THE RATIONAL AND THE IRRATIONAL IN THE SOMALI NATIONAL RECONCILIATION

[NASSIR]

THE RATIONAL AND THE IRRATIONAL IN THE SOMALI NATIONAL RECONCILIATION

 

Ismail Ali Ismail

 

 

September 23, 2005

 

Introduction

 

Much ink has been spilt on analyzing the reasons as to why the Somali State , having been re-established in Nairobi last year, is still unable to stand properly on its own feet, and grave doubts have been expressed in some quarters as to whether the reconciliation will take root this time. Contributions to the discussion of the issues have been numerous and the wide spectrum of opinion has ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. I have been unable, I must confess, to keep pace with the flow of articles and I want to add my own contribution keenly aware that I may be running the risk of repeating some of the salient points which might have already been made. I am consoled, however, by the fact that views formed independently may converge and reaffirm or strengthen each other.

 

The fourteenth Somali National Reconciliation Conference held in Kenya avoided to a great extent the pitfalls of its precursors having taken a long time to hammer out the issues, suffer setbacks, take corrective measures and arrive at a number of grand compromises. The patience of the organizers was proverbial and their generosity in funding the Conference for so long was unparalleled. The Conference was all-inclusive and no group was left out or ignored. Indeed one of the fatal mistakes of its immediate precursor which was graciously hosted by Djibouti was to ignore the warlords (who controlled large territories including Mogadishu) altogether and to think naively that they would be swept away by the tide of public opinion which would provide a legitimacy so strong as to rob them of their raison d'etre . To be sure, popular support, though confined to Mogadishu , was both massive and unequivocal, but it did not bring the war-lords to their knees: it would have been quixotical to think that they would lay down their arms, go down on their knees and beg for mercy. The government was unable to keep its eyes on the supreme and all-encompassing purpose of the national reconciliation: the reconstitution and revival of the Somali State . The war-lords were surely as defiant as ever. But, more than that, the government suffered debilitating internal problems: it lacked a cohesive, farsighted and politically skilful leadership; critical issues were maladroitly handled; serious accidents of personality were too many and surfaced very early; and the generous financial assistance received from sympathetic Arab countries ended up in private pockets thereby deepening the mistrust and therefore the rifts. Internal conspiracies were rife and the first prime minister was sacked by parliament while he was out of the country, abandoned even by his own ministers. Within a very short span of time – three years to be exact – three prime ministers changed hands and by the time the last conference was opened in Kenya (Eldoret, Mbegathi and Nairobi) that government had lost even the name onto which it so timorously hang.

 

Achievements of the Kenya Conference

 

The fact that the Conference, with all its ups and downs, including frequent threats of withdrawal, finished with the adoption of a national charter which is an interim constitution, the formation of a national parliament, and the election and inauguration of the President is truly a great accomplishment. The fact that parties that were implacably hostile to each other were brought together and sat together for so long in order to discuss, haggle, agree and disagree and agree again and finally mould together the elements of their new State is indeed a singular achievement. There was, after so much hard work, much cause for celebration in Nairobi when the President (elected in a fair and free competitive process acknowledged by the defeated candidates and widely recognized as such by the international community) was inaugurated. The mood was euphoric and it was thought that the ship of State would sail smoothly thence forward without a storm, it being able to withstand any ripples.

 

The first sign that such would not be the case became evident when the Prime Minister was appointed, and announced his government. Parliament was so rebellious that it dismissed the government unceremoniously and insisted that it should first approve the Prime Minister's appointment and then – and only then –could he form his government, which would itself be subject to parliamentary approval. A lot of time was wasted in these difficult processes which were really the creation of disgruntled members who were either not given ministerial posts or did not get the portfolios they had expected. In the end, a new government was formed and approved. The Prime Minister had really a very difficult task as he was dealing with a parliament the vast majority of whose members wanted to be in the government, and he was expected, at least by the public, to meet two requirements which appeared to be mutually exclusive: a broad-based government of national unity but severely limited number of portfolios – the latter requirement being for the multiple purposes of quality, efficiency and economy. It was argued that for a government without resources of its own the economy factor was most important. It turned out, however, that, in the final analysis the political factor was even more important since reconciliation dictated the formation of an all-inclusive government.

