PINR's informing monthly report

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Faint Signs of Political Evolution Appear in Somalia's Devolutionary Cycle

 

F

rom mid-July through mid-August, the political picture in Somalia became mixed, as insurgent violence spiked in the country's official capital Mogadishu at the same time that a National Reconciliation Conference (N.R.C.) was held without interruption in the city.

 

The image of the conference as an island in a sea of strife captures the current dynamics of Somalia's politics, in which the devolutionary cycle into primary solidarities deepens, yet hints of evolutionary processes emerge. Since the ouster of the Islamic Courts Council (I.C.C.) in December, which had gained control of much of Somalia south of the sub-state of Puntland in 2006, by an Ethiopian military intervention backing the country's weak and internationally-recognized Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.), and supported by the United States, PINR has consistently argued that Somalia is reverting to a condition of political fragmentation and conflict. Now, for the first time, counter-tendencies have appeared, although they do not necessarily indicate evolutionary momentum.

 

PINR's analysis of Somalia's politics is based on the polar variables evolution-devolution, consolidation-fragmentation, convergence-divergence, and integration-disintegration, all of which define -- with slightly different shades of meaning -- movement of a political community toward regularized processes of conflict resolution and movement toward self-help by sub-units of the community in conflict situations, respectively. Unlike most conflict-analysis organizations, PINR does not advocate peaceful conflict resolution; it simply describes the interplay of tendencies. During the past 15 months, PINR emphasized evolution during the rise of the I.C.C. and devolution since its fall, depending on its assessments of events on the ground and in the conference chambers. The justification of a sustained conflict-monitoring project is the value of grasping change in the making, which provides resources for predictive intelligence.

 

Devolution Deepens

 

As Congo's ambassador to the United Nations, Pascal Gayama, said on August 14 -- in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the U.N. Security Council to intervene more robustly in Somalia -- the country "is one of the most difficult among all the conflict situations pervading the world."

 

During July and August, the level of violence rose in Mogadishu as insurgents spearheaded by the radical jihadist Youth Mujahideen Movement (Y.M.M.) attempted to disrupt the N.R.C. and undermine its credibility, and the Ethiopian occupiers and T.F.G. forces mounted crackdowns in order to protect the N.R.C. and provide it with at least a semblance of credibility. The result was that the Y.M.M. and its hardcore ******-clan and nationalist allies were unable to torpedo the conference, and the Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces were unable to pacify the city.

 

After the opening of the N.R.C. on July 15 was disrupted by eight rounds of mortar fire, the Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces began intensive weapons searches, going house to house and through markets, arresting suspected insurgents, closing commercial roads and reportedly engaging in looting, beatings and shootings. The insurgents responded by launching grenade and mortar attacks on occupation and government patrols and bases, engaging in shoot outs and roadside bombings, and carrying out targeted assassinations of government officials. A cycle of violence ensued in which an insurgent attack would be met by indiscriminate return fire, searches and lockdowns, followed by new attacks spreading throughout the city. The majority of killed and wounded in the violence were civilians caught in the crossfire or in the attacks. Residents began to flee Mogadishu, hospitals were over-strained, and aid deliveries were impeded, leading to a humanitarian crisis that continues.

 

PINR logs violent incidents day by day from multiple sources, checking them against one another and sorting them out. On an average day, at least five incidents are recorded; there has not been a day without violence and on some days there have been more than ten incidents.

 

A sense of the conditions on the ground can be gained by listing the incidents recorded for a single day. August 9 was one of the more violent days and is chosen because it includes a representative sample of the kinds of incidents characteristic of the conflict in Mogadishu.

 

The major incident on August 9 was a two-hour gun battle in the northern Huriwa district sparked by an attack on a government battlewagon and leading to face-to-face combat. Men and young boys reportedly fled the neighborhood to escape arrest. No casualty figures were available.

 

In other incidents, one person died and three were injured when Ethiopian forces opened fire on civilians after they were attacked near the SOS Hospital. Three people died when Ethiopian troops fired on people in the Suuq Holaha livestock market in an attempt to disperse them during a search operation. A government battlewagon was attacked in the Suuq Holaha neighborhood and two grocers were killed in the return fire. An officer with the T.F.G. security forces was assassinated in a home invasion. A former official in the Darkinley district was gunned down after he left a mosque. Two people -- one of them an employee of a currency exchange -- were gunned own in the Yaqshid neighborhood with no apparent motive.

 

The events of August 9 illustrate the conditions on the ground in Mogadishu by spotlighting the unremitting insecurity brought on by the cycle of attack, counter-attack and preemptive operations. Abstracting from the severe human costs, which have been documented by several U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations, the inability of the occupation and the government to quash the insurgency, despite proactive measures, marks a defeat on the security front. PINR's monitoring of Y.M.M. statements indicates that the jihadist element of the opposition is becoming ever more radical and uncompromising and is taking credit for more incidents. Meanwhile, the measures of Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces increasingly alienate the residents of Mogadishu, making the ability to protect the N.R.C. come at a steep price.

 

PINR sees no early end to the insurgency in Mogadishu because the Ethiopian-T.F.G. crackdown cannot be sustained indefinitely and is not succeeding in any case.

 

Signs of a deepening devolutionary cycle also were evident in Somalia's regions, which are covered almost exclusively by local media and escape international attention.

 

In the strategically important central Hiraan region, which borders Ethiopia, there have been persistent problems with roadblocks set up by militias to extort money from travelers, leading to efforts by Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces to eliminate them. On July 21, a major operation took down ten roadblocks, but has not stopped the practice.

 

In order to tighten control over Hiraan and to build a machine co-opting former warlords, the T.F.G.'s president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, appointed Yusuf Dabaged -- an ally of Mogadishu's mayor, Mohamed Dheere -- as governor of the region, sparking opposition from the incumbent governor, Hussein Ahmed Moalim and sectors of the population allied with him.

 

On July 30, a truck transporting water to an Ethiopian base on the outskirts of Hiraan's capital Beledweyne was attacked by grenades. The Ethiopians responded with intensive searches for suspects and weapons, and then shelled parts of Beledweyne, killing three people. Local media also reported an attack on an Ethiopian convoy and on the Ethiopian base.

