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Abstract
External intervention has frustrated and continues to frustrate peace and stability in the Horn of Africa and Somalia, adding various adverse layers to an already complicated and complex conflict. The level of forceful military engagement intended for regional domination has profoundly affected negatively the efforts of peacebuilding and statebuilding in Somalia. This article examines how the earlier Ethiopian policies towards Somalia has reshaped the (post)-Cold War politics of the Horn. In doing so, it traces the roots of the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia vis-à-vis new non-state armed groups to chart the changing political dynamics of the conflict in Somalia. By using historical approach, the article argues that Ethiopia’s agenda is central to understanding why the ‘War on Terror’ has strengthened and subsequently midwifed armed militant movements (e.g. new insurgency groups) in Somalia, starting from Al-Itihaad to today’s Al-Shabaab. In focusing upon various regional actors and groups, the article moves from the emphasis of internal systems to external power structures, considering the wider historical and political factors in the region that must be closely examined if the regional and local conflicts are to be deeply understood. While it is a context-specific study, the article aims to contribute fresh perspectives and insights to ongoing discussions on the consequences of the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia.
Notes
1. Healy, “Rethinking State Fragility.”
2. Clarke and Herbst, Learning from Somalia; Prunier, “Somalia.”
3. Frith and Glenn, “Fragile States.”
4. Ingiriis, “Politics as a Profitable Business.”
5. Marchal, “Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War”; Marchal, “Mapping [P]olitical Islam in Somalia.”
6. Sage, “Prospects for Al Itihad & Islamist Radicalism in Somalia”; Tadesse, Al-Ittihad.
7. Alebachew, “Ethiopia’s Armed Entry into Somalia in 2006.”
8. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa, 2–3.
9. Mayall, “Introduction,” 3.
10. Elmi and Barise, “The Somali Conflict,” 4.
11. Dowden, Africa, 122.
12. Hoehne, “Mimesis and Mimicry,” 273.
13. Frenkil, “The Lion Comes to Mogadishu,” 28.
14. Interviews with Somali elders, Addis Ababa, March–April 2016.
15. Kefale, “The (un)Making of Opposition Coalitions”; Lyons, “Closing the Transition”; Markakis, Ethiopia.
16. Yihun, Ethiopia in African Politics.
17. Compagnon, “The Somali Opposition Fronts.”
18. Following 102 years of struggle, after the fall of Emperor Tewodros in 1889, the Tigre political brokers returned to power; Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia.
19. ”Madaxweynihii Jamhuuriyadda Dimoqraadiga Federaalka Ethiopia_ Atto Males Zenawi.flv.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SX7KyatqNo&list=PL8CD0343BA6EEED96&index=2 (between min. 0:20 – 1:24). Accessed 2 July 2016.
20. The Greater Somalia was apparently replaced by mini-state formations which are challenged by the radical Islam led by Al-Shabaab Al-Mujaahidiin determined to create an Islamic khalifa encompassing all the Muslim people in the Horn; Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
21. Yihun, “Ethiopian Foreign Policy and the Ogaden War.”
22. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, volume xxi, Africa, Memorandum of Conversation.
23. Ingiriis, The Suicidal State in Somalia.
24. The Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) was a defunct movement, most of its members joined the remnants of the Siad Barre regime; Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, “Hassan A. Mireh”; BBC World Service, “SSDF Official Reacts”; Compagnon, “Somali Armed Movements.” For how these armed groups emerged, see Ingiriis, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.”
25. Ingiriis, The Suicidal State in Somalia, 242.
26. Interviews with former USC authorities, Mogadishu, 3 May 2016; interviews with former SNM authorities, Hargeysa, 15 July 2016.
27. “Xoghayihii Guud ee Qaramada Midoobay Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali.flv.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM6RhnkUczo&index=5&list=PL8CD0343BA6EEED96 (between min. 0:43 – 4:40). Accessed 2 July 2016.
28. Interviews with informants, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
29. The position of the first vice President was taken by Abdirahman Ahmed Ali ‘Tuur’, the last chairman of the SNM and the first President of Somaliland, after he renounced the secession project and joined the Aideed government.
30. Ingiriis, The Suicidal State in Somalia, 250.
31. As Lionel Cliffe noted: ‘There was also a proposal in 1991 for a joint Eritrean-Sudanese peacekeeping force’; Cliffe, “Regional Dimensions,” 94.
32. Interview with General Jama Mohamed Ghalib, Eldoret, Kenya, October 2002.
33. Interviews with informants, Mogadishu, 9 July 2016.
34. Interviews with informants, Mogadishu, 6 and 9 July 2016.
35. Interview with General Jama Mohamed Ghalib, Eldoret, Kenya, October 2002.
36. For a provocative historical account of Al-Itihaad, see Tadesse, Al-Ittihad. For a sweeping overview of Al-Itihaad, see Sage, “Prospects for Al Itihad & Islamist Radicalism in Somalia.”