 

The first public outcry for rationality was heard when the participants agreed on a unicameral Parliament comprising 275 members. It was argued, and rightly so, that the country – poor but impoverished further by the protracted civil war - could ill-afford to maintain financially so large a legislature. The counter-argument that reconciliation required an all-inclusive parliament did not really hold much water because it was possible to reduce the representation of individual clans and yet have all clans and communities represented. The current parliament is, nevertheless, much better than any other parliament we had in our history in that small communities – the so-called ‘others' - that would not have won even a single seat in a general election are in fact represented; by the same token women would have scarcely been represented in a fair and free general election. This parliament is so patently a cross –section of Somali society that there can be no doubt that it is democratic in its composition. But creating a ridiculously large number of ministerial portfolios in order to satisfy as a huge number of parliamentarians as possible has brought about an element of irrationality in the form of splitting functions. This hairsplitting exercise has created both wasteful duplication and a lot of confusion as to the delineation of ministerial boundaries. Much criticism has been levied in this regard against the President and Prime Minister. But, both of them promised to consolidate related functions so as to thereby reduce the number of ministries when emotions subside – a move which seems to have placated the critics. For now the effect of this deliberate proliferation of ministries is yet to be properly digested because the government is yet to be fully operational; it is more than likely that when it is we will most probably see ministers stepping on each other's toes and quarrelling about encroachments upon their respective provinces. Perhaps then will be time when good sense will prevail.

 

No other significant problems surfaced however until it dawned upon the government that it was abusing the hospitality of the Kenya Government and people by unduly overstaying in Nairobi . After all was done and the dust has settled there was the stark reality of moving to Somalia; for despite everything that was done thus far in Nairobi the acid test for the success of the reconciliation was whether the government would be accepted by its own people and could function in its own country. Moreover, the government was supposed to pass that test in order to qualify for external assistance. But, relocation proved to be a most difficult hurdle since it meant that Mogadishu had to be cleared of militias and pacified before the government could settle there.

 

This hurdle was the straw that nearly broke the camel's back The government's approach to this problem was to ask IGAD and the AU to provide a military force which would perform a trilogy of functions in Somalia, viz. (a) to serve as a neutral force in whose care the military hardware to be collected as a result of voluntary demobilization would be entrusted until a national army and police are formed; (b) to help in the training of the national army and police being reconstituted; and finally © to provide security, in the interim, to such vital institutions as the presidency, the ministries and the banks. The deployment of foreign troops in Somalia became a thorny issue, the Mogadishu warlords fearing that they might be used against them. The approach of the government to the pacification of Mogadishu was sound and it seemed that there was no feasible alternative to it given the depth of prevailing suspicions and mistrusts which explain the fears of the war-lords. However, when these latter understood the terms of reference of the African force they accepted their deployment in principle provided that ‘front-line states' (which meant Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya) would not contribute militarily to such force. But the President insisted on the participation of Ethiopia and this undoubtedly fueled further the suspicions of the ward-lords in view of the fact that he enjoys excellent relationship with the leadership of that country. The Cabinet approved overwhelmingly the deployment of IGAD and other African troops in Somalia without excluding the so-called front line states. The two sides began to drift apart and their verbal exchanges became more and more acrimonious. The Mogadishu war-lords decided to walk out of the Cabinet session and decided to boycott further meetings without resigning their ministerial portfolios and the President and Prime Minister decided not to worsen the situation by dismissing them fearing that the gains made thus far in advancing the national reconciliation will not be reversed. The two sides drifted apart, their verbal exchanges getting more and more acrimonious.

