economy. Most wealthy Somalis moved their capital out well before the height of the war. They are trading throughout the region. Jamal and Green estimated 1987 remittances at $200 million, with another $100 million from family members with businesses abroad. Remittances financed as much as 60% of urban consumption. Most of the capital supports individual families' survival. Banks never channeled more than 10% of the total flow.
There is a danger that much of the commercial activity in Somalia is consumption based on this vulnerable source of revenue.
A major export is Somali people themselves. Skilled and unskilled Somalis have left Somalia by the thousands in search of better economic opportunities. One line of analysis sees Somalia's principal value in its function as a labor reserve for Gulf states.
As early as February 1993, an insightful USAID consultant noted the centrality of the commercial sector.
... Somalia today seems to have a substantial "business
bourgeoisie", which may be a more suitable base for the
reconstruction effort than an army of technocrats in some
loosely organized future government. The serious policy
question therefore relates to finding ways in which this group
can usefully be encouraged to play an even wider role in
returning Somalia to normality.
Livestock is the key export. The FAO estimated annual prewar meat production for local consumption at 171,000 metric tons. Somalis consumed a prewar annual average of 17.9 kg of meat and 237 liters of milk. Livestock production has provided the bulk of foreign exchange and employment since the 1960s. Current anecdotal evidence compares favorably with pre-war data.
In terms of imports, there is trade with India for clothing, mostly facilitated by Somali women; gold is imported from the Gulf; a large traffic in weapons continues, especially small boats with weapons from Lebanon and Bosnia; and the main staple of the Somali male "diet" -- khat -- arrives in small planes daily from Nairobi's Wilson Airport.
There are a few multinational companies trickling back into Somalia: the American company Dole and the Italian subsidiary Somalfruit; the Australian Morris and Company, which is starting a fishing operation; and reportedly some surveyors for Conoco in the Northeast. The Dole-Somalfruit rivalry has turned ugly. Both have Habr Gedr representatives who have constructed their own militias replete with the obligatory technicals. There are allegedly 36 technicals in Shalanbod, the collection point near Merka for many of the bananas produced in Lower Shabelle. Are the stakes high? In the past year, Dole bought 14,000 tons of bananas, and exported a shipload approximately every ten days.
The departure of UNOSOM could eventually lead to a severe economic recession in Mogadishu. Formal sector employment collapsed in one fell swoop, as the UN was the principal employer in town, creating thousands of jobs directly and thousands more indirectly through the generation of services for those with UN jobs. An artificial, externally driven economy was created in Mogadishu which fuelled an accelerated pattern of urbanization that leaves in its wake a huge number of unemployed young people who simply have no chance of obtaining a productive livelihood in their present location.
Huge extended families survived off of each worker's salary -- sometimes up to eighty people fed from one monthly paycheck. A scissors effect is created by the simultaneous move to repatriate Somali refugees back to their home country. Kenya is pushing Somalis back home by the boatload -- ten ships arrived in Kismayo from Mombassa during January 1995, for example. This severely cuts into one of the key sources of survival: remittances from the diaspora. Canada and some European countries are exploring repatriation options actively, which might eventually cut into the remittance base further.
After a brief mini-boom driven by exports from the last of the looted UNOSOM equipment and infrastructure from the Embassy and other structures, the economy -- especially in Mogadishu -- will be in for a rough ride as it undergoes "withdrawal" from its foreign aid dependency. The value of the Somali shilling deteriorated over the final months of UNOSOM's presence, which drove up the price of imported food in major markets. To recap, inflation plus devaluation plus lower wages plus less wage labor opportunities plus the evacuation of UNOSOM plus the potential blockage of the port could create major economic problems for a highly armed, underemployed, volatile population in Mogadishu.
They are heavily armed thanks in large part to UNOSOM. The faction leaders -- especially Aideed -- greatly benefitted from rents, security contracts, employment, currency transactions and a variety of other fringe benefits courtesy of the UNOSOM cash cow. One Somali elder remarked, "UNOSOM came to save us from the warlords; and ended up aligning with them."
