SOMALIA 2011: FRENZIED DANCING IN PLACE By Michael A. Weinstein

[Liqaye]

SOMALIA 2011: FRENZIED DANCING IN PLACE

By Michael A. Weinstein

What does 2011 hold in store for Somalia’s politics?

That is the question that I will address here within the context provided by Somali intellectuals who witness their country's fragmentation and, like some, have compared Somalia to the English nursery‐rhyme character Humpty‐Dumpty...... Is Somalia salvageable? they ask.

Somalia does not exist presently as a political subject, a political actor in the world that pursues interests by deploying power, has an organization that creates an internal order and is a player at the international table. Post‐independence Somalia was a political subject; it lost that status in 1991, after the fall of Siad Barre’s dictatorship, when its factions were unable to agree on a power‐sharing formula that would keep them within a unit, when Humpty‐Dumpty took the plunge. Since then political Somalia has become an imaginary, an idea of reclaiming what once was and rectifying the mistakes that destroyed it.

Is Somalia salvageable? An analyst cannot even begin to answer that question. “Ifs” are all that an analyst can offer. If one actor becomes sufficiently coherent and powerful to impose itself on the others, then Somalia might become a political subject again. Alternatively, if enough factions reconciled with one another, Somalia might be salvaged. If external actors/powers/players let Somalia coalesce either by force or consensus, Somalia might exist in the perceptual political word. What an analyst can attempt to do is to assess what analyst‐theorist Ahmed Egal calls the fundamental and basic dynamics of “fission” and “fusion” in politics – are factions/units tending to divide or unite? Are their interests convergent or divergent? What is the balance of power among the actors? Solidarity and division; strength and weakness.

The Past Year

In order to make a projection for 2011, it is necessary to know the positions of the domestic and external actors composing the conjuncture of organized interests in Somalia’s politics as they have developed/changed during 2010. Modern‐classical‐realist political‐science‐based analysis, such as guides the present writing, always takes its starting point from the concrete present situation. What political forces are active? What ideal entities also are organized political subjects, even if some or all of them are divided by factionalism within? Who gets to play, who has the power to play? All projections come from the present; indeed, for an analyst they are simply extrapolations of the present. Look for creativity elsewhere; the analyst is (methodologically) conservative; the future is projected on the basis of the present configuration of power.

The territories of post‐independence Somalia will serve as what will be called “Somalia” in order to bring together the conjuncture of its shattered pieces. Although Somalia as a political subject does not exist on the ground, post‐independence Somalia did once exist and has sufficient strength as an idea

projected forward to organize the conjuncture for the analyst. “Somalia,” then, in its death as a reality, lives on as the signifier that organizes the discourse of its “parts.” (Saying “part,” of course, begs the question and grants the discursive power to “Somalia.”)

[Liqaye]

The conjuncture of Somalia’s politics includes, as its most significant actors, the provisionally autonomous regional state of Puntland; the self‐declared independent state of Somaliland ; the internationally‐recognized Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.); the armed Islamist revolutionary opposition to the T.F.G. (Harakat al‐Shabaab Mujahideen – H.S.M.); the African Union (A.U.), which originates the peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) that protects the T.F.G. in an enclave of “Somalia’s” capital Mogadishu; the Western donor powers and I.G.O.s that fund the T.F.G. and AMISOM. Puntland occupies the northeastern section of post‐independence Somalia, Somaliland its northwestern section; the T.F.G. part of post‐independence Somalia’s capital al, with de jure sovereignty over all of post‐independence Somalia, according to international powers; the H.S.M. most of the southern and central section of “Somalia” and ambition to control all of it.

The conjuncture contains other significant actors, some of which have been and/or might become major actors. There are Somalia’s neighboring states, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti; Arab states looking for political and economic influence; the Islamist donors to and revolutionary movements affiliated with H.S.M.; the Oganden National Liberation Front (O.N.L.F.) that wages an armed war of liberation in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State; regional authorities in southern and central Somalia, some of them established (Galmudug, Himan and Heeb, Ahlu Sunna wal‐Jamaa), others contesting H.S.M.’s control and loosely linked to the T.F.G.; and the S.S.C. liberation movement that calls for independence of territories disputed between Somaliland and Puntland.

Each of the actors in the conjuncture is further divided into factions in varying degrees of conflict and interest divergence.

The foregoing gives a hint of the conjuncture composing Humpty‐Dumpty and “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” who could not put Humpty together again.

