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ABSTRACT
To what extent is making peace not a neutral or impartial exercise? By analysing the peace initiatives undertaken in Somalia and Somaliland (1991–95), this article questions the positionality and alignment of the actors involved, and claims that neither process has been an impartial exercise. To explore this argument the article first theoretically frames how supporters and critics of liberal peace elaborate on the dilemma of neutrality and impartiality. Departing from Lederach’s criticism of impartiality, I claim that the UN–US intervention in Somalia has been an instrument of division, as well as leverage for political and military advantage. External interveners have initially subverted the internal distribution of power, but they lacked the commitment and material capacity of sustaining the preferred ‘winning’ faction. By unpacking the category of ‘local’ I then map the protagonists of the Somaliland pacification, as well the mechanism of institution-building that enabled a multi-scale of stakeholders to sustain the conflict resolution. This analysis contributes to reconceptualise the political architecture of making peace. It also helps to disentangle the study of peace and violence from the myths of the liberal, neutral, intervention doctrine.
Acknowledgements
This article was written while the author was benefiting from a postdoctoral fellowship provided by the A. W. Mellon Foundation at the University of Cape Town, Department of Political Studies. This article is part of my doctoral thesis, defended at the University of Milan (March 2013). I deeply thank Alessandro Colombo for his supervision during my doctoral degree. I am also deeply grateful to all my interviewees, Abdullahi Odowa and Muhyadin Saed in particular who facilitated my fieldwork in Somaliland. Earlier versions of this article have been presented in different conferences: the 27th Annual Conference of the Italian Society of Political Science; the 3rd Annual Conference of the International Association for Peace and Conflict Studies; and the GIGA Conference on World Regions Compared: Polity, Politics and Policy. I am indebted with the participants to these conferences, and Irene Costantini in particular, for very helpful comments on earlier version of this article. I also thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers of International Peacekeeping for their extremely valuable comments. I am solely responsible for any remaining errors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
About the author
Debora Valentina Malito is A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town. She has been a Research Associate at the European University Institute (2013–2016). She holds a PhD in Political Studies (2013) from the University of Milan. Her research interests focus on critical studies of liberal intervention, state-building and global governance.
Notes
1 Ottaway, “Rebuilding State Institutions in Collapsed States.”
2 Chandler, “The Road to Military Humanitarianism,” 679.
3 Cfr. Richmond, “Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism.”
4 See for instance Chandler, “The Road to Military Humanitarianism.”
5 Primary sources include individual interviews with Somaliland traditional leaders, state ministers and officials, scholars and members of local and international NGOs conducted in Hargeisa between October and November 2011.
6 Cfr. Gates and Strand, “Military Intervention, Democratization”; Pearson, Walker, and Stern, “Military Intervention and the Question of Democratization and Inter-Ethnic Peace.”
7 Donald, “Neutrality, Impartiality and UN Peacekeeping.”
8 United Nations General Assembly, “Strengthening of the Coordination,” 50.
9 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Glossary of Humanitarian Terms,” 15.
10 Annan, “Peacekeeping, Military Intervention and National Sovereignty.”
11 As codified inside the General Guidelines for Peacekeeping Operations: ‘Impartiality must not promote inaction’ and ‘Neither side should gain unfair advantages as a result of the activities of a peacekeeping operation’ United Nations, ‘General Guidelines for Peacekeeping Operations. UN/210/TC/GG95’ (United Nations Department of Peace-keeping Operations, 2005), 19.
12 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Glossary of Humanitarian Terms,” 15.
13 Donald, “Neutrality, Impartiality and UN Peacekeeping.”
14 Astor, “Mediator Neutrality”; See for instance Donald, “Neutrality, Impartiality and UN Peacekeeping.”
15 Cfr. Betts, “The Delusion of Impartial Intervention”; Goetschel, “Neutrals as Brokers of Peacebuilding Ideas?”
16 Bertram, “Reinventing Governments,” 394.
17 Smith, “Mediator Impartiality.”
18 Allee and Huth, “Legitimizing Dispute Settlement.”
19 Cobb and Rifkin, “Practice and Paradox.”
20 Ibid., 37.
21 Smith, “Mediator Impartiality,” 446.
22 Ibid.
23 Lederach, Building Peace.
24 Wehr and Lederach, “Mediating Conflict in Central America.”
25 Lederach, “Of Nets, Nails, and Problems,” 171.
26 For a review of the critique of the liberal peace see: Chandler, “The Uncritical Critique of ‘liberal Peace’”; Richmond and Mac Ginty, “Where Now for the Critique?”
27 Lederach, Building Peace.
28 Jabri, “Revisiting Change and Conflict,” 5.
29 Väyrynen, New Directions in Conflict Theory.
30 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance.
31 Cfr. Mac Ginty, “Hybrid Peace.”
32 Mac Ginty, “Indigenous Peace-making versus the Liberal Peace.”
33 Zartman, Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts.
34 Richmond, “Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism.”
35 Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding.”
36 Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Fallacy of Constructing Hybrid Political Orders.”
37 Cfr. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development. The standardised, focused questions are: (I) What kind of strategy did the external and internal peacemakers pursue? (II) What kind of interests did the peacemakers have? How did the peacemakers intervene? And how did they manage to compel with the legitimacy, credibility and economic sustainability of the peace process?
