Debacle in Somalia - Case Study Example

Introduction Since 1991, Somalia no longer had an effective government. At that time, the former government was toppled by clan militias that consequently have stabbed each others’ backs. For years, generals, warlords and warrior types have diminished this once indolent coastal country in Eastern Africa to rubble. Somalia remains a raging battle zone today, with jihadists pouring in from overseas, intent on toppling the transitional government. The country’s best chance is seen to be in the person of Sheik Sharif Ahmed who is a former high school teacher, who became president in February 2009. Ahmed is the first leader after 39 years that has widespread support both inside and outside the country (Waterman 1). The United States is finally taking an increasingly active role in Somalia after so many years of ambivalence. They even shipped 40 tons of weapons into the country just to keep Sheik Sharif’s government alive. What Went Wrong? The root of the Somali crisis is in the Somali colonial past and post-colonial mismanagement both of the state and the society. The disagreements between the state drive towards modernization and civil society founded on clan and kinship have not been democratically resolved. The very centralized post-colonial state monopolized extremely centralized power structure which, on the one hand, used the clan as a foundation of the Somali society and, on the other hand, shorn of clan base to produce contact points between modernism and traditionalism. The centralization of power also intended a centralization of the means of force and their mitigation from scattered, regionally-contained to national conflicts with terrible costs on the Somali nationals in the Horn of Africa (Bolton 57). The subject of state formation and state reconstruction has been raised. Two contradictory foundations for reforming the Somali state, or states, have been proposed: modernization or traditionalism. It emerged from the debates that the social foundation for a new Somali state, or states, has not rise above the ancient discussion about modernization and traditionalism. The argument is still entrenched in either revivalist or radical transformation. Others favor to leave the present process to take its own force, hoping that the origin of the new state or states structures will materialize from the inside of a post-war Somali society (Besteman 556). One important question entailing resolution is what alternative political frameworks will need to be developed, with what kind of institutional structures and for what purpose. One of the issues which were discussed but which needs much more deliberation: what are the Somali really fighting for. Understanding more about whether the magnitude of the present violence is important in identifying the problem and seeking solutions based on that knowledge (Bolton 61). One of the most important aspects of the conflict in Somalia is the ownership of farmland. There are, however, proposals which were suggested by scholars that can lead the way to a peaceful settlement. The people themselves are the key to their futures and Somali people is no different to them. By saying this, it is assumed that externally driven peace initiatives died the same way as the others. On the other hand, external support, without intimidation, bias or arrogance, is essential in re-building the lives of millions of displaced Somali (Lewis 46). Another way is to rely on Somali grassroots organizations and leadership in their quest for peace. This is different from the mere act of consulting, but of working together with the Somali people who will also work as a team to maintain peace and order. The third way is for those who are participating and for those who are trying to help deal with the crisis that they should respect Somali traditional political institutions and values. A discussion between what these institutions can present and their restrictions, on the one hand, and the requirements of a modem state or states on the other, is a significant element in the exploration for possible scenarios and probable solutions. Institution-building is better served by measures from the bottom-up than by obligations of political visions alien to the Somali. The fourth direction is that grassroots, local and regional level structures have to be reinforced if peace is to become recognized among the Somali communities. However, a one-sided attention on regional level interventions without due consideration to the political mechanisms and dynamics which hold the regions together is unsafe. Next, they can search with the Somali people for new definitions and structures of sustainable peace and security. Comprehensive security cannot be attained by food relief alone. It has to be followed by renovated the social services, the economy and the infrastructure that can give people the opportunity to look for alternative means of livelihood. Livelihood security is an important ingredient to physical, psychological and other forms of security. One of the most important and the most basic component of peace and reconciliation is the sixth one which is respect for human rights and also it is a necessary basis for a Somali state. Democratic procedures and practices are governed by constitutional arrangements. In the upsurge towards such constitutional arrangements, minority groups’ human rights should be respected. This was measured one of the most significant ways of securing peaceful co-existence without domination. Lastly, issues that are related to past injustices should be discussed with a truthful plea towards forgiveness. This would assist in correcting what went wrong within the individual and its suggestion for peaceful co-existence in a safe society. Questions of political representation in peace-making in Somalia have been important by some participants who