The basic political situation of post‐independence Somalia at the end of 2010 is one of persistence of fragmentation, stasis and conflict among the major players in the conjuncture. There is neither momentum towards the imposition of a solution by a dominating actor nor a negotiated solution. Each actor is checked by the others due to lack of sufficient power or the determination to use available power. It is a frenzied dancing in place, an aggressive stalemate. Nonetheless, the actors have changed during 2010, not in the sense of any of them having gained or lost decisively in the balance of power, but by shifting their strategies within the extant power configuration.

The big changes of 2010:

1.

Puntland becomes more independent of the T.F.G. and donor policy.

2.

Somaliland effects a successful transfer of political power.

3.

The T.F.G. gets a new administration.

4.

H.S.M. incorporates the Islamist armed‐opposition group Hizbul Islam (H.I.), consolidating armed opposition to the T.F.G. backed by AMISOM and Western donor powers (most importantly Washington).

5.

The African supporters of the T.F.G. centered on AMISOM and its troop‐contributing countries Burundi and especially Uganda split with Western donors after H.S.M. bombs venues in Kampala broadcasting the World Cup and the Africans urge aggressive military action against H.S.M. and the donors refuse.

6.

The Western donors led by Washington adopt a “dual‐track” policy dropping exclusive support for the T.F.G. and moving tentatively towards dealing directly with Puntland, Somaliland and sub‐administrations without recognizing them.

Puntland

As the stasis has persisted, Puntland’s administration led by President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole appears to have decided to pursue a policy that positions it as more independent of the T.F.G. than it had been previously. Whether this move leads in the direction of declaring independence will depend on Puntland’s success in moving the T.F.G. and its international supporters towards a “federalist” formula for post‐independence Somalia that gives Puntland a generous autonomy in regulating its internal affairs and development.

At present the situation cuts two ways. Whereas past T.F.G. administrations had included a president or prime minister from Puntland’s dominant northern ***** clan family, the new T.F.G. administration’s prime minister is a southern *****, Mohamed Farmajo. The change in the T.F.G. has led to a perceived loss of influence in the T.F.G. by Puntland. Washington’s dual‐track policy, on the other hand, could convince Puntland to stick with the T.F.G. if the donors demanded that it be executed with Puntland’s affiliation with the T.F.G.

Puntland has been disaffected with both the T.F.G. and the donors, although it desires aid and diplomatic support from the latter. The administration claims that it has not been consulted on the future of Somalia when the T.F.G.’s mandate is either extended beyond August 2011, or the T.F.G. is replaced by a permanent government. Puntland has also been rebuffed by the donors on its appeals for aid to build anti‐piracy bases on the region’s coast. On the first issue, Puntland has proposed that it hold a broad reconciliation conference for post‐independence Somalia and, on the second, it has signed an agreement with a private security firm, Saracen International, funded by an unnamed “Muslim country” (a trusted closed sources says it is the United Arab Emirates), to train an anti‐piracy force.

By edging towards a more independent position towards the T.F.G. and donors, if not independence, Puntland has put itself into play, complicating the conjuncture for other actors. Puntland always had the independence card up its sleeve; now it is edging into the open. Score one for fission, unless there is a “federalist” outcome for Puntland that satisfies its interests in security and resource autonomy. Puntland seems to have judged that it has waited long enough for the T.F.G. and the donors to satisfy its interests, and that it intends either to push them or go it alone to a greater degree and augment its “partners.”

Somaliland

[Liqaye]

The above are the questions posed for the major actors in the conjuncture of political interest and power among the fragments of post‐independence Somalia.

Before one can even begin to consider whether “Somalia” might be reclaimed, it is necessary that the stasis that forces each actor to dance in place be broken. At present, some actors have the will to move but not the means, and others possibly have the means but not the will. As long as this condition persists, 2011 will be a continuation of 2010, in which dividing lines become more sharply etched and tendencies toward polarization increase without the underlying stasis‐fragmentation having been altered.

At present, the only actor that could plausibly change the game is the Washington‐led Western‐U.N. donor‐power coalition, which is the one that has power and is not using it, and that lacks the will to do so, based on its judgment (self‐conscious or not) that it is too inconvenient (and perhaps counter‐productive) to commit, and too dangerous (H.S.M.) to withdraw.

The deepest structure of the politics of post‐independence Somalia is post/neo‐colonialism versus transnational Islamist anti‐(Western) colonialist resistance. Somali political actors are constrained to work within that power configuration/struggle.

A popular Somali national movement united against neo‐colonialism and transnationalist jihad, or a similar movement of Somali political elites – whichever one might come first and generate the other – is what would put Humpty‐Dumpty together again. 2010 provides no basis for projecting the appearance of an operative Somali political identity in 2011.

‐Michael A. Weinstein

[Jacaylbaro]

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