37. Interviews with Somali elders, Addis Ababa, March–April 2016.
38. While in Addis Ababa in March–April 2016, this author visited the sites of the assassination attempts on President Hosni Mubarak and Minister Abdulmajid Hussein.
39. “Somalia’s Civil War: A Bloody Border – Near Kismayo 1992.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM1KrfN0m7w (between min. 0:03 – 4:14). Accessed 9 July 2016. See also International Crisis Group, “Somalia’s Islamists,” 4–5.
40. Interview with former minister of the ONLF administration, Jigjiga, 1 April 2016; The Ethiopian Constitution, Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
41. Interview with former minister of the ONLF administration, Jigjiga, 1 April 2016.
42. Kasaija, “The UN-led Djibouti Peace Process for Somalia,” 264.
43. Of all the Somali factional leaders who were fighting for power and resources in the 1990s, Mohamed Qanyare was the only factional leader who had never been allied or associated with Ethiopia. The relationship Omar Haashi Aden and Osman Aato and Omar had with Ethiopia was inconsistent.
44. It could be disputed whether the ONFL can completely be labelled as an ‘Islamist’ or a ‘secular’ movement.
45. For a brief mention of Waqo Guto’s insurgency activities in Ethiopia, see Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 216.
46. Keyd Media, “Somalia's Civil War: A Bloody Border - Near Kismayo 1992”.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM1KrfN0m7w (between min. 0:03 – 4:14). Accessed 9 January 2016. See also Cobol, Kobicii Islaamiyiinta Soomaaliya.
47. For an insider’s account, see Mohamed, Goobjooge. A brief discussion on the rise and fall of Al-Itihaad can be found in Marchal, “Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War”; Marchal, “Mapping [P]olitical Islam in Somalia.”
48. Mohamed, Goobjooge.
49. Field notes, 1997–1998, Mogadishu, Somalia; and I. Sh., email interview, 7/28/2017, 5:10 PM.
50. UIC is also known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). For the emergence of Islamic courts, see Abbink, “The Islamic Courts Union”; Hassan and Barnes, “The Rise and Fall of Mogadishu’s Islamic Courts”; Mwangi, “The Union of Islamic Courts.” For an insider’s point of view on the UIC, see Abū Bakr, Tujribatu Ahmaxakim Al Islamiya fi Somal.
51. The Indian Ocean Newsletter, “Diplomatic Comeback”; Lortan, “Rebuilding the Somali State.”
52. This author, then a press officer of Abdikassim Salaad’s government, was part of the Transitional National Government’s team led by the then Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah that met this delegation at Prime Minister’s office. The Somali delegation included the current Somali Minister for Foreign Affairs and recent Somali Ambassador to the United States, Ahmed Iise Awad. When the TNG was declared, one observer noted: ‘A new provisional government in Mogadishu seems to aim for the restoration of a centralised state. In other parts of the former country, such as in Puntland and Somaliland, there are other views of reconstruction. The views of the main international actors will be crucial in deciding the outcomes of these various initiatives’; Doornbos, “Somalia,” 402.
53. The US Department Archive, “Comprehensive List of Terrorists and Groups Identified Under Executive Order 13,224.”
54. First contact between Al-Qaeda and Al-Itihaad probably occurred in 1992, at the time the latter were partially controlling in the Northeast Somalia (present-day Puntland). Communication between the two groups was intensified when Al-Itihaad fighters, who were subsequently beaten badly in Boosaaso, withdrew to the Sanaag and the Gedo regions. A closer relationship was believed to become possible in 2003, a few years before the emergence of Al-Shabaab.
55. On the economic war between Haji Abukar Omar Addaan and Bashiir Raage Shiiraar, see International Crisis Group, “Can the Somalia Crisis be Contained.” Andrew Harding noted how the CIA funded Mogadishu’s warlords in their fight against the courts; Harding, The Mayor of Mogadishu, 163.
56. Shiiraar was among the 2017 presidential candidates who contested the Somali presidency in Mogadishu. See SBC Somali TV, “KHUDBADDA MUSHARAX MADAXWEYNE BASHIIR RAAGE SHIIRAAR 02 02 2017”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7tfjcbFK38 (between min. 0:07 and 7:57). Accessed 31 March 2016.
57. “Ururka Argagixiso la dirirka Muqdisho.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhyje2zkYnY. Accessed 14 January 2016.
58. Before this development, the war in Somalia was based along clan-based factional politics led by competing war entrepreneurs and their brokers, both profiting from the state spoils and war economy. The politico-religious groups pitted one war entrepreneur against another to live off the war.
59. Menkhaus, “The Crisis in Somalia,” 374.
60. Ibid., 367.
61. Some of the warlords, like Muuse Suudi Yalahow and Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad ‘Indha-Adde’, also harboured Islamic tendencies; Africa Confidential, “Islamists at Work.” Roland Marchal and Zakaria M. Sheikh argue that ‘[t]he lack of progress in enforcing a new constitution and the conservatism of the Somali society may illustrate a paradoxical victory of the Salafi agenda: the place of Islam within Somali society is undecided and this leaves open many possibilities for promoting their school of thought despite having failed dramatically to have it approved at a time they represented the most credible nationalist wing’; Marchal and Sheikh, “Salafism in Somalia,” 139.
