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Somalia: Towards a New Conflict or an Assured Peace?¹

Image: The Islamic Solidarity Mosque in Mogadishu. Omar Gadood, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Image page

This article was first published on the old Nuqush website (nuqush.com) on 22 June 2006. The site is no longer active; this is the copy preserved in the Internet Archive.

Events in Somalia have followed one another so fast of late that it is hard to know which paths they will take in future. The statements of the parties to the conflict are riddled with contradictions and shift so often that they hardly settle on any fixed position; indeed, most statements and decisions look more like tactics than strategic positions.

This article is an attempt, as far as possible, to read what is happening and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the two main parties to the Somali conflict today. It then looks at the external factors and the directions in which they are moving, in order to identify the likely scenarios.

The latest developments will lead Somalia either to a comprehensive peace and a stable government that the people accept, or to a new kind of conflict between a current that draws its legitimacy from the people and a current that rests on the realities and by-products of the civil war.

The Shifting Balance of Power

A great change has come over the balance of power in Somalia, one not seen in the period before. Islamic forces have been present on the Somali scene for a long time, and their activity has grown since the 1990s in particular, but they used to work in preaching, education and the provision of services, and in keeping order up to a point. Now, however, they have emerged as a military and political force, led by the Supreme Council of the Islamic Courts Union², and have become a force to be reckoned with a thousand times over.

The conflict between the government's factions was an extension of the conflicts among its components before it was formed, and its course was mostly driven by personal interests rather than the higher interests of the country.

This conflict is seen as a struggle among clans for influence, land and resources, with the warlords representing them at the peace conferences³. The people were then absent from political action. They had no leadership to drive them on towards their dream of realising an independent will, free of the interests of the warlords, who saw no way of securing those interests except by attaching themselves to an outside power. That is why the people's only concern was for things to settle down and for any government at all to come and spare them the calamities they had suffered during the civil war.

Now, however, the equation has changed radically, and it is plain for all to see that Somalia stands at a crossroads. The latest developments will lead it either to a comprehensive peace and a stable government that the people accept, or to a new kind of conflict between two different currents. One current draws its legitimacy from the people, rests on them and takes its strength from their will to a life of dignity, a life not cut off from their roots or from their cultural and civilisational identity. The other rests on the realities and by-products of the civil war, and on what it gained during that war at the reconciliation conferences and settlements, which events now seem to have overtaken.

The representatives of the two currents are plain to see on the Somali political scene: the Islamic Courts Union and the Federal Government⁴. Each of the two projects seeks to establish its presence in the country, politically and militarily, and each has strengths on which it relies and weak points through which it strives not to be breached. So what are the strengths and weaknesses of the two sides?

The Somali government was not elected by the people; it was formed on the basis of clan balances⁵, with certain parts of civil society, among them the Islamists, excluded because of Ethiopia's well-known control over the peace conference from which this government emerged.

The Federal Government

The Somali government, formed from warlords and their loyalists, or from those who came in according to the balance of power and the rivalries that prevailed two years ago, draws its strength from being the official, internationally recognised authority, the product of a reconciliation conference sponsored by regional and international parties. Its members, moreover, represent all the Somali clans that are struggling for power.

Yet many Somali observers believe that the Federal Government formed in Nairobi in 2004 carries within it far more seeds of failure than of success, and that recent developments are reinforcing them.

One of these factors is that the government was formed from warlords who seek their own interests rather than the people's. To that end they are ready to mortgage the country, pawn themselves to outside parties and carry out their agendas. And it is clear that the agenda of those who form the government's core clashes with the agenda of the Islamic Courts Union.

Another is that it was not elected by the people but formed on the basis of clan balances⁵, with certain parts of Somali civil society, among them the Islamists, excluded because of Ethiopia's well-known control over the peace conference from which this government emerged.

It therefore lacks technocrats, people of political vision and intellectuals in general, and so it cannot plan Somalia's future or find a way to bring the country out of its present crisis. This is plain from its paralysis so far and its failure to produce any plan to save Somalia, although it is now nearly two years old.

Another factor is that the government has withdrawn into its shell in the town of Baidoa⁶ and does not control most of the country. It is a guest of the local clans and the warlords there, and as soon as interests shift and clash, it is either forced to leave or fighting breaks out between it and its host clans.

Nor can it be ruled out that the government will come apart, like a snapped string of beads, at its first confrontation with the Courts Union. This is clear from the discontent of a number of members of the Somali parliament, who are meeting intensively these days to reconsider the government's decision to bring foreign troops into the country⁷. They are wary of this step and are pressing the government to talk to the Courts Union.

In a short time the Union has managed to win the respect of the international community through the political messages it has sent to the world, and to deflect the charge of terrorism to some extent. Its weakness, however, lies in the fact that the banner of Islam is not welcome internationally or regionally.

The Islamic Courts Union

The Islamic Courts Union, for its part, can count to its credit the people rallying around it, its control of many of the southern regions, and its ability to restore security and order to a degree in the areas it has taken. Among its strengths, too, is the recognition it has won from international powers, America among them, as an active party in deciding Somalia's future.

In this short time the Union has managed to win the respect of the international community through the political messages it has sent to the world's leading powers, and to deflect the charge of terrorism to some extent.

As for its weaknesses, one is that the banner of Islam is not welcome as a political actor at present, either internationally or regionally, and that the charge of supporting terrorism can be pinned on it or lifted from it according to the interests of outside and domestic parties.

Another is that, by its make-up and basic structure, the Union is composed of sub-clans of the Hawiye clan, to which the defeated warlords also belong⁸. The clans of the land between the two rivers, the Juba and the Shabelle, especially the Digil and Mirifle, who are now hosting the government in Baidoa, as well as the minorities in the south, are not yet represented in it, let alone the Darod clans, concentrated in the north-east and south of Somalia, and the Dir in the north.

This may make it look like, or indeed it may actually be, a new representative of Hawiye interests, only with an Islamic rather than a clan face. It will find it hard to win over the minorities and the Digil and Mirifle, whose memory holds the wrongs they suffered at Hawiye hands during the civil war, and the continuing seizure by some Hawiye sub-clans of many areas in the south that are not theirs. Although the Courts Union as a body does not bear this responsibility, it will find it hard, or it will take a long time, to convince others outside the Hawiye that it is not simply a new face on an old coin.

If the Union wants to convince them, it may have to take action against some of those who exploited the civil war to seize other people's land and property, most of them from the clans that now support the Union. Such action would show Somalis how seriously the Union takes the burdens of the banner it raises, but it would also cost it dearly and might set the Hawiye clans against one another.

Unless the Union takes this step, it will be hard to persuade the minorities whose land and property were seized, and the Digil and Mirifle clans, to join it and fight under its banner. In Somalia it is hard for anyone to set self aside and be objective on the clan question, which enters into every matter, great or small.

Whether the main players now head for conflict or for reconciliation depends on how far outside powers succeed in pressing them to sit at the negotiating table and make concessions, so that Somalia may be saved from a war which, if it flares up, will bring back the people's suffering all over again.

It seems that axes are beginning to form at regional and international level that seek to do something. Some of them are still waiting and watching and have not yet moved into action, because they cannot see the way clearly; others want to make use of the time and are almost rushing to strike while the iron is hot.

America seems to have realised that its policy of fighting terrorism in Somalia was a losing and barren one, so it has begun to reshuffle its cards; but this time it has stepped back from its arrogance by announcing the creation of an International Contact Group on Somalia.

Possible Scenarios

International interest in Somalia has grown since the victory of the Courts Union and the defeat of the Alliance⁹, and the roles of some powers, especially the Western and American ones, have changed. The United States seems to have realised that its policy of fighting terrorism in Somalia was a losing and barren one, so it has begun to reshuffle its cards; but this time it has stepped back from its arrogance and from acting alone, and its first step was to announce the creation of an International Contact Group on Somalia.

The group brought together the old colonisers of “Old Europe”¹⁰, along with Norway, Sweden and one East African state, Tanzania. It left out Ethiopia, America's strategic ally in the region, and the Arab League was not granted even the observer role given to the United Nations and the African Union.

As for the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)¹¹, it seems that Ethiopia largely steers their direction, although there are some differences among their member states over the policy to be followed now.

At the latest meeting, held in Addis Ababa, it was decided to send a team to Somalia as soon as possible to assess the situation and prepare the way for sending the peacekeeping force that the Somali government has requested.

Ethiopia seems to be pushing the African Union and IGAD to back the Federal Government and to intervene militarily, and quickly, to stem the Islamic tide, in close coordination with the Western role.

It may succeed in persuading the Contact Group formed by America to take the same course, although many Western countries are for now reluctant to apply military pressure that could make matters worse. America has learned that terrorism in Somalia will not be defeated through “creative chaos”¹², since that might make the country safer for terrorists. It will therefore seek to make Somalia politically stable, even at the price of some concessions to the Courts Union.

Ethiopia has a special role, and no hidden one, and is trying to use and harness international efforts to serve its own ends. It is pushing above all for escalation and for driving a wedge between the Islamic Courts and the Federal Government, because it believes that if the Courts use their present victory to draw the government into concessions, from the position of strength they now enjoy, they will become a political force on which the Islamists can rely to rule the country in future.

That is why it has begun to mass troops on the border, and in some areas has pushed into Somali territory in violation of the country's sovereignty. The Federal Government trusts Ethiopia and depends on it because of the President and the Prime Minister¹³, who are counted among its most loyal allies in Somalia and who reached their posts thanks to its backing at the last reconciliation conference. There are reports that Ethiopian political and military advisers are working with the government in Baidoa.

If the Arab League can make the Yemeni initiative¹⁴ succeed before foreign troops intervene, matters will move towards peace and understanding; if the Ethiopian effort succeeds, Somalia will enter a new maze whose extent only God knows.

The Arab role, as always, looks pale and shapeless and acts timidly. The Arab states act separately, without coordinating among themselves or with the other parties. At first this role was confined to Yemen, which the Arab League seems to have entrusted with the Somali file because of its geographical proximity; Qatar and some Gulf states have also begun to step in, while the League's influential states, such as Egypt and Syria, are absent.

It is clear from the tone of the media exchanges between the Union and the government in recent days that Ethiopia is on its way to succeeding in its effort to raise tensions between the government and the Union and to turn them into war.

The signs of conflict, driven by Ethiopian pressure, therefore seem to outweigh the chances of agreement between them. Yet there is still time to press Ethiopia and the Federal Government to stop inflaming the situation.

But this depends on how far the other axes succeed in steering matters the other way. If the Arab League can, which is unlikely, make the Yemeni initiative¹⁴ succeed before foreign troops intervene, matters will move towards peace and understanding, and the people will enjoy stability. But if the Ethiopian effort succeeds, as is more likely, Somalia will enter a new maze whose extent only God knows, one that will devour the green and the dry in Somalia alike, if anything green is still left there¹⁵.

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.