 

Here was a most peculiar situation in which cabinet ministers were flouting the principle of collective responsibility and openly attacking the government without resigning or being dismissed. But keeping them in government was an irrationality dictated by the greater good of national reconciliation. The two sides took their fight to the Parliament where they hoped it would be settled by voting. The Speaker, as it turned out, had a left-handed alliance with the war-lords and their sympathizers and it so happened that the parliamentary process for settling the issue tabled by the government was stifled by insults and fighting and we saw on the screens the pictures of bleeding deputies. In the midst of this scuffle the Speaker announced that the motion of the government was defeated and that it was decided by majority vote that the ‘front-line' states should not participate in the deployment of troops to Somalia . The Prime Minister denounced the Speaker and protested that the situation could not have and did not permit voting and that therefore no votes were taken. That session also spelt out the splitting of Parliament – a situation which exists to this day and is worsening by the day; so we now have a bi-polar parliament although its two poles are far from being equal.

 

Much Ado about Nothing

 

A lot of efforts have been made by IGAD, the EU and individual countries such as the Yemen and Kenya to mediate between the two parties and help them sink their differences. Unfortunately, all these efforts were unsuccessful, the minority party led by the Speaker himself, being intransigent. Upon relocation to Somalia this group went to Mogadishu together with three ministers who are zonal war-lords in that city; the other group led by the First Deputy Speaker went to Jowhar together with the rest of the government including the President and the Prime Minister. The geographical separation is significant as it indicates that they are some distance apart in terms of their thinking and ideas. I personally think that when one looks closely at the bones of contention one will see that the gulf separating the two camps is really artificial. There are three areas of disagreement: (a) whether parliament and government should settle in Mogadishu now or at a later stage when peace and security can be assured; (b) whether African forces should be deployed in Somalia ; and © whether contingents from the neighbouring countries, particularly Ethiopia , should be included.

 

The Speaker and his group have stated repeatedly in their rhetoric that the President and the government had flagrantly violated Article 5 of the Charter by moving to Jowhar instead of Mogadishu which the article states as the national capital and that they (the Speaker's group) would not be a party to the violation of the law by abandoning the capital and joining the President, the Prime Ministers and the others in Jowhar. Instead, they called upon the President and his group to move to the national capital forthwith. However, President Abdullahi Yusuf and the government of Ali Mohammed Geeddi find this demand or invitation a most preposterous one since it means that they should go to Mogadishu without the means to protect themselves and should stay there at the mercy of the war-lord's militias and the uncontrolled others who are armed to the teeth, and on the same terms as former President AbdulQasim Salad Hassan and his government. The war-lords inviting the President and the government to Mogadishu are themselves armed, the so-called Islamists who control large areas of the city and its environs are armed, the big businessmen have their own armed militias and there is a substantial number of free lance others who are also armed and make their living by looting and pillaging and killing for hire or even for their pleasure: it is common knowledge that former army and police officers – among them, the Chief of Police - who raised their voices in support of the government have been assassinated, and the assassinations continue to this day and have in fact become a matter of daily occurrence. As a matter of fact one of the Speaker's own guards – a relative of his – was recently killed in a cold-blooded fashion and a brother of a prominent deputy was also similarly killed shortly after. It is important to note that they were both easy targets because neither the Speaker nor the deputy has a militia of his own: such is the fate of any prominent person who dares move around in Mogadishu without protection.

 

The war-lords-turned-ministers had, together with the Speaker and their supporting deputies, exerted a great deal of efforts to show that Mogadishu could be pacified and that peace could be restored to it. President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Geeddi hailed their efforts and acknowledged that that was a positive and encouraging move. And their initial success in managing to gather some militias and keep them in camps outside the city provided a ray of hope. Sadly, however, they failed in their next step which was to lift the numerous road-blocks (some of which were their own) from the streets in Mogadishu and thereby relieve motorists from the extortion money they were paying to the owners of those road-blocks. The dreadful security situation in the capital remained immutable and remains so to this day. The Speaker, the war-lords and their supporting deputies must have been really out of their minds to think that President Abdullahi Yusuf, Prime Minister Ali Geeddi , the entire government and Parliament would be so gullible as to believe that they would be secure in Mogadishu without a protection force of their own.

