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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SOMALIA: Finding an end to the Somali crisis
NAIROBI, 18 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - The new rule and relative security in areas dominated by Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) offers long-awaited humanitarian space. Recent missions by United Nations teams (early July and early August) indicate that the UIC has a clear expectation to see the UN and other humanitarian agencies re-open their offices in Somalia and offer assistance in a wide range of neglected sectors. The UIC has also made clear that any aid initiatives have to work with it as the sole authority in Mogadishu, the capital, and all areas under UIC control.
Somalis are, by most indices of human development, severely impoverished. Home to 10 million people, the country has been without a functioning government since the late former president, Mohammad Siyad Barre, was ousted in 1991. There has been no national police force or army for 15 years.
Humanitarian workers are concerned not only about whether their security can be guaranteed by the UIC but also whether donor groups will support interaction and cooperation with the de facto government of the UIC - possibly giving it more legitimacy. International isolation of the UIC, possible ‘muscular’ backing of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) through allies such as Ethiopia, will no doubt prolong the fighting and subsequent suffering of the many displaced and impoverished Somalis, and risk closing the current humanitarian space again.
According to Michael Weinstein of the independent Power and Interest News Report (PINR), Somalia’s chaos will cede to relative order, “if the [UIC] performs the delicate balancing act between social experimentation and gaining broad popular support, and between fulfilling its Islamist programme and its need to have stable, if not friendly, relations with its neighbours and donor states”. If it fails, he predicts Somalia will revert to its pre-existing, fragmented configuration of clan-based politics with a likely re-emergence of warlords, the closure of humanitarian space and continued suffering for the Somali people.
The latest report by the International Crisis Group (Can the Somali Crisis be Contained? 11 August 2006) offers an even more stark assessment: “The stand-off between the TFG and its Ethiopian ally on the one hand, and the Islamic Courts, which now control Mogadishu, on the other, threatens to escalate into a wider conflict that would consume much of the south, destabilise peaceful territories like Somaliland and Puntland and possibly involve terrorist attacks in neighbouring countries unless urgent efforts are made by both sides and the international community to put together a government of national unity.
“Unless the crisis is contained, it threatens to draw in a widening array of state actors, foreign jihadi Islamists and al-Qaeda. Eritrean assistance to the [UIC] has made Somalia an increasingly likely proxy battlefield between long-feuding Eritrea and Ethiopia,” the ICG says.
The political background: Transitional Federal Government
Created in 2004, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is only the executive arm of the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) but the term TFG is widely used to describe the new ‘democratic’ body that makes up Somalia’s new government. But while enjoying continued widespread international support, the TFG’s detractors view it with suspicion, and many Somalis regard it as a creature of international interests, emerging as it did from lengthy, internationally brokered discussions in Nairobi.
The TFG is riven with disputes, culminating in a major disagreement between its president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and prime minister, Ali Mohammad Gedi. In July 2006, more than 40 ministers resigned from the TFG, and on 7 August, the president dissolved the cabinet with the intention of announcing a new cabinet of just 31 ministers. Serious political differences within the government, clan-based differences and the risk of being overrun militarily by the UIC, suggest the coming months may determine the TFG’s survival.
Somalis are not alone in questioning the legitimacy and effectiveness of the TFG, which after more than two years has had negligible success in promoting reconciliation or curbing the power of Somali warlords and their militias. Some ministers in the pre-June TFG cabinet were themselves former warlords. Nevertheless, the TFG is the only tangible result of a protracted, internationally brokered reconciliation process, and as such continues to be supported by the UN, United States, African Union and European Union.
The concerns raised by the International Crisis Group extend to the potential threat posed to the whole East African area if the TFG fails to integrate the disparate political groupings into a government of national unity.
Union of Islamic Courts (UIC)
The Islamic courts emerged in the late 1990s primarily in Mogadishu, and became the de facto judiciary in the capital after the collapse of the Somali government in 1991. The UIC was formed from the amalgamation of different clan-based courts over the past two years, dominated by the Hawiye. The Islamists are a major force in Somalia and the UIC has gained credibility among the population by setting up schools and hospitals, as well as resolving legal disputes and maintaining a tough stance on law and order. In May this year, the UN Monitoring Commission in Somalia acknowledged that the UIC had become a major force "with organisational strength, leadership and, most importantly, will".
