L’Europe se trompe de politique en Somalie

In English: Reconsidering EU policy options in Somalia

INTERVIEW SUR LA SITUATION POLITIQUE PUBLIÉE SUR RFI – 19 FÉVRIER 2021

Interview sur la crise électorale – Radio Vatican, 26 avril 2021.

Tribune / Opinion qui attend publication dans la presse francophone, rédigée le 11 février 2021

L’Union Européenne dépense depuis des décennies des milliards d’euros en Somalie, mais le bilan de cet engagement est plus que décevant. Si bien la société Somalienne, dynamique, connait un certain essor, le gouvernement de l’État fédéral et de ses états membres, que la communauté internationale s’est engagée à soutenir, reste paralysé par les luttes pour le pouvoir entre les clans. Ce gouvernement, dépendant de l’aide internationale et profondément corrompu, jouit de peu de soutien populaire, d’autant plus qu’il est incapable de démarrer le développement du pays exsangue. Ayant échoué à tenir des élections avant le 8 février, quand leur mandat est arrivé à terme, le Président Farmaajo et son cabinet sont même techniquement illégitimes : une bonne occasion pour l’Europe d’infléchir sa politique.

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Somaliland suspends relations with the United Nations among rising social tensions

African Arguments published a short version of this article with a focus on the UN, and a similar, slightly improved version of this article appeared on democracyinafrica.org,

On October 25, 2020, Somaliland authorities suspended their relations with the United Nations and banned its activities ‘until further notice’. While the frustration of the thirty-year old unrecognized state with the UN can easily be understood, this move is unlikely to bring any benefit to the country. Somaliland is gradually developing into a clan-based autocracy. President Bihi maintains a balance among the ruling elites by granting and revoking business licenses and political positions, but this clientelist system produces little economic growth and offers no scope for political renewal. The youth is increasingly disaffected. The President instead blames the country’s problems on the lack of direct access to international funding and is increasing the pressure on the international community.

One week earlier, on October 17, the cabinet of Somaliland’s President Muse Bihi decided not to restore the landing rights for direct flights from the unrecognized state’s capital Hargeisa to Dubai by Air Arabia and Fly Dubai, citing legal difficulties. The details of the underlying conflict provide a clear window into Somaliland’s politics and how they affect, and are affected by, clan and business interests.

A Fly Dubai airliner on the tarmac of Hargeisa in better times
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Critical reading of latest UN Security Council deliberations on Somalia

At times it appears that United Nations analyses of local situations have become increasingly divorced from ground realities. This becomes apparent when one critically reads briefings to the Security Council, which often are closely reflected in subsequent Security Council resolutions.

In 2002, when I was political affairs officer for the UN mission in Afghanistan, I was charged with the compilation and writing of the weekly situation reports that were sent to the UN’s Department of Political Affairs, including the Secretary General’s office. Continue reading

Patterns of International Involvement in Somalia

(this is the concluding section of the first chapter of my doctoral thesis in preparation, “International Intervention and State-Building in Somalia”, 45 pages. The entire chapter can be downloaded here).

The historic survey of international interventions in Somalia provides us with some interesting insights:

  1. The Somali state has been an international project that started in the 1950s. State-building has taken place above and along local governance systems, usually clan-based, that have continued to function in the absence of an effective state. Rather than being the fundamental organizing principle of Somali society – as is often assumed – the Somali state is essentially an interface between that society and the international community, brought into being and almost entirely funded by the latter.
  2. The state provides external resources that can be captured. President Siad Barre had captured and then exhausted this resource as he fought against his rivals. The vestiges of the state—its property of land and buildings, weapons, personnel, reserves, monopoly position regarding taxation, etc.—were either destroyed or divided among many Somali factions in the civil war. Without a state to fight about, Somali society stabilized into forms of local governance in the 1990s.
  3. As an instrument, the Somali state has mainly been used in a predatory fashion. It has never invested much in education, health and infrastructure. Somali experiences of the state have been overall negative, from Barre’s time to today, when a checkpoint manned by government forces is more likely to result in extorsion, rape or intimidation, than one manned by clan militia or Al Shabaab. This negative perception of the state among the Somali public is not addressed in international state-building plans.
  4. There is a clear correlation between levels of external financial support and civil strife in Somalia: The more aid, the more war. Both humanitarian and ‘state-building’ assistance are seen as a resource to be captured.
  5. The one time that a home-grown system of governance was established in most of Somalia, the Islamic Courts Union, it was rapidly destroyed by external intervention. The international community supported the Ethiopian invasion under the banner of the War on Terror. This gave Somalis the impression that the international community is not interested in peace and stability per se, but only on its own terms, through a state that it controls; this leads them to believe that control is the objective of the international presence in Somalia.
  6. Since 2004 the international community has embarked on a sustained effort to create a new Somali state, based on a federal model. The de facto independence of Somaliland since 1991 has not been recognized. Although many Somalis still contest the legitimacy of the federal state, it appears that acceptance levels are gradually rising, as that state, while still quite powerless, is becoming increasingly stable. The insistence may be paying off, but Somalia remains a failed state by all definitions.
  7. The international community has always been coy about its involvement in conceiving, building and sustaining the Somali state, making it seem like either a developmental necessity (in the 1950s), or as a request by Somalis themselves (since 1992). Given the systematic dependence on external support, the donors of the Somali state could claim ownership over it, but instead they maintain the fiction of sovereignty and independence.
  8. There is little historical evidence that the colonial period was a traumatic one in Somalia, and it would be hard to argue that the roots of Somalia’s troubles lie in the policies of colonial powers. In fact, colonial administrators made more efforts to understand and work within the Somali context than interveners do today. The colonial period was disruptive because it was the first contact between Somalis and the ‘modernized’ world, but then prevalent policies sought to preserve and work with local balances of power and traditional self-governance rather than replace/reorganise them as today.
  9. Until the 1990s, there was a degree of frankness within the international community when discussing the situation in Somalia; since the 2000s, international discourse about its presence and objectives in Somalia has become increasingly out of touch with reality. This is evident, for example, when comparing UN documents about Somalia of the 1940s, 1990s and 2010s. Today, international agencies’ assessments of the context and the actions to be taken therein are often in contradiction with those made by independent experts.
  10. The disconnect between international intervention and the Somali ground truth has notably increased with the Global War on Terror. Somalia was no threat to the international community, but it has been treated as such since 2001. It can be argued that the War on Terror has spawned radical Islam and extremism in Somalia, rather than preventing it. Despite – or because of – more than a decade of warfare.
  11. Intervention in Somalia has been justified mostly on humanitarian grounds, both in policy documents and towards international public opinion. However, humanitarian action has been increasingly constrained and diverted for external state-building and counter-terrorism purposes. This has led not only to failure of international assistance when Somalia faced major crises (1991-1993, 2007-2008 and 2011-2012), but also to the loss of impartiality and autonomy, as the aid sector is now amalgamated to the overall Western agenda of forced modernization and is incapable of accessing populations in opposition-held areas.
  12. Somalia has been a test case where many of the assumptions underlying international intervention have been broken. Both superpowers failed to make Somalia an ally despite considerable investments. The UN intervention failed spectacularly to bring peace and allow humanitarian aid delivery, despite the seminal invocation of Chapter VII of the UN charter and the massive means deployed. The powerful US was routed militarily in 1993. The NGO sector lost its independence. Coordinated donor policies failed to make an impact on the ground. Despite being one of the theatres of the War on Terror and ‘Counter Violent Extremism’ programs, at least half of South-Central Somalia is controlled by Al Shabaab, which has progressively radicalized.

In short, it seems Somalis never aspired to building a state and the international efforts to create one and then support it have met with overall failure. From a study of the internal dynamics of Somali society over the past hundred years, it seems clear that the less intervention in Somalia, the better. It also appears Somali systems of self-governance have been resilient and overall effective, although skewed toward the powerful clans. Why then is the international community still engaged in external state-building in Somalia? After having discarded internal reasons to do so, it is time to consider possible reasons external to the Somali context.

Warning: Somaliland and Puntland sliding toward war

UPDATE: Fortunately the conflict was stopped by intense diplomacy, mostly to the credit of the UN Special Representative Michael Keating, who engaged in several rounds of shuttle diplomacy; President Farmajo also played a positive role, instead of weighing in on the side of Puntland as was long feared/expected. Currently (Feb 2020) the conflict is in its frozen state, as it has been since the late 1990s.

Several weeks after our report the International Crisis Group issued a report on the same subject, with many similar perspectives but more detail and links

June 1, 2018, Hargeisa and Addis Ababa. Over the past weeks more than 75 soldiers have been killed in the conflict opposing Puntland and Somaliland near Tukaraq. This is the heaviest death toll recorded in conflict between the two states over the past twenty years.

Landscape of the Nugaal plain near Faleeryale in the contested area. Pic by R Kluijver

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Somaliland votes for Stability – Personal Observation

Nov 13, 2017, from an independent observer

 

The elections today in Somaliland were remarkably peaceful and orderly. Observers hardly remarked any irregularity. Participation rates seem to be high. In and around Hargeisa an estimated 80-90% of registered voters cast their vote. Queues were orderly and polling staff, party observers and police appeared to fulfill their tasks professionally.

It is widely expected that the ruling Kulmiye party, whose current President Silanyo is stepping down, will win the popular vote, but the main opposition party, Wadani, could come a close second. The other party in this constitutionally-fixed three party system, UCID, will certainly come last. The results are expected to be announced around November 17 or 18; until then, social media is cut off.

 

No clashes with Puntland

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The Rojava Revolution

Syrian Village

A unique experiment in ‘stateless democracy’ and effective armed resistance against ISIS in Northern Syria is led by Kurdish women. Could their innovative model for social organization, which has brought peace, stability and progress to their region over the past three years, provide a way out for the crisis in Syria and other minorities in the Middle East? A personal account of a ‘political tourism’ visit to Rojava.

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Unwinding the history of the UAE

Historic consciousness in the UAE and in the other GCC states goes back only a few centuries, at most; this is how far back most prominent Emirati families can reliably trace their genealogy.

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What happened in these lands before the advent of Islam is as alien to the current population, as if it had happened on another continent. Continue reading