 

The security situation of Mogadishu aside there is no substance whatever in the claim that those who moved to Jowhar have flagrantly violated the Charter which clearly states in Article 5 that Mogadishu is the capital of the country. But, nowhere in the Charter does it give a time-frame within the President and government should move to it. Nor was it considered a violation when the legislature, the President and the government were functioning from Nairobi for many long months. Furthermore, there is nothing in the Charter which prohibits the government or the legislature from establishing themselves elsewhere in the country if it is impossible for them to operate from the Capital as is the case now. The preceding article (Article 4) of the Charter in fact states, inter alia, that

 

“Charter shall be interpreted in a manner:-

 

( a ) That promotes national reconciliation, unity and democratic values;â€

 

The Charter does not therefore require literal and narrow interpretation that defies logic and common sense. But the irony of it all is that those who oppose and want to paralyse the government on spurious points of law are the same people who themselves have been outlaws for the last fifteen years and continue to live outside the laws of common decency. The Charter is in effect the ad interim constitution of the country (Article 3) and when a charge is made that the Charter had been violated a constitutional question is raised. But the legislature is not the right authority to pronounce itself on constitutional matters; that power is vested in the Supreme Court which has not yet been set up. All this, however is much ado about nothing since no one disputes that Mogadishu is the capital. The real issue is whether the government should move to the capital city now or at a later stage when the security situation improves and the government is confident enough that it can deal with the criminal elements that terrorise the population. After all, the most important function of a government is to ensure that people – citizens and foreigners alike – live in peace and tranquility.

 

On the question of Ethiopian troops the President has already agreed to the demand of the war-lords and he said it publicly (in an interview with the BBC Somali Service) that he had given in to the Mogadishu faction on this issue. There remains then the deployment of IGAD/AU forces only. But this is now a dead issue, it having been killed by AU's stipulation that the government must be unanimous in its request for such forces, and by the UN Security Council which renewed the arms embargo on Somalia . Having been denied the protection force they were banking on the President and the Government decided to take refuge in Jowhar where there is a powerful but supportive war-lord and to proceed in the meantime with the reconstitution of the Army and Police having made recourse to bilateral sources for training and provision of essential supplies. I understand that interclan and interregional militias have been merged and are now being trained and equipped. The Army and Police being separately trained will obviate the need for the deployment of foreign troops. The President had rightly argued that there could be no law and order without the legitimate forces of the law to enforce them. But the faction in Mogadishu views such a development with alarm because they see it as a potential threat to their position. Their fears have not been allayed by the President's public assurances that the army and police are not being reconstituted to launch an attack. These assurances seem to have fallen on deaf ears as evidenced by the fact that the war-lords in Mogadishu are planning a pre-emptive strike. The soi-disant Islamists who also see the government as a threat might coordinate (it is unlikely that they would join forces) their attack with the war-lords. Their aim is undoubtedly to chase the government out of Jowhar before the army is ready for combat. But they also think, and rightly so, that even if they fail the political cost of the break of hostilities would be incalculable to the Government, and then they can gleefully say ‘goodbye' to the national reconciliation. This is where matters stand now. But, in my view, these posturings are much ado about nothing because, as we have seen in the foregoing analysis of the issues, there is really no rational basis for the division and the quarrel: the only aim of the war-lords is to kill the new Somali State at its infancy.

 

The Facilitators, the Complicators and the Spoilers

 

Our national reconciliation has been facilitated, complicated and even spoilt by the neighbouring governments, IGAD, the AU, the UN and the EU. They all wanted it to succeed, I believe, but they all had their different approaches and different policies dictated by different interests. And our Somali participants being impecunious and divided and at daggers-drawn have often played into their hands; I have heard, while the Conference was in progress, many of the complaints and accusations. There were even charges of corruption. But all is well that ends well – so far as Nairobi is concerned.

