حصاد مؤتمر لندن حول الصومال

The Harvest of the London Conference on Somalia

This analytical paper was first published on the website of the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (Al Jazeera Net) on 29 February 2012. Link to the original text

After almost five months of worldwide diplomatic effort, the “London Conference on Somalia”¹ was held on 23 February 2012. Counted in hours, it did not last half a day, and most of it was taken up with the high-sounding speeches customary at conferences of this kind. It was followed by a final communiqué(1), which had been redrafted to look less focused on security, piracy and counter-terrorism, and shorter than the draft leaked eight days before the conference opened(2). This final communiqué was almost identical to the version leaked a day before the conference(3).

Somalis still disagree about the conference's results and about what they will mean for their cause and their country. There is, however, a general feeling that this conference will have an impact on the ground, though no one can predict that impact: will it be positive or negative?

One could be optimistic on hearing the diplomatic speeches delivered by the conference participants, and the final communiqué contains much that could prove positive, despite its negative points. But knowing the hidden conflicts of interest among the participants, which British diplomacy laboured to present as united and harmonious; knowing what the Somali cause has been through; and knowing how short-winded the international community is in keeping up its commitment to coordinating its own contradictions on complex, dynamic and long-term issues, one cannot be very optimistic. Indeed, one realises that it will be hard to see what was said in the conference speeches put into practice.

In this report we examine the conference's results through a reading of the communiqué it issued, the positive points it contains, and the gaps that could cause their implementation to fail.

A conference unlike those before it

It should be pointed out that this conference cannot be counted among the Somali reconciliation conferences held for Somalia in the past. It differs from all of them in its nature and its approach. This gives observers some hope that the expected results on the ground will be different, and some count it among the conference's positive points.

This conference was without precedent in the effort put into it by the British government, a government that had never before taken so much interest in Somalia. We should not forget that even in Operation “Restore Hope”, between 1992 and 1995, Britain confined itself to providing logistical support to the UN operation². Besides its diplomatic activity with other states, the government took particular care to reach out to the Somali community in Britain and held many discussions with it at various levels.

Among the ways in which this conference differs from earlier conferences on the Somali question are the following:

Whereas earlier conferences were held for Somalis, inviting the Somali factions led by warlords in order to resolve the contradictions between the parties to the conflict in Somalia, this conference was held for the states with interests in Somalia or with a stake in the Somali question (old and new). It aimed to coordinate among them and to unify their political, military and relief efforts so that they would complement rather than contradict one another.

A focus on practical steps towards progress, and on consolidating whatever progress is made in the political and security fields on the basis of what has been achieved on the ground, instead of the barren reconciliations that used to consume time and effort.

The level of international interest and participation: nearly fifty states and organisations with an interest in Somalia, or entangled in it, took part in the conference.

A focus on achieving security, eliminating piracy and setting out tracks for the future political process, leaving the details to the future.

The communiqué states: “The Conference focused on the underlying causes of instability and the symptoms resulting from it (such as famine, refugees, piracy and terrorism). We, the international community, agreed to inject new momentum into the political process, to strengthen the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), to help Somalia develop its security forces, to help build stability at the local level, and to step up action against pirates and terrorism” (paragraph four of the final communiqué). This paragraph sums up the conclusion the conference reached; everything else is explanation and elaboration of it.

The security and military approach dominates the conference

The conference's flaw is that it adopted a security and military approach and made it the gateway to solving Somalia's political crisis and its other crises. Yet everyone knows that the security and military problem, piracy, refugees and famine, on which the conference focused, are merely symptoms of the political crisis, a crisis that breeds new forces and new challenges for as long as it continues without a solution that goes to its roots.

Security and justice

The communiqué linked security and justice in a curious way. While it spoke at length about security, it merely noted that Somalis themselves must decide what security and justice arrangements they will need in future. No mechanism was mentioned for achieving justice in a conflict in which grievances have piled up between the various sections of society.

In this area the communiqué praised the AMISOM forces and expressed gratitude for their sacrifices (without mentioning the Somali government forces, and without mentioning either the indiscriminate shelling of civilians that these forces themselves have carried out in their clashes with the insurgents, as international human rights organisations have acknowledged)³. On the eve of the conference the UN Security Council passed a resolution (No. 2036) expanding AMISOM's mandate and raising its strength to seventeen thousand, while incorporating the Kenyan forces that entered Somalia as invaders in October 2011⁴. The draft resolution also proposed funding the African Union mission on a sustainable basis, with the United Nations bearing a larger share of the funding.

