Introduction

Identifying the best way to manage everyday security in fragile post-conflict cities is as challenging today as it has ever been, and Mogadishu is one of the most challenging in the world, as the capital of the notoriously failed state of Somalia. This Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which Mogadishu’s inhabitants try to stay out of harm’s way, from security officials in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to the city’s powerful district commissioners, from patrolling policemen to the women road-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleyways of the Waberi district. Its central proposition is that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future. It uses the neighbourhood-watch schemes developed in certain districts of Mogadishu − most notably Waberi − to understand the ways in which the city’s inhabitants respond to the security models promoted by international advisers, who in fact are based in the safety of the city’s Aden Adde International Airport.

The most immediate security challenges confronting the city are terrorism-related, with the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab the main concern, but the legacy of 25 years of conflict and violence means that the security threats faced by Mogadishu overlap with current terrorism and indeed are mutually reinforcing and indicative of broader political and social tensions. Special attention is paid in this paper to the city’s security plan and the points at which the local and the international meet.

The level of insecurity in Mogadishu − and the length of time this insecurity has persisted − is extreme: at the time of writing, a truck bomb at a busy junction near key ministry buildings had killed at least 350 people, the country’s deadliest attack.¹ Yet all sectors of society are exposed to a range of physical threats on a daily basis, arising from inter-clan conflicts, Al-Shabaab attacks, revenge killings, trigger-happy guards, or as a result of conflicts about land, property and livestock. Internally displaced persons (IDPs), members of minority clans and women are the most vulnerable. Further, the threat of physical insecurity is exacerbated by less tangible threats, with young Somali men between the ages of approximately 15 and 35 facing challenges that make them vulnerable to recruitment by Al-Shabaab.

The picture of insecurity in Somalia – and specifically in Mogadishu – presented in this paper is partial, reflecting the perspective of a non-Somali-speaking female British researcher who had only limited access to Somali residents. Nevertheless, by illustrating the responses and expectations of Somali inhabitants to the security challenges they face, this paper helps to rebalance a picture that is otherwise heavily weighted towards the concerns and perspectives of international organisations. In other words, it looks at how Somalis actually respond, rather than how they are expected to respond. In addition, the paper offers insights into larger issues, such as the nature of security and the contribution of police forces to state-building and capacity-building.

There is no shortage of reports analysing the innumerable security and humanitarian crises affecting Mogadishu since former President Siad Barre fled in 1991, ushering in more than two decades of civil war and insurgency.² But the establishment of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) in August 2012 saw a change of focus in news reports to emphasising Mogadishu’s return to something approximating vibrancy: articles about property booms ran alongside stories about the installation of solar-powered street lights and photographs of residents going about their daily lives in markets, barber shops and restaurants.³ The trend slowed in the run-up to the presidential elections in February 2017, with English-language Somali news sources such as Shabelle News, Hiiraan Online, Horseed Media and Goobjoog News publishing almost daily stories about Al-Shabaab’s attacks, all of which continued in the weeks after the election. On 28 February, for example, in three separate incidents, a local government official and an intelligence officer were both killed by bombs hidden in their cars, while an army officer narrowly avoided assassination.⁴ Nevertheless, most Somali and international commentators welcomed the election of President Mohamed Abdullahi ‘Farmajo’ Mohamed, a popular former prime minister who holds dual Somali-US citizenship. His election was widely thought to represent a genuine opportunity for Somalia to move towards stability, democracy and prosperity.⁵ And everyone, including Farmajo, agrees that improving security – and developing the security forces – is a priority.⁶ For physical security lies at the core of daily life.

Summary of Contents

Chapter I introduces the role played by Mogadishu's police and residents in the reconstructive efforts needed to stabilise, secure and, ultimately, develop the city. It explores the dynamics at play by linking three issues that are usually kept separate: hard and soft security as found in counterterrorism and community safety; formal and informal policing provision; and international and local perspectives on security. It argues that conventional distinctions between state-based security and individual or human security are misleading when making Mogadishu’s residents safer requires physical security to be prioritised. The paper's central proposition – that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future – is presented, together with its three key themes of counterterrorism, community policing and information and communications technology (ICT).

Chapter II introduces the reader to the city’s security environment and the challenges it presents to local politicians, police officers and residents, as well as to donors such as the UK. It acknowledges the broad-based nature of its underlying insecurity but emphasises that the critical issue affecting decision-making and practice – and the one pulling together the various issues and acting as a concrete conceptualisation of insecurity – is terrorism. The ways in which the various elements relate are explored in the light of Mogadishu's formal city security plan and the role of the Somali Police Force. The overall picture is, however, complicated by Mogadishu’s blend of formal and informal policing initiatives, the widespread acceptance of coercion in everyday life, memories of the policing used during the 1970s and 1980s, and, most importantly, legal pluralism.