 

However, as soon as the Nairobi phase of the process was over our benefactors took there hands off and from then on we were left to our own devices. Instead of being part of the solution the benefactors became part of the problem. First, IGAD and the AU developed cold feet as soon as some factions based in Mogadishu said they would not welcome the deployment of the military force agreed upon earlier; in fact both IGAD and AU stipulated the unanimous agreement of the factions prior to sending that force; the EU even said that such forces were not necessary; the AU on its part made no diplomatic effort whatsoever to lobby the member countries of the Security Council so that the embargo would be lifted specifically for the multinational force for the purpose of deploying them in the country. It did not even make an effort to make a convincing presentation to the Council. In the event, the Council renewed the embargo and made no exception whatsoever. But the Council's resolution was merely perfunctory and hypocritical because it was commonplace knowledge that the embargo has had no effect at all because the Council never enforced. As fifteen years of civil war had attracted all types of weapons into the country it was ludicrous to impose an embargo on a country which was already awash with all kinds of weapons. The Security Council's resolution had the effect of only frustrating the AU and denying the Somali factions a chance of handing their weapons over to a neutral party. The Council far from being on the side of peace in fact torpedoed the peace effort and was therefore a spoiler. But whilst the AU took the laudable step of opening its Somalia office in Jowhar Ambassador Fall, the Secretary-General's Envoy to Somalia , is sitting on the fence, not knowing what to do. It is a fact that longer the situation remains unchanged the longer he will stay on his lucrative post.

 

The root cause of the complication is the tendency to treat the Mogadishu camp and the Jowhar camp equally. These are not by any stretch of the imagination equal. Only a handful of ministers out of the forty-two-member cabinet and only a quarter of the 275 legislators are in Mogadishu . The President, the Prime Minister, his deputies, all the other ministers including the senior ones such as Foreign, Interior, Finance, Planning and International Cooperation, and Regional Cooperation all belong to the Jowhar camp. Jowhar is for all intents and purposes the current seat of the Somali government. The tendency to be even-handed in the treatment of the two camps equally has actually encouraged the minority camp to remain adamant and even to ignore the concessions made by the President. The government has been further crippled by the lack of financial support which again has been made contingent upon it agreeing with the minority camp. It is astonishing that donor countries whose very basis of their democracies is majority rule are condoning a situation whereby a tiny minority holds the vast majority to ransom. Indeed contumacy and lawlessness are sometimes rewarded in the interest of the greater good and I fully agree with Shakespeare that “To do a great right you may have to do a little wrong†(I am not sure if these were his exact words - but nearly, I suppose). I appreciate such wisdom but a concession to someone whose aim is to destroy the greater good itself is self-defeating.

 

However, the government has been diplomatically active and is not without friends. The Jowhar camp is busy trying to create the basic institutional infrastructure necessary for a government to function and is making progress by the day. By contrast, there is nothing going on in Mogadishu except killing, looting, pillaging and raping - and of course the daily invective of the war-lords. The war-lords and the Speaker are really scared to death about any progress made by the government particularly in the areas of financial and military assistance. The members of Parliament have not been paid any salaries or stipend since the government is in dire financial straits. Once money and other resources become available to the government the grass will be greener in Jowhar than in Mogadishu and members of Parliament will flock to the former. I am not talking about bribes to the deputies and money is not the only resource. The cold and hard fact is that in politics power emanates from the capacity to manage and allocate resources. That is why it was said that “Politics is a market place where resources are exchanged for supportâ€. Assistance to the military and police will enable the forces of law and order to ensure the safety and security of the people. Because of these fears the Mogadishu camp is playing a negative role by deploying all possible efforts and by knocking on any door in order to block any and all assistance to the government; in so doing they are encouraged and helped here in the United States by individuals who want to settle old scores with Abdullahi Yusuf even at the cost of destroying this last chance of erecting the Somali State on its feet.

