BOUNDARY DISPUTES AND STATE FAILURE IN THE

HORN OF AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF SOMALIA STATE

FAILURE

A Research work presented to the Department of Political Science

in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

By

KASSIM ABDULBASIT

U07IS1043

AUGUST, 2011

APPROVAL PAGE

Name of Candidate: Kassim Abdulbasit

Research Topic: Boundary Disputes and State Failure in the Horn of Africa: A Case Study of Somalia State Failure

Approved by:

--------------------------------- Project Supervisor

Mallam A.T. Umar

--------------------------------- Project Coordinator

Mallam Bappah

--------------------------------- Head of Department

Dr. Hudu Ayuba

ABSTRACT

While in the past two decades, the Horn of Africa region has experienced

various armed conflicts, a new security threat that has emerged is the growing

threat of State Failure particularly in Somalia. This phenomenon has assumed

prominence in international discourse in the aftermath of the 11 September

2001 attacks on the United States of America. Against the background of a

politically unstable state, impoverished by poverty, disease, conflicts, and a high

rate of political spoilers, a foothold of state failure in Somalia could further

destabilize the state as well as the whole region.

The research on the causes of the escalation of violence in Somalia has revealed

that within the context of the region, regional security and rivalry are the

determinant factors for the comprehension of the regional politics. This explains

why Ethiopia represents the most important external actor for a vivid

understanding of the pertinent state failure in Somalia. The historical rivalry

between the two nations has often defined their role in the sustainability of

peace and state-building in the two states. This historical rivalry which bore

down to the era of colonialism is premised upon the ill-defined border of the

Ogaden region. The various efforts and motives put forward by the two nations

in restoring the Ogaden region has been a contributing factor to the emergence

of armed contestation, insurgency, coup and the eventual collapse of the central

government as witnessed in Somalia after their defeat by Ethiopia in the era of

Siad Barre. Some measures that the international community, in concert with

other stakeholders can take towards the Somali conflict should therefore include

a practical re-conceptualisation of the imminent factors that propel the

escalation of the conflict foremost of which is the external actors whose role in

the conflict cannot be undermined.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere appreciation and gratitude is first and foremost to Allah (swt)

for unleashing upon me the true light of knowledge and reasoning and for

granting me the opportunity, good health and courage to write this research

work given the overwhelming academic challenges . My sincere appreciation

after Allah (swt) is directed to my beloved parents who never relented in their

struggle to see that my dream and vision becomes a reality.

I wish to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of those who assisted

me to accomplish my studies to this particular stage. I wish to particularly

mention Dr. Siraj Abdulkarim and his beloved wife Hajia Mardiyya Mashi for

the valuable role they play in moulding me and guarding me all through my

studies. I also acknowledge my project supervisor Mallam A.T. Umar, for his

patience, understanding, and tireless effort without which this work would not

have been completed.

I want to commend the efforts of my lecturers who were always ready to

assist me in all dimensions throughout my academic career, Mallam Tafida, Mr

Sunday Suleiman, Mallam Abdul, Mallam Gwarzo and others who have

contributed to my academic success. My commendations also go to Dr. Ibrahim

Muhammad for his encouragement, guidance, and pieces of advice.

I acknowledge with deep appreciation the role played by my beloved

brothers for the unwavering support they gave me during this period. I am

particularly enthused by their advices and sermons which have today sharpen

my orientation.

I also commend the efforts of my colleagues who made my academic

period a fruitful journey Mallam Abdullateef, Mallam Sanusi, Mallam Shefiu,

Mallam Muhammad, Mallam Ismail and others whose contribution cannot be

undermined.

Finally, to all those who in diverse ways assisted in making this work a

reality I am grateful to you all.

ACRONYMS

AMISOM African Union Mission to Somalia

ARS Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia

CIC Council of Islamic Courts

IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development

EPLF Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front

TFG Transitional Federal Government

TNG Transitional National Government

SCIC Supreme Council of Islamic Courts

SNA Somali National allince

SNM Somali National Movement

SNRC Somalia National Reconciliation Conference

SRRC Somalia Reconciliation and Restoration Council

SRC Supreme Revolutionary Council

SSDF Somali Salvation Democratic Front

SPM Somali Patriotic Movement

SYL Somali Youth League

UNOSOM United Nations Operation in Somalia

USC United Somali Congress

WSLF Western Somali Liberation Front

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The substance and veracity of boundaries has sparked up intellectual debate

especially during the Cold War. Boundary brings states together whether they want

it or not. States with a common boundary share at least a minimum degree of

"relation" and cannot claim to be able to totally ignore each other. In fact,

boundaries create a prima facie hostile situation, since "my neighbour is my

enemy".

Boundaries are by definition shared. They define a state territorially and

provide in this way a condition for state sovereignty, yet their very nature as

relational is an infringement upon the same sovereignty. Thus, a boundary can be a

potential mirror of internal disputes as well as a root of an interstate dispute in

itself. Another aspect, adding to the intricacy of boundary relations, is that they are

based both on internal and international legislation: a boundary agreement is an

international legal document, even if it’s making and ratification is exclusively

based on an internal political processes (Nordquist, 1992).

Boundary disputes which frequently correlate with militarized actions have

taken a centre stage as one of the most explosive international flashpoints. Border

incursions between one African country and another are not new even though they

are infrequent; considering the misunderstanding that exists among several

countries about the exact location of their border. A clash when it occurs, not

surprisingly, has usually been about one country seeking to gain an unequivocal

edge in its claim to territory which it believes had been lost through encroachment.

A handful of such clashes that have occurred in recent history such as the

nondescript conflict in North Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), have

been motivated by irredentism when Tutsi and Hutu militias on the other side of

the border in Rwanda and Burundi have meddled in DRC’s affairs. In the 1970s

and 1980s, Libyan troops often clashed with Chadian troops over the “Aouzou

strip,” a land that straddles their common border and is reputedly rich in uranium.

From the early 1990s security forces from Nigeria and Cameroon clashed regularly

over Bakassi, a triangular-shaped land wedged between the two countries, until the

International Court of Justice ruled in 2002 to award ownership to Cameroon. The

most brazen invasion by one African country of another was the case of King

Hassan of Morocco ordering the take-over of the Western Sahara in the “Green

March” of 1975, in which 350,000 civilians crossed the border shortly after Spain

had announced plans to leave the colony (Pazzani, 1994).

Border disputes have contributed to the explosion of state failure in the

aftermath of the Cold War within the international system. The term Failed State

does not denote a precisely defined and classifiable situation but serves rather as a

broad label for a phenomenon which can be interpreted in various ways. A State is

usually considered to have failed when the power structures providing political

support for law and order have collapsed. This process is generally triggered and

accompanied by anarchic forms of internal violence. The former Secretary-General

of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros Ghali, described this situation in the

following way:

A feature of such state is the collapse of state institutions,

especially the police and judiciary, with resulting paralysis of

governance, a breakdown of law and order, and general banditry

and chaos. Not only are the functions of government suspended,

but its assets are destroyed or looted and experienced officials are

killed or flee the country. This is rarely the case in inter-state wars

(Thürer, 1999).

Hence, three elements can be said to characterize a Failed State from the

political point of view. Firstly, there is the geographical and territorial aspect,

namely the fact that Failed States are essentially associated with internal and

endogenous problems, even though these may incidentally have cross-border

impacts. The situation is one of an implosion rather than an explosion of the

structures of power and authority, of disintegration and de-structuring of states

rather than dismemberment. Secondly, there is the internal aspect, namely the

collapse of the political and legal systems. The emphasis here is on the total or near

total breakdown of structures guaranteeing law and order rather than the kind of

fragmentation of state authority seen in civil wars, where clearly identified military

or paramilitary rebels fight either to strengthen their own position within the State

or to break away from it. Thirdly, there is the external aspect, namely the absence

of bodies capable, on one hand, of representing the state at the international level

and, on the other, of being influenced by the outside world. Either no institution

exists which has the authority to negotiate, represent, and enforce or, if one does, it

is wholly unreliable, typically acting as “statesman by day and bandit by night”.

In the foregoing analysis, we can discern the fact that boundary disputes

tend to have a considerable impact on the consequences that accompanies the trend

of state failure and this has been illustrated by the manifestation of conflicts and

the resulting state collapse in the Horn of Africa with Somalia being a

quintessential representation of this circuit.

The Horn of Africa is a region that has experienced severe border disputes

mostly resulting into inter-state wars and capabilities of generating state failure.

The Horn of Africa conventionally comprises of the key states of Ethiopia,

Somalia and Djibouti, though it embraces geopolitically the adjoining states of

Sudan and Kenya (Farer, 1979:1; Danfulani, 1999:37). All these states share social

and cultural values emanating from centuries-old tradition of interrelationships,

common religious practices and economic linkages. Furthermore, the political fate

of each state in the region has always been inextricably intertwined with that of

neighbouring states. Indeed, no state in the Horn of Africa has been insulated from

the problems of the other states no matter how distant and how strong or weak.

The Horn of Africa has long been a focal point of strategic interest to

outsiders. In fact, for many centuries, the Horn attracted international attention for

three main reasons: strategic location; religious and ethnic diversity; and

agricultural potential (Doombos, 1992).

Although border crisis in the Horn of Africa predates colonialism but the

embers of these conflicts could be argued, to a large extent, to have been formed

by colonial politics. This process led to the partitioning and indiscriminate

amalgamation of hitherto independent and diverse elements thereby disregarding

the impending manifestation of rivalries which bore its head after independence.

This indiscriminate amalgamation of diverse elements exploded border

disputes and intense rivalries in the Horn of Africa and the resulting conflict

became obvious after independence as states orchestrate and support insurgencies

as well as instability in their neighbouring states thus ushering the syndrome of

state collapse and its imminent danger within the region. This situation is fully

exemplified by the diplomatic glitches between Sudan and Ethiopia, when Sudan

supported and further instigated rebel movements in Ethiopia. Another case in

view involves the proxy war fought between Mengistu and Barre in which they

both supported insurgencies in one another’s country. These are among many other

cases such as Eritrea’s support for Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the

National Democratic Alliance (Cliffe, 1999:90; Healy, 2008a:39). Many describe

Eritrea’s support to Somali Islamist Movement as a proxy war which is

opportunistic as its cuts across ideological lines (Markakis, 1998).

The external environment also plays an important role in the politics in the

Horn of Africa. This was informed by the strategic position of the region due to its

proximity to the Red Sea which is an important route for international trade and

communication for a number of powerful states. The interest of powerful countries

such as the U.S and the Soviet Union brought it into closer contact with region

establishing spheres of influence and going as far as sponsoring rebel groups in

other states to prove their loyalties. This region due to this became a battle field for

the world powers (Cliffe, 1999:97-99; Lefebvre, 1996:401; Woodward, 2006:49).

The impact of external actors in the Horn of Africa became vividly declared

in the ‘War on Terror’, a declaration that witness the collusion of US and

Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006. Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia

in late 2006 may go down in history as one of the most daring if not imprudent

strategic decision any African government has made on its neighbour. Even if

Ethiopia's goal of going into Somalia had been purely humanitarian, the nearly two

decades of instability there and the history of irredentism, distrust and border

disputes between the two countries should have given Ethiopia pause to be

prudent.