Chapter III focuses on the best example of a locally acceptable and sustainable form of community safety currently available in Mogadishu: the neighbourhood watch scheme found in Waberi district. The scheme’s record is analysed in the light of the development of the 2015 Mogadishu city security plan, AMISOM’s goal of rolling out community policing across the city’s districts and, just as importantly, the Somali experience of security provision and policing in the 1970s and 2000s. It addresses the porous nature of the borders between not only counterterrorism and community safety and welfare, but also between state security forces, informal clan militias and terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab, with some individuals belonging to all three. In Mogadishu, as in most chronically insecure cities, security reflects the sum of many local arrangements and is best explored by way of the points of interaction between the various actors and interests and the nature of the negotiations, concessions or refusals.

Chapter IV shows how, despite the neighbourhood-watch scheme's relative success, the relationship between Benadir’s regional authorities, the police and residents is full of distrust and suspicion. Crimes ranging from property theft to violent assault potentially affect everyone, but most crime is not reported to the police and, even if it were, no-one expects officers to respond. Perhaps because of this, donors increasingly look to ICT as a tool for improving crime-reporting and police response rates. In some cases, ICT is seen as offering the potential for improving community cohesion, mobilisation and safety. Prompted by the success in Kenya of ICT-based reporting systems and the ease with which social media has been integrated into Kenyan community policing, and reinforced by the cheap call tariffs and high rates of access to mobiles in Mogadishu, donors have identified ICT as a tool for improving police–community relations and street-level security. Mogadishu’s experience suggests that this is overly optimistic. Indeed, the chapter emphasises that Mogadishu’s experience raises a number of important questions about the transferability of technology-based solutions between societies.

To explore the possibilities for generalising from a single case, Chapter V compares Mogadishu’s experience of using ICT for community safety with Hargeisa's, where a text alert system was introduced in 2015. Although the project failed to achieve its goals, the alert system is noteworthy because it offers contextualised insights into both the specifics of police–community engagement in a relatively safe city and the use of mobiles as a two-way technology capable of reaching low-income or marginalised populations. It shows how, contrary to the Kenya-based debate mentioned in Chapter III, local norms and preferences can counteract the globalised technology available. The precise details of what shapes low-level policing in safe urban environments such as Hargeisa’s may not be known, but ICT plays little part in its everyday policing practices.

The concluding chapter provides context-specific and generic observations addressing empirical and analytical concerns. Although the details of what Waberi’s residents do to stay out of harm’s way may not be fully known, three key points deserve note. First, neighbourhood-watch schemes represent the most locally acceptable, cost-effective and sustainable form of security currently available in Mogadishu. Second, counterterrorism and everyday safety concerns may be procedurally and financially separate, but they are not analytically exclusive. This suggests that while Western value-based divisions between security and development do not necessarily transfer to the Somali environment, the notion of a continuum based on everyone’s need for physical security does. It indicates that donors should acknowledge that effective and realistic strategies for state- and capacity-building depend primarily on delivering physical security today, rather than ‘human’ security at some point in the future. Third, the potential of ICT to improve crime-reporting and police response rates is for now minimal in Mogadishu as in Hargeisa, because police stations are the preferred site for engagement.

Notes

1 BBC News, ‘Mogadishu Truck Bombing Death Toll Jumps to 358’, 20 October 2017.

2 For police-related developments in the early 1990s see, for example, Robert B Oakley, Michael J Dziedzic and Eliot M Goldberg (eds), Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1998).

3 Nazanine Moshiri, ‘Mogadishu Property Boom Stirs Concern’, Al-Jazeera, 14 October 2012; Somalia Investor, ‘Real Estate Boom’, 9 April 2016; Murad Shishani, ‘Mogadishu’s First Solar-Powered Street Lamps’, BBC News, 29 October 2012; Mark Byrnes, ‘A Fascinating Glimpse of Daily Life in Mogadishu’, CityLab, 21 October 2013; Keyd Media, ‘Somalia Resumes Solar-Powered Lampposts on Mogadishu Streets’, 30 January 2015; Jason Burke, ‘Three Tales of Mogadishu: Violence, a Booming Economy … and Now Famine’, The Guardian, 15 May 2017.

4 Shabelle News, ‘Somalia: A Local Govt Official Killed in Mogadishu Car Bomb Blast’, 28 February 2017; Shamso Macalin, ‘Bomb Under Car Seat Kills Somali Intelligence Officer’, Baydhabo Online, 1 March 2017; Shabelle News, ‘Top Army Officer Escapes an “Assassination Attempt”’, 1 March 2017. Note: Shabelle News occasionally removes its online stories.

5 Sakariye Cismaan, ‘The Big Cheese: Why President Farmaajo Holds So Much Hope for Somalia’, African Arguments, 9 February 2017.

6 Ibid.