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From: Tsegai Emmanuel (emmanuelt40@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 05 2010 - 11:53:37 EST
A Multi-pronged Approach to Stability in Somalia
November 5, 2010 |
Summary
Recognizing the continuing limitations of the Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) in Somalia, the international community is exerting
pressure on the government to reach some level of basic functionality. To do
this requires a new approach to stability in the chaotic country, where
political infighting has rendered the TFG dysfunctional and the leading
Islamist insurgent group is capitalizing on the government’s misfortune. The
two-pronged approach involves both political and military maneuvering, while
the immediate task at hand is to reduce political tensions in Mogadishu.
Analysis
On Oct. 31, the Somali parliament approved the appointment of Mohamed
Abdullahi Mohamed as the new prime minister of the struggling Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu. A response to pressure from the
international community, the move is part of a new multi-pronged approach to
stabilizing Somalia by creating space for Somali politicians and technocrats
to deliver essential services in Mogadishu and reducing space for leading
Islamist insurgent group al Shabaab, essentially isolating it in a
geographic triangle in southern Somalia. The approach is a work in progress,
however, and it is rife with spoilers.
Recognizing the continuing limitations of the TFG, the United States,
Ethiopia and United Kingdom (among other European countries) are exerting
pressure on the government to reach some level of basic functionality. Under
the current administration of TFG President Sharif Ahmed, political
infighting over patronage and job security has rendered the government
unable to provide security or deliver jobs and public services. Al Shabaab
has taken full advantage of the TFG’s failures by waging a propaganda
campaign, trying to show that areas under its control have some basic level
of security — however brutal it may be — while anarchy reigns in
TFG-controlled areas.
The immediate task at hand for the United States and other countries with a
vested interest in a stable Somalia is to bring at least a temporary end to
TFG political infighting. The parliamentary approval of the new TFG prime
minister is a move in this direction, at least within the Ahmed
administration and between the administration and the rival TFG bloc led by
parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan. Mohamed will now be expected to form a
new Cabinet, and outside pressure is being applied to reduce the size of the
TFG Cabinet to fewer than 30 seats, with each presenting planning documents
and basic budgets. Expectations for TFG performance are low; wanted at the
very least is some progress in delivering basic services in Mogadishu.
Turf battles between the president and speaker are only part of the tensions
within the TFG. Always a primary source of conflict is the distribution of
power and patronage — the chief means of sustenance in the country — among
the dominant and minor clans that make up Somali society. Another point of
contention is the relationship between the TFG and its regional and
international backers, without which the TFG would not exist. While some
Somali politicians in Mogadishu want to achieve Somali objectives, this must
be done in concert with outside stakeholders — neighboring countries as well
as the United States — which are the driving force behind the African Union
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a regional U.N.-approved peacekeeping
initiative.
In the event the Ahmed-led TFG fails to make even minimal gains in creating
jobs and providing services, the United States and other outside
stakeholders are considering an alternative administrative structure to the
TFG, which has a mandate that expires in August 2011. This alternative
structure is not yet worked out, but it may involve installing in Mogadishu
a technocratic template that would have no political component and would be
responsible only for delivering public services. (More about the security
component below.) Instead of having a presidential administration and
parliament that seem more interested in political perks than in governing,
the government in Mogadishu would consist of administrative agencies with
such duties as running schools and clinics and operating the seaport and
airport. Distinguishing this structure from the TFG, however, will be
difficult, since the successful delivery of jobs and services, not to
mention security, will certainly have political ramifications.
To counter Somali critics who will complain that not having an arena for
political debate would be unjust, the international community will emphasize
the importance of political cooperation with the semi-autonomous regions of
Somaliland and Puntland, which have political systems that are functioning
and could be someday considered a model for southern Somalia. Political
debate will not be taken away, just separated from the task of governance
until Mogadishu can show some semblance of stability.
The Military Approach
While political and economic solutions in Mogadishu are being pursued, a
military approach is also in play to provide the necessary security. There
are several components to this, and U.S. restraint is being applied so the
military strategy does not outrun the political strategy, which would risk a
popular backlash against the notion that Somalia is being occupied by
foreign aggressors. Al Shabaab and other Somali nationalists would be all
too happy to take advantage of such a backlash to gain greater grassroots
support for their insurgencies.