disapprove of top-down approaches to conflict resolution. Reference was made to successful experiences of reconciliation between the Somali peoples themselves. In addition, while many locally-driven peace and settlement conferences have achieved something, devoid of any external interference, some expensive superficially driven peace initiative failed to materialize. Two related points have also been raised, one is proper political representation at a time of change and instability and second political representation could strengthen the peace process only if it is a reflection of representative political in-situations. The economic, social and political roles of the Somali women have been highlighted. Somali women have been in the front position in the struggle for peace. ‘What went wrong’- this question has drawn the attention of individuals when it comes to the crisis of Somalia. It is indispensable to understand this so as to be able to search for solutions to the present predicament. Even though it is too much to expect that one can provide all the answers to such a difficult question, what this paper can do is to explore certain directions that have already been identified and seem promising in the quest for that answer. The impression of 'state and civil society in crisis' highlights the two parts that concern researchers. Even though there is an obvious hypocrisy in the conceptual disjointing between them, it might be constructive for the two to remain separate for intention of investigation. The significance of kinship, i.e., clan, relationships is the factor highlighted in all endeavors to clarify Somali political behavior. Having been set up in the first academic study of Somali society by I.M. Lewis thirty years ago, it comes into view to have been authenticated by current history. Lewis' main argument is that the segmented clan system stays as the foundation of pastoral Somali society and 'clannishness' - the dominance of clan interests - is its innate disruptive reflection on the political level. Lewis' argument is the beginning point of many succeeding studies. Said Samatar, who started the first study of the Somali state with David Laitin (19), assumes this thesis and portrays how clannishness permeated and made a ridicule of the political system in autonomous Somalia. By and large, the perseverance of this phenomenon is regarded as harmful (Besteman 578). The main perpetrators of Somalia’s agony are of course, Somali. They say that it is a broken country wherein the foundation for all political and societal structure is genealogy. The basis of order in Somali society, i.e. the authority of clan elders-has been destabilized by the commonness of modern weapons, the most important inheritance of superpower participation during the Cold War. After British and Italian colonies fused in 1960 to form an independent state, compared to the democracy which survived in Somalia until Major General Mohammed Siad Barre held power in 1969 (Besteman 566). The intensive efforts of Siad Barre to grind down the clan system- in favor of "scientific socialism"-and to design a Soviet alliance led to a massive arrival of highly developed weaponry and military advisers who to a great extent contributed to deflating the nation's stability. In 1974 when Emperor Haile Selassie fell in neighboring Ethiopia, the succeeding chaos and escalating Eritrean war destabilizing Ethiopia's hold on the Ogaden, a border region mostly populated by Somalis. An Ogadeni guerrilla campaign to force out the Ethiopian army led to full-blown war between the two nations and, next to uneven ideological alliances, a superpower swap on the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia's old relationship with the United States was ripped apart as the new government of Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile-Mariam embraced Marxism; the Soviets in return deserted Siad Barre and rushed military advisers and paraphernalias to Ethiopia instead (Helander 41). Somalia and the United States According to the Bush Administration, they are going to put the Somalia issue upfront in the war on terror. The administration’s counter terror strategies cast a multifaceted intra-national conflict with grassroots history and important regional connections as a Manichean struggle of ‘moderates’ against extremists which disdained nation-building and other international community enterprises. The effect of this policy can be clarified by bearing in mind the career of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed (Waterman 1) US support for the warlords had stimulated nationalist and Islamist anti-Americanism in the country and reinforced the hand of the most drastic group in the ICU, al-Shabaab, some of whose leaders were linked to al-Qaida by US authorities. In a recent review of the US Somalia policy, it concluded that if not for the United States, the efforts of counterterrorism, the sharia courts and al-Shabaab might have remained marginal. Faced with a debacle of their own making, US policymakers compounded their mistakes by giving at least tacit support to an invasion by Christian-majority Ethiopia on Christmas day 2006 (Waterman 1). In the early part of the year, one can see a reduction in overall insecurity in South/Central Somalia led to a modest improvement in humanitarian access which permitted aid organization to re-establish and ramp up relief programs. There are many achievements; for one, they delivered food to an average of two million individuals every month etc. All these achievements were attained in an environment wherein humanitarian access had to be consistently discussed (Waterman 1). In the months May and June of the year 2008, there was a fighting the broke out n Mogadishu and spread throughout South Somalia which was also dine in the previous. This resulted to displacement of many individuals and to add insult