Although little noticed by the outside world, in 1999 the group began to assert itself in Mogadishu and increasingly came into conflict with the secular warlords. The warlords later joined together to resist the UIC’s growing power by forming the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) in February 2006. The ARPCT immediately clashed with the UIC. Street battles became more violent, culminating in a major battle for Mogadishu that led to victory for the UIC on 5 June, when it claimed control of the city. A day later it also laid claim to areas up to 100 kilometres around Mogadishu, and since then has expanded its control over many regions of southern-central Somalia.
According to the PINR, “The proximate cause of the [UIC’s] power surge was revelations in early 2006 that the ARPCT had been receiving funds to arm itself from the United States through the CIA working with the Ethiopian secret services.” Washington has neither confirmed nor denied support for the ARPCT, but it has admitted to funding Somali factions assisting the capture of Islamic militants wanted by the US.
The impact of the UIC victory has been the collapse of the warlords’ power and of their militias. Security improved markedly in Mogadishu and the re-opening of Mogadishu airport to international flights, after 11 years, offered a concrete illustration of the changes the UIC claims to want to bring to Somalia.
The immediate reaction of the Western world to the success of the UIC was concern that it may emerge as the Taliban of Africa. The chairman of the UIC, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, as well as the leader of the policy-making body of the UIC, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, have denied they intend to force any particular type of government on their people, or forge new links with al-Qaeda or international terrorism.
Aweys is considered by US officials to have terrorist links, and according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), on 26 June the US ruled out any diplomatic contact with him.
International Community and the UIC
The US is widely perceived as supporting the TFG. For some years, the Bush administration has been claiming that Somalia had become a haven for al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups. US Ambassador to Kenya, William Bellamy, has stated publicly that it was "true that the US has encouraged a variety of groups in Somalia, in all corners of the country, and among all clans, to oppose [an] al-Qaeda presence and reject the Somali militants who shelter and protect the terrorists".
It may be too early to judge whether the UIC will emerge as a hardline or moderate Islamic force in Somalia, but demonisation of the UIC and international isolation could allow hardliners - currently a minority within it - to dominate and force the UIC to seek friends with precisely those states and groups that worry the US and its allies.
The European Union, African Union and UN are publicly backing the TFG as the only legitimate authority in Somalia. Having invested years of negotiations and peace-building aspirations in the process that led to the establishment of the TFG in 2004, few foreign states are prepared to see it as a flawed process, or one that can be rejected by Somalis themselves. Analysis that the TFG was unworkable was ignored by the international community as it clung to the hope that the TFG would eventually gain acceptance at home. That hope appears to have been eclipsed by events as the UIC consolidates power and popularity, and the TFG appears more impotent within Somalia, though it still receives diplomatic support from outside, as well as some arms supplies.
However, the risks associated with supporting the UIC are also difficult to evaluate when the real intentions of the Islamic movement are not known, and its ability or capacity to establish peace, good governance and national unity untested. Most analysts agree there is no doubt it has gained a decisive advantage, but it is not yet clear whether it will be able to use it to secure a lasting order.
The UIC taps into Somalia’s powerful nationalist sentiment, according to the International Crisis Group, “conflating Islamism with pan-Somalism, seasoned with anti-Ethiopian rhetoric. Despite rejecting the TFG, the Islamist movement has successfully portrayed itself as the main hope for state revival. And despite its diplomatic overtures to the West, the leadership frequently condemns the US, tapping into growing Somali resentment and anger.” The ICG adds, however, that if the Islamic Courts reached agreement to form a government of national unity with the TFG, the Islamists would need to revise such positions.
One seemingly insurmountable problem is the presence of foreign troops; rejected by the UIC, requested by the TFG, and a diplomatic problem for the UN because of the arms embargo in force against Somalia. Any move by the UN Security Council to lift the embargo for the benefit of the TFG, says the International Crisis Group, would “greatly risk expanding violence in the country”.