38 Coalition composed of: Somali National Movement (SNM), United Somali Congress (USC) and Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM).
39 From now on: Ali Mahdi.
40 From now on: Aidid.
41 United Nations, “United Nations Operations in Somalia I.”
42 United Nations Security Council, “Resolution 767.” For a broader review of the peace process undertaken in this period cfr. Hussein Mohamed Adam. “Somalia : International versus Local Attempts at Peacebuilding”.
43 Stevenson, Losing Mogadishu, 50.
44 Alqaq, Managing World Order, 71. cfr. also Hussein Mohamed Adam. “Somalia : International versus Local Attempts at Peacebuilding”.
45 Stevenson, Losing Mogadishu.
46 Alqaq, Managing World Order.
47 Glanville, “Somalia Reconsidered.”
48 United Nations Security Council, “Resolution 767.”
49 Cfr. United Nations, The United Nations and Somalia, 1992-1996. With an Introduction by Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Sahnoun, Somalia: The Missed Opportunities.
50 Sahnoun, Somalia: The Missed Opportunities.
51 Menkhaus, “International Peacebuilding and the Dynamics of Local and National Reconciliation in Somalia,” 53.
52 Cassanelli, “Somali Land Resource Issues in Historical Perspectives,” 75.
53 Cfr. for instance Heinrich, Building the Peace.
54 On the assessment of the District Council cfr. “Review of the District Council in the Bay and Bakool Regions of Southern Somalia.”
55 Cfr. Stevenson, Losing Mogadishu.
56 Walls, Mohammed, and Ali, Peace in Somaliland.
57 Ibid.
58 Lederach’s pyramid is used in this article as heuristic device to map the political and social stratifications of the Somaliland peacemakers. Cfr. Lederach, “International Peacebuilding Goes Local”; On the application of Lederach’s model on the case of Somaliland see Mahamoud Abdi Sh. Ahmed, “Why the Somali Peace Talks Failed.”
59 Interview by author with Muhaydin Saed, University of Hargeisa, 10/10/2011.
60 Ibid.; Interview by author with Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane, General Secretary of the Guurti, House of Elders, 18 October 2011.
61 Interviews by author, October 2011, Hargeisa.
62 Ibid.
63 Walls, Mohammed, and Ali, Peace in Somaliland.
64 Hart and Saed, “Integrating Principles and Practices of Customary Law, Conflict Transformation and Restorative Justice in Somaliland.” Interviews by author, October 2011, Hargeisa.
65 Cfr. Drysdale, Somaliland.
66 Walls, “State Formation in Somaliland,” 38.
67 Cfr. Drysdale, Somaliland.
68 Interview by author with Ali Waran Ade, Hargeisa, 28 October 2011; Interview by author with Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane, General Secretary of the Guurti, House of Elders, 18 October 2011.
69 Interviews by author, October 2011, Hargeisa.
70 Interview by author with Ali Waran Ade, 28 October 2011, Hargeisa.
71 Cfr. Renders, “Appropriate ‘Governance-Technology’?”, 444.
72 Drysdale, Whatever Happened to Somalia?, For a better understanding of the context in which the Burao conference took place cfr.
73 Interview by author with Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane, General Secretary of the Guurti, House of Elders, Hargeisa 18 October 2011.
74 Walls, Mohammed, and Ali, Peace in Somaliland.
75 Interview by author with Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane, General Secretary of the Guurti, House of Elders, Hargeisa, 18 October 2011.
76 The term Beel refers to a type of government based on clan system.
77 Walls, Mohammed, and Ali, Peace in Somaliland: An Indigenous Approach to State-Building, 66.
78 Habar Je’lo and Habar Yoonis are both Isaaq clans.
79 On the intense conflicts in the east see Höhne, “Between Somaliland and Puntland.”
80 Bradbury, “A History of Mediation in Somalia since 1988.”
81 Ibid.
82 Hart and Saed, “Integrating Principles and Practices.”
83 On the statemaking function of warmaking cfr. Balthasar, “Somaliland’s Best Kept Secret.”
84 Cfr. Somaliland House of Parliament, “Somaliland: A Model, Indigenous Owned Peace.”
85 Aidid, “How to Write About Somalia.”
86 Cfr. Reno, “Somalia and Survival in the Shadow of the Global Economy.”
87 Interview by author with Abdi Yusuf Bobe, Academy for Peace, Hargeisa, 25 October 2011.
88 Interview by author with Abdullahi Odowa, University of Hargeisa, 18 October 2011. Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane, General Secretary of the Guurti, House of Elders, 18 October 2011.
89 Tripodi, “Back to the Horn.”
90 Interview by author with Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane, General Secretary of the Guurti, House of Elders, Hargeisa 18 October 2011.
91 Reno, “Somalia and Survival.”
92 Ibid.
93 On the regional politics of mutual intervention in the Horn of Africa see Cliffe, “Regional Dimensions of Conflict in the Horn of Africa.”
94 Interview by author with Rashid Hassan, State Secretary for Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Republic of Somaliland, Hargeisa, 18 October 2011.