Somalia: ‘They Created a Desert and Called it Peace(building)’

Abstract

This article documents the humanitarian, political and security dimensions of the current Somali crisis and assesses the external policies that are playing an increasingly central role in the conflict. It advances the thesis that in 2007 and 2008 external Western and UN actors treated Somalia as a post-conflict setting when in fact their own policies helped to inflame armed conflict and insecurity there. As a result there was no peace for peacekeepers to keep, no state to which state-building projects could contribute, and increasingly little humanitarian space in which aid agencies could reach over 3 million Somalis in need of emergency relief. The gap between Somali realities on the ground and the set of assumptions on which aid and diplomatic policies toward Somalia have been constructed is wide and deep.

Acknowledgements

This article is a condensed and updated version of a report by the author: Somalia: a country in peril, a policy nightmare, Enough Strategy Paper, Washington DC, September 2008.

Notes

A more detailed account of recent events in Somalia since 2004 can be found in Menkhaus (2007).

Due to space limitations, the complex details of clan politics in shaping support for and opposition to the TFG are not provided here. For our purposes it is enough to note that clannism is one of a number of important elements contributing to the political divisions in Somalia today. For more details, see ICG (2004, 2007), Barnes and Hassan (2007) and Menkhaus (2007).

It was never clear that any of the main players in the Somali saga – hardliners in the TFG (including the President and Prime Minister), Ethiopia and hardliners in the ICU – would have been willing to see these power-sharing negotiations succeed, but at the time it was the best hope to bring peace to Somalia.

The precise position of the US Government vis-à-vis the Ethiopian military offensive and occupation of southern Somalia remains the subject of debate, with conflicting accounts even within the US Government. These debates centre around whether and to what extent the US acquiesced, gave tacit support for, gave a ‘green light’ to, or actively requested Ethiopian military action against the ICU. What is indisputable is that once the Ethiopian offensive was immanent, the US Government actively provided it with support.

AMISOM forces levels eventually reached 3,000 by late 2008.

The total population of Somalia is unknown and the subject of debate. The most common estimate is 8 to 9 million for the entire country, including the population of secessionist Somaliland in the northwest.

As of late 2008, there has been a sharp debate between various UN and NGO humanitarian aid agencies, donors and diplomats over whether adequate humanitarian space exists to permit effective food relief operations in the country. Some argue that the extraordinary number of assassinations of local and international aid workers has resulted in an almost complete evacuation of aid workers across the country, leaving aid agencies with no means of monitoring food shipment distribution. Others argue that despite the difficulties posed by the security crisis, some aid agencies have successfully relied on local partners to move food aid to the 3 million Somalis in need. For recent discussions, see UN OCHA (2008) and ‘Somalia nearing a ‘total famine’'.

Ten additional aid workers were killed in Somalia between July and October 2008, raising the total to 30 deaths for the year. The UN reports that between January and the end of October 2008, there were 152 security incidents involving humanitarian aid workers. See UN OCHA (2008, p. 6).

Interview by the author, Nairobi, November 2008.

The ARS is now divided between the moderate wing, led by the two Sharifs and known as ‘ARS-Djibouti’, versus the ARS-Asmara wing headed by Hassan Dahir Aweys. Aweys rejects the Djibouti accord.

Correspondence with the author, July 2008.