 

On August 4, Dabaged was in the Jalalaksi district of Hiraan meeting with district officials and militias loyal to him in order to mobilize support against Moalim who asserted his claim to be the "legitimate" governor. Local media reported that factions in Beledweyne were preparing for a showdown as 1,000 Ethiopian troops waited in the wings. Meanwhile, five people were killed in inter-clan fighting in the Mahas district.

 

On August 6, Dabaged was back in Beledweyne announcing that members of the I.C.C. would not be harmed if they "lived peacefully." On August 7, Dabaged took a tougher line, threatening to arrest families and relatives of criminals and insurgents if the latter evaded arrest, and defended the Ethiopian shelling as a necessary response to attacks.

 

In the past two weeks, the situation in Hiraan has remained tense, but there have been no reports of clashes between Dabaged's and Moalim's supporters.

 

In the deep-southern Lower Jubba region, dominated by the key port city of Kismayo, the administration of the city remained under the control of militias of the ******* sub-clan of the ***** clan family, which had ousted the region's governor from the ********* sub-clan of the *****, who had been appointed by President Yusuf, also a *********, as part of his machine-building project. Through late July and into August, inter-clan fighting occurred in different towns of the Middle and Lower Jubba regions.

 

On August 14, the former ******* warlord of the Jubba regions and ex-T.F.G. defense minister, Barre Hirale Shire, was reportedly in Addis Ababa, attempting to convince Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, not to permit the T.F.G. to launch an armed operation against Kismayo. Hirale's aim is to establish an autonomous "Jubbaland region" that would recreate his Jubba Valley Alliance, which ruled the Jubba regions before the rise of the I.C.C.

 

The situation in the Jubba regions was further complicated on August 17 by the visit of Abdulqadir Haji Mohamud Dhaqane -- one of the dissident members of the T.F.G.'s parliament who are based in Eritrea -- to the capital of Middle Jubba, Buale, where he conferred with local leaders on the transfer of their allegiance from the T.F.G to its exiled political opposition. Dhaqane vowed that the political opposition would take control of the Jubba regions.

 

Apparent sectarian violence flared up in the central Mudug region on August 14, when two people were killed and seven were wounded in an attack on a religious center run by the moderate Ahlu Sunna wal Jama'a movement in the region's capital Galkayo. Local officials blamed the incident on the fundamentalist al-Ittihad al-Islami movement, a predecessor of the I.C.C.

 

Inter-clan fighting was reported over the past month in the Mudug, Galgadud and Bay regions. Extortionate roadblocks were reported on major roads throughout Somalia.

 

The return of warlords to prominence in Hiraan and the Jubba regions, widespread inter-clan violence and criminal activity throughout the country, the appearance of sectarian violence, and instability where warlords are attempting to assert control, either under the T.F.G.'s aegis or against the government, point to the deepening of the devolutionary cycle in much of Somalia outside Mogadishu. Coupled with the unabated insurgency in Mogadishu, conditions in the regions indicate that the T.F.G. remains weak and dependent on Ethiopian support, and has not made headway toward effective governance.

 

Signs of Political Evolution

 

After opening on July 15 and then being abruptly adjourned after insurgent mortar fire targeted its venue, the N.R.C. resumed on July 19 and conducted regular sessions into the second week of August when it adjourned for a week after discussions on resource policy broke down into acrimonious disputes and elements of the ****** clan family participating in the conference began talks with ****** rejectionists in order to find "common ground."

 

The fact that the clan-based conference is taking place at all and has not been disrupted by violence shows the limits of the insurgency and indicates that substantial sectors of Somali society have at least acquiesced in the reconciliation process and are willing to try to see if it can work. Although the political opposition to the T.F.G. has boycotted the N.R.C. and has its own clan support, the N.R.C. is not entirely composed of President Yusuf's allies. There has been genuine debate and the conference has not served as a rubber stamp for the T.F.G. executive.

 

It is on the basis of the appearance of serious political debate -- not any concrete steps toward reconciliation -- that PINR counts the N.R.C. on the side of evolution. That opposing actors are willing to air their interests and encounter one another in discussion constitutes the germ of the genuinely political process that the N.R.C.'s international backers -- the U.S., European Union and U.N. donors to the T.F.G. -- wanted to engender and hoped for when they pressured Yusuf to hold the conference.

 

Having noted that the N.R.C. is being taken seriously by its participants, it is necessary to add that it has not produced impressive results and has been confused and confusing. Staged by Yusuf as an attempt to reconcile clans and not to address questions of political organization, the N.R.C. has shifted -- under pressure from donor powers -- to embrace a political agenda, rendering its future uncertain.

 

Originally scheduled to spend its projected 45 days on inter-clan issues, such as disarmament of clan and sub-clan militias, and compensation for property stolen in previous clan conflicts, the chair of the N.R.C.'s organizing committee, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, announced on August 1 that the conference had concluded that work and would now move on to political issues.

 

Mahdi's announcement was met with surprise by local analysts and observers, and ****** conference participants, because none of the issues among clans had been practically resolved. Instead, the N.R.C. came to broad agreements on principles: a cease-fire was declared without enforcement mechanisms, an intent to disarm clan militias was proclaimed -- again without enforcement mechanisms, and promises were made to restore looted property to its original owners. Implementation of property compensation is to be vested in a committee that would hear and adjudicate claims. In sum, nothing concrete came out of the "first phase" of the N.R.C., and inter-clan conflict has continued since Mahdi's declaration of "Cease-Fire Day."

 

On August 9, the spokesperson for ****** participants in the N.R.C., Abdullahi Sheikh Hassan, disputed Mahdi's claim that the conference had successfully addressed inter-clan issues, noting that non-participating ****** elders had not signed on, and calling for an extension of the first phase, triggering the conference's adjournment for a week.

 

Even before the ****** withdrawal, the N.R.C. was bogging down on the political issues. The first of those to be considered was the definition of religious extremism, which touched off debates between delegates in favor of isolating radical Islamists and those who did not want to endorse a politically-defined interpretation of what forms of Islam are legitimate. The delegates decided to defer the issue by setting up a committee of clerics to discuss it.