UN Monitoring Group reports have noted a significant increase in arms entering the country. The UN embargo has also stopped the TFG from legally acquiring arms and supporting its security sector, as well as preventing the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
In early August 2006, foreign ministers from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which had led the negotiations that created the TFG in 2004, proposed sending an international force to Somalia, comprising troops from its members - Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. However, the ministers did not indicate a date for deployment and IGAD members stressed that sending peacekeepers to the country might be premature.
These mixed messages reflect the confusion about the reality on the ground as well as a possible political solution. While the UN, Arab League, African Union and IGAD agree in principle that the TFIs are the only legitimate governing option, in reality, the UIC, which is far more powerful, stands outside the governing structure. It “is not party to any ceasefire, does not subscribe to the Transitional Federal Charter [a broad agreement that led to the establishment of the TFG] and has not endorsed the TFG’s National Security and Stabilisation Plan … upon which any foreign deployment would necessarily be based”, says the International Crisis Group.
The result: no peacekeeping force is about to arrive in Somalia. The UIC has the upper hand in terms of military control and popular support outside of the south-central town of Baidoa, where the TFG is based. The warlords have been emasculated and the UIC is set to control most of central and southern Somalia.
For as long as the UIC opposes a foreign military presence, any such deployment will necessarily act as a protection force for the TFG, rather than a peacekeeping force for southern Somalia.
Regional risks
Fears run high that the government crisis in Somalia, along with the risk of increased intervention by some of Somalia’s neighbours, could spark a conflict well beyond the country's borders. There are concerns that the TFG will either disintegrate over differences within its leadership, or over clan differences, or be crushed by the Islamists, possibly igniting a major regional conflict, according to analysts.
A strong US counter-terrorism partner, Ethiopia is staunchly opposed to Islamism and has long supported the TFG’s president, Abdullahi Yussuf. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies: “The US, then, could probably task Ethiopia to take down any terrorist enclaves that might arise in Somalia. Indeed, Ethiopia strengthened its troop presence on the Somali border after the Islamists took control of Mogadishu in June.” Attacking anti-US terrorist enclaves would be in keeping with the past: Ethiopia makes no secret of the fact that it destroyed several Islamist militant training camps inside south-western Somalia in the 1990s.
The International Crisis Group quotes a Somali peace activist as saying: “I’ve never picked up a weapon in my life, but by God I will be in the frontline if the Ethiopians invade my country”, while the head of the UIC security committee, Sheikh Yusuf Indha’adde, has reportedly threatened that a war would “be carried to Addis Ababa”, a threat it is currently incapable of carrying out, except in terms of forging new alliances with Ethiopian rebel groups, or engaging - if it condones them - acts of urban terrorism.
However, there is a danger that tensions may increase in the large but no populous region where Somalia borders Ethiopia, involving groups such as the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which are already engaged in armed conflict with the Ethiopians. Both rebel groups have reportedly established contact with the UIC.
The peace premium
For as long as the political gaps between the TFG and UIC appear unbridgeable, despite an undertaking on 15 August to reconvene reconciliation talks in Khartoum at the end of the month, it remains imperative that every effort is made to prevent Somalia from a further slide into war.
One problem is the narrow political base of the TFG, suggests the International Crisis Group. A first step towards peace would be to broaden its base, bringing the UIC and other powerful clans outside the UIC into a government of national unity. However, as things now stand, it is unlikely that the new cabinet, to be announced by Gedi, would include any representation either of the UIC or groups allied to it.
At the same time, outside interests such as Ethiopia and Eritrea would have to withdraw political and military support. A new national security plan should reflect the broader power base, while an international monitoring presence may still be necessary to maintain the integrity of the country’s borders. In addition, the security plan should address counter-terrorism, and thereby assuage fears of other countries, in the region and internationally.
This analysis has been compiled from IRIN’s research and interviews, as well as articles and publications elsewhere in the public domain. It does not represent the official opinion or views of the United Nations but is part of IRIN’s ongoing coverage of the situation in Somalia.
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This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006
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