Somalia a prominent country within the Horn of Africa region has been

recognized within the international system as an archetype of a failed state. Several

factors have been postulated as the causes of state failure in Somalia ranging from

political fragmentation, clan-based politics, and high level of piracy, the growth of

radical Islamism, regional hostilities, and boundary disputes etc. Since the ouster

of President Siad Barre and the collapse of his institutions in 1991 by the combined

northern and southern clan-based forces, rival countries in the Horn of Africa have

played prominent role towards sustaining state failure in Somalia as a result of the

regional hostility arising from border disputes and intense rivalry within the region.

The most prominent of these rival countries is Ethiopia widely regarded as the

most important benefactor of the rebel movements in Somalia and its outright

support for subversive activities against the legitimate government in Somalia

(Marchal, 2007).

The conflict between Somalia and two of its neighbours, Ethiopia and

Kenya, started with Somali independence in 1960. It can be traced to problems

created by the lack of congruence between, on one hand, the colonial and inherited

new state boundaries, and on the other hand, ethnically homogenous areas. The

Somali idea of a Greater Somalia encompassing all Somali-speaking peoples was

aimed at rectifying this situation created by the colonial powers on the Horn of

Africa.

Ethiopia and Somalia share a history defined simultaneously by shared and

contrasting ethnic, economic and political circumstances. The two countries also

share a conflictual political history, which has remained virile by each side’s claim

to the Ogaden, which is the territory that straddles their border. According to

Schraeder (2005), the future basis for some degree of pan-Somali nationalism

emerging was provided by the temporary unification of significant portions of

Somali-inhabited territory by Italians, adding Ethiopia’s Ogaden region to Italian

Somaliland after occupying Ethiopia in 1935. In the 1940s, Italy again added the

conquered British Somaliland territory to Ethiopia.

When Britain reoccupied the territory in 1941, it placed all the Somali

occupied territory in the Horn, except Djibouti, under one unified administration.

In 1945, Haile Sellassie, fearing the possibility of British support for a separate

Somali state that would include the Ogaden, claimed Italian Somaliland as a “lost

state”. When the British evacuated the Ogaden in 1948, Ethiopia officially took

over running the largest city in the Ogaden. Great Britain which governed British

Somaliland tried to resolve the dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia over the

Ogaden and the Haud, a region that extends southeast from Ethiopia’s Southern

highlands. Somalia, on her part, refused to recognize any pre 1960 treaties defining

the Somali-Ethiopia border, resulting in military incidents only a few months into

Somalia’s independence.

Aside this regional factor that influenced statelessness in Somalia the

prevalent internal congruence also influenced the emergence of state collapse in

Somalia. The history of Somalia’s current stalemate started in 1969—nine years

after independence—when the commander in chief of the armed forces

Mohammed Siad Barre, staged a military coup. Barre suspended the constitution,

dissolved the parliament, banned all political parties in the country and arrested

their leaders. He announced radical plans aimed at transforming the conservative

Muslim country into what he regarded as a modern socialist state by adopting what

he used to refer to as “Scientific Socialism”. This plan for the radical

transformation of the political framework of Somalia ushered into Somalia’s

history the evolution of anarchy, warlordism as well as tribalism.

The rapid disintegration of the Somali central government in the late 1980s

was however, the result of a combination of factors which simultaneously

weakened the capacity of the state while emboldening liberation movements

seeking to dislodge it. Two elements were especially important: one international

and the other domestic.

Popular discourse on the trajectory of Somalia have received considerable

literature but one powerful flashpoints that provides a broader explanation to the

incidence of state collapse in Somalia and the intense security challenges of the

Horn of Africa is the prevalent border disputes that has plagued the political

history of the countries within the Horn of Africa a situation that had its historical

origin in the colonial legacy in the Horn. It could however be argued that the failed

state syndrome and statelessness in Somalia could be traced to the series of border

disputes its experienced with its rival countries in the region most especially

Ethiopia as well as the regional security that defines the political fate of countries

within the Horn of Africa.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

This research seeks to pore over the phenomenon of border disputes and its

resulting consequence on state collapse in the Horn of Africa with particular

reference to Somalia. The extent to which border disputes contributed to the

development of Somalia throughout its history into a major regional and global

battlefield will be carefully examined in the research.

1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aims and objectives of this research is primarily geared towards;

A. Examining the consequences of border disputes on the eventual collapse of

Somalia.

B. Understanding the consequences of regional hostilities in the Horn of Africa

and its effects on survival of Somalia as a state within the region.

C. Attempting a postulation towards the restoration of legitimate authority in

Somalia.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

This research will provide a multi-dimensional approach as against the

existing one-dimensional and reductionist approach of western narratives on

Somalia crisis based on a spectrum oscillating between cultural essentialism, social

anomaly and perplexity. This reductionist interpretation gave birth to a discourse

that portrayed Somalia in stereotypical terms of anarchy, warlordism and tribalism.

This research aims to examine the internal and external forces which have

helped to prolong Somalia’s extraordinary period of state collapse. This research

will also provide a comprehensive and mutually cohesive explanation and analysis

of border disputes as a pertinent factor that facilitate state failure in Somalia.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This research work shall seek to answer the following questions;

A. What is the source and impact of border disputes in the Horn of Africa to state

collapse in Somalia?

B. How has regional hostility within the Horn of Africa contributed to the failure

of Somalia?

C. What is the impact of state failure in Somalia to the regional security of the

Horn of Africa?

D. How has border disputes contributed to the development of Somalia again and

again throughout its history into a major regional and global battlefield?

1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

This research work intends to focus on the examination and assessment of

border disputes and its impacts on state failure in Somalia. However, due to the

time frame given for this research the most prominent border dispute in the Horn

of Africa region (Ogaden Crisis) between Ethiopia and Somalia will be addressed

as it present a cogent argument and insight to the present situation of state collapse

in Somalia. Attempts will also be made to explain the border dispute in the

Somalia region between the Somaliland and Puntland and how it has affected the

efforts towards sustaining peace and state-building in Somalia.

The possible limitation for this research shall be the difficulty of accessing

all the relevant literature that provides discourse on state collapse in Somalia as a

result of the language incubus. The researcher intends to establish friendly

relations with Somalis through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter etc for

the purpose of averting the language incubus but this measure could also be

possibly undermined due to the security measures on Somalians based upon the

universal acclaimed terrorism stigma. This is why the researcher is considering the

usage of language translator software in order to ease the language incubus.

There is also the expectation of difficulty in accessing viable literature that

extensively explain the failed state discourse in Somalia as a result of the physical

insecurity and problem of accessibility that have deterred researchers from

conducting longer periods of field research in the country. The researcher intends

to solicit for literature from governmental and non-governmental organizations

such as Swedish Defence Research Agency, the Heinrich Böll Foundation etc via

the internet as a means of averting this limitation.

Financial constraints to gather all the relevant literature that will aid this

research is also pre-empted as a possible limitation. The researcher intends to

solicit for funds and assistance from private individuals as well as public

institutions such as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that will aid

the research.

1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In the field of political science research, there are various means through

which data are collected, interpreted and analyzed in order to establish the

empirical validity of any scientific research. The two forms of data are primary and

secondary data. However, due to the nature of this research and the constraints to

accessing primary data, the data to be used shall not go beyond the secondary data

which shall be judiciously utilized. The rationale behind the adoption of secondary

data is premised upon the security implications of the variable concerned. The use

of secondary sources shall involve relevant books, internet materials, newspaper

articles, journals, pamphlets and so on.

Subsequently, the research work will employ the use of systematic

qualitative content analysis. The rationale behind the adoption of this method of

data analysis is as a result of the geographical proximity between the researcher

and the area of study.Content analysis is a summarizing, quantitative analysis of

messages that relies on the scientific method (including attention to objectivity,

inter-subjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalisability, replicability,

and hypothesis testing) and is not limited as to the types of variables that may be

measured or the context in which the messages are created or presented.

As an evaluation approach, content analysis is considered by some to be

quasi-evaluation because content analysis judgments need not be based on value

statements if the research objective is aimed at presenting subjective experiences.

According to Dr. Klaus Krippendorff (1980 and 2004), six questions must be

addressed in every content analysis:

1. Which data are analyzed?

2. How are they defined?

3. What is the population from which they are drawn?

4. What is the context relative to which the data are analyzed?

5. What are the boundaries of the analysis?

6. What is the target of the inferences?

1.8 CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION

A. BOUNDARY CONFLICT

A boundary conflict is over a boundary line that, as a minimum, is defined,

or in the process of being defined, by the parties, by implicit consent or explicit

agreement. This implies that all stakes and issues leading to disputes and armed

conflicts are related to once and somehow agreed-upon boundaries.

B. HORN OF AFRICA

The Horn of Africa conventionally comprises of the key states of Ethiopia,

Somalia and Djibouti, though it embraces geopolitically the adjoining states of

Sudan and Kenya.

C. FAILED STATE

A condition of state collapse implies that a state can no longer perform its

basic security and development functions and that it has no control over its

territory and borders. A failed state is one that can no longer reproduce the

conditions for its own existence.

1.9 ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS

This research work shall be structured into five major chapters using

different sub-headings:

A. CHAPTER ONE

The first chapter will encapsulate the background to the study, statement of

the research problem, aims and objectives, significance of the research, scope and

limitation, research methodology, conceptual clarification and organization of

chapters.

B. CHAPTER TWO

The second chapter will include the review of relevant literature and the

theoretical framework adopted for explaining the phenomenon.

C. CHAPTER THREE

The third chapter will detail the geographical location, historical background

and government, root causes of conflict in the Horn of Africa as well as the history

of state failure in Somalia.

D. CHAPTER FOUR

The fourth chapter will entail a systematic analysis of the major border

disputes that has affected state-building in Somalia. It will also cover the selection

criteria explanation of variables derived to give answers to the research questions.

E. CHAPTER FIVE

The fifth chapter will encompass the summary of research findings,

conclusion and recommendations. This chapter will also encapsulate the

bibliography of all the cited works within the research.

REFERENCES

Chege, M. (1987), “Conflict in the Horn of Africa”, in Africa: Perspectives on

Peace and Development, edited by Emmanuel Hansen, London: Zed

Books.

Cliffe, L. (1999), “Regional Dimensions of Conflict in the Horn of Africa”, in

Third World Quarterly, vol.29 no.1.

Danfulani, S. (1999), “Regional Security and Conflict Resolution in the Horn of

Africa: Somalian Reconstruction after the Cold War.”International Studies,

vol.36 no.1.

Daniel, T. (1999), The “Failed State” and International Law, 81 INT’L REV. RED

CROSS 731, 733–34.

Doombos, M et al. (1992), Beyond Conflict in the Horn: Prospects for Peace,

Recovery and Development in Ethiopia, Somalia and the Sudan, The Hague:

Institute for Social Studies.

Farer, T. (1979), War Clouds on the Horn of Africa: The Widening Storm, New

York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Healy, S. (2008a), “Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts

Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel” In Chatham House Horn of

Africa Group Report.

Healy, S. (2008b), “Ethiopia-Eritrea Dispute and the Somali Conflict” Paper

presented at the Conference on the Prevailing Interlocked Peace and

Security Conundrum in the Horn of Africa, Addis Ababa.

Lefebvre, J. (1992), “The geopolitics of the Horn of Africa”, in Middle East

Policy 11, p 7-22.