<http://www1.stratfor.com/images/interactive/Somalia_Al_Shabaab.html>
The new military approach is similar to an offensive strategy floated in
late 2009 that involved the same constellation of forces operating
essentially in the same areas, although this time the idea is not to defeat
al Shabaab, only to isolate the group in a triangular area of southern
Somalia bounded by the towns of Kismayo, Baidoa and Marka. Currently, most
of the peacekeepers in Somalia are AMISOM forces, numbering around 8,000
troops, drawn from Uganda and Burundi and deployed in Mogadishu. There is
talk of boosting the force level to 20,000 troops, although STRATFOR sources
say the true aim is to deploy a total of 12,000 to 13,000 troops and only in
Mogadishu (AMISOM has dropped any pretense of planning to deploy troops to
other towns and cities in central and southern Somalia). AMISOM calculates
that such a force would be sufficient to displace al Shabaab from Mogadishu
and confine it to its triangular stronghold in the south.
To help keep al Shabaab contained, Kenya would maintain a blocking position
along its border with Somalia. There are still an estimated 3,000
ethnic-Somali Kenyans trained by the Kenyan army deployed on the Kenyan side
of the border, fighters who are not expected to invade Somalia. In addition,
there is the 1,500-strong Kenya Wildlife Service that was trained by the
British, making it a special operations-capable force with expertise in
“bush tracking” and the ability to capture any fleeing high-value targets.
Ethiopia also maintains its own forces and allied Somali militias along its
border with Somalia. Operations by the Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaah militia and
other district-level militias in central Somalia are meant to maintain a
buffer that will contain al Shabaab in the area. At this point, neither the
Ethiopians nor their proxies in central Somalia have pushed beyond this
buffer zone to deploy deeper into al Shabaab territory. Ethiopian and U.S.
political and security cooperation with Somaliland, Puntland and Galmudug is
meant to constrain any al Shabaab movements north from Mogadishu.
U.S. military support in the region is meant to interdict al Shabaab’s
supply chain by obtaining and sharing actionable intelligence with Somali,
Kenyan and Ethiopian allies and striking high-value al Shabaab targets. U.S.
forces operate mainly out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, with forward
operating bases in Ethiopia and Kenya.
There is also a proposal by the African Union to establish an air and sea
blockade against Somalia, specifically al Shabaab installations and most
notably the port at Kismayo. However, no country has volunteered to
participate in such a blockade, including South Africa, which has the
largest and most capable navy on the continent and has been looked to for
leadership in the proposed effort. STRATFOR sources report an overall lack
of political will for what would surely be a difficult and complicated
operation.
The Spoilers
Spoilers to this dual-track political and military approach include Somali
and regional actors. Somali politicians, including top TFG leaders, are
driven now by a need for immediate survival. Knowing that their political
careers could end by next August (once Somali politicians leave office their
career prospects are essentially over), members of the TFG, including
President Ahmed, are playing multiple sides against each other. Ahmed
refuses to be beholden exclusively to Ethiopian paymasters and instead is
accepting payoffs from regional interests, including Sudan and the United
Arab Emirates. His recent power play to force the resignation of former
Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, an ally of Speaker Hassan, was
a move to reduce the influence of Ethiopia in the TFG (Hassan is an
Ethiopian client).
While the approval of Mohamed as the new TFG prime minister created a
temporary truce in the Mogadishu government, it also strengthened Ahmed’s
hand at the expense of Ethiopia. Ahmed now relies more on a small group of
Somali training clerics called the Ahlu Sheikhs, whose origin goes back to
the Islamic Courts Union. Aware that Ahmed is not the client it thought he
was, Ethiopia must now rely more on its proxy militias in central Somalia.
This is not to say that Ethiopian influence in Mogadishu has waned. Ahmed
(along with all other Somali politicians) knows his political and physical
survival depends on a working accommodation with Ethiopia, which will never
stop trying to protect its national security interests in Somalia, unlike
other countries like Uganda that have only secondary interests in the
country. Likewise, Addis Ababa cannot declare war on the TFG, even if it has
little confidence in whoever occupies Villa Somalia. Ethiopia unilaterally
occupied much of central and southern Somalia from late 2006 to early 2009
and engendered much grassroots opposition in the process. It would be futile
for Ethiopia to repeat this exercise and much easier for it to work through
proxies, although such a strategy is not foolproof.
Weakness is inherent in Somalia’s TFG, as is difficulty in selecting and
implementing the right policies. In fact, there is no perfectly right policy
that can be implemented in Somalia. There must always be compromise among
groups of seemingly opposing political interests. The prime-ministerial
reshuffle is meant to end the TFG infighting for the time being and is seen
as only a temporary setback for Ethiopia. It also means Ahmed now has some
breathing room — and no excuses — to deliver much-needed government services
to the people of Mogadishu and deny the TFG’s growing grassroots public
relations value to al Shabaab.