 

The next issue -- resource policy -- was even more contentious, and discussion of it was compromised by the T.F.G. executive's effort to enact a hydrocarbons law that would preempt any decisions of the N.R.C. Garowe Online reported on August 9 that debate over a proposed Somali Petroleum Corporation (S.P.C.) became so heated that "the N.R.C. hall burst into dispute," leading to the suspension of deliberations.

 

As the N.R.C. entered its "second phase," donor powers pressured Mahdi to reach out to the political opposition, based in Eritrea and composed of the political wing of the I.C.C. led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the dissident "Free Parliament" led by former speaker of the T.F.G. parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, nationalists, and some ex-warlords.

 

On July 29, Mahdi invited the political opposition to meet with him anywhere except Asmara, and the T.F.G.'s prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said that the N.R.C. was "still open" to the T.F.G.'s opponents. On August 5, Mahdi stated that he had been contacted by the opposition, which proposed a meeting in Djibouti.

 

The opposition quickly denied Mahdi's statement and repeated its objections to the N.R.C. Sharif called Mahdi's offer a "ploy" to gain donor support, and Hassan said that although he welcomed dialogue, it would have to focus on removing Ethiopian occupiers from Somalia. Both leaders remained firm in their plans to convene an alternative national conference on September 1 in Asmara.

 

On balance, the N.R.C. has thus far been a practical failure, having achieved neither concrete agreements nor inclusiveness. Skeptics argue that the delegates have remained at the meetings because they are being compensated financially for their attendance, a point that is not discounted by PINR. Yet, it is worth repeating that elements of a political process have been present in the N.R.C., tenuous though they may be.

 

Another faint sign of political evolution in Somalia has been the assertion of factions in the T.F.G.'s parliament attempting to check the powers of the T.F.G.'s executive, which is unprecedented since the ouster of the Asmara group of parliamentarians and has gone unreported in international media. As in the case of the N.R.C., PINR counts the emergence of political opposition within the T.F.G. as evolutionary because it represents an institutional assertion of divergent interests -- a political process.

 

On July 23, parliament began debating a motion to hold the executive accountable by requiring timely reports on its activities. Discussion of the motion, which had been signed by 100 of parliament's 225 members, became acrimonious and, on July 30, a parliamentary session was adjourned when no compromise on the motion could be reached. Meanwhile, Gedi met with parliamentary speaker, Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nuur -- an ally of the T.F.G. executive -- on how to deal with the revolt.

 

On August 1, debate resumed with Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jeele saying that "the time is not right" for accountability and adding that he "rather expected compliments from the transitional parliament." Dissident parliamentarians responded by calling for a vote of confidence on Gedi and urging Yusuf to come to parliament to attempt to resolve the issue.

 

On August 5, Gedi addressed parliament and said that his "government is ready to be taken into accountability," although it had been doing a "great job." Madobe announced the formation of a nine-member committee to study the accountability motion.

 

Since then, parliament has been gearing up to debate a controversial media law and the proposed hydrocarbons law, including the terms of exploration agreements with foreign energy companies, which have begun trying to make deals with the T.F.G., generating confusion and opposition. Although Somalia's oil reserves are unproven, small energy companies, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (C.N.

.C.) and reported proxies for energy multinationals are interested in assessing the country's potential. At present the situation is clouded, with reported splits between Gedi and Yusuf; tensions with Puntland, where previous agreements have been signed; and mounting political resistance based on suspicious that Yusuf and Gedi are planning power and money grabs. PINR will explore Somalia's oil policy when the political configuration becomes clear; the looming debate on the hydrocarbons law will be a test of parliament's independence.

 

It is too early to tell whether the transitional parliament will function effectively as an independent institution that can check the executive and represent broad sectors of Somali society. Parliament's track record in the past has been poor, but its use as a tool of political opposition indicates incipient political processes.

 

The most marked evolutionary development in Somalia came on August 1, when a locally chosen governor was installed in the west-central Bakool region, with the blessing of the T.F.G. According to the new governor, Mohamed Abdi Mohed, the electoral process, which was aided by the Center for Research and Dialogue (an N.G.O.), the Italian government and the United Nations Development Program, was based on "interest and principle" rather than clan divisions. In contrast to other regions in Somalia, Bakool appears to have institutionalized a political process from the bottom up and the T.F.G. has had to acquiesce in it.

 

Given the more unstable conditions in the other regions of Somalia, where governors have been imposed by the T.F.G. -- as in Hiraan -- or local warlords are bidding for control in the name of clan or sub-clan loyalty, the probability is low that the Bakool model will be replicated elsewhere in the short run. Nonetheless, if a political process becomes rooted in Bakool, its example would be influential in the long term.

 

Conclusion

 

On balance, the devolutionary cycle in Somalia has deepened from mid-July through mid-August, with an unabated insurgency in Mogadishu led by increasingly militant jihadists, an external domestic opposition adamant in its refusal to participate in the N.R.C., persistent inter-clan conflict in the regions, the appearance of sectarian violence, and resistance to the T.F.G.'s authority in key regions.

 

With the exception of the Bakool region, where opposition has begun to be regularized in a political process, signs of political evolution reside in the emergence of institutionalized opposition in the N.R.C. and the transitional parliament. The latter developments are not yet sufficiently rooted to alter PINR's consistent forecast that devolution is likely to persist, yet they indicate alternative possibilities for Somalia if they gain momentum and become strong enough to provide a check on the T.F.G. executive.

 

Report

Drafted By:

Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

[August 20, 2007]

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Baliis note the report was published on two weeks ago, long before the so-called "national reconciliation conference" hastily concluded in failure; thus the report is giving some positive aspects of that soon to fail conference.