to injury, the emergency needs became higher (Waterman 1). Somalia and the United Nations Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN Special Representative for Somalia, has called for a increase of efforts to bring back peace and to put a stop to the violence which has overwhelmed the lives of so many innocent Somalis and to the persistent impunity which is carrying on the conflict. When he spoke in the International Human Rights day which signaled the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was on December 1948, he stated that Somali elites and the world have all too frequently turned a blind eye to the dreadful plight of the Somali people, and especially to the multitude of violations and abuses of human rights committed over the years (Bolton 64). An assessment of the U.N. role in Somalia which was allegedly grossly incompetent, undisciplined and unfocused can be seen written on journals and they were asking if what or how they can prove it. Negative assessments come from relief workers straightforwardly engaged in the Somali crisis, professionals in the humanitarian backing field and even honest U.N. officials. Views from a variety of other well-placed, experienced observers and participants are no less accusing (Bolton 64). The main complaints stem from a chain of U.N. mistakes and its essential failure critically to engage in the Somali crisis at a time when early intervention might have diffused its intensity. The United Nations was fundamentally absent from Somalia after the flight of Siad Barre, when it transferred staff to Nairobi. The nonexistence of country knowledge and qualified senior personnel directly resulted in a debacle for Assistant Secretary General James Jonah's January 1992 mission to Mogadishu. U.N. initiatives to broker a truce between General Aideed and Ali Mahdi not only provoked tensions between the enemy clans but also eroded the unbiased positions of other clans as well as that of the United Nations (Bolton 71). The failure mentioned earlier helped enlarged civil war for another two months and even today weakens U.N. reliability as it tries to put together a lasting peace. Other U.N. failures also worsen tensions and violence among Somali divisions. The deficiency of apparent standing made it easier for Ali Mahdi to commence attacks against smaller clans, which he did the day after the United Nations issued invitations (Bolton 71). The failure of the UN involvement in Somalia to use the UN’s own ceasefire is said to be its central flaw. Subsequent to the termination of hostilities U.N. senior diplomats foundered in the field, the Security Council hesitated and U.N. relief agencies wasted valuable time. The Security Council's humbleness was contradictory with more strong actions taken concerning concurrent crises in both Iraq and the Balkans. Great power unwillingness to center on Somalia was instantly recognizable, as for months tiny Cape Verde offered a more determined agenda for action in the Security Council than did the United States (Helander 29). Somalia, having experienced several types of interference and peacekeeping, is hardly an ideal test case for judging U.N. peace operations. Like a barometer, it has both shaped and reflected changing U.S. and international opinion about them. Questionably, Somalia does not present an ideal test of either the Bush notion of limited humanitarian interference or the budding concepts of prolonged peace keeping and peace enforcement based on the use-of-force authority provided in Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. The Somalia "failure" was no so much of a failure of either humanitarian intervention or muscular peacekeeping than a stoppage to apply them progressively and cleverly (Clark 2000). The failure was of another sort: strategic uncertainty followed by a crumpling of political will when the perplexity led to combat casualties. In Cambodia, Central America, Namibia, and now Mozambique, U.N. operations have indisputably given war torn lands a chance to get on their feet. These were multifaceted operations conducted successfully under extensive man dates. But the United Nations' attempt at a militarily challenging "peace enforcement" operation shows that it cannot administer complex political-military operations when its own structure is an unmanageable and often confused set of competitor fiefdoms that oppose united command and control in the field (Clark 2000). Essential change is necessary on the issues of delegation to the field, agreement of command in the field, and professional military backstopping and mistake from U.N. headquarters. One already knew these things about U.N. reform. After Somalia, one was able to know them even better. Just as significant, Somalia accentuate the need for improvement in the way the United States, United Nations' leading member describes missions, reviews and supports peacekeeping authorization, and approves U.N. strength levels and budgets (Clark 211). Sources Bolton, John R. “Wrong Turn in Somalia”. Foreign Affairs 73.2 (1994): 56-66 Besteman, Catherine. “Public History and Private Knowledge”. Ethnohistory : 40.4: 536-586 (1993). Clark, Jeffrey. “Debacle in Somalia”. Foreign Affairs 72.1: 109-123 (1990) Cassanelli, Lydiea. “The Shaping of Somali Society”. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1993. Besteman, Catherine. “Land Tenure, Social Power, and the Legacy of Slavery in Southern Somalia”. Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona. Helander, Bryan. I986 “The Social Dynamics of Southern Somali Agro-Pastoralism: A Regional Approach. In Somalia: Agriculture in the Winds of Change.”. Saarbruchen. 1990 Lewis, Ian. “A Pastoral Democracy”. Oxford University Press. 1988 Waterman, Shaun. “Cost of War: Somalia Inheritance”. OCHA. 2009. December 2009 < http://ochaonline.un.org/humanitarianappeal/webpage.asp?Page=1163> Read More