Publication Series Democracy, Volume 6
Somalia
Summary
In spring 2008, Somalia once again is projecting images of war and humanitarian crisis. The country, however, seems to have almost disappeared from the world news and the concerns of international observers. In all the military escalations, innocent civilians – some already displaced by and fleeing from the re-emerging conflicts – have lost the foundations of their livelihoods, not to mention their hope for change. The situation today has all the ingredients of a disaster that compounds Somalia’s already endemic human insecurity.
The country has endured seventeen years of complete state collapse and we can recount at least fourteen failed reconciliation conferences. Somalia has “resisted” a whole series of external interventions to bring about peace and stability and to reconstitute the state: Since 1991, when the regime of Siyad Barre collapsed and its institutions were dismantled, clan-based factions filled the gap but failed to unite. They attacked each other and provoked a war that caused the deaths of an estimated 250,000 people and drove hundreds of thousands out of the territory. In December 1992 a “massive peace enforcement intervention” began, first led by the United States and later handed over to the United Nations in an attempt to re-establish a central government. This was the first of several efforts by the international community to provide Somalia with the kind of centralised state structure that most external actors associate with “proper” governance.
The year 2006 brought a dramatic turn with the short-lived rule of the Council of Islamic Courts, used amazingly to re-establish some degree of security (at least in Mogadishu). But all security disappeared after six months when the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), with the help of the Ethiopian army (and US support in the background), removed the Courts from power, leading them and other opponents of the TFG to pursue an escalating insurgency. The “military success” of the TFG will, however, be of no avail if no political solution is found for one of Africa’s most complicated conflicts. Any failure will haunt first the Ethiopian forces, but also the troops deployed by the African Union – and in the meantime, the Somali people will continue to suffer. The African Union’s intervention needs to be coupled with new and creative political initiatives in order to achieve a solution. But how to go about creating such initiatives? Who should be involved and in what way?
This publication tries to shed some light on the history and present reality of prolonged state collapse in Somalia with a specific focus on the possible reasons for the failures of the many attempts to rebuild the state so far. It takes a closer look at the internal and external actors taking part in such efforts and suggests paying more attention to Somali civil society and gender dynamics in particular.
The first two chapters provide an introduction to the historical background of the Somali conflict (Dirk Spilker) and its more recent dynamics that have proved to be virtually intractable (Ken Menkhaus); both authors stress the interplay between local actors and the wider political environment of the Horn of Africa region and beyond. In chapter 3, Mohammed Hassan Ibrahim and Ulf Terlinden look at Somaliland – the breakaway republic in Somalia’s north-west that has made remarkable progress in
making peace and re-building basic structures of statehood and democracy in the absence of international recognition. Jabril Abdulle, in chapter 4, describes the development of civil society structures within the difficult realities of the Somali situation. He analyses the multitude of contributions to the survival of Somalia’s people in everyday life, and reflects on the attempts made by civil society to promote peace and create structures to provide governance in the absence of functional statehood. The role and special plight of women in the Somali situation – and the particular contributions of women’s organisations within Somali civil society – are analysed in chapter 5 by Shukria Dini. Finally, in chapter 6, Axel Harneit-Sievers sketches the activities and summarises the experiences made by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in its work – largely focussed on civil societal structures – in Somalia and Somaliland over the last decade.
As a German political foundation affiliated to the Green Party, the Heinrich Böll Foundation is active in several countries and regions of the world that are suffering from violent conflicts and, as a result, are experiencing a severe weakening of the institutions of statehood and governance. The spectrum extends from Afghanistan through to Somalia and Lebanon. The root causes and realities of the conflicts and fragile (or collapsed) states differ greatly, but all of them have in common a long
history of external interventions “to re-establish peace and stability”; many of those have failed – some of them dramatically so.
As part of its engagement in these countries, the Heinrich Böll Foundation is involved in studying the experiences of international actors in the area of peace and democracy. Our publication series “Promoting Democracy under Conditions of State Fragility” wants to contribute to a more precise analysis and understanding of specific local situations in particular regions and countries. At the same time, it aims to take each case as a “lesson to learn” about existing risks and opportunities, workable approaches, and no-go areas when working under conditions of fragile or collapsed statehood. This volume focussing on Somalia would not have come about without the conceptual inputs, writing, and editing of my colleagues Dr Axel Harneit-Sievers and Dirk Spilker. Sincere thanks also to the other authors, whose knowledge and understanding of the situation on the ground allows us to view the current disaster not as fate but as a state to overcome. Finally, let us not forget that it is the people of Somalia – deserving security and prosperity – who will have to choose what kind of system and governance suits them best.
Kirsten Maas-Albert
Head of the Africa Department, Heinrich Böll Foundation
| Current Conflicts and New Chances for State Building - Somalia |
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| Editor | Heinrich Böll Stiftung |
| Place of publication | Berlin |
| Date of publication | July 2008 |
| Pages | 132 |
| ISBN | 978-3-927760-87-5 |
| Service charge | Free of charge |