Lefebvre, J. (1996), “Middle East Conflicts and Middle Level Power

Intervention in the Horn of Africa”, in Middle East Journal, vol.50 no3.

Marchal, R. (2007), “Warlordism and Terrorism: how to obscure an already

confusing crisis? The case of Somalia”, in International Affairs.

Markakis, J. (1998), Resource Conflict in the Horn of Africa, London: SAGE

Publications.

Pazzani, A. (1994), "Morocco VersusPolisario", in Modern Africa Studies

32(2), p 265-278.

Schraeder, P. J. (2005), “From Irredentism to Secession: The Decline of the

Pan-Somali Nationalism,” in Nationalism in Post-Colonial andPre-

Communism States, Lowell W. Barrington (Ed.), pp.107-141.

Woodward, P. (1996), The Horn of Africa: Politics and International Relations,

London:Tauris Academic Studies.

Woodward, P. (2003), The Horn of Africa: Politics and International Relations,

New York: I.B. Tauris.

CHAPTER TWO

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Several international conventions formulated during this century, from the

UN Charter to regional international documents, stipulate directly or indirectly that

changes of inter-state boundaries are acceptable only through peaceful means. But

crisis situations where boundaries or boundary-related issues are at stake are

frequent in the international system. Some boundary problems are settled before

they escalate into serious crises. Others seem irreconcilable and involve frequent

military exchanges. Regulated or not, boundary and border relations will remain a

potential source of conflict in the international system of states for the foreseeable

future. New states are established, the Cold War kept many unsatisfactory

solutions alive, and the penetration of states into neighbouring border areas, not the

least for economic purposes, has increased. Such developments put boundaries and

its resultant consequence on state collapse on the agenda in international relations

(Nordquist, 1992).

Many national security statements, doctrines, documents and strategies point

to ‘state failure’ as a serious security problem, particularly in the developing world

(USA 2006:15, 44; EU 2003:6, 7). ‘Failed states’ are seen as problematic in

themselves but also as drivers of other security threats, such as regional instability

and terrorism. In this discourse, the state is seen as a necessary prerequisite for

security, stability and peace. This kind of thinking is a strong strain in Western

political philosophy, harking back to Hobbes whose normative philosophy of the

state explicitly argued that the sovereign state was a solution to the ‘perpetuall

warre’ otherwise facing men (Hobbes 1996: 144-145). To an increasing extent the

prevention or rectification of state failure has assume a legitimate and pressing

security concern. Whether by military or civilian means (or an admixture of both)

‘state-building’ has become a political field in itself (Chandler, 2006).

No place seems to accentuate these worries and validate the solution of a

failed state more than Somalia, the epitome of the failed state and the insecurity

that state failure brings. This seemingly intractable security issue has in the autumn

of 2008 entered into the most intense combat and worst humanitarian situation

since the early 1990s. Since the collapse of the Siad Barré and of the Republic of

Somalia in 1991, a great number of analyses, scholarly and otherwise, have been

made in order to understand the reasons for ‘state failure’ in Somalia.

2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of failed states has attracted the attention of many analysts. The

state failure debate, which spans more than a decade now, has been carried among

others by Bilgin and Morton (2004), Debiel (2002), Dorff (1996, 1999, 2000,

2005), Gurr (1998), Helman and Ratner (1992-3), Herbst (1997), High-level Panel

on Threats, Challenges and Change (2004), Fukuyama (2004), Mazrui (1998),

Milliken (2003), Rotberg (2003, 2004), Schneckener (2004), State Failure Task

Force (2003), Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (2005).

However, any postulation of state failure needs to begin with an

understanding of the different definitions of the state (Nyugen, 2005: 3-4). How

the state is defined is central to an understanding of state failure. In International

law, a given ‘state’ exists when a political entity is recognised by other states as

the highest political authority in a given territory and is treated as an ‘equal’ entity

among the international ‘community’ of states. Statehood does not require

diplomatic recognition by other states, but rather a recognition that it exists.

Another common definition in international customary law states that statehood

exists only when a given political entity possesses a permanent population, a

defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other

states. A broader definition of the state involves the idea of ‘social contract’,

which focuses on the relationship between the state and citizen. This idea was

developed by the English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes in the 17th

century. Hobbes argued that individuals living without a state and a rule of law

find themselves in a situation of war, of all against all in which life is 'solitary,

poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. His idea was that individuals would voluntarily

make a social contract with an absolute sovereign government - the state – by

giving up some of their freedom in exchange for guaranteed peace and security

(Przeworski, 1991).

Helman and Ratner (1993) were among the first analysts to use the term

‘failed state’ in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article. They were concerned about 'a

disturbing new phenomenon' whereby a state was becoming 'utterly incapable of

sustaining itself as a member of the international community'. They argued that a

failed state would '[imperil] their own citizens and [threaten] their neighbours

through refugee flow, political instability and random warfare'. Michael Ignatieff

(2002) adopts a Machiavellian/Weberian understanding of state failure when he

argues that state failure occurs when 'the central government loses the monopoly of

the means of violence'.

In the wider sense of state failure, Zartman (1995) develops the idea of state

failure along the lines of Hobbesian social contract theory. For Zartman, state

failure occurs when 'the basic functions of the state are no longer performed….It

refers to a situation where the structure, authority (legitimate power), law, and

political order have fallen apart'. According to Rotberg,

Nation-states fail because they can no longer deliver positive

political goods to their people. Their governments lose legitimacy,

and in the eyes and hearts of a growing plurality of its citizens, the

nation-state itself becomes illegitimate (Rotberg, 2002: 85).

The failed states literature stresses that there are certain indicators that are

necessary (if not sufficient) to categorise a state as ‘failed’. The persistence of

political violence is salient in most definitions of ‘failed states’. For Rotberg,

Failed states are tense, deeply conflicted, dangerous, and bitterly

contested by warring factions. In most failed states, government

troop’s battle armed revolts led by one or more warring factions

(Rotberg, 2003).

A closely related indicator of state failure is the growth of criminal violence.

Here the presence of gangs, criminal syndicates, arms and drug-trafficking are the

most cited. As a result of the failure of a state to provide security from violent non-

state actors, people often seek protection from warlords or other armed rivals of the

state. A second indicator of failed states concerns their inability to control their

borders. They lose authority over chunks of their territory. Often the expression of

official power is limited to the capital city and one or more ethnically specific

zones. Indeed one measure of the extent of state failure is how much of the state’s

geographical expanse a government genuinely controls.

Rotberg also introduces the idea that it is possible to rank failures according

to in how many dimensions a state fails to deliver positive political goods. Nation-

states exist to deliver political goods - security, education, health, economic

opportunity, environmental surveillance, making and enforcing an institutional

framework, providing and maintaining infrastructure. In order to rank the severity

of state failure, Rotberg suggests that there is a hierarchy of positive state

functions. These are: a) security; b) institutions to regulate and adjudicate conflicts;

rule of law, secure property rights, contract enforcement; c) political participation;

and d) social service delivery, infrastructure, and regulation of the economy.

Using three criteria to measure state performance (security, welfare and

legitimacy), Schneckener (2004) distinguishes consolidated/consolidating states

from weak, failing and failed/collapsed ones, using security as the key indicator.

He then elaborates on three sets of factors facilitating state failure: structural

factors/root causes, aggravating/accelerating factors and triggers. These can be

found at three levels: international/regional (i.e., external to the state concerned),

state and sub-state. Central for the analysis of state failure, according to

Schneckener (2004: 20), are aggravating factors at the state level, hypothesising

that elite behaviour is a key factor in the erosion or consolidation of state capacity.

Incidents of state failure in the first half of the 1990s were predominantly

analysed through the prism of the security dilemma as applied to the domestic

arena. Thus while there was a policy and academic debate about state failure long

before the issue was catapulted to the centre stage of these debates following the

terrorist attacks of September 11, the issue as a whole was primarily not seen in

terms of posing a risk to international security, but merely as an ‘unfortunate’

regional phenomenon of either temporary significance (Central and Eastern Europe

and former Soviet Union) or of a more endemic yet not particularly threatening

nature (especially Africa). This is not to say that some scholars did not recognise

the implicit long-term dangers to international security posed by state failure

(Manwaring 1993, Zartman 1995, Dorff 1996), but they remained at the margins of

the debate. A dramatic change in the state failure debate occurred only after

September 11. State failure was now seen as a major enabler of international

terrorist networks and therefore became a key focus of both scholarly analysis

(Milliken 2003, Rotberg 2003, 2004) and policy development (US National

Security Doctrine, EU Security Doctrine, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit 2005,

High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change 2004). No longer were state

failure and its consequences simply viewed through the prism of humanitarian

emergencies and occasionally of threats to regional security and stability, but state

failure had become an issue of utmost importance for international security.

The prevalent scholarly hypotheses about failed state in the new millennium

were focused upon Somalia aimed about verifying the proposed hypothesis thus

providing more framework of analysis for the newly co-opted international legal

jargon. Six big ideas pervade the Somalia state failure literature. The first is the

pre-requisite view of development. This view, which dominates the governance

literature, argues that liberal markets and transparent, accountable states with

bureaucracies with classic Weberian structures are a necessary input for successful

economic development to proceed. The persistence of clientelist, corrupt and

patrimonial states as exemplified in Somalia under the Siad Barre regime is seen in

this view at best as anti-developmental and at worst a trigger for predatory state

action and violent reaction among both state and non-state factions.

The second is the pre-requisite view of security. This view uncritically

accept the concept of failed state in Somalia as a paradigm change in international

politics with fundamental implications for how we should think about and address

insecurity. This view became more popularised after the events of 9/11 and the

increase threats of terrorist networks as well as piracy from Somalia. According to

this view, ‘the incidence of state collapse in Somalia and other states have

arguably become the single most important problem for international order’.

A third view develops the idea that clientelist and patrimonial states as in

Somalia under the Siad Barre regime, while perhaps not developmental, are

purposefully constructed by elites to promote their interests in capital accumulation

and maintaining power. This view contrasts with the first two big ideas in that it

sees identifying and measuring state failure as a misleading exercise since it fails to

incorporate how leaders adapt to the historical constraints of the post-colonial

environment by constructing informal mechanisms of social control and capital

accumulation. This view attempts to incorporate the role of political agency in

concrete historical contexts.

The fourth view is encapsulated in the ‘new war’ thesis. It is based on the

idea that the unravelling of states is closely related to the nature of so-called ‘new

wars’. The proponents of the ‘new war’ thesis argue that contemporary wars are

distinct from old wars in their method of warfare, their causes and their financing.

In this view, new wars can be understood only in the context of globalisation

where the distinction between war and organised crimes is blurred and where war

financing is dependent more on webs of legal and illegal global networks.

Moreover these wars have generated an economy that is built on plunder, which is

sustained through continued violence. The proponents of this view claim that wars

are nowadays a political resources used to be thought of as a means of struggle,

now they are conceived of as the object of struggle.

The fifth view presents a sceptical analysis of the analytical value of the

concept of state collapse in Somalia on epistemological grounds, arguing that it is

difficult to objectively define, identify and analyse failed states with

methodological rigour.

Finally, a further argument in the literature rejects the idea of failed state in

Somalia as a politicized, ethnocentric, hegemonic concept with interventionist

connotations.

