Somalia's Parallel Armies
- By Liban Ahmad
Posted on
<
http://africanarguments.org/2014/03/03/somalias-parallel-armies-by-liban-ah
mad/> March 3, 2014
We have read recently that
<
http://africanarguments.org/2014/02/26/somali-military-has-more-problems-th
an-lack-of-guns-by-mohamed-mubarak/> Somalia has a National Army, but is
that really the case? Upon closer scrutiny one realises that Somalia has
parallel armies - 3 of them - which exist independent of each other in
different parts of this increasingly splintered. These are the Somali
National Army, Puntland Defence Forces and the Somaliland Army and each of
them has a separate commander-in-chief.
Recent reports about arms sold to Al Shabaab indicate that the top-down
approach to rebuilding and financing the 'Somali National Army' is
self-defeating. The nation's founding political elites shared the common
goal to form a national army for Somalia, but this is no longer the case.
Somalia now has rebranded clan militias that cannot be integrated into one
force.
Before the state collapsed the Somali Army was not a neutral outfit. It was
part of the military regime's oppressive security apparatus and inspired
opposition leaders to form armed, clan-based organisations to topple the
regime. The three Somali 'armies' belong to the Hawiye, Dir and Darod -
three of the of the five major clans in Somalia. In addition, there are
powerful paramilitaries such as the Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama'a, Raskambooni as
well as Al Shabaab's militias.
There is little the international community can do to help Somalis integrate
those three armies. The political leaders of the armies' respective clans do
not trust each other - Somaliland has been managing its own affairs for more
than 21 years, whereas Puntland has been in existence as a semi-autonomous
state since 1998. Their forces are better organised and more disciplined
than the Mogadishu-based Somali Army. What makes integration more difficult
is the opposing political aims of each army's constituency. The Mogadishu
political elite want the capital to become a melting-pot and to be the
centre of the country once again. But Puntland and Somaliland's own elites
are not eager to resurrect the peripheral status to which their regions were
confined before 1991.
Somalis associate the army with a history of suppression and regard it as
the least patriotic national organisation. But each clan's influential
members, rather than becoming victims of a future national army, have chosen
to form an army for 'the clan'. This trend was foreseeable following the
formation of armed opposition groups along clan lines. Former opposition
leaders had made it clear was that 'clan might' is the most reliable
protection against the excesses of a national army.
What we see in Somalia today is reminiscent of the political atmosphere in
1994. Then, having a clan militia was a major criteria to attend
reconciliation conferences. Now having a clan army is the road to clan
influence.
In the absence of genuine political reconciliation, efforts to rebuild the
Somali Army will keep Somalis further apart. The civil war has caused what I
term 'identity demotion': clan identity has trumped citizenship. It has been
a costly and deadly decision to return to tradition in the vain hope of
coming back to modernity. Somalia's parallel armies are one outcome of that
trend.
Liban Ahmad is a Somali writer based in London.
Received on Mon Mar 03 2014 - 15:43:21 EST