62. Africa Confidential, “Rising Tension between the Regimes of President Yusuf and Chairman Aweys.”
63. Field notes, Brussels, 2004–2008.
64. Since the Black Hawk Down fiasco in 1993 up to 2001, the US engagement with Somalia was limited. Abbink, “The Islamic Courts Union”; Dawson, “New World Disorder”; de Waal, “Assassinating Terrorists Does Not Work”; International Crisis Group, “Somalia: Al-Shabaab”; Prunier and Wilson, “A World of Conflict since 9/11”; Verhoeven, “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Failed States.”
65. Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors, and the State in Afghanistan; Murtazashvili, Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan.
66. Field interviews, May 2016; Africa Confidential, “Islamist Takeover”; Africa Confidential, “Islamists at Work”; Rice, “Mogadishu’s Miracle.” For detailed overview on the dynamics that led the UIC to failure, see Menkhaus, “The Crisis in Somalia.”
67. “Daawo warbixin cajiib ah: Taariikhda Axmed Godane iyo mustaqbalka Al-Shabaab dilkiisa kadib.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQsGz-ReQA4(between min. 2:40 and 3:06). Accessed 9 January 2016.
68. Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, 36. Compare Africa Confidential, “Courts without Authority.”
69. Abu Mansor was not removed from the list of terrorists; VOA News, “US Drops Reward Offer for Former al-Shabab Leader.”
70. Interview with Al-Shabaab defectors, Mogadishu, Somalia, 4 May 2016; conversations with former deputy leader of the ICU, Mogadishu, August 2015 and May 2016. For the talks, see Cornwell, “Somalia.”
71. Talbot, “US Backs Ethiopia’s Invasion of Somalia”; Slavin, “US Support Key to Ethiopia’s Invasion”; Prince, “WikiLeaks.” See also Confidential, Cable from US Embassy in Nairobi, “Subject: Somalia.”
72. Warbrick and Yihdego, “II. Ethiopia’s Military Action.”
73. ABC News Online, “Somali Elders Say about 100 Killed in US, Ethiopian Air Strikes.”
74. Cited in Duffy, Ireland in the Middle Ages, 76. This perfectly describes the Somali attitude towards the Ethiopians. For the human rights violations of the Ethiopian troops, see Human Rights Watch, “So Much to Fear”; Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked.
75. The Economist, “By Dawn the Islamists Were Gone.”
76. Coomay, “Dagaalkii Gedo ee Al-Itixaad iyo Itoobiya 1996-kii.”
77. For a tentative analysis on the Ethiopian invasion, see Bamfo, “Ethiopia’s Invasion of Somalia.”
78. The Arab League condemned the US administration for killing ‘”many innocent victims” and urgently asked for Washington to “refrain from further attacks”’; ABC News Online, “Somali Elders Say about 100 Killed in US, Ethiopian Air Strikes.” For a legal perspective of these attacks, see Warbrick and Yihdego, “II. Ethiopia’s Military Action.”
79. Cobol, Kobicii Islaamiyiinta Soomaaliya; Africa Research Bulletin, “Somalia.”
80. BBC Somali, “Al-shabab oo lagu daray Liiska Argagaxisada.” For how the Western policies led to serious mistakes and the War on Terror backfired and produced an unexpected outcome, see Ibrahim, “Somalia and Global Terrorism”; Malito, “Building Terror while Fighting Enemies”; Mantzikos, “The International Community’s Role”; Marchal, “Warlordism and Terrorism”; Patman, “The Roots of Strategic Failure”; Verhoeven, “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Failed States.”
81. All Somali People, “Ciidamada Itoobiya oo isaga baxay dhamaan Somalia.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReMKywrz7Q8. Accessed 31 October 2016.
82. Field interviews and observations, Mogadishu, May–September 2015 and April–August 2016.
83. Somali Update. “Foreign Interventions in Somalia”; Schraeder, “The End of the Cold War and US Foreign Policy toward the Horn of Africa.”
84. Interview with H. O. M., Mogadishu, 9 June 2016; interviews with Somali elders, Addis Ababa, March–April 2016.
85. Elmi and Barise, “The Somali Conflict”; Dowden, Africa; Frenkil, “The Lion Comes to Mogadishu”; Hoehne, “Mimesis and Mimicry.”
86. Field notes, Addis Ababa, March–April 2016.
87. Field interviews and observations, Mogadishu, May–September 2015 and April–August 2016.
88. Interviews with Somali government officials, Mogadishu, 5 July 2016.
89. Xamar Cade, “IGAD Seeks to end.”
90. VOA Somali, “Dagaal ka Dhex Qarxay.”
91. The most vivid case was when Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf used Ethiopian forces to defeat his rival Colonel Jama Ali Jama in December 2001. Field notes, Boosaaso and Garoowe, December 2001.