“Diagnosis first, prescription second” is an admonition often voiced by

analysts explaining the high failure rates of external peace-building efforts in

Africa’s prolonged civil wars. The axiom is equally relevant for domestic and

international efforts to promote state-building in zones of protracted state failure.

Far too often, well-intentioned agendas to revive functional, democratic

governance are doomed from the start because they are founded on misplaced

assumptions and weak diagnoses of the crisis. This claim certainly holds true in the

case of Somalia, which has endured more than seventeen years of complete state

collapse and which has proven impervious to a series of often robust external

efforts to revive the central state. The most dramatic and costly of these efforts was

the 1993–95 UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), which not only failed to

revive a central Somali government but which constituted a major setback for

broader UN ambitions to play a peace enforcement role in the post–Cold War era.

The 2003/04 initiative by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development

(IGAD) helped to produce a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia.

But the TFG has faced major problems of legitimacy and capacity from the outset

and has never been able to establish itself as an effective government. As of 2007,

the TFG appears likely to join the long list of stillborn governments declared in

Somalia since 1991.

After exploring these views of failed states as it’s relates to Somalia as well

as verification of the postulations of the proponents of these views, this research

presents a different argument. The argument of this research is premised upon

buttressing the impacts of border disputes on state collapse in Somalia.

The Literature on “Boundary Disputes” has received considerable attention

across the range of social science enquiry. There is little disagreement that the

boundaries of contemporary African states are unusually arbitrary as a result of

their largely colonial origins (Ajala, 1983; Asiwaju, 1985; Barbour, 1961; Bello,

1995; Brownlie, 1979; Davidson, 1992; Kum, 1993; Nugent &Asiwaju, 1996;

Sautter, 1982; Touval, 1966). There is no consensus however, as to whether this

has been a liability for African states. Some argue that borders everywhere are

artificial and that the case for African exceptionalism is weak (Clapham, 1996a;

Odugbemi, 1995).

Others do not dismiss the relatively erratic nature of African boundaries but

suggest either that it has had few deleterious consequences (Ottaway, 1999;

Touval, 1969), that the boundary lines also represent a source of opportunities for

African populations (Bach, 1999; Nugent, 1996), or that they are an asset for state

consolidation (Herbst, 2000). Still others agree that Africa has suffered from its

partitioned nature but see the costs of reshuffling states as greater than the

hypothetical benefits (“Africa’s bizarre borders,” 1997; Barbour, 1961; Bayart,

1996; “Consensus and stability,” 1995; Griffiths, 1996; Young, 1996). Finally, a

few authors believe that at least some African states would gain from territorial

reconfiguration (Bello, 1995; Herbst, 1990, 2000; Nkiwane, 1993; Southall, 1985).

The Horn of Africa provides a firm grasp towards understanding the impacts of

border disputes and its consequences on state failure.

The Horn of Africa is known for being riddled with conflict. The great

northeastern shield of Africa is comprised of Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and

Djibouti, and conflict persists in all four nations. The disagreements between these

nations are longstanding and complex, described as first a clash of tribes, then

imperial consolidation and foreign colonialism.

In a bid to understand the progression of border disputes in the Horn of

Africa and how it has contributed to the collapse of the Somali state, six mutually

complementary scholarly paradigm will be examined. They include:

1. Colonialism and State Collapse in Somalia.

2. The Cold War/East-West National Interests in the Horn of Africa and its

consequences on State Failure on Somalia.

3. Regional Conflicts in the on Horn of Africa and its consequences on State

Failure.

4. The Events of Ogaden War and its Consequences on State Failure on Somalia.

5. The Somaliland and Puntland Border Disputes and its Consequences on State

Failure on Somalia.

6. The Spread of Radical Islam in the Horn of Africa and its Consequences on

State Failure on Somalia.

2.2.1 COLONIALISM AND STATE COLLAPSE IN SOMALIA

This paradigm focuses on the legacy of colonialism in the Horn of Africa

and how it has impacted on the current statelessness of Somalia. The Scholars of

this paradigm (Ayoob, 1980; Chege, 1987; Lewis, 1980; Markakis, 1991;

Woodward, 1996; Zartman, 1985) espouse that the seeds of the current conflicts in

the Horn of Africa and state collapse in Somalia to a large extent date back to the

European colonial experience in the Horn of Africa even though most of the

conflicts’ root causes predate this experience.

They explained that the Horn of Africa, not including Ethiopia, was

colonized at the end of the nineteenth century between the French, British, and

Italians. Djibouti was designated French Somaliland in 1885; British Somaliland

included the region of the Gulf of Aden, and Italian Somaliland included control of

the region nearest the Indian Ocean, as well as the Red Sea colony of Eritrea.

Zartman (1985) suggests that Ethiopia’s expansion eastward into colonial

Somaliland necessitated the boundaries that were established through European

agreement in 1897. The British eventually demarcated their frontier in 1932-34 by

joint agreement, but the Italian boundary was never demarcated. In an effort to

claim more territory, the Italians launched an invasion against Ethiopia under the

pretext that the Ethiopians were within Italian Somaliland. In fact, the Ethiopians

were within their own border, but the Italian invasion effectively moved the Somali

boundary westward to include the grazing area of the Ogaden, an Ethiopian portion

of the Horn of Africa.

Subsequently, the Ogaden was returned to Ethiopian administration.

However, the boundary became a barrier to nomadic migration. This was an

unacceptable proposition for the Somalis, and a border dispute between Italian

Somaliland and Ethiopia followed. Despite negotiation, arbitration, and mediation,

little was resolved. This Italian Somali-Ethiopian border dispute was a direct result

of colonialism in the region. Borders imposed on Somalia and Ethiopia were

something that the “Somali nomads had neither needed nor encountered before”

and were ambiguously assigned, hung on non-existent points, or established

around nomadic tribe and clan territory ( Zartman 1985:75). This resulted in

tensions between two nations that both relied on a common region for nomadic

survival. The Ethiopians were

“Arguing a legal case over where the border was and the Italians

[were] arguing a social-moral case on behalf of the Somalis over

where the border should be” (Zartman 1985:76).

The Ethiopians were justified to claim the territory by law, and the Somalis were

convinced of their claim through colonial power support. Despite Italian support,

colonial Somaliland gained nothing from the dispute as they could not reclaim the

lost region of Ogaden. Somali bitterness toward colonial rule led to independence

movements that resulted in a United Somalia by 1960. This newly emergent state

of Somalia was comprised of tribal leadership and had no continuity for central

governance. Consequently, tumultuous power struggles ensued and the

development of relationships between bordering nations of Eritrea, Djibouti e.t.c

created conflict as the new state struggled to establish its identity in the region.

States that must develop fundamental structures of their relationships

compared with altering established relationships; have difficulty maintaining order

because their diplomatic process has no continuity. In the border dispute between

Somalia and Ethiopia, the nations were forced to develop a new system of

interaction because of the formation of boundaries and creation of the Somali state.

This claim is also observable in Eritrea’s call for independence from

Ethiopia. When Ethiopia’s government changed from a traditional empire to that of

a military junta, a new form of negotiation was forced to occur, and the conflict

grew in complexity. The arguments of these scholars however could be premised

upon the fact that Ethiopia’s role in Somalia conflicts bore down to their bitter

experiences during and after colonialism. The discriminatory amalgamation and

partitioning that took place between the shared border of Somalia and Ethiopia has

generated a bitter rivalry between the two countries a rivalry that has generated

into escalation of instability and conflicts by the stakeholders of each countries

thus strengthening their capabilities to recover the region. This claim could be

strengthened with an assessment of the proxy war fought between Mengistu and

Barre in which they both supported insurgencies in one another’s country

(Markakis, 1991). This factor thus, gives an explanation of one of the dynamics

towards understanding the collapse of Somalia.

2.2.2 THE COLD WAR/EAST-WEST NATIONAL INTERESTS IN THE

HORN OF AFRICA AND STATE COLLAPSE IN SOMALIA

This is the paradigm that approaches the consequences of boundary disputes

on state failure in Somalia with a direct focus on the activities of the superpowers

in the Horn of Africa especially in the aftermath of the Cold War. The scholars of

this paradigm (Clapham, 1996; Claude, 1964; David, 1979; Lefebvre, 1992;

Ottaway, 1982; Paul, 1994; Sheehan, 2005) espouse that the causes and dynamics

of conflict in the Somalia is primarily as a result of the growing external influence

in the region.

They contend that the East-West rivalry was at the root of Somalia conflicts.

British and Italian Somalilands gained independence the summer of 1960 and

formed the Somali Republic. Newly united inhabitants shared the general hope that

Somalis living under Ethiopian rule would soon join them once the past fluctuation

of the region’s provisional boundary was resolved. However, Ethiopia was not

willing to offer Somalia control of the region. Unexpectedly rebuffed, irregular

Somali guerillas began harassing residents of the Ogaden. The guerillas’ numbers

steadily rose until Ethiopia sent its army in October 1963, causing the conflict to

evolve into conventional war until a ceasefire was called in April 1964.

The United States became the principal source of external support to

Ethiopia as early as 1950. Still, the United States attempted to provide economic

and military aid to Somalia during the Ogaden conflict in an effort to undermine

Soviet influence. In 1963, the United States, Italy, and Germany offered a

$10million package to Somalia to build its conventional army in order to face large

Ethiopian armed forces. However, Somalia was not persuaded to reject its treaty of

friendship with Russia for so meager an offer, and contracted Soviet military aid

for three times the sum. Bargaining with Cold War superpowers became typical in

the region, and eventually contributed to alliance swapping that directly resulted in

continued regional conflict through endless arms supplies.

The competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in the

Horn of Africa helped destroy international credibility in conflict mediation;

instead of lending their influence for resolution, they used it to perpetuate conflict

to continue their interests in a geostrategic location as exemplified in the invasion

of Iraq, the Gulf war as well as the on-going Libya crisis. Their presence

stimulated the bitter border rivalry and conflicts between the bitter rivals in the

Horn of Africa, conflicts that would have otherwise been unable to continue. This

stimulation additionally propped up dictatorial regimes that were guilty of horrific

crimes against humanity, and led to the eventual collapse of Somalia and its

armament of dozens of militias.

Both Ethiopia and Somalia have reason to make strong allies of world

superpowers. Ethiopia desired regional hegemony, and its “size, military strength,

and geographic position would make it the dominant state… [But]

underdevelopment and tenuous national unity kept this role out of its reach”.

Somalia desired control of the Ogaden region, but could not do so without

matching Ethiopia’s conventional army. Before the United States and Soviet Union

left the region, they each intervened in both countries and dramatically reversed

alliances and mid-conflict (Paul, 1994).

The United States initially aligned itself with Ethiopia, which retained

control of Eritrea where the U.S. had a base for strategic global military

communications. When conflict erupted between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Washington

pressured Ethiopia’s leadership against using an untrained peasant militia in

Eritrea. In a subsequent slaughter of Eritreans, Ethiopia was rendered ineligible for

military aid when the Carter administration placed Ethiopia on a list of human

rights violators. United States arms shipments to Ethiopia were suspended just as

the nation was running out of ammunition in its struggles against Eritrean and

Somali insurgents.