[NASSIR]

Very good and detailed report. I routinely follow closely Weinstein's draft reports on Somalia. He is expert in Somalia's affairs.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

The Failure of 'Reconciliation' and 'Reconstitution' Opens Up a Political Vacuum in Somalia

 

Michael A. Weinstein

PINR

19 September 2007

 

W

ith the closing on August 30 of Somalia's National Reconciliation Conference (N.R.C.), which was sponsored by the country's internationally-backed Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G) and failed to produce substantive and enforceable agreements; and the conclusion on September 12 of the Somali Congress for Liberation and Reconstitution (S.C.L.R.), which brought together the country's political oppositions and narrowed its focus to the single aim of removing Ethiopian occupying forces, a political vacuum has opened up in Somalia.

 

The two conferences were the only political events on the horizon that carried any prospects for the movement of Somalia toward political integration and the reversal of the devolutionary cycle into which the country has fallen. Their failures to engage the form of a future political order in Somalia, the disposition of political forces within such an order, and the way toward power-sharing has shown that neither the T.F.G., which initiated the N.R.C. at the urging of Western donor powers, nor the opposition is united enough within itself to provide Somalia with a credible political formula and is much less disposed to compromise with its rival. With no other major political initiatives in the offing at a national level, PINR expects fragmentation to persist in Somalia as power devolves to regional, local, clan and sectoral centers and solidarities. The signs of political evolution in Somalia that PINR noted in its August 20 report have for the most part been erased and have been replaced by the possibility of violent polarization within a devolutionary context.

 

The Failure of "Reconciliation"

 

As PINR has noted, the N.R.C. was compromised from its inception. Originally pressed upon the T.F.G. by external actors as an instrument for political reconciliation with its non-violent political opposition, the T.F.G.'s president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed -- in a move to preserve the power of the transitional executive -- transformed the conference into a meeting to resolve disputes among the country's clans, effectively avoiding engagement with political issues and finessing the donor powers, which acquiesced in his counter-initiative.

 

After two weeks of discussions on clan-related issues, which resulted in commitments to a cease-fire, disarmament and restoration of property stolen in clan conflicts, the N.R.C.'s chair, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, abruptly announced on August 1 that the clan phase of the conference had ended successfully and that its political phase would now begin. Mahdi's action, which was greeted with skepticism by many delegates and observers, came in response to pressure from donors who were holding their purse strings tightly.

 

The political phase of the N.R.C. effectively ended on August 9, when rancorous debate over the issue of natural resource distribution led to the adjournment of the conference. Members of the ****** clan family attending the conference also asked for an adjournment in order to mount an effort that proved unsuccessful to persuade ****** factions that had boycotted the N.R.C. to participate.

 

When the N.R.C. reopened on August 19, the majority of delegates signed a document reaffirming their August 1 agreement without providing enforcement mechanisms for the cease-fire or disarmament, and devolving property restitution to an arbitration committee.

 

On August 22, political debate on the definition of religious extremism, which had not been resolved in early August, was revived and once again reached no conclusion, with some delegates arguing that there was no "religious war" in Somalia and others contending that the killing of civilians and suicide bombings are "un-Islamic." On the same day, Somalia's ambassador to Kenya, Mohamed Abdi Nur, announced that the N.R.C. would end on August 31, stating that the T.F.G. would provide a plan for "all Somalis belonging to the different segments of society regardless of their political orientations and shades of opinion." On August 29, Mahdi announced that the N.R.C. would conclude the next day, angering many delegates who believed that matters of concern to their clans had not been adequately addressed.

 

The closure of the N.R.C., which had run its projected 45 days, was due in greatest part to unwillingness of donors to provide more funds and also to fears of the T.F.G. executive that the conference might get out of control addressing political issues. Mahdi, who had recently returned from Nairobi where he had been meeting with donors, told the N.R.C. on August 29 that he blamed opposition groups that had boycotted the N.R.C. for making donors reluctant to fund the conference adequately, adding that he had persuaded the donors -- the European Union, United States and United Nations -- at least to pay the promised stipends of the delegates.

 

At the closing ceremonies, Mahdi said that reconciliation would "continue at the regional and village level," and Yusuf assured that he was "ready to hand power over to whomever is elected by the people" in projected 2009 elections for a permanent government. Delegates were divided on the outcome of the N.R.C., with some stressing that it was a victory for 2,000 representatives from all the regions of Somalia to have met at all, and others saying that the conference amounted to no more than a paid vacation for provincial elders that -- as clan leader Ali Hassan Barrow from the Hiraan region put it in a closing speech -- left the delegates with "nothing in hand."

 

Representatives of donor powers, regional states and regional organizations -- the U.N., African Union (A.U.) and Arab League (A.L.), China, Norway, Ethiopia and Egypt -- attended the closing ceremony. The U.N.'s special representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, spoke for them, calling on the T.F.G. to "reach out to all opposition groups inside and outside Somalia," and on the international community to support the T.F.G.'s efforts to extend its authority, and to support the under-manned and under-funded A.U. peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) in Somalia -- a simple repetition of the position the donor powers had taken before the N.R.C. was convened.

 

The most telling point was made by a Western diplomat speaking to Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity: "We know that this conference has gone nowhere. The problem is blind confidence in the T.F.G. We all wanted to support it and we did; it did not rise to the occasion, so we need a different approach now." What such an approach might be remains at best unclear with the T.F.G. walking away from the conference with no obligations but to disarm clan militias and integrate their members into its forces, which it is not likely to accomplish despite general agreement on those goals at the N.R.C.

 

The N.R.C. met in Somalia's official capital Mogadishu against a backdrop of an escalated insurgency at the same levels that PINR noted in its August 20 report. Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces were generally able to protect the conference, although a leading delegate from the ****** clan was assassinated on August 19, and two delegates from Puntland were wounded in one of the several attacks on hotels housing delegates. The jihadist Youth Mujahideen Movement (Y.M.M.) took credit for more of the attacks than it had previously done, and they persisted in the face of a security crackdown and a flight of residents from the neighborhoods most affected by violence to areas immediately south of Mogadishu, where they took refuge in squalid and unhealthy refugee camps. Inter-clan violence also continued, notably in the central Hiraan and Galguduud regions, casting doubt on the credibility of the cease-fire agreement at the N.R.C.

