Chickens come home to roost. State building and the credibility conundrum in Somalia – By Anna Bruzzone


Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud speaks at the High Level Partnership Forum held in Copenhagen last week.
Yet another international donor conference on Somalia. “A history of broken promises” might have been a rather more appropriate title for the Ministerial High Level Partnership Forum (HLPF) which was held in Copenhagen on 19 and 20 November. The conference was intended to review progress against Somalia’s New Deal Compact endorsed in Brussels in September 2013 and chart the way ahead to the implementation of Vision 2016.
This “blueprint for action” entails three main threads, the “democratic formation” of regional interim administrations and Federal States, the revision and adoption of the Constitution and the holding of national elections in 2016. The goals are ambitious, but they seem to be contained within a floating bubble. Blown by the international community, the bubble is growing and may eventually burst.
The HLPF meeting in Copenhagen was supposed to build upon the “current momentum” on Somalia, both nationally and internationally. That sense of “momentum”, however, which had made southern Somalia breath more easily for some months after September 2012, is gone.
The federal government’s performance has become a concern for both Somalis and the international community, though on different grounds. The British government’s enthusiasm has faded, since it turned out that Somalia was not going to be the political victory that Prime Minister David Cameron was looking for after the intervention in Libya in 2011. Questions are being raised in Westminster about Britain’s relationship with Somalia, in the wake of the latest report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea alleging corruption and activities that may be subverting the arms embargo.
The United States did not send a delegation to the High Level Partnership Forum in Copenhagen, expressing their “deep concern with political turmoil in Somalia”. The current turmoil, however, seems to be the result of problems which are inherent in the transition process and may further escalate in the lead up to the 2016 deadline.
Hailed as the yardstick for the implementation of the New Deal, post-transition Somalia has become a victim of its own “momentum” with donors. The implementation of Vision 2016 has become a matter of international reputation. Western donors are impatient with the slow pace of state building and urging the Somali government to “deliver”. The latter, whose credibility and popularity is falling among the Somalis, is increasingly dependent on shrinking external support.
Partly as a result of the pressure to meet external requirements and deadlines, tensions within Somalia’s political elite have been deepening. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed have been at loggerheads for weeks, in what seems to be the latest episode of a serial political drama. The current standoff shows once more the volatility of clan-based governments led by a President and a Prime Minister who have overlapping, conflicting prerogatives, thanks to a faulty Constitution.
This stalemate also reveals an underlying conflict over who is going to take credit for Vision 2016. It seems that Somali politicians are already fighting over the elections’ preparation, no matter how unrealistic the prospect of holding credible elections in 2016 might be.
A cornerstone of both Somalia’s Transition Roadmap and Vision 2016, federalism has been playing a major role in fostering Somalia’s political fragmentation. Bringing clan conflict back to the fore, the federalisation process has reignited the debate over autochthony, which pervaded fifteen years of civil war and was only partially appeased by the reassertion of Islamic identities. Moreover, to respond to Villa Somalia’s reluctance towards the implementation of federalism, donors have chosen to support any regional entity going in the “right direction” and able to play with the stability argument. Promoted as a policy to foster “local agency” and mark the paradigm shift from liberal peace to stabilisation, federalism has in fact increased Somalia’s vulnerability to regional and international interference, producing further destabilisation.
Federalism is a crucial and controversial issue as it calls the meaning of citizenship into question. This notwithstanding, the donor-driven approach to the implementation of federalism has consisted of a series of ad hoc, partial deals of questionable legitimacy, the Somali public being excluded from decision making.
In the latest episode of the federalism series (farce?), the former Parliament Speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, was elected as the President of the South West Administration in Baydhabo, on 17 November 2014, two days ahead of the High Level Partnership Forum in Copenhagen. The election’s results were first dismissed by the current Speaker, Mohamed Osman Jawari, then welcomed by Interior Minister Abdullahi Godah Barre and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud – although he had previously refused to endorse the South West Administration conference – and finally celebrated by the international community (IGAD, EU, and AMISOM).
Though absent from the conference in Copenhagen, the United States welcomed the “historic election” of Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden. The election was so “historic” that, in less than twenty-four hours, it was contested by a group of MPs, rejected by a Somali politician who claimed to be the bona-fide president of the South West Administration, and mired in accusations of Ethiopian meddling.
There is an uneasy feeling of déjí vu hovering in the air. With a view to meeting the 2016 deadline, donors have been endorsing friendlies against those opposing certain policies funded by the international community. The competition among Somali politicians for accessing power and capturing financial benefits has been escalating. The New Deal seems, in fact, to be perpetuating some old dynamics, which have contributed to transform Somalia into what Alex de Waal termed a “rentier political market place“.