Therefore, to continue fighting Eritrea and Somalia, Ethiopia needed

military aid. Since arms were no longer provided by the United States or other

western powers, Ethiopia turned to communist nations. The Soviets, recognizing

the benefits of allying with Ethiopia, brokered a $1 billion arms deal and signed a

treaty of friendship with Ethiopia. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union continued

their presence in Somalia. This transition of alliances briefly afforded the Soviet

Union friendly relations with both nations, providing an opportunity for conflict

management. This is evident when, in 1977, both sides were so low on military

supplies that a stalemate would have resulted if arms providers had refused to

continue stocking the region. Instead, Russia exacerbated the conflict when it

signed a treaty with Ethiopia, swapped alliances, and instigated continued arms

build-up. Meanwhile, the United States had lost its influence in the region and was

left to the side-lines as an ineffective bystander (Sheehan, 2005).

In the midst of conflicting East-West interests, tumultuous civil

environments emerged. Newly independent states struggled with their identity and

the result was violent opposition to emerging political ideologies. The East-West

national interests saw its demise in the aftermath of the Cold War. This paved way

for the dominance of U.S interests in the region. However, with the emergence of

radical Islam in Somalia that tends to challenge the interests of U.S, this

superpower supported all invasions in Somalia that are aimed at distorting the

Islamists networks. In a region that survives with rivalry and bitter relations, the

declaration of the supportive invasion of Somalia by U.S evoked another round of

regional hostility and Ethiopia owing to its historical rancour with Somalia under

the Auspice of UNO launched its invasion into Somalia in December 2006 (Ali,

2007).

This paradigm offers probable reasons why Ethiopia invaded Somalia by

analysing three questions concerning the motives that could have prompted the

government to undertake such an audacious action. First, did Ethiopia invade

Somalia to bolster its own security? Second, was the invasion a heartfelt attempt

by Ethiopia to help Somalia to overcome the anarchical and humanitarian crises

that have encumbered Somalia for nearly two decades? Finally, was Ethiopia

simply doing the bidding of the United States, its benefactor, which since the 9-11

terrorist attack, had been apprehensive of Islamic militants gaining a foothold in

the Horn of Africa, one of the most heavily trafficked sea-lanes to the Middle East?

From the foregoing analysis, it could be discerned that the invasion of Somalia by

Ethiopia served two primary and strategic purposes which dwells around U.S and

Ethiopia interests. The interests of U.S is basically geared towards the distortion of

the Islamists networks in Somalia as well as discrediting a base and a playground

for the operations of Al-Qaeda while on the other hand the interests of Ethiopia

though mutually exclusively to the interest of U.S is also aimed at ensuring

instability in the state a situation that present an unchallenged rivalry to Ethiopia’s

regional hegemony.

2.2.3 REGIONAL CONFLICTS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA AND STATE

COLLAPSE IN SOMALIA

Some of the Scholars (Abbink, 2003; Cottam&Cottam, 2001; Farer, 1979;

Gilkes&Plaut, 1999; Healy, 2008; Langley, 1973; Legum& Bill, 1979; Medhaine,

2004; Metz, 1992; Reisman, 1983) approach the consequences of boundary

disputes on state failure in Somalia with a direct focus and analysis of the internal

conflicts that has plague all of the countries in the Horn. They analyzed the conflict

inherited in each country of the region as a means of explaining its

interrelationship with border disputes and state failure in Somalia.

Internal conflicts that emerged in every nation of the Horn stimulated the

resultant effect of state fragility as well as collapse that best describe the nature of

states in the Horn. In Ethiopia, resistance emerged when the Dergue, a communist

military junta, came to power. Opposition groups eventually dissolved the Dergue,

but the key players remained in power and conflicting political ideologies

instigated the emergence of various rebel groups. In Eritrea, rebels fought for their

independence against Ethiopia after the dissolution of the Eritrean parliament and

revocation of its right to autonomy. However, once control of the region was

wrested, Eritrean guerilla groups and fighters from the Tigre turned on each other.

Conflict in Somalia surfaced when Somali dictator, Siad Barre, attempted to

promote greater Somali nationalism through the dissolution of clan power. Fierce

clan opposition eventually led to his overthrow and to the power vacuum that, to

this day, has yet to be filled. Even Djibouti, which had abstained from much of the

region’s conflict, was not immune to internal power struggles.

In the Horn of Africa, the nature of state power is a key source of conflict,

political victory assuming a winner-takes-all form with respect to wealth and

resources as well as the prestige and prerogatives of office. Irrespective of the

official form of government, regimes in the Horn of Africa are in most cases,

autocracies essentially relying on ethnic loyalties. The military and security

services, in recent times emerging from a liberation front background, ensure the

hold on power of these militarized regimes (Medhanie, 2004:7).

A. ETHIOPIA: THE DERGUE, MENGISTU AND OPPOSITION

GROUPS

Ethiopian civil conflict emerged with the Dergue, a communist military

junta that came to power following the removal and imprisonment of Emperor

Haile Selassie. The monarchy was formally abolished in May 1975, and Marxism

was proclaimed the ideology of the state thus creating a sharp divide between

proponents of the contending political doctrine. The rise of the Dergue, along with

this division, brought civil war. During the years 1975-1977, called the Red Terror,

the Dergue and its opposition engaged in a brutal policy of “execution,

assassination, torture, and imprisonment of tens of thousands without trial.” After

the Dergue destroyed its opposition, it successfully fought off an invasion from

Somalia and then engaged in war against Eritrean rebels (Library of Congress 1993

DT373.E83).

Guerrillas fighting for Eritrean independence took advantage of the

opportunity to further frustrate Ethiopian leadership by aligning themselves with

various opposition groups, such as the Tigrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF),

Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary

Party (EPRP). While countering these rebels, the Dergue leadership fought one

another. The struggle for power resulted in numerous appointments and removals

(or executions) of various heads of the Dergue. Of the many Dergue commanders,

Mengistu Haile Marian was able to retain control after being appointed

Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He utilized his post to wrest control of

the country and gained popularity by formally dissolving the Dergue. He replaced

it with the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE), but despite the

leadership party change and construction of a new constitution, many government

positions within the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Worker's Party of

Ethiopia (WPE) were filled by Dergue members. Mengistu continued his role as

Commander in Chief of the Armed forces but additionally acted as President of the

PDRE and Secretary General of the WPE (Library of Congress 1993 DT373.E83).

He remained in power until deposed in 1991.

During Mengistu’s reign, discord in Ethiopia was further aggravated by

conflict in Eritrea. Conflict was created during Emperor Selassie’s reign when

Ethiopia dissolved Eritrea’s parliament and negated its right to autonomy. Eritrea’s

subsequent declaration of independence and revolt by various rebel groups

prompted a venerable crisis between the two nations, characterized by human

rights atrocities committed by both sides. During this political crisis, Siad Barre an

emerging power broker in Somalia employed this crisis situation to prolong the

instability in Ethiopia by sponsoring the opposition and rebel groups in Ethiopia

and Eritrea respectively. This situation provoked Mengistu thus gearing him to also

sponsor the infliction of instability through his sponsoring of proxy war that later

contributed to the failure of Somalia. The initial step of Barre was geared towards

curtailing Ethiopia motives to extend the frontiers of her state to include new

peripheries of territorial conquest a situation that was thought by Barre as

`Ethiopia's inherent expansionist dynamic' or in other words` Ethiopia's black

imperialism'.

B. ERITREA AND ITS INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE

Eritrea demanded its independence when Emperor Selassie dissolved its

parliament and created fierce opposition between the two nations. When the

Dergue came to power, they imposed a military settlement on the Eritean

Liberation Front and the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (EPLF). However, the

Dergue’s invasion of Eritrea was unsuccessful; by 1978, Eritrean rebel groups

controlled nearly all of the countryside. Despite controlling major cities, the

Dergue were unable to suppress the rebellion. By 1987, rebel groups in Eritrea and

the Tigre controlled at least 90 percent of both region and in 1991, the EPLF set up

a provisional government under Issaias Afwerki (ACED 2000). In 1993, a

referendum resulted in 98 percent of voters favoring Eritrean independence, and

the nation received its independence later that same year. Believing the conflict

resolved after Eritrea won its independence; the international community expressed

its relief. This relief was however short lived. Barely five years passed before war

broke out between the two nations under a different pretense.

The Eritrean struggle for independence received wide support from Somalia

as a result of their bitter rivalry with Ethiopia and the colonial posture Ethiopia

presents in the region. Much of the supports for all the liberation movements that

fought for Eritrea’s independence were from Somalia thus leading to bitter rivalry

between the two nations. Eritrea has also perceived Ethiopia as an imperial state.

The construction of an Eritrean identity was however intertwined with the

liberation struggle against Ethiopia. Eritrea has portrayed itself as colonised and

subjugated by Ethiopia (Abbay 1998).

C. SOMALIA: SIAD BARRE, CLAN OPPOSITION AND THE

EMERGENCE OF WARLORDS

In complete contrast to other conflict management in the Horn of Africa,

Somalia shows little hope for resolution in the near future. Instability and conflict

arose almost immediately following Somalia’s independence in 1960. Somalia’s

second president was assassinated in 1969, and during the power vacuum that

followed, the military staged a coup. Siad Barre was installed as the president of

Somalia’s new government, the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC), which

arrested members of the former government and banned all political parties. The

National Assembly was also abolished, and the constitution suspended (Metz 1992:

2).

Barre attempted to promote a stronger sense of nationalism by minimizing

the importance of clan affiliation within government and civil society. If

successful, he might have negated the ability of clans and sub-clans to undermine

the rule of central government, but he succeeded only in instigating fierce

opposition with various clan-based rebel groups. In an effort to quell opposition,

Barre engaged in oppressive dictatorial rule, characterized by persecution, jailing

and torture of political opponents and dissidents.

The United Nations Development Program described "the 21-year regime of

Siad Barre [as] one of the worst human rights records in Africa," (UNDP

REPORT 2001:42). The Africa Watch Committee agreed, submitting,

"both the urban population and nomads living in the countryside

[were] subjected to summary killings, arbitrary arrest, detention in

squalid conditions, torture, rape, crippling constraints on freedom

of movement and expression and a pattern of psychological

intimidation" (Africa Watch Committee 1990:9).

In an effort to incorporate various territories inhabited by Somalis into a

Greater Somalia, Barre sent the Somali national army into the Ogaden in 1977.

War subsequently broke out in the region, and the Somalis were initially

successful, capturing much of the territory. When the Soviet Union shifted its

support to Ethiopia and halted its supplies to Barre’s regime, the invasion abruptly

ended and the Somali troops were forced out of the Ogaden by 1978. Following

this event, Barre tore up his treaty with the Soviets and welcomed United States

military and economic aid. This action ensured that his offensives would be

adequately armed, and additionally facilitated the alliance swapping that occurred

between Ethiopia, Somalia and the Cold War superpowers.

Barre never gained control of the Ogaden, and in the early 1990s, his brutal

dictatorship was overthrown. Warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and his rebel group,

the United Somali Congress, invaded the country’s capital and fought government

forces. Aidid ousted Barre in January 1991, and later declared himself President of

Somalia in June 1995. Aidid’s government was not internationally recognized and

his leadership was fiercely contested, particularly by Ali Mahdi Muhammad.

However, Aidid and Mahdi were not the only figures vying for power. With an

absence of established government, a power vacuum emerged and all political and

military leaders from Barre’s fallen regime took up arms, made available through

the millions of dollars’ worth of weaponry provided by the Soviet Union and

United States.