 

On September 17, Yusuf was in Saudi Arabia, where he and some former delegates to the N.R.C. signed the pact that had been agreed upon at the conference. The ceremony, which was attended by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, was not a new step forward in reconciliation, but a symbolic event aimed at showing Arab support for Yusuf's version of reconciliation. Yusuf also took the opportunity to call for a U.N. peacekeeping mission that would include both Arab and African contingents. There were reports that Washington had urged Riyadh to support the T.F.G. in order to isolate its domestic opposition. The opposition quickly announced its rejection of the pact.

 

Having achieved no substantive reconciliation, the N.R.C. also does not appear to have strengthened Yusuf's power base. The T.F.G. remains a weak protagonist in Somalia's tangled conflicts, and it has probably lost some of the "blind confidence" of the donor powers in it.

 

The Failure of "Reconstitution"

 

The political alternative to the N.R.C. was the S.C.L.R. held by the T.F.G.'s political oppositions in Asmara from September 6 through September 12. PINR had previously noted tendencies toward coalescence in the opposition that might have made it a credible movement that could pressure the T.F.G. into power-sharing negotiations, but that possibility was not realized in the face of divisions among the opposition's components -- the Islamic Courts Council (I.C.C.), which controlled most of southern Somalia before an Ethiopian intervention ousted it in December 2006; dissident members of the transitional parliament favoring an accord with the I.C.C.; significant portions of the Somali diaspora; nationalists; and dissident clan warlords, notably the former T.F.G. deputy prime minister and defense minister, Hussein Farah Aideed.

 

Originally planned as a vehicle to form a national political opposition, the S.C.L.R. was narrowed down -- as a result of the inability of the opposition factions to agree on a common political formula -- only to address the aim of removing Ethiopian occupation forces from Somalia. The I.C.C. remained insistent on a Somalia ruled by Shari'a law; the "Free Parliament" and the diaspora groups favored a wider power-sharing agreement involving the T.F.G.; and the nationalists, who backed out of participating, favored a strong non-theocratic state transcending clan divisions. Their diverse aims and support bases made it impossible for the oppositions to engage political issues, leaving them with a common commitment to resist a foreign occupation.

 

Signs that the S.C.L.R. would falter came on August 28 when the spokesman for the ****** sub-clans that had boycotted the N.R.C., Ahmed Diriye, announced that the anti-T.F.G. ****** elders would not go to Asmara, although they continued to denounce the N.R.C. as a ploy to gain international support. On September 1, Diriye reiterated the elders' refusal to participate in the S.C.L.R., saying that they had been invited and promised flights to Asmara, but would not attend because the conference had been "mobilized by people with special interests and has no relationship with ****** tradition and unity clans."

 

In the absence of the ******, the S.C.L.R. lacked a base of deeper organized social support, which weakened its credibility, even as simply a resistance to the Ethiopian occupation.

 

Scheduled to open on September 1, S.C.L.R. was delayed on August 31, when Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, ex-speaker of Somalia's transitional parliament and leader of the Free Parliament, announced that sessions would begin on September 6 because of "technical reasons" and the failure of all the delegates to arrive -- the same reasons given by N.R.C. organizers when that conference was delayed. Reuters reported that disagreements over the agenda had also held up the conference.

 

Hassan made it clear that the conference would be "short" and would not be "political," adding that "we expect that the Somali people have realized how to get out of the difficulty and will touch on where the difficulties are" -- presumably referring to the Ethiopian occupation. Already on August 25, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, leader of the I.C.C.'s political wing, had adopted an unaccustomed militant line, saying that the Ethiopians "will be pushed out of Somalia by force and we will take back our freedom by force."

 

The S.C.L.R. opened on September 6 and the diversity of the opposition was evident at its outset, centering on the interpretation of the term "reconstitution."

 

As a designation of the positive aim of the conference, "reconstitution" was chosen in deliberate contrast to "reconciliation," which, for the T.F.G., meant the settling of clan disputes within the framework of the transitional institutions and their present officials. The opposition groups were agreed on the principle that a future political formula for Somalia would "reconstitute" a national state transcending clan, and one of their few positive accomplishments was to repudiate the clan-representation formula on which the T.F.G. is based. Nationalism and promotion of a strong sovereign state united the opposition rhetorically, but beyond that consensus collapsed.

 

The divisions among the opposition groups hinged on the question of whether "reconstitution" meant determining a political formula for a future Somali state or simply forming an alliance aimed at "liberating" the country from Ethiopian occupation. That the latter was the most that could be expected was signaled by the withdrawal of the nationalists before the proceedings began.

 

The nationalists' pull out was based on their judgment that the conference would be dominated by the I.C.C. and would not consider their case for building a single national movement, rather than an alliance of convenience. They complained that there would be no attempt to forge a "post-liberation vision," a point also made by Aideed, who called for a "common agenda, platform and vision," aiming at a consensus including Somalis who disapproved of the S.C.L.R. The nationalists now plan to form a Nationalist Movement for Salvation and Revival of Somalia to resist the occupation and mobilize the population to create a strong national state.

 

With the maximum definition of reconstitution shunted aside, the conference became a tug of war between its three major elements -- the I.C.C., which held fast to its formula of a Somali Islamic state, and the diaspora groups and the Free Parliament faction, which favored a democratic formula for Somalia and were willing to accept power-sharing negotiations within the T.F.G. institutions if the Ethiopians withdrew from Somalia.

 

Confronted with the I.C.C. as the major grouping among the approximately 400 delegates, the other factions were placed in the position of attempting to resist its takeover of the opposition. The Los Angeles Times reported on September 15 that non-Islamist delegates had walked out of a session in a dispute over the issue of whether to include the term "jihad" in the proposed charter for the alliance, and had later succeeded in keeping the reference out in favor of the more general term "struggle." On September 14, Garowe Online reported that disputes had broken out over the institutional structure of the alliance -- a Central Committee to function as a legislature and an Executive Committee. Originally the Central Committee was to have 151 members with 68 apportioned to the I.C.C., but its size was later increased to 191 with 76 apportioned to the I.C.C. to dilute its influence by including "intellectuals" and representatives of civil-society organizations.