In the last year, forced displacement has taken many forms. The Abgal routed the Murosade out of the Medina neighborhood of Mogadishu, and the Murosade in turn burned many of the Abgal homes in neighboring Bermuda. But most of the displacement in Somalia was caused by Habr Gedr advances, pushing some Biimaal leaders (bureaucrats, elders, and the sultan) out of Merka and most of the Hawadle from Mogadishu South, Beled Weyn, Bulo Berti, Jalalaxi, and Lower Shabelle. Those displaced correspond to those who present a military or political challenge to the Habr Gedr. For example, when the Hawadle attacked Habr Gedr-occupied Beled Weyn on December 26, 1994, the latter responded by destroying two Hawadle villages, Badeere and Bowholle in Hiran Region.
Some Bantu have been pushed from the west to the east side of the Jubba River, primarily by Ogadeni mooryaan looking to expand their territory. One official observed, "Bantu vulnerability lies in the lack of control of the militias, who do the looting."
Perhaps a third to a half of the Bantu population has disappeared from the Jubba Valley; they either died or remain displaced. Nevertheless, the Bantu also have less employment opportunities than before the war. In the Lower Shabelle, Bantu workers earn somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000 Somali Shillings ($1-$4) per day working for the plantation owners who sell to Dole and Somalfruit, the two multinational companies buying fruit in Lower Shabelle. In the social structure of Somalia, the Bantu have always suffered a de facto apartheid situation in which deep-rooted discrimination is a constant.
Some Rahanweyn in Gedo are permanently displaced by default, and others have been forced into sharecropping arrangements on lands they used to farm freely. Most Rahanweyn in Gedo were displaced originally by the fighting in 1991-92. When they went back to their lands they often found them taken over by the Marehan. This expropriation is fuelled by the desire of the Marehan to acquire the best farmland next to the Jubba River all the way down to Bua'ale in Middle Jubba. Rahanweyn farmers are allowed to return to their land in many cases under sharecropping arrangements, in which the Marehan provide the pumps and the Rahanweyn provide the labor. The Rahanweyn often leave their women and children in the displaced camps in Bardera (perhaps 10,000 remain displaced around Bardera) while the men go cultivate.
This is due to Rahanweyn families having to diversify income because they are now farming more marginal lands.
How can the international community deal with this seeming dichotomy between political localization and economic internationalization? The key may be in seeing that the two forces actually may not be at odds.
The failure of the U.N. mission in Somalia is to a large degree the extension of a bankrupt donor policy which for decades supported overly centralized, unsustainable government structures in Mogadishu whose legitimacy came primarily from the barrel of a gun. The U.N. and donor governments have spent the last two years obsessing over the re-creation of a centralized authority in Mogadishu. This greatly exacerbated the conflict, as competing militias positioned themselves for the potential spoils of a new aid-dependent state. In the process, the vast majority of Somalis and their local institutions have been ignored and further marginalized.
To reverse this, it is critical to flexibly, patiently and directly engage the local authorities that are evolving in various communities and regions throughout the country. In some places, the fledgling District Councils might be the appropriate medium (the Swedish NGO Life and Peace Institute has trained 761 members of Councils throughout the country); in others, more traditional structures of authority such as the clan councils formed by elders, sheikhs, ugases, sultans, etc; in yet others, some local Somali organizations have demonstrated a commitment to their communities which can be built upon. In all cases, local communities should be challenged to leverage internationally provided resources with local inputs, such as labor, tax contributions, "zakhat", or other sources.
Gently and subtly, aid can reinforce good governance and respect for human rights through positive conditionality. Aid to local areas can be tied to such standards as accountability, reciprocity, basic public welfare mandates and respect for minority communities.
Despite the rhetoric of neutrality surrounding aid, it often is one of the most important contributors to conflict. New aid must be cognizant of its political impact. Aid should go in small amounts to local communities striving together to rebuild their lives. Aid should be linked to reconciliation; no aid should go to a unilaterally declared government which excludes large segments of the Somali population and involves only military factions. The reconstruction of legitimate authority has to happen on Somali time and in Somali ways, not subservient to the international community's need to have a recognized government in Somalia.