Militias sprouted under the leadership of members of Barre’s fallen regime

as well as that of the various clans. Clans had been a target of Barre’s regime;

when the clans had a common enemy, they worked commonly. With that enemy

fallen, their ideals began to clash, and each clan hungered to establish itself

superior over the others. Warlords emerged from the ranks of the former military

and also through the endorsement of clan elders and sub-clan leaders. The number

of warlords is as numerous as the various freedom movements they lead: Botan Ise

Alin and the Somali Transitional Government, Osman Hassan Ali Atto and the

Somali National Alliance, Mohamed Omar Habeb and the Somali Reconciliation

and Restoration Council, Hussein Mohamed Farrah, former U.S. Marine and

replacement for father Aidid as president, Omar Muhamoud Finnish and Muse

SudiYalahow of the joined United Somali Congress/Somali Salvation Alliance,

Abdi Hasan Awale and the Somali National Alliance, Aaden Saransoor

Rahanweyn and the Resistance Army, just to name a few (Medhaine, 2004).

Internal conflict in Somalia follows a similar pattern to its conflict with

Ethiopia; there is no clear stalemate in the region, no representative that conflicting

parties consider valid. Power-sharing has been unsuccessful and anarchy threatens

to tear the nation apart. The social fabric of Somalia has been so fractured by the

various clan alliances, public support, and secret international interests in different

liberation groups and ideological organizations that no single entity has emerged as

the predominant power in Somalia. Since the fall of Barre, Somalia’s only constant

is general lawlessness, aggravated by famine and disease. A vicious cycle of

resistance continues, and no one is a viable candidate for conciliation.

It could however be argued that the role Somalia played in the series of

conflicts that ensued in other countries within the region as well as the predatory,

repressive, and clannish nature of the government of Siad Barre that survived on a

clan coalition impacted on the political fate of statelessness in Somalia.

D. THE EVENTS OF OGADEN WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

ON STATE FAILURE IN SOMALIA

Other scholars (Adam, 1999; Lewis, 1989; Menkhaus, 2007; Metz, 1993;

Ofcansky, 1992; Tareke, 2000; Tirumeh, 1993; Turner, 1993) attempted a direct

focus on the event of the Ogaden War and its significance in the collapse of

Somalia. When Somalia got independence in1960, it directed its internal security

concern to preventing Ethiopia from dominating affairs in the Horn of Africa. The

boldest step Somalia took to challenge Ethiopia’s dominance in the Horn so far

was to support insurgents planning to withdraw from Ethiopia. This insurgency led

to the Ogaden War that lasted from 1977 to 1978. The government of Somalia was

trying to take advantage of the turmoil in Ethiopia caused by the overthrow of

Haile Sellassie and the bloodletting the Derg was perpetrating on opponents of the

revolution.

The Somali government threw its support behind the Western Somali

Liberation Front (WSLF), which was a pro-Somali liberation group in the Ogaden,

planning to withdraw. The initial support the Barre government gave the WSLF

was covert and when Ethiopia accused President Barre of interference, he replied

that only “volunteers” had been given leave from the army to fight.

By September 1977, regular Somali troops’ involvement in the conflict

could no longer be disguised, as they had pushed some 700 kilometers into

Ethiopian territory and captured a provincial capital (Tiruneh, 1993). By the end of

1977, Somali forces had captured 60% of the Ogaden (Ofcansky, 1992). Ethiopia

blames the Ogaden war on Somalia’s irredentism, a wish by Siad Barre to annex

the Ogaden area of Ethiopia (Turner, 1993).

Desperate for help, Mengistu Haile Mariam, the leader of the Derg, turned

to the Soviet Union which obliged by providing military supplies and advisers, as

the Soviets simultaneously cut off supplies for the Somali army. This triggered

what Lewis calls a “seismic shift in superpower alignments in the Horn of Africa”

(Lewis 1989: 575), as Cuba sent troops to help the Ethiopian army. On his part,

Siad Barre turned to the United States and friendly Arab countries for economic

and military help. Nevertheless, the WSLF with its Somali military support was

defeated in1978 and Siad Barre forbade the WSLF from using Somali territory to

attack Ethiopia. In retaliation for Somalia’s misdeeds, Ethiopia in the early 1980s

provided sanctuary and support for the Somali National Movement (SNM), which

was a dissident group formed by Isaaq exiles in London to overthrow the Barre’s

government.

Discontented the President had not represented their interests, the Isaaq

conducted guerrilla raids against Somali government-held territory from

DiraDawa, Ethiopia. President Barre responded by launching a military campaign

to the north against the Issaq. After the fall of Siad Barre in 1991, the United

Somali Congress (USC), one of the rebelling factions competing for control,

became dominant. Competition and alliances between groups such as the Somali

Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) and Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM)

eventually resulted in the collapse of the USC leadership.

The political vacuum created led to the resurgence of clan identities which

has always been an integral part of Somali culture. Conflicting ambitions among

clan leaders was largely responsible for the civil war and the social and political

instability that defined the lives of Somalis in the 1990s. According to Adam

(1999), differences between United Somali Council (USC) leaders Ali Mahdi of

the Agbal clan and General Mohamed Farah Aidid of the Habar Gedir clan, were

the most notable. When Ali Mahdi declared himself “interim president” Aidid’s

faction of the USC rejected that claim. The rift among clans widened as they

fought for control of various towns. By 1992 Somalia had collapsed as a state

caused largely by dispute among clans. Hunger, famine and deaths ravaged the

country.

According to Metz (1993), living standards worsening rapidly in Somalia,

was caused not only by civil war but the drought in central and southern Somalia

that left hundreds of thousands starving. By August 1992, Somali refugees that had

settled in neighboring countries were estimated at 500,000 in Ethiopia, 300,000 in

Kenya, 65,000 in Yemen, 15,000 in Djibouti and about 100,000 in Europe.

United Nations peacekeepers sent to Somalia were met by warlords that

resented their presence resulting in deadly assaults on them. Out of humanitarian

concern, however, United States marines were sent to Somalia to bolster the

United Nations peacekeepers. Deadly assaults on United States troops caused their

withdrawal in 1993. Ethiopia has supported and is alleged to have supported a

number of different Somali factions at one time or another. Among these are the

Somali Reconstruction and Restoration Council (SRRC), Muse SudiYalahow,

General Mohammed Said Hirsi Morgan (allied to the Somali Patriotic Movement

or SPM), Hassan Mohamed Nur Shatigudud and his Rahanwein Resistance Army

(RRA) and Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed (former President of Puntland and current

Somali TNG President). A number of Somali warlord factions have also held

meetings and formed loose alliances in Ethiopia.

It could however be argued that the evolution of clan hostility in Somalia as

well as warlordism in Somalia Politics could be traced to the bitter rivalry of

Ethiopia and Somalia at the Ogaden war. The penetration of clannism into Somalia

politics has led to the emergence of conflict as a self-reproducing capacity a

situation that has sustained the re-occurrence of statelessness in Somalia as well as

posing outright challenges to measures geared towards state-building.

E. SOMALILAND/PUNTLAND BORDER DISPUTE AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES ON STATE FAILURE IN SOMALIA

There have been major tensions between Somaliland and Puntland over their

common border since 2004, with both laying claim to the regions of Sanaag and

Sool. On several occasions there have been military clashes. Relations between the

two over the issue deteriorated again during 2007 and there were further military

clashes.

The Dulbahante and Warsengeli clans of the Harti clan federation live on

either side of the Somaliland-Puntland border in eastern Somaliland and western

Puntland. They have felt politically and economically marginalized in both

Somaliland and Puntland and the degree of effective control exercised in either

Sanaag or Sool by what passes for ‘central authority’ has been limited in practice.

Furthermore, local leaders have often changed their mind over which of the two

polities deserves their allegiance. Shifts in loyalty appear to have played a

significant role in triggering the 2007 crisis. There also remain significant

constituencies within both clans for ultimate reunification with the rest of Somalia,

which confirms that the fate of both Somaliland and Puntland is likely to remain

unavoidably linked to what happens in the rest of the country (Hoehne, 2007).

In July 2007, local leaders in Sanaag, which until then had given its loyalty

to Puntland, seceded from it and formed the new state of Maakhir. Those behind it

came from the Warsengeli clan. They strongly opposed the Transitional Federal

Government (TFG) moves to undertake oil exploration in the area. They had also

become resentful of the perceived dominance in Puntland of the Majerteen clan.

Then in September 2007, following unrest in Sool – some of whose

Dulbahante leaders had rejected the authority of the Puntland Government and

talked about establishing another autonomous state, Daraawiish – fighting between

Somaliland and Puntland broke out again. In October 2007 Somaliland troops

occupied the capital of Sool, Las Anod. Somaliland claimed that its forces had

been attacked first. Somaliland troops were reportedly within 35 kilometres of

Puntland’s capital, Garowe, at one point. A conference opened in late November

2007 to try and agree about the future of the area but came to nothing (Hoehne,

2007).

During 2008, outbreaks of violence between Somaliland and Puntland over

Sool and Sanaag continued. Somaliland forces have pushed deeper into Sanaag,

where there have been several instances of foreign aid workers being kidnapped

for ransom. In July 2008 Somaliland forces claimed that they had taken control of

the coastal town of Las Qoray in eastern Sanaag. Puntland swiftly claimed that it

had retaken the town. Local Warsengeli clan elders called on both parties to

withdraw their forces. In practice, neither Somaliland nor Puntland appear to have

much political control over this area (Garowe Online, 2008).

Since October 2008, there have been a series of attacks in parts of

Somaliland-occupied Sool by a new organization called the Somalia Unity Defense

Alliance. Somaliland has accused Puntland of backing the group; Puntland has

denied such allegations (Garowe Online, 2008).

The constant border disputes between the Somaliland and Puntland though a

domestic issue has also raised the failed possibility of establishing a National

Government for Somalia. The series of conflicts between the conflicting regions

has increased the porosity and failure of the emergence of a central government in

Mogadishu the capital-city of Somalia.

F. RADICAL ISLAM IN SOMALIA AND ITS IMPACTS ON STATE

FAILURE IN SOMALIA

A newer approach was devised towards understanding the regional

hostilities in the Horn of Africa and its impact on state failure in Somalia. Some

scholars (Abubakar, 2006; Aynte, 2010; Hassan, 2009; Hussein, 2008; Ibrahim,

2010; Menghaus, 2005; Moller, 2008; Rotberg, 2005; Whitehouse, 2007;

Woodward, 2003) espouse that apart from the border dispute that has strain the

peaceful relations between Somalia and Ethiopia, the widespread of radical Islam

within the Horn of Africa particularly Somalia could provide an insight towards

understanding the motive behind the subversive activities in Somalia by its

neighbors particularly Ethiopia.

The majority of the population of the Horn of Africa with the exception of

Ethiopia, including Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, are Muslims. This fact is

not meant to mystify the diversity as well as the distinguishing characteristics of

the Islamic social movements of the region and Islamic political doctrines, ranging

from the most extreme to moderate. Likewise, the fact that Islam is the majority

faith in the Horn of Africa should not be seen as denying or obscuring its

coexistence with non-Muslim populations – Christian and Jewish as well as a

mosaic of traditional beliefs (Haggai 2010).