 

Having had to make concessions, the I.C.C. stood firm against appeals that a non-Islamist take formal leadership of the alliance in order to increase the prospects for international support, and was able to place Sheikh Ahmed as chair of the executive committee, with Hassan assuming the leadership of the Central Committee. The remaining nine seats on the Executive Committee were not filled, reflecting continued disagreement. On September 16, Garowe Online reported that disputes over the composition of the Executive Commission had persisted with Hussein Aideed demanding the foreign affairs portfolio and Sheikh Ahmed favoring Mohamed Ahmed Tarsan, a diaspora figure close to the I.C.C., for that post.

 

The Central Committee was apportioned to give 45 percent of the seats to the I.C.C., 25 percent to the Free Parliament, 16 percent to the diaspora and the remaining 14 percent to clan elders, civil society organizations and intellectuals. Despite formally holding a minority of seats, it is likely that the I.C.C. will be the dominant force in the opposition, due to pockets of support within the diaspora and among elders and intellectuals.

 

As the conference drew toward its close on September 12, its spokesman, Zakariya Mahmud Abdi, announced that the movement it had formed -- the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (A.R.S.) -- would pursue a dual-track policy of armed resistance and diplomacy to achieve an Ethiopian withdrawal from Somalia, and would be "dissolved" when the occupation ended, reflecting the inability of the opposition to agree on a positive program.

 

Whereas the S.C.L.R. was short on "vision," it was militant on "liberation," with debate over whether to declare that Ethiopia "should withdraw" from Somalia or that Ethiopia "must be driven out" ending in favor of the latter wording, which was championed by the I.C.C. The communiqué issued at the end of the conference stated that the A.R.S. would not hold talks with the T.F.G. prior to an end of the Ethiopian occupation and demanded the withdrawal of AMISOM from Somalia, accusing the Ugandan detachment of siding with the occupation. The communiqué also denounced Washington's charges that the conference was harboring "terrorists," insisting that the A.R.S. would not be a "terrorist organization" and was composed of "devoted Muslims." The S.C.L.R. called on Washington to "reverse its anti-Somalia policy" and refused to renounce armed resistance or to repudiate the Y.M.M. The Y.M.M., which is committed to Islamic revolution, warned that "the Asmara conference is forcing the jihad to lose its way."

 

After the communiqué was issued, Abdi clarified that the "national liberation struggle" would be concentrated in Mogadishu and its environs, and would transcend clan and religious divisions. The next move would be for opposition leaders to infiltrate into Somalia in order to recruit fighters and make alliances with anti-T.F.G. sub-clans.

 

On September 15, militant I.C.C. commander Sheikh Hassan Turki released a video showing a training camp for fighters in Somalia's deep southern Lower Jubba region. By September 16, thousands of Ethiopian troops were reported to be massing on the Somali border, some of them bound to replace occupation forces in Mogadishu and most of them poised to redeploy in Lower Jubba, from which Ethiopia had withdrawn in March.

 

Conclusion

 

After the U.S.-supported Ethiopian intervention into Somalia, the Western powers had pinned all of their hopes on an "inclusive" national reconciliation process that would bring together all political forces and isolate revolutionary jihadists. The conditions for such a process were that the T.F.G. "reach out" to the political opposition and that the opposition be coherent and willing enough to engage in negotiation. Neither condition has been met; the N.R.C. was clan-based and held under the aegis of the T.F.G. and secured by Ethiopian forces; and the S.C.L.R. took on an uncompromising militant hue.

 

The Western powers and associated international and regional organizations, and interested states are left without options. As the S.C.L.R. proceeded, the T.F.G.'s prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi -- under donor-power pressure -- traveled to Djibouti in a failed attempt to open talks with opposition figures, including I.C.C. leaders. Washington threatened to put Eritrea on its list of state sponsors of terrorism for allowing militant Islamist figures -- most notably I.C.C. leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys -- to attend the conference, and for allegedly funneling arms to the insurgency in Somalia.

 

On September 12, the Washington-inspired Contact Group for Somalia (C.G.), including the U.S., E.U., European donor states, and international and regional organizations, met in Rome and repeated its consistent calls for African states to contribute to AMISOM so that Ethiopian forces, without which the T.F.G would collapse, can withdraw, and for the T.F.G. and the political opposition to negotiate. U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, who spoke for the C.G., said that the N.R.C. "was not a failure or a success," and that reconciliation is an "ongoing process." In a later press conference in Uganda, she emphasized that the A.R.S. contains "terrorist elements" and urged "legitimate opposition figures" to distance themselves from "extremists." Frazer stressed that the key to alleviating Somalia's humanitarian crisis was the suppression of terrorists, extremists and "spoilers." The gap between the desires of Western and associated actors, and the positions of Somali actors has widened to the point that the donor powers have lost connection to the realities on the ground.

 

Addis Ababa, facing a stepped-up insurgency in its ethnic-Somali [soomaali Galbeed] region and international censure for its severe efforts to suppress it, is financially strapped and can no longer economically or strategically afford to stay in Somalia. Aside from Uganda, which has deployed 1,600 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, no other African states have been willing to contribute forces to AMISOM, citing Somalia's insecurity, lack of their own resources and inadequate financial and logistical support from Western powers. A U.N. Security Council resolution of August 20 that extended AMISOM's mandate for six months was met with unprecedented displeasure in African capitals, including Kampala. The A.U. wants the U.N. to take over the Somalia mission and African leaders accuse the great powers on the Security Council of hypocrisy -- urging African deployment when there is no peace to keep and deferring a U.N. mission until there is "political progress" in Somalia.

 

There are several scenarios for Somalia's political future. In PINR's judgment, the most likely one is continued devolution intensified by a possible spread of wider and more unified armed resistance against the Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces, and augmented by a loss of interest in Somalia by external actors, which will leave the country in the state of neglect that it suffered in the decade between 1994, when an international presence ended, and 2004, when the T.F.G. was formed.

 

Expect the Ethiopians to be worn down by attrition, the African states to become cooler to AMISOM, and the great powers to be unwilling to commit the resources necessary to make a political process attractive and to provide security.