Terrorism

On confronting so-called terrorism there is only a single paragraph; everything else concerning this confrontation has been folded into the security and military section. This is a diplomatic way of not making it obvious that the conference was about confronting this phenomenon. The paragraph consists of empty rhetoric that goes no further than what was already known and under way before the conference. It affirms that “terrorism poses a serious threat to security in Somalia itself, in the region and internationally, and [we agreed] therefore to work together with greater resolve to build capacity to disrupt terrorism in the region and to address the root causes of terrorism; on intercepting the movement of terrorists to and from Somalia; on the need to cut off the financing of terrorism; and on coordinating intelligence work in this field”.

Piracy

It used to be said that piracy was the main motive behind the British government's efforts to hold this conference, given the heavy losses in this area, which costs the world some seven billion dollars a year. The subject therefore received a generous share of the decisions. But this attention did not go beyond the framework that already existed, especially as pirate attacks have demonstrably fallen in recent months. What matters, though, is that the body of the communiqué states “that the problem requires a comprehensive approach on land and at sea alike” and “that the problem of piracy cannot be solved by military means alone. We reaffirmed the importance of supporting communities in addressing the underlying causes of piracy, and of improving the effective use of Somali coastal waters by putting in place measures to build regional maritime capacity”. It also affirms that “there will be no impunity for piracy”, and calls “for the further development of judicial capacity to pursue and detain those behind piracy in Somalia and more widely in the region”.

There is nothing new in this area, apart from an attempt to curb the investment of piracy money through “strengthening coordination on illicit financial flows, and coordinating intelligence-gathering and investigations”, and the affirmation of the importance of supporting communities in addressing the underlying causes of piracy, and of improving the effective use of Somali coastal waters by putting in place measures to build regional maritime capacity. This approach can be considered a sound one, but it is not new: it had already been adopted at the Djibouti conference on piracy.

The shortcomings of the security approach

This method or approach, which deals with the symptoms instead of treating the core of the problem, may hand the hardliners a tool for exploiting young people and drawing more supporters and fighters into their ranks. Somalis are extremely sensitive to the ambitions of neighbouring states, especially Kenya and Ethiopia. Yet instead of rejecting foreign military intervention, which has proved a failure and backfired, the conference endorsed the incorporation of the invading Kenyan force into the African Union mission, and so lent legitimacy to its intervention in the south, an intervention whose aims every Somali knows. Nor was there any mention of the recent Ethiopian intervention⁵; rather, it was implicitly praised in what was called “the liberation of territory from the control of al-Shabaab”, a movement that emerged and grew strong as a result of the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia in 2006, an occupation whose chief aim at the time was to rout the Islamic Courts⁶.

Nor did the final communiqué set out any clear exit strategy for the African Union mission, AMISOM, in the foreseeable future. There is no plan, either, to turn it into a mixed force of Muslim and non-Muslim states under Muslim command, which would give it legitimacy in the eyes of the ordinary Somali citizen and refute al-Shabaab's argument that it is a continuation of the Ethiopian occupation and an occupying crusader force⁷.

Those who follow Somali affairs are almost unanimous that al-Shabaab is now in a phase of retreat and decline and no longer offers Somalis an attractive model, especially in the way it applies its hardline interpretations of Islam and has adopted the methods of al-Qaeda. But it is very easy for the movement to recruit more and more people with legitimate nationalist aspirations if they come to believe that the country is under occupation by invading Kenyan, Ethiopian and Ugandan forces. Yes, al-Shabaab looks defeated now, but it, or others like it, may rise again from the ashes if the issues that created it, fed it and enabled it to take control in the past are not properly addressed.

It became clear at the conference that there was disagreement over how to deal with al-Shabaab. In his speech the Qatari minister, Dr Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, called for al-Shabaab to be part of the process of building confidence and integration among all Somali parties. He stressed that “excluding any party at this stage will obstruct these efforts and make any talk of security and stability unrealistic and at odds with the facts on the ground in Somalia.” Likewise, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, revealed in his address positive contacts he had made with the Somali opposition (Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen) to explore ways of reaching a peaceful settlement in the country. Clinton, by contrast, firmly opposed any participation by al-Shabaab. The signs are, however, that America's European partners will not be strict on this point: the Italian foreign minister, Giulio Maria Terzi, pointed out that the militants still control more than a third of Somalia, adding that “their ability to control those territories does not lie in coercion alone”. The British prime minister's speech, for its part, took the middle ground, a position between the two positions⁸: he stressed that they would welcome anyone who laid down their arms, signalling a readiness to cooperate with whoever might break away from al-Shabaab.

How the conference dealt with the Somali political situation

As we have said, the focus was on security and piracy, and most of the solutions offered fell within that frame. On the political question, the conference endorsed the continuation of the current approach, with some improvements. That is why the paragraphs dealing with the political question appeared in the Arabic translation under the heading “Political Support”⁹.