What is at stake here is the credibility of the whole state-building process, which continues to be seen by the Somali public as over-influenced and “contaminated” by foreigners. On the one hand, the “Somali project” supported by Western donors has increasingly been perceived as a never-ending enterprise, with a poor accountability record. On the other hand, al-Shabaab, which still controls large rural areas and retains the ability to carry out attacks in several parts of the country (and beyond Somalia), has been invoking national sentiments and capitalising on the West’s lack of credibility.
Against this discouraging background, one can only hope that the Somali people, often celebrated for their resilience, will follow the exhortation contained in a popular song by a band of Somali singers called Qaylodhaan (“to sound the tocsin”): “Don’t tire out until you get your rights”.
Anna Bruzzone is a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick.
The narrative of Alshabaab in Kenya is one of pain and anger. The Kenya-Mandera bloodshed case is so heartbreaking that most of us would not wish to reminisce. Those men and women who wept together, shed their blood jointly, heard and felt bullets crash into their heads, felt the most pain most of us cannot imagine. My heart goes out to them and their families. “Poleni sana”. That was an act of monumental proportion.
Well! Many of us Kenyans have suggested solutions of addressing insurgents from withdrawal of KDF from Somalia and even simplistic thought of removing Somalis from Kenya. The Kenyan government on the other side continues with its rhetoric “We shall bring them to book, we are hunting them down and so forth and so forth….. The story continues……
Ladies and gentlemen, the war by Alshabaabs are beyond the Kenyan boarders. Do not be cheated. Even the Kenyan government is itself confused about this. Kikwete and other african leaders are mum and observes Kenya burning from a distance. After all which president would want to import wars to his country. They say “Pilipili usioila yakuwashiani?â€
We are all aware of the atrocities modelled by Alqaeda in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Mali. All these are indications of radicalized Muslims strategy of targeting places of worship to drive a wedge between faiths and ignite a conflict between muslims and non-muslims. And that is why many scholars have questioned the philosophical underpinning of human rights as both controversial and ambiguous because protection of fundamental rights means different things to different people in different parts of the world.
But let me be clear. The wars by alshabbab have international bearing because Muslims feel unrecognized in the global stage. Let me give examples, English is a universally spoken language. Most International Funding urgencies do not fund muslim world and have deliberate policies to marginalize the Muslims. Muslims feel demonized. Looking at the permanent five “p5†states within the UN Security Council, muslims do not conspicuously feature. Majority are English speaking countries. Somali being a clans based government with incessant political fragmentation needs different approaches and different strategies. The one fit all approaches to entrenching democracy and conflict resolution in Somali leaves a dent in the challenge of bringing lasting security in Somali.
The United Nations and African Union has within its power to reshape Somali and put it on the path of success and the Kenyan government or East Africa community in general can support the UN through giving informative intelligences. If we have to end the Alshabaabs wars then the world should do the following,
1. Develop Somali socially and economically through job creation and many of Muslims will focus in entrepreneurial activities and forego fighting.
2. Capacity build the clans in Somali on issues of peace and security. Exchange programs should be increased where radicalized Somali youths should visit parts of the world that believes in peaceful coexistence while upholding fundamental human rights of life.
3. Increase technological advances in Somalis. This shall help track down the warlords. Tap the geniuses’ knowledge and skills of Juliana Assange, Mark Zuckerberg among other technology savvy for consultancy services in Somali and make them part of the government advisers on ICTs.
4. Strengthen Nyumba Kumi initiative to help identify Alshabaab sympathizers for rehabilitization.
5. Give success stories about successful Somalis around the world who are in leadership positions and are peaceful coexisting with non-muslim brothers across the world. We have good number of them in Kenya.
6. Let most countries both Muslims led and Christian led build embassies in Somali to strengthen diplomatic relations.
7. East African community should Introduces curriculum on conflicts and religious radicalization lessons right from class one to the universities as a common course.
8. The media should share with the world openly the real gains made my AMISON in Somali. Little information is being shared to the public as watch dogs.
9. Muslim leaders across the world should condemn the uncluttered killings of civilians by radicalized Muslims in TVs without intellectual dishonesty or moral hypocrisy
10. The Permanent 5 states within the UN security should visit Somali and speak firmly on issues of war and especially peace. Their presence will rally the world against radicalized Muslims.
11. Kenyan porous borders to be closed. And build military bases at war torn areas.
Now the premise of my argument is based on the common believe that we are all caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. That as citizens we have no choice but share our honest opinions about war on terror. We are all bound on a single garment of destiny and assuming or having a wishful thinking that somehow the war will end by itself is a tragedy. It would amount to flawed thinking and utter ignorance.
NB; Chemoiywo Edwin holds a Master of Science in Development studies from Moi University. He is an organizational development specialist and a Consultant. He is currently consulting with Digital partners’ foundation.