Analysis on “failed state” and its impacts on Somalia have often been

described by parts of the Western media and policy-makers from the security

perspective and it’s capability to provide a breeding ground for terrorist

organizations, including al-Qaida and other radical Islamic groups. The rise of the

Islamic Court Union which included ‘hard-liners’ with alleged links to al-Qaida

increased fears that parts of the Horn of Africa could become a heartland of

militant Islam and that what might initially have been a symptom of conflict could

metamorphose into a ‘root cause’. This proof has been widely disclaimed by the

Combating Terrorism Centre. According to the Harmony Project/Combating

Terrorism Center at West Point, Al-Qaida has not found a promising base in

Somalia and that, if anything, coastal Kenya has been more fertile territory for it.

In a report which drew on declassified internal al-Qaida documents, the Center

stated:

At one point, Al-Qaida operatives were so frustrated that they

listed going after clan leaders as the second priority for jihad after

expelling Western forces (Harmony Project/Combating Terrorism

Center).

Marchal also concluded that:

In Somalia, al-Qaeda members faced the same challenges that

plague western interventions (extortion, betrayal, clan conflicts,

xenophobia, and security vacuum and logistical constraints)

(Marchal, 2007).

Ethiopia’s confrontation with Islamist network in Somalia was however

justified under the claim of ensuring Ethiopia security within the region thus

ushering a legal justification for the armed intervention of Ethiopia into Somalia.

The invasion of Ethiopia coupled with the growing influence of the Islamists

groups exacerbated the conflicts and lawlessness in Somalia thus keeping Somalia

in its perpetual state of failure.

The emergence of the spread of radical Islam in Somalia though predated

Somalia independence emerged as a result of its close links to the Arabian

Peninsula as well as the influence of Wahhabism.

Al-Ittihad al-Islami emerged during the early 1980s out of an alliance

between Wahdat al-Shabab al-Islami (Unity of Islamic Youth) and al-Jama`a al-

Islamiya, thus transforming itself from a peaceful Dawa in political opposition to

the Siad Barre regime into a militant organization engaged in armed conflict after

the collapse of the Somali state. By the 1990s, Al-Ittihad had spread its activities to

Ethiopia’s Ogaden region and established ties with militant Islamist groups,

including al-Qaeda members based in Afghanistan and Sudan. Al-Ittihad’s leaders

could be described as graduates of Saudi Arabian Salafi Islam who combined the

teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood with Wahhabi militancy, and were

determined to establish an Islamic emirate in Somalia and expand it to the rest of

the Horn of Africa (Menghaus, 2005).

Al-Ittihad’s activities in the Ogaden brought it into confrontation with the

Ethiopian government. It was alleged that Al-Ittihad had military camps for

training Islamist guerrillas from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Uganda in a

variety of activities, including the use of small arms, guerrilla warfare, suicide

bombing, mines and explosives, espionage and logistics (Hussein, 2008).The

Ethiopian government’s retaliation in 1997 was swift and unrelenting, dislodging

Al-Ittihad from Ethiopia and destroying its bases in Somalia. Although Al-Ittihad

was dismantled, its leaders returned to Mogadishu, where they created a new more

militant movement with links to global Jihadist organizations (Hassan, 2009).

The emergence of the Islamic Court Union coincided with the collapse of

President Abdullahi Yusuf regime and the dismantling of the Somali state by

competing clan-based movements/militias, which failed to reconcile their

differences and return the country to normalcy (Moller 2008).The Islamic Court

Union at its inception was led by Sharif Shiekh Ahmed and was supported by

Yusuf “Indho Ade” Mohamed Siad, a Somali warlord who controlled Lower

Shabelle.

The ICU offered an alternative court and police system capable of ending the

chaos that characterized Mogadishu for years and bringing order, thereby bridging

the severe governance deficit left by the collapse of the Somali state (Aynte 2010).

It also offered public services previously considered to be under the purview of the

state or NGOs both secular and religious, such as health and education. By 1999,

the ICU became the only recognizable source of security for the residents of the

areas which it controlled. The measures it took included the creation of an Islamic

Union Court police and militia organization, and the expansion of its activities to

include controlling Mogadishu market and the major routes linking the capital with

important trade routes throughout Somalia (Ibrahim 2010).These steps were

followed by the introduction of a strict variant of Islamic Sharia, including the

banning of football (Abubakar 2006).The combined forces of Sharif Shiekh

Ahmed and Yusuf “Indho Ade” Mohamed Siad, with the latter serving as head of

military operations, controlled most of southern Somalia, including the capital and

the all-important port of Kismayo.

In response, the Somali warlords, supported by the Bush administration, were

united for the first time in resisting ICU’s hegemony. This new-found unity was

also an act of self-preservation by the warlords, who formed an umbrella

organization, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter Terrorism

(ARPCT). However, ARPCT was no match for the ICU, which by 2006 controlled

large expanses of Somali territory after inflicting several major defeats on the US-

backed warlords (Ibrahim, 2010).

Whether acting on its own accord, in order to halt Eritrea’s involvement in its

south-eastern frontier regions, or with the support and approval of the US

administration, Ethiopia mounted an invasion of Somalia in December 2006 and

routed the ICU within weeks.

Aynte posited that Al-Shabab originated around 2004 as an association of

young Mujahideen within the ICU, and served as the latter’s police and militia. Al-

Shabab established itself from the remnants of the ICU following its defeat, and

fought the Ethiopian forces, forcing them to withdraw from Mogadishu in

December 2008(Aynte 2010). Al-Shabab is led by Muktar Ali Robow, also known

as Abu Mansoor, previously the ICU’s deputy defense minister. Another notorious

Al-Shabab military commander, Adam Hashi Ayro, was allegedly trained in

Afghanistan and built up the group along the lines of the Taliban. This also ex-

plains why Al-Shabab is claimed to have links with al-Qaeda and is on the US list

of terrorist organizations.

The connections between the ICU and Al-Shabab can be understood by

examining the origins of its leadership. Al-Shabab’s first leader, Aden Hashi

Frarah, “Ayro”, was appointed by Hassan Dahir Aweys, one of the ICU’s founders

(International Crisis Group 2005). Al-Shabab represents a more militant variant of

the ICU and is a Jihadist group seeking to create a Somali Islamic state and wage

Jihad against Westerners and the enemies of Islam, as well as imposing a puritan

form of Sharia across Somalia. With about 3,000 to 7,000 battle-hardened fighters,

Al-Shabab has gained control of major parts of Mogadishu’s neighborhoods and

has set up military bases in large parts of southern Somalia (Hassan 2009).

Conflict in the Horn follows general patterns: decolonization power struggles,

independent consolidation, and liberation movements. Complicating matters

further are disputes over poorly defined territory and civil rivalries over state

power-structure. The new dimension to these conflicts, however, is Somalia’s

status as a failed state. Somalia’s central government controls little more than a

section of the national capital of Mogadishu. A separatist government controls the

North, and rival warlords and clan leaders control the remainder of the country.

This adds a unique dynamic to conflict resolution in the region because, quite

simply, how do you mediate domestic anarchy? Efforts were undertaken by the

international community to establish peace, but intervention was met with disaster

when the United Nations and United States implemented peace enforcement rather

than peacekeeping.

The Somali civil conflict has led to statewide destabilization and failure,

resulting in an economy with little else to offer than lawless capitalism and piracy.

Conflict management therefore assumes an immediate importance to regional and

international actors because the destabilization is a threat to regional and

international peace. The United Nations’ Unified Task Force intervened in

Somalia, as did the United States, but both were unsuccessful. Those missions

were aimed at restoring order, but failed when mission creep dictated who would

remain in power. Peacekeeping- to- Peace enforcing missions only aggravated

conflicts between Somali factions, splinter groups, and clan leaders. Both the

United States and United Nations left the country without restoring peace or a

central government.

It could however be argued that measureable success in Somalia and other

countries of the Horn, will only occur when there is public accountability of the

region’s leadership. Only when the people stop accepting violence as the only

means to attaining party interests and begin demanding regional support and

interdependence, can we expect long-term resolution. The possibility of achieving

this success will be examined in this research. For now, the Horn of Africa with

special reference to Somalia is a culture of war and death, valuing fighting over

conciliation, noted by the absence of a call to peace despite decades of atrocities.

Until the people demand that accountability, coupled with the space to peacefully

dissent, conflict will be difficult to manage and nearly impossible to resolve.

The turbulent political transitions in all of the region’s states and their

reciprocal fears and disputes were so durable and interlocked that, in retrospect; the

outbreak of all these conflicts seems inevitable. In fact, it should not require much

analysis and imagination to understand that, in the Horn of Africa, conditions for

conflict brew for years, if not decades and centuries. However and paradoxically

enough, it will always be difficult to weave together various contradictory trends as

well as realistically assess precedents and multiple indices of a dynamic nature and

of many dimensions.

And, despite all the dedicated seminars, conferences, presentations, briefings,

articles and voluminous books, it will always be difficult to continuously anticipate

with a reasonably high degree of accuracy the different conflicts’ exact origins,

scale, sustenance and implications.

Furthermore as posited by Joireman, the region’s conflicts are usually

continuations of previous conflicts spanning out of control and they, themselves,

can very easily either set off or further complicate other conflicts (Joireman,

2004:186).

From the foregoing analysis, we can discern the fact that all the unfolding

political trend that has exacerbated the state failure in Somalia possess a self-

reproducing capacity that had its historical origin in the bitter rivalry between

Somalia and its rival country Ethiopia, a capacity that entrenched to the generation

of other concomitant factors that have prolonged the state failure in Somalia as

well as frustrating all viable efforts towards state-building.

2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

There are different theories that have been postulated about the issue of state

failure. For the purpose of this research work , the Step to War theory shall be

employed in explaining how border disputes between Somalia and other countries

of the Horn of Africa has largely contributed to the state failure in Somalia.

The Steps to War theory suggests that typical power politics strategies, such

as alliance formation, military buildups, and aggressive crisis bargaining, often

have the unintended consequence of escalating conflict to war, especially when

these strategies are pursued in defense of unresolved territorial issues.The strongest

correlation uncovered thus far in the causes of war literature is not the fact that

democracies do not fight each other. Instead, contiguity remains a better predictor

of whether war will or will not occur (Diehl, 1985a, 1985b; Bremer, 1992).

However, the evidence supporting the link between contiguity and war has

often been dismissed as spurious to such factors as proximity or the number of

interactions between states. Only the territorial explanation of war views the

correlation between contiguity and war as an important relationship.

The territorial explanation of war argues that contiguity is a proxy for the

existence of territorial issues between states, since these issues are most likely to

occur between states that border each other. In this sense, territorial issues

constitute the underlying cause of war (Vasquez, 1993).The territorial explanation

of war argues that how states handle the sensitive issue of territorial control with

their neighbors greatly affects the probability of war between those states. States

that pursue alliances, military build-ups, and other power politics measures in

response to territorial issues tend to increase their chances of going to war.

However, if states are capable of resolving or removing these territorial issues from

their agenda, it is argued that they will be capable of avoiding war for prolonged

periods of time, even if other contentious issues arise (Vasquez, 1993: 146-147,

151-152). Territorial issues are the most dangerous issues because they are the

issues that are most likely to generate a power politics response.