Political representation

Although a commitment was declared to ending the mandate of the transitional institutions in August 2012, the political procedures for forming Somalia's future government have not yet been made clear. The communiqué relied on adopting what became known as the “Garowe II Principles”¹⁰, from a conference overseen by the United Nations. To that conference only the politicians whom the media describe as “failures”, and who are now leading Somalia to the abyss, were invited. That conference entrenched the very mechanism that enabled them and their like to take control of Somalia, and it confirmed the clan quota formula known as the “four-and-a-half” formula¹¹, which makes the clan, not competence and merit, the criterion for winning office. This is the formula that has proved a failure to this day and has aggravated the Somali problem instead of solving it. Indeed, clan quotas are a “minefield” for the future of the whole of Somalia.

A number of Somali intellectuals have spoken about the futility of this mechanism and proposed practical alternatives that would lay the foundations of a state of institutions, but the conference organisers paid no heed to these proposals(4).

The regional administrations

The regional administrations were not addressed specifically or in detail, except for “the international community's support for any dialogue between Somaliland and the Transitional Federal Government, or whatever replaces it, to clarify their future relations”. During the conference a meeting took place between the Somali president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo, president of Somaliland¹². This augurs the opening of a new page, and may even lead to talks between the two sides with international backing, one result of which, if they take place, may be the start of oil extraction in Somaliland.

Beyond that, the communiqué spoke in terms of supporting stability in “local areas that enjoy stability”. This may indicate that the conference had moved past the charge originally levelled at it, that it sought to dismantle Somalia and break it into separate parts, or “cantons”. The conference also promised “support for effective and accountable local administrations”, and spoke of increasing support for the formation of legitimate and peaceful authorities and of improving services to the populations living in these areas. This reflects the existing state of affairs, which the international community is driving by tying development and economic support for local communities to the existence of a regional administration in the area. It drives every politically ambitious figure to set up a local administration, or a so-called “local government”, even if only on paper; the names of such local governments in circulation already number several dozen.

Fighting corruption, and development

Perhaps the most important aspect, and the one that might have raised hopes at this conference, was the interest in and support for development work, reconstruction and economic development found throughout the final communiqué. It was agreed that this would be long-term and would rely on an active private sector.

But the question of economic development and reconstruction was referred to the Istanbul conference expected in June 2012, that is, nearly four months after the London conference. As for fighting corruption, it was addressed by endorsing the creation of a “Joint Financial Management Board” for Somalia, announced at the conference, “to increase transparency and accountability in the collection and efficient use of public revenues and international development assistance, which will help strengthen Somalia's public institutions and financial management.”

This board is the outcome of what the governments of the East African Community, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Republic of South Sudan called for in Nairobi in September 2011, and also of what the International Contact Group on Somalia called for in Copenhagen on 30 September 2011. At present it consists of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, Britain, France, the European Union and the World Bank, and it is open to others to join before it is formally constituted. It also seeks to control and manage all sources of funding directed to Somalia from international donors, as well as the country's domestic sources of wealth. According to the final communiqué, this is in order to “provide accountability and transparency on where and how Somali revenues and donor funds are spent”, which means putting an end to their diversion to other purposes or to private accounts.

Some Somalis are apprehensive about this board, which they see as diminishing the sovereignty of the Somali state and imposing financial tutelage on it, especially as it will not be confined to managing external funding. Its remit, as set out in the annex on it in the final communiqué, will also include managing “domestic revenues”, which “include domestic financial flows, or those that ought to be described as public resources, including what are now, or will become, national or public assets”. All this on the pretext that Somalia has no financial institutions, such as national banks, that could be trusted to manage these funds!

The conference also announced the creation of a new stability fund, to which Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom will contribute, to support economic development in areas that are safe and enjoying stability.

After the London conference: the declared and the concealed

No one expected the negative reactions to the conference to come so quickly, and from the heart of London itself. Nor were they confined to the left-wing lobbies known for opposing government policy, such as the “Stop the War Coalition”; the criticism came from the serious British press, the weekly Observer for example, and from the British international charity Oxfam.

Imposed solutions

Immediately after the conference ended, Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam, issued a statement expressing her disappointment at its results. “Although we appreciate the UK government's huge efforts to make the conference a success,” she said, “what we had hoped for was recognition that twenty years of internationally imposed solutions have failed. Instead, what we saw once again were solutions driven from outside, which have not worked, do not work and will not work.”

She added: “We expected this conference to offer hope and support to the millions of people affected by drought and conflict, and support for a peacebuilding process that includes a broad cross-section of Somali society. What we got was rhetoric about involving Somalia, but there can be no moving forward with a new constitution and elections in such a troubled country without broad and inclusive political participation within Somali society.”

She called on donors to distinguish, in their pledges of millions, between what is intended for politics and security and what is for humanitarian and recovery purposes. This, she explained, is essential if humanitarian work is to be able to continue, and if humanitarian aid is to be funded according to the principles of impartiality and of meeting Somalis' needs wherever and whenever they arise.

Uncovering the concealed (Look for the oil)¹³

The Observer (the weekly sister paper of the Guardian), one of Britain's serious and respected newspapers, came out with two long articles in the same issue, dated 26 February 2012, revealing Britain's basic aims in rallying support for this conference. The paper revealed that, “away from the public focus of last week's summit, talks are under way between British officials and their Somali counterparts on exploiting the oil reserves discovered in the arid north-east of the country. Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi, minister of international cooperation in Puntland¹⁴, in north-eastern Somalia, said the first batches of oil are expected to be extracted next month, in March 2012: ‘We have spoken with a number of officials in the United Kingdom, and some have offered to help us in future to manage oil revenues. They will help us build our capacity to make the most of future profits from the oil industry.’”

The Somali prime minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, confirmed that his government has no choice but to entice Western companies by offering a share of the country's natural resources, which include oil, gas and large reserves of uranium.

The paper stated that “Britain is not the only country seeking to develop Somalia's vast natural resources. Last month the Canadian oil company Africa Oil began exploring for oil in Puntland, the first drilling in Somalia in twenty-one years.”

The company estimates that there may be as much as four billion barrels (worth an estimated five hundred billion dollars at today's prices) in the two planned wells. Other studies suggest that the region of Puntland alone has the capacity to produce ten billion barrels, which would put it among the top twenty oil-producing countries.

It added that Chinese and American companies are among those now interested in the possibility of extracting Somali oil, and that Somalia has become, for the first time in twenty years, safe enough to drill oil wells.

On Thursday 23 February 2012, the day the London conference met, BP and Shell unveiled an initiative to support job-creation projects in Somalia's coastal areas. A subsidiary of Shell is believed to have obtained exploration concessions in Puntland before chaos broke out in 1991.

Mark Bradbury, director of the Rift Valley Institute and author of many reports and books on Somalia, said that oil is “the biggest game-changer”. He added: “The international community has been very quiet about the exploitation of minerals, oil and gas, and there is clearly potential for conflict between Puntland, which is relatively stable, and the rest of the country. The positive outcome would be a federal government strengthened through international support; the negative one would be Somalia carved up by international military forces.”

Several significant points emerged from this conference, and they must be pointed out:

The presence at the conference of Turkey, Qatar, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the other Muslim states, and the fact that they were consulted on the drafting of the final communiqué, softened its tone. It will also lessen the dangers Somalia may face in future, for Turkey has gained a firm foothold in Somalia, not through the politicians but by winning the goodwill of the people. The Turkish agreement with the Somali government, concluded before the conference, on training Somali forces is a positive element that will ease the heavy hand of the AMISOM forces, and that of the Ethiopian and Kenyan forces, both of which want to monopolise this share.

The conference may neutralise Ethiopia and Kenya and limit their influence in Somalia, where the two had been almost alone in driving their own Somali agenda. Word leaked out at the conference that the Ethiopian prime minister was not at ease but was in fact angry, and that he said he had not been consulted on the drafting of the final communiqué. This is untrue, for all the participating states were consulted; but perhaps many of their recommendations were not taken up.

The secession of northern Somalia was neither confirmed at the conference nor dispelled; we are still somewhere in the middle. But the international community's support for a dialogue between the government of Somaliland and the Transitional Federal Government, or whatever replaces it, to clarify their future relations is a good thing. On the sidelines of the conference a meeting took place between the Somali president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo, president of Somaliland. This augurs the opening of a new page and may lead to talks between the two sides with international backing, paving the way for oil extraction in Somaliland.

There are signs of a new direction in stabilisation and recovery, but one that moves away from focusing on the transitional government and carries out the political transformation away from it, building government institutions in the direction of the local areas. This is the approach that Western analysts have theorised about at length. Things are moving towards the international community seeking to set up a system resembling the one in the United Arab Emirates¹⁵, which may well be acceptable to Somalis.

The wish to engage with the diaspora and strengthen its role in peacebuilding and economic development will bring Somalia much benefit, but only if the diaspora organise themselves and represent the interest of Somalia rather than the interest of the clans they descend from.

Notes

1. For the official final communiqué, go to this link: http://www.fco.gov.uk/ar/global-issues/somalia-conference/communique ↩
2. See the leaked draft at this link: http://somalilandsun.com/index.php/news-feeds/somalia/258-leaked-document-on-london-somalia-conference ↩
3. See the version leaked a day before the conference at this link: http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/2885/Another_Leaked_Document_From_London_Conference ↩
4. Article by Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar published on Al Jazeera English: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/20122395853170145.html ↩

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