In terms of emergency preparedness, some lessons were learned from the 1991-92 debacle. The use of beach landings, small ports, and cross-border channels from Kenya and Ethiopia is critical in the decentralization of disaster response necessary in the future. A great deal has been learned about the use of Somali merchants in moving food by monetizing food aid; the trucks of merchants rarely get looted. (Monetization strategies now focus on re-capitalizing merchants, diversifying commodity markets, and keeping prices affordable for the Somali consumer.) Furthermore, it's clear that low value sorghum stays in the market even if looted, whereas higher value commodities will get exported to Yemen, Mombassa, etc. In terms of monitoring the situation, the European Union has a plan to do nutrition and terms of trade surveys every three months, and the NGOs and UN agencies which remain will also provide regular surveillance data.
The Jubba Valley's rich resource base will continue to attract Somali and outside investors. Unregulated past exploitation and land grabbing displaced thousands of tillers from land they had farmed for generations. The resultant ventures, such as banana plantations, were profitable but their gains were ill-distributed. The ILO found in 1977 that plantations held labor costs abysmally low to maximize profits - of which 75 percent were realized outside Somalia. Aid to the agricultural sector must be conditioned on a fair and thorough review of land ownership and rights. Under no conditions should donors and NGOs assist in major agricultural projects if land has been usurped by force from original owners. The international community has a special responsibility to safeguard the rights of minority agricultural communities, and not to legitimize the military occupation of land by outsiders.
One ultimate objective of any sustainable demobilization program is to get militia members and armed teens out of the cities and back to their home areas where they can engage in productive activities. Emphasizing production, marketing, and the long-run potential for wealth-creating opportunities may give some young gunmen a small incentive to invest in a more sustainable lifestyle. A wealth of prewar studies show that the best growth prospects among all sectors are in food crop production. Training is a key component of demobilization. When linked with an income-generating scheme like food processing or other cottage industries, investment in such initiatives may offer the best chance to lure young militia men back to productive livelihoods.
In the 1980s, Somalia's percentage of urbanization overtook those of Kenya and Ethiopia. Policies that discriminated against rural areas and producers were the main culprit, aided by rural instability and banditry in the last 3 years. Escalating urbanization makes food- and cash-for-work critical in mitigating famine in the short term. Providing incentives to reverse the rural-urban shift is more important given the unsustainability of present trends in employment, food security, environment, and social services. OFDA's famine mitigation resources should be deployed in Somalia within a broader preventive framework.
Rural rehabilitation and recovery should be the primary objective of humanitarian interventions in Somalia, no matter where they lie on the relief-development continuum. Agencies must give initiatives to restore rural communities' subsistence and recreate wealth-producing opportunities through ecologically sound agricultural and pastoral activities priority over urban-focused interventions that become magnets for the marginalized. All interventions should feed into and build on the local processes of consensual decision-making and the local capacities (organization, energy, skill) of the communities assisted.
Improving access to credit makes sense as a means to reach the multitude of merchants and to promote indigenous entrepreneurship and the other benefits -- increased commercial activity, secondary income sources for families, and greater opportunities for non-farm employment -- of injecting capital into the already burgeoning post-famine informal sector. Women should be specifically targeted; they often use loans for trading rather than small craft production and often have the highest repayment rates of any recipients.
In Somalia, less expatriates means dramatically less cost than for national staff. Security costs are 20-30% of most agency budgets - - though not one single line item -- a higher percentage than in Liberia or Angola, perhaps the highest in the world. Many agencies are again using technicals, or at least carrying heavy guns, especially in Mogadishu. One standard policy should be established for all humanitarian agencies by the donor-supported Somalia Aid Coordination Body regarding the hiring of local security to ensure that legitimate security needs do not degenerate into hyper- extortionate arrangements again. It is imperative that aid agencies not become (as they were during the war) a funding arm of an extortion- and militia-based economy.
The likelihood of a return to 1991-92 is remote. Drought combined with major cross-country military sweeps to completely decimate the resource base and kinship networks of Somalia's agrarian communities. Those circumstances would be extremely difficult to replicate. Somalia may continue without a national government, but that doesn't mean there is no authority or structure extant and evolving at the regional and local level. Those local structures should be engaged patiently and supported with minimal inputs, as Somalis try to rebuild their communities and country from the ground up.