2.4 TERRITORIAL EXPLANATION OF WAR

The territorial explanation of war identifies a general underlying cause and a

set of proximate causes of war. The underlying cause is seen as the rise of a

territorial dispute. Territorial issues influence the processes that lead to war, but

the steps toward war are far from determined. Territorial issues merely provide a

source of conflict that is more likely to end in war than other types of issues. This

does not mean that territorial issues inevitably go to war; in fact, most do not end

in war. The territorial explanation of war contends that these issues have a higher

probability of going to war than other issues or what would be expected to occur

merely by chance (Vasquez and Henehan, 1999; Senese, 2005).

Whether territorial issues will ultimately end in war depends on how they

are handled. If actors contest these issues by resorting to power politics, then the

probability of war increases along with the escalation of these practices. Among

equals, these coercive acts fail to gain compliance because territorial issues are too

salient for the actors involved; nothing short of war can resolve these types of

stakes. In spite of the likely dangers, actors who engage in power politics tend to

resort to higher and higher levels of coercion. Power politics then becomes a set of

proximate causes of war because they follow the rise of territorial disputes and are

more closely tied to the outbreak of war. If territorial issues are not handled

through coercive power politics, then they are less likely to end in war.

Territorial disputes lead political actors to resort to a series of realist

practices intended to force the other side to back down; these practices include

military buildups, the making of alliances, and the use of realpolitik tactics and

demonstrations of resolve in crisis bargaining. In the modern global system, realist

folklore (which is learned from socialization in the system and derived from the

realist social construction of history) tells leaders that, when faced with threats to

their security, they should increase their power by either making alliances and/or

building up their military. Both practices are intended to increase a state's security,

although most recognize that it typically produces a security dilemma (Jervis,

1976).

Each step produces a situation that encourages the adoption of foreign

policy practices that sets the stage for actors to take another step toward war.

The effects of territorial disputes on pairs of states have important implications

both internationally and domestically. First, the logic of the security dilemma

encourages actors to take additional measures to increase their capability; this leads

to an upward spiral of increasing insecurity, threat perception, and hostility. States

then resort more frequently to coercive diplomacy (i.e. the threat or use of force) to

get the other side to come to an agreement on outstanding issues. Second, each of

these external interactions has the domestic effect of increasing the influence and

number of hard-liners within the polity and reducing the number and influence of

accomodationists.

The increase in hard-liners in turn encourages the adoption of realist

practices that fuel hostility and encourage coercive moves that result in the

outbreak of international crises. War usually occurs after a series of crises between

two states, with the crisis that escalates to war having certain characteristics: a)

initiating a crisis with a physical threat to a territorial stake, b) an ongoing arms

race, c) escalatory bargaining across crises, d) a hostile spiral, and e) hard-liners on

at least one side (Vasquez and Gibler, 2001).

Alliances tend to be followed by war because they increase threat perception

and hostility in the other side, leading it to try to make a counter-alliance, if

possible, or building up its military, and often both, as each side overcompensates

(Gibler, 2000). Similarly, when a state with an ongoing territorial dispute witnesses

a military buildup in its rival, this produces a sense of threat and an attitude of

hostility, leading it to respond by building up its military. When following realist

strategies and tactics, the leadership of each state refuses to back down, so disputes

among equals tend to stalemate, fester, and repeat. These recurring crises are the

real engines of war, increasing the influence of hard-liners in each side who make

it more difficult to reach a compromise and manage each new crisis, until

eventually one crisis emerges that cannot be managed, and escalation to war is the

outcome.

2.5 STEPS TO WAR THEORY IN ETHIOPIA-SOMALIA BORDER

DISPUTES

This research will follow the focused and structured method of case study

design. This analysis is structured to ask similar questions regarding the onset of

warfare. Were there territorial elements at dispute during the conflict? Did the

leaders of each state seek to build alliances and build up their militaries prior to the

conflict? Is there a history of repeated disputes that lead the current conflict under

analysis to become intractable? And finally, were hardliners in power that then

drove the conflict towards its ultimate and deadly outcome?

2.6 DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVE OF ETHIOPIA-SOMALIA WAR

The Ethiopian-Somalian War (or the Ogaden War) was one of the first truly

interstate conflicts in Africa during the modern era. Somalia has always claimed

the Ogaden territory as part of a wider empire, and when Ethiopia was in chaos

during regime consolidation, Somalia invaded to retake what it claimed as their

territory. The typical elements of the Steps to War are in operation in this conflict,

all driven by outstanding territorial claims and the power elements it takes to

firmly establish a change in the territorial situation.

Imposed boundaries seem to be a recurring theme throughout African, as

well as European history. In Europe the problem tends to be territorial claims

based on losses during war or to tribute. In Africa the problem is Western

imposition of boundaries that might function for a few years, but eventually

disintegrate due to ethnic territorial claims or rivalry between the two states that

forces the reassertion of colonial claims. No border is perfect, yet the combination

of ethnic ties, reasserted nationalism that comes along with realignments in

domestic politics, and imposed boundaries centuries old has made the African

region ripe for interstate war.

Ethiopia and Somalia were both colonies of Italy, which were then

relinquished after World War II. Ethiopia was the oldest recognized independent

state in Africa, yet the ambitions of European states frequently imposed constraints

on Ethiopian independence. Great Britain set up a provisional border in 1950. It

was the ethnic territorial claims that were reasserted which led to conflict and

rivalry between Somalia and Ethiopia during the realignment after World War II.

Ethiopia spent much effort to regain the Ogaden from the British, and it was finally

restored officially in 1954. This only led to a bitter rivalry between Somalia and

Ethiopia in which both claimed the territory and people included.

There was popular support in Somalia to unite all people of Somali culture

into a single nation (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 131). One such territorial claim was

the Ogaden region in Ethiopia, which Somalia claimed was stolen during the

colonial partition. The future integration and independence of Somalia only raised

cries for reacquisition of the territory. According to Bahru,

“The new republic was committed to the unification of all Somalis,

including those in the Ogaden, the then French territory of

Djibouti, and the North Frontier District of Kenya. But it was the

Ogaden which became the primary focus of Somali

irredentialism.” (Bahru 2001: 182)

Since the 1800’s, Ethiopia had been the dominant armed force in the region.

The region was thrown into turmoil (once again) when Emperor Haile Selassie was

overthrown by the Derg(which means “Committee”) in 1974. The successful Derg

turned to internal fighting and massive social change from 1974 until 1977 (Bahru

2001: 251). Various other rebel groups then reasserted their claims in the region

during this period of domestic instability.

The primary rebel actor in this conflict was the Western Somali Liberation

Front (WSLF), which operated in the Ogaden with the support the Somalia military

(Laitin and Samatar 1987: 135). Mengistu Haile Mariam was named the leader of

Ethiopia in February 1977 after the third internal coup for the Derg (Bahru 2001:

253). Mengistu accused Somalia of helping the WSLP with official armed forces,

which Somalia denied. Cuban officials note that Somalia asked for military

assistance in 1976 based on the claim “that that country (Ethiopia) represented the

greatest danger to socialism in North Africa.”

The attacks by the WSLF were a cleverly planned operation to take

advantage of internal Ethiopian instability. Many of the leaders of the WSLF were

former Somali officers who had resigned their posts (Laitin and Samatar 1987:

141). The war was not an internationalized civil war, but a directly planned

invasion by Somalia.

Somalia invaded the Ogaden region on July 23, 1977. With a force of

35,000 soldiers and 15,000 WSLF fighters, Somalia gained the immediate

initiative (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 141). The Soviet Union was supplying arms

to both sides and attempted to mediate the situation. However, when Somalia

continued its assault, the Soviets cut off all aid to Somalia, increased aid to

Ethiopia, sent nearly 1,000 advisors, and 15,000 Cuban troops (Laitin and Samatar

1987: 142).

Somalia initially controlled as much as 90 percent of Ogaden but their

forces were eventually defeated. Reinforcements from the Soviets and Cubans

allowed the Ethiopians to counterattack. Air superiority allowed the Ethiopians to

also decimate the Somalian tank forces and target supply lines. Somalian leader

SiadBarre ordered a retreat back to Somalia on March 9, 1978. The WSLF

continued operations until at least 1981. On April 4, 1988, the two sides signed a

communiqué to end the hostilities, yet formal peace has not been declared due to

on-going instability in Somalia.

2.7 ISSUES AT STAKE

The issue at stake in this conflict was clearly territorial. The Ogaden region

had no distinguishable wealth or strategic purposes. Somalia claimed the Ogaden

region in Ethiopia. They felt they had a right to this region due to ethnic Somali

people living within the boundaries of Ethiopia and unsettled colonial boundaries

(Laitin and Samatar 1987: 132).

In 1934, the Italians invaded Ethiopia through Somalia. After conquering

Ethiopia quickly and with little objection from European powers, Somalia was

given the Ogaden. According to Lewis,

“With the conquest of Ethiopia, Somalia was enlarged by the

addition of the Ogaden and the regions occupied by Somalis on the

upper parts of the Shelbelle and Juba rivers. This added three new

administrative Provinces to the territory and brought together

Somali clansmen who had hitherto been arbitrarily separated by

the Somalia-Ethiopia boundary.” (Lewis 1988: 110)

Much blame for the 1977 conflict can be placed on the British maneuvers to

establish a territorial state in the region. This fact was given legal embodiment in

the agreements that Ethiopia was forced to sign with Britain in 1942 and 1944. On

the basis of these agreements and under the convenient excuse that the

continuation of World War Two required making adequate provisions for Allied

defence, the British came to assume extensive control over Ethiopia’s finance,

administration and territorial integrity. (Bahru 2001: 179)

Taking Ethiopia and Somalia quickly during World War II, the British

sought to settle the border question in the region unilaterally. Along with control of

Ethiopian territorial boundaries, the British also took control of the Ogaden and

Eritrea in the hopes of integrating the Ogaden with a “Greater Somalia – the seed

for Somali irredentism in subsequent decades.” (Bahru 2001: 180) Eritrea was to

be united with Sudan – the Ogaden with Somalia. Ethiopia quickly asserted

territorial claim on Ogaden because it had been a part of their empire only years

earlier and “her sovereignty over which had been recognized in the 1942 and 1944

Anglo-Ethiopian Agreements.” (Lewis 1988: 124)

At one point, the British offered Eritrea in exchange for the Ogaden but no

agreement was reached since the Ethiopian’s felt they deserved both territories.

“For Ethiopia, failure to regain the area was a bitter disappointment.”

(Bahru2001: 181) The Ogaden was restored to Ethiopia in fulfillment of British

promises (but against British desires), which then only raised the possibility of a

conflict with Somalia over the region. According to Lewis,

“The population of the Ogaden as a whole bowed to the inevitable;

and the transfer from British to Ethiopian control took place

smoothly and without further incident on 23 September, 1948.”

(Lewis 1988: 130)

From the very beginning, most tribes in the Ogaden region supported

Somali integration rather than Ethiopian control, but British bribes made a smooth

transition possible (Lewis 1988: 129).

The transfer of the Ogaden to Ethiopia only served to raise tensions and

rivalry between Somalia and Ethiopia. Somalia argued that the Ogaden was not

truly part of Ethiopia and therefore their claims were dubious. According Lewis,

“She (Ethiopia) had gained the Ogaden which she had never fully

administered and to which her only international title was provided

by the 1897 and 1908 Italy-Ethiopian agreements.” (Lewis 1988:

