25 Oct 2007: ISS Today: Somalia Collapsing Inwards

25 October 2007: Somalia Collapsing Inwards

 

Somalia’s National Reconciliation Conference, which opened after much delay in Mogadishu on 15 July against a backdrop of deepening violence and attempts at disruption by the local opponents of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), concluded on 30 August with little to show for participants’ efforts. By the beginning of August the carefully selected clan delegates had committed themselves to the principles of a ceasefire, disarmament and the restitution of property stolen over the past two decades, but the conference ended without any further steps being taken to show how such principles might be implemented in practice. There were also heated, though inconclusive, debates about the religious context of Somalia’s civil strife, and the conference appears to have run its allotted 45-day course without confronting any of the major political issues the donors may have hoped it would address. The Saudi King’s subsequent solemn endorsement of the outcome of the deliberations did little to convince that anything of any substance had been achieved by the 2,000 participants. Indeed, it was apparent that it had been brought to a close in time for President Abdullahi Yusuf and the TFG to avoid the development of any consolidated political challenge to the transitional institutions at the conference itself.

 

The international donors, evidently short of an alternative approach, continued to press for the TFG to open itself to more constructive negotiations with its opponents, many of whom were about to embark on their own meeting in Asmara. This gathering, the Somali Congress for Liberation and Reconstruction (SCLR), held its opening session on 6 September. It was attended by delegates drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds: members of the disparate group of Islamic courts which had controlled much of southern Somalia prior to the defeat of their militias in December 2006; ex-members of the TFG seeking an accord with these courts; representatives of the numerous diaspora; and Somali nationalists. All these parties agreed in rejecting a clan-based approach to the country’s political future, though they remained divided on the nature of the Somali state to be reconstituted. All were also united on the need for Ethiopian forces to withdraw from Somalia. Once again, however, there was a dispute as to whether this should be achieved by diplomatic pressure or military force. The Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) coalesced around a two-track military/diplomatic strategy.

 

Though the USA and some of its allies continued to express misgivings about the ideological pedigrees of some of the leadership of the ARS, by the end of September even they appeared to have realised that, in the absence of some compromise between elements of the two principal Somali camps, the fourteenth attempt to reconstitute the Somali state would soon collapse. Despite the attempts of the TFG to present itself as a national government, its sway over the national territory remained minimal and heavily dependent on the continued operations of Ethiopian forces, whose deeply resented presence served principally to focus the efforts of the opposition.

 

It was at this juncture that the potentially fatal fissures within the TFG itself came to the fore. There had long been tension between the president and Prime Minister Ghedi, and between the parliament and the prime minister. The parliament, still in Baidoa, began to demand a significant role in holding Prime Minister Ghedi to account for his actions and for his use of such funds as the administration had been able to generate. Differences between Ghedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf were papered over to ensure mutual survival in the unpromising region of Mogadishu and its environs, but re-emerged in public disputes over oil exploration contracts signed with Chinese entrepreneurs, of which the prime minister claimed no knowledge. It also became apparent that Ghedi’s camp was instead supporting the signature of oil contracts with a Kuwaiti-Indonesian consortium. That the oil deposits in question are situated off the coast of Puntland, the president’s home region, also raised interesting issues about Mogadishu’s claims to dispose of these, the capital being part of Ghedi’s putative political base. How the Ethiopian government would react to these developments was unclear, since both Ghedi and Abdullahi Yusuf were their clients.

 

The Ethiopian forces are unable to withdraw until some credible peace-keeping force is deployed to replace them, which seems less and less likely. The African Union mission still consists only of the Ugandan contingent, which does its best to maintain a low profile. Promises that the arrival of Burundian reinforcements is imminent are unconvincing and, even if true, would do little to stabilise the situation in the TFG’s favour.

 

In the meantime there are disturbances emanating from Abdullahi Yusuf’s own political heartland of Puntland. Here, severe differences have arisen between President Muse and his parliament over financial issues, including the unauthorised printing of a vast quantity of banknotes, an event that fuelled inflation and caused considerable disquiet in the TFG, which has now also taken control of the Puntland militias. This, too, has led to a weakening of Puntland’s military position vis-à-vis the self-declared independent state of Somaliland, with which it is engaged in a protracted territorial dispute.

 

At the time of writing, the dispute between the president and prime minister is being fought out in the transitional parliament, still situated in Baidoa. The former is seeking the prime minister’s dismissal, ostensibly on the grounds that he has failed to fulfil the duties stipulated in the Transitional Charter. The most likely outcome seems to be further and more rancorous division within the ranks of parliament and administration, and additional complications in President Abdullahi Yusuf’s attempts to present himself as in control of Mogadishu.

 

This will leave the international community with some very awkward decisions about their future engagement in the light of their recognition of what is increasingly a phantom government.

 

Richard Cornwell, Senior Researcher: African Security Analysis Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)