 

The ICG has also tried, with some success, to paint a gloomy picture of every opportunity of promise and in so doing distorted the facts. There was general agreement – almost unanimous – among Somali legislators on the deployment of African forces. The point of disagreement was only the participation of Ethiopia . The ICG, however, reported that there was strong opposition by ‘powerful war-lords' and it contended that there would be a renewal of the civil war if the troops were deployed in Somalia . The ICG in fact has no credibility among Somalis and it is commonplace knowledge that at least one of their leading ‘experts' is committed to the dismemberment of Somalia and would not want to see a functioning national government in it. But, IGAD took the ICG to task on the matter of false reporting. I sometimes really wonder whether the ICG is meant to create crises where there are none; they are, as prophets of doom and gloom, the negative force that discourages the international community from coming to the aid of Somalia .

 

Conclusion

 

The World agrees that no one in his right mind would go into Mogadishu thinking that he would be safe. Both EU and UN missions trying to talk to the war-lords were recently instructed not to go beyond the airport and to return to Nairobi well before nightfall. Those wreaking havoc in Mogadishu have said in no uncertain terms that they would target the government should it come to the city. The war-lords have taken some militias out of the city but they did not demobilize them and are within call. All efforts by the Mogadishu group to pacify the city and restore peace in it have failed for two reasons: first, the war-lords themselves have not been sincere as evidenced by the fact that they returned to and maintained their own road blocks in their previous sites; secondly, they are merely zonal war lords and much of the city is controlled by the so-called Islamists, merchants who have their own private militias, and other war profiteers and criminal elements. All this must, logically, have the effect of settling the question of immediate relocation to Mogadishu .

 

The deployment of African forces has now become a dead issue and no one talks about it any more. That being the case the Mogadishu group has only one leg to stand on and, unfortunately for them, this last leg of theirs happens to be an artificial one. It is their use of Ethiopian military involvement as a red herring. These latter-day ‘nationalists' want us to believe that Ethiopians violate and occupy Somali territories at will and that President Abdullahi Yusuf is a quisling: they even said they would bring charges of treason against him. But, if Ethiopia has proved to be an enemy violating Somali territory there is all the more reason to support the reconstitution of the Somali Army and close ranks with the group in Jowhar; for this should be the time when internal differences should be shelved away.

 

The war between the two camps is being fought, unabated, on two fronts: the diplomatic and the propaganda fronts. Certainly, the Mogadishu camp is winning the latter thanks to the BBC (note for instance how the BBC completely ignored the visit of the President to New York as compared with the complete coverage it gave to the visit of the Speaker), and the many radio stations owned and manned by their supporters. The government does not, as yet, have any propaganda machine of its own. But it is leading on the diplomatic front and is likely to succeed – and succeed it must.

 

In my view there is only one solution available, and that is not a military one. The two camps are so diametrically opposed that they cannot be both right. Nor, in my view, are they both wrong. In our own native wisdom we say “ gari laba kama wada qoslisoâ€; the party deemed to be wrong will surely be angry and will cry “foulâ€. Parliament broke in two and the Shariif – being a real Shariif – should have either gone with the majority or resigned. We know that as a speaker he has not been neutral and he failed in his most important function of keeping order and ensure the unity of House. Now, it so happens that he has no Parliament over which to preside; for instead of being neutral he is a partisan in the extreme and a saboteur to the cause of reconciliation.

 

Those who say that this is Somalia 's last chance may very well be right and I am inclined to agree with them. I have heard such words from some of the most implacable foes of President Abdullahi Yusuf . But to them his downfall together with the government is the supreme goal which cannot be subordinated to the Somali people's burning desire to have once more a state of their own. I think that the international community and we Somalis should, irrespective of our political complexion, clan affiliation and prejudices, personal enmity to the President or Prime Minister should support the government in Jowhar, exert pressure on the Mogadishu group to join them or at least work with them in order to ensure the survival of our newly reconstructed State. I think a massive support to the group in Jowhar will bring the Mogadishu faction to their senses and help them see the light. This is the rational course to take. Short of this we are in for a long dialogue of the deaf and our national reconciliation will become sterile.

 

Ismail Ali Ismail

E-Mail: geeldoonia@gmail.com