 

The failure of reconciliation and reconstitution leaves Somalia where it was before the conferences, but that failure is also an indicator of the severity of fragmentation that external actors will take to heart. They have no Plan B and are likely to step back slowly from Somalia. The political vacuum will open wider, with the new possibility of civil war.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Alas, PINR discontinued late last year any analysis, well-informed articles regarding Soomaaliya. I found this one from Garoowe site, however, and Dr. Weinstein as well comes with another brilliant well-balanced report.

 

Two Sound Assessments of the Situation in Somalia

 

A

s Somalia descended during spring 2008 into what Philippe Lazzarini, the United Nations director of humanitarian affairs for that country, called a "massive, massive crisis" ("We are at the eve of what triggered the massive international intervention in 1992"), the "international community" - that is, the Western powers - blew clouds of irrelevant, indeed, perverse rhetoric, and two African leaders spoke truth to those powers.

 

Ever since Ethiopia occupied Somalia in December 2006, with the blessings of Washington and acquiescence of the Europeans, the Western powers and the United Nations, which the former have made their agent, have played an interminable game of hesitation, juggling the relative priorities of their two requirements for resolving Somalia's conflicts: Somalia needs an adequately staffed and equipped international/African peacekeeping mission to replace the Ethiopians and to provide security; and Somali political forces need to reconcile with one another.

 

The Western powers are disingenuous. They have not moved a muscle to provide an adequate peacekeeping mission, arguing that reconciliation has to come first; and they have preached open reconciliation while continuing to back the Ethiopian occupation and to support Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.), which is an increasingly weak, unpopular and ineffective party to the conflict. They are the last thing from honest brokers - they are manipulators, seeking to guide the T.F.G. into the kind of "reconciliation" that they want - one that excludes "extremists" and "spoilers" (as they define them), and that preserves the T.F.G. in some purposefully imprecise way.

 

By their actions, the Western powers have belied their rhetoric. This is most clearly apparent to the international and regional organizations that have become the Western powers' agents - the United Nations and the African Union - which are supposed to be facilitating the fulfillment of the requirements and, in consequence, are compromised by having to perform thankless tasks. One would expect them to complain and so they have, even though their subordinate positions render them powerless to change the situation.

 

In early April, Major Basigye Ba-Hoku, spokesman for the small African Union peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu (AMISOM) described the security situation, which has only deteriorated since then, precisely. With only 2200 of the 8000 forces that it was projected to have, AMISOM has been able only to secure Mogadishu's airport, seaport and (imperfectly) key government installations. In an appeal for greater support from the "international community," Ba-Hoku provided a reality check that went unnoticed in the international and even local Somali media, yet which is telling and definitive.

 

According to Ba-Hoku, even if African states that had pledged to contribute to AMISOM fulfilled their promises, 8000 peacekeepers would no longer be sufficient to secure Somalia; 20,000 were now necessary. Arguing that the 2200 current forces were capable of creating a "Green Zone" in south Mogadishu, but "nothing else," Ba-Hoku explained that 8000 might have been enough had they arrived from the start, but that over time "the opposing forces [the armed resistance to the Ethiopians and T.F.G.] have gone and mobilized. They have equipped themselves. They have done their propaganda and so on. And so, it is now going to be more costly, both in terms of personnel and resources." Ba-Hoku added that the resistance fighters had "established real bases" throughout Somalia and that the "international community" needed to take "urgent action," defining the problem as their failure to provide logistical support: "Give the contributing countries support, logistical support, and then we will do the job."

 

There is not even a remote possibility that the Western powers will respond to Ba-Hoku's call - its importance is not practical, but descriptive; that is, the situation on the ground has "deteriorated" so much that it has outrun even the most ambitious peacekeeping proposals. Since Ba-Hoku made his comments, the mainly Islamist resistance has not only established bases, but has begun for the first time since the Ethiopian occupation was initiated to hold territory and to contest for control of major towns throughout Somalia south of the semi- autonomous sub-state of Puntland.

 

It cannot be underscored enough that central and southern Somalia have become territorially contested once again, as they were through the last half of 2006, with the Islamists gaining ground with each passing week. The difference is that there is already an Ethiopian occupation that seems unable to stem the tide and is obviously overstretched. The resistance is no longer simply an insurgency; although it is divided ideologically and politically, its factions cooperate tactically and are united on driving the Ethiopians out of Somalia. As they gain dominant influence over territories and facilitate local administrations functioning apart from the T.F.G.'s even nominal sanction, they become the elements of the "re-liberation" movement that some of them aspire to be. Within such a scenario, there is no space for "peacekeepers" to function.

 

With the peacekeeping requirement an empty rhetorical construction, all the weight rests on "reconciliation." As the Western powers see it, an acceptable negotiating process will bring the T.F.G. together with the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (A.R.S.), which is based in exile in Eritrea and includes elements of the Islamic Courts movement, which was militarily defeated by the Ethiopians in 2006; dissident members of the T.F.G.'s parliament; some ex-warlords; and leaders of the Somalia diaspora. The Islamists in the A.R.S. have pursued a dual diplomatic-military strategy and have been receptive to mediation efforts by United Nations special representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, who has been constrained by the Western powers, particularly Washington, to exclude the self-described Salafist-jihadist Youth Mujihideen Movement (Y.M.M.), which spearheads the armed resistance, from participation in "reconciliation." The West wants to "isolate" the Y.M.M. and use the A.R.S. as a wedge to split the resistance movement, placing the A.R.S. in a compromised position - the A.R.S. cannot appear to betray the resistance cause on pain of losing its credibility, yet it must appear to be willing to negotiate with the T.F.G. Meanwhile, the T.F.G., which is dependent on funding from the Western powers, but does not receive sufficient amounts even to pay its security forces, much less to run a functioning administration, struggles to preserve its notional existence, forced to pay lip service to "reconciliation" as a creature of the Ethiopian occupiers and the Western manipulators.

 

It is not surprising that Ould Abdallah is often frustrated by his mandate to bring the A.R.S. and T.F.G. together; all three parties are severely compromised by the requirements of the Western powers. In addition, as the Ethiopians have been losing on the ground, they have resorted to extreme acts of violent reprisal, the most devastating of which to "reconciliation" was their April 20 raid on the Hidaya Mosque in Mogadishu, in which Ethiopian forces massacred clerics and worshippers of the peaceful Tabliq Sufi school of Islam, including Imam Sheikh Said Yahiya, and reportedly slit some of their victims' throats.

 

The massacre threw Ould Abdallah's mediation efforts off track by causing the A.R.S. to back off. He responded to his predicament in an April 25 interview with Reuters not by condemning the Ethiopians, but by issuing a warning to Somalis and a harsh criticism of the international community. To the Somalis, he said: "The U.N. has so many things on its plate. They are requested and welcomed in many other places, so I don't see them rushing to Somalia unless there is minimum stability." Turning to the international community, he accused it of "neglect, terrible abandonment" that was epitomized by its refusal to "pursue justice for war crimes."

 

As had Ba-Hoku, Ould Abdallah had been pushed to the point at which he had no recourse but to tell the truth; the Western powers would continue to "abandon" Somalia - unless Somalis figured out a way to provide stability for themselves, no support would be forthcoming. As with Ba-Hoku's assessment, Ould Abdallah's warning and criticism have no practical importance, but they are descriptively telling.The Western powers will not lift a finger unless "reconciliation" is accomplished their way: The Ethiopians will stay until - as Ould Abdallah continually repeats - Somalis "unite;" the T.F.G. structures will be the framework for negotiations; the "extremists" and "spoilers" will be excluded from negotiations; and the T.F.G. will be kept on a starvation diet until it somehow is able to "reach out" successfully to the A.R.S.

 

Taking Ba-Hoku's and Ould Abdallah's assessments together, the situation on the ground has spun out of the Western powers' control and they are prepared to do nothing about it. That judgment is reinforced by the decision of the International Contact Group (I.C.G.) - the Washington-inspired effort to coordinate Western policy toward Somalia - to name Ould Abdallah as its chair and to suspend regular meetings in favor of meetings on an "as-needed" basis, effectively relieving the Western powers of responsibility for reconciliation.

 

In its May 1 swan song in Oslo, Norway, the I.C.G. urged all parties to engage in talks, "protect" dialogue from "internal and external spoilers," respect international human rights law, and address humanitarian access - all the familiar shibboleths that cover up the Western powers' abject failures.

 

It is an understatement to say that the Western powers have behaved irresponsibly; Somalia would be better off if they either committed themselves to a coherent policy backed up by adequate resources or simply removed themselves from the picture and let a balance of power establish itself, which would mean pulling the plug on the T.F.G. and dropping support for the Ethiopian occupation. Of course, they will not do either and will continue to prolong Somalia's agony. They do not want Middle Eastern states to gain influence in Somalia, they have made Ethiopia their bulwark in the Horn of Africa and do not want to see it encircled, they are opposed to the establishment of an Islamic state in the Horn, and they - specifically Washington - are determined to prosecute the "war on terrorism" (on the day the I.C.G. folded its tent, the U.S. bombed a house in central Somalia in a targeted assassination that killed Y.M.M. leader Adan Hashi Ayro, along with at least twelve other people, again impeding Ould Abdallah's mediation efforts).

 

It is surprising that despite all the obstacles and constraints, Ould Abdallah succeeded after tedious efforts in bringing delegations from the T.F.G. and A.R.S. to Djibouti on May 11 for "technical" discussions that were delayed as mediators (some from the Arab League) shuttled between the two groups, and opened on May 12. The question mark is the A.R.S., which until mid-April had insisted on at least a timetable for an Ethiopian withdrawal from Somalia before engaging in talks, had balked at participating after the mosque massacre and again after the U.S. bombing, and was sharing in the successes of the armed resistance on the ground. Has the A.R.S. been offered a deal? Does it believe that it is in a favorable negotiating position? Is it counting on Arab support? Is it simply engaged in a delaying tactic?

 

Whatever its motivations, even if the A.R.S. reaches a far-from-likely agreement with the T.F.G., it is not clear that it would have any effect on the ground - the train has probably already left the station. As for the T.F.G., its president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, seems determined to hang on to power, although he is increasingly being isolated by the Western powers, Ethiopia and much of the rest of the T.F.G.; and its prime minister, Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein - the West's poster boy for reconciliation - is weak, still lacks a power base of his own, has been compromised by his failure to condemn Ethiopian atrocities and now faces a no-confidence motion in the transitional parliament. Can the T.F.G. be considered a credible negotiating partner?

 

As a sense of unreality settles in at the top, changes are taking place beneath the international radar as Somalis resort to self-help on regional and local levels, relying on traditional elders, businessmen, intellectuals, clerics and sub-clan militias to provide conflict resolution and security, sometimes in collaboration with the resistance and sometimes by themselves. This is not the engineered "bottom-up" approach to "nation building" promoted by some non- governmental organizations and international agencies, but a spontaneous expedient taken in the face of the T.F.G.'s failure to govern and Ethiopia's failure to provide security; it is what Somalis have always done and it appears to be the most significant political development in Somalia today - it could change the facts on the ground sufficiently to determine any future political formula should it take hold. The self-help endeavors have thus far remained resistant to warlordism - they are Somalia's genuine "window of opportunity."

 

One can only hope that the Western powers will find it too costly to try to sabotage self-healing. That they would welcome it or even take a benign stance towards it is too much to expect.

 

Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

[Fabregas]

Weinstein is spot on! The " International Community", namely the United Nations, AU and the agents are just mere tools of Western- Imperial policy, which seeks to fight a proxy war in Somalia through Ethiopian forces and so called " African peace Troops". The spokesman of the African Union even says that they established a " green zone" in South Muqdisho and they literaly need more men and arms to fight the "opposing sides".

 

They tried to( and still are) to hand Somalia over to gacan shisheeye and now the last resort is to break the back of the resistance and create further confusion with some nonsensical " peace talks" in Djibouti, which are in reality designed to divide and weaken the ARS and their allies on the ground!