Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 02:09:45 +0100
Somalia's future befouled by failed initiatives
October 26, 2014 - 13:59:43
The installation of permanent federal government in 2012 and the victories
over terrorist group Al Shabab did not change Somalia’s misfortune because
Somalia’ future is befouled by the outcomes of failed peace processes or
initiatives. Foreign actors decided to welcome and applaud disreputable and
lately unconstitutional agreements that sully Somali politics. Wittingly or
unwittingly, they are deepening Somalia’s crisis.
Generally there has been common consensus that the peace and reconciliation
conferences sponsored by the international community from 2000 to today have
failed and did not produce positive durable results. But, donors and
neighboring countries continue to claim success and progress on the basis of
disreputable agreements that became instrumental and justifications for
prolonged foreign interventions.
In 2010, Conciliation Resources (CR) - UK International NGO- in
collaboration with Interpeace published a review of the International peace
processes in Somalia. The review edited by Mark Bradbury and Sally Healy was
titled " HYPERLINK
"http://www.c-r.org/sites/default/files/21_Somalia_2010_ENG_F.pdf" Whose
peace is it anyway?” The central conclusion of the review is, "Nearly two
decades of foreign interventions have failed to build peace or a viable
state. International engagement has served to deepen the humanitarian and
political crisis in Somalia.” This well documented conclusion is still valid
as of today.
In 2011 the international community sponsored the roadmap process for ending
the transition period and forming a permanent national government based on
provisional constitution. Puntland President Professor Abdiweli Mohamed Ali
Gas was the cheerleader of the process. Today, he distrusts, trashes, and
mutilates the outcomes of the process which are the provisional constitution
and the federal government and the process has been seen as a failure.
When the federal government lost moral and political compass, the
International actors-IGAD, UN, EU, and US- stepped in to run the "Vision
2016” show. Except President Hassan Sheikh who announced in 2014 his
presidential candidacy for 2016 election, hardly anyone believes in the
integrity, legitimacy, and endgame of this new initiative. Professors Hassan
Sheikh, Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari, Abdiweli Gas, and many others had the
intellectual capacity, political acumen, and opportunity to foresee what is
wrong with each process. But they decided for personal interest to close
their minds and eyes and throw their people and country into ditch of
disputes and indignity.
IGAD, UN, EU solicited Garowe agreement between the federal government and
Puntland regional state (a show produced for Copenhagen, Denmark
international conference on Somalia) is another instrument to shame the
Somali people for their lack of sense of nationalism and good conscience as
foundation for nation building. Foreign representative witnessed the
conference posters and clan images displayed during the 3 day meeting to
prove that Somalis like to be clans rather than a nation. IGAD is delegated
to be the enforcer of clan segregation (clan federalism) in Somalia.
Granting the important point about the inadequate consultation on the scope
of "Secret Vision 2016” among all Somali stakeholders, the agreement seeks
to make the federal government a fiefdom and reinstate the territorial
divisions of Somalia into South Central, Somaliland, and Puntland enclaves.
In fact, for the signing of Garowe agreement by the Prime Minister and
Deputy speaker of parliament with IGAD, UN, EU, the federal government has
lost the vestiges of national legitimate authority. The question is who the
federal government represents?
Far more distrustful perspective has been identified in Puntland by
researchers of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies during their field
research on federalism and reconciliation in Garowe on September 18. They
reported, "A common theme in our public and private conversations was the
urgent need for social and political reconciliation among the Somali people.
The scars of the civil war were all too evident in people’s minds and
hearts. Federating the country was repeatedly referred as a secondary
priority to reconciliation.” This observation supports the public discourse
in which each clan accuses other clan or clans for real, perceived, or
fabricated crimes and abuses committed by a member or members of accused
clan or clans in public or private capacity. This happens after more than 17
peace processes. Without prejudice to the gravity of abuses inflicted on any
clan, adversarial accusations flying among clans are:
Darod holds grievances against Hawiye, Isaq, Digil and Mirifle, and Minority
groups;
Hawiye holds grievances against Darod;
Digil and Mirifle holds grievances against Darod and Hawiye;
Minority groups hold grievance against Hawiye, Darod, and Digil and Mirifle;
Isaq holds grievance against Southerners- Darod, Hawiye, Digil and Mirifle,
and Minority groups but forgave grievances against Northerner clans -
Dhulbahante and Warsangeli (Darod) in exchange for their support to
Somaliland secession.
Despite these inter clan grievances, clans are not separated and have
intense economic and social ties. But clan federalism destroys these ties.
Divisive clan politics encouraged by foreign powers fuel social, political,
and institutional fragmentation and chaos.
The Somali misfortune is also exacerbated by a dangerous confusion on
understanding and appreciating the civil war concepts such as conflict
resolution, national reconciliation, peace, and Statebuilding. This
confusion represents an obstacle to Statebuilding. Somalis miss to
appreciate that reconciliation is not only a goal but a process carried out
for social integration and cooperation without external interventions
through indigenous institutions established during the process of conflict
resolution. The aim of reconciliation is to promote a shared narrative about
the civil war and the future under the rule of democratic state. The shared
narrative about the civil war prohibits repetition of group narratives
developed before conflict resolution.
Furthermore, the cited observation of the Heritage researchers questions the
raison d’être of the federal government and the aptness to form federal
member states on clan identity. The shared aspirations of the Somali
citizens are to get true justice, equality, accountability and effective
participation in the political process at all levels and places. Somaliland
and Puntland provide empirical evidences for exclusion and marginalization.
Poverty, hunger, social injustice, corruption, and abuse of power, human
rights violations are all considered violence.
The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephan Harper, said in his speech at the 2014
UN General Assembly meeting that "Where human misery abounds, where grinding
poverty is the rule, where justice is systematically denied, there is no
real peace, only the seeds of future conflict. We understand how the worst
of human nature – perverse ideologies, religious extremism, and the lust for
power and plunder – can rob people in so many places of property, of hope,
and of life itself.” Humanitarian Organizations are warning famine and acute
economic deprivation in Mogadishu.
The released 2014 report of the UN Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group
(SEMG) details incredible level of misappropriation of public funds used for
partisan agendas which constitute threats to peace and security. The rate of
misappropriation is estimated between 70 and 80 percent, while around a
third (1/3) of domestic revenues from Mogadishu port cannot be accounted
for. More alarming, the report reveals that Al Shabab receives a lion share
of $ 250 million revenue from the charcoal exported in 2013-2014 through
seaports controlled by African Union and Somali government forces. Secret
foreign contracts with foreign private companies became major sources of
dirty financial resources outside the public financial management control.
These unprecedented scandals could bring down the federal government before
2016 election.
The solution could be a Somali owned initiative that responds to the
principles of the New Deal Strategy endorsed by the international community.
Clan based governments are recipe for corruption and clan antagonism that
will perpetuate the failed state condition.
Mr. Mohamud M Uluso
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Despite unprecedented level of foreign interventions particularly since
2000, Somalia lingers as a failed state which is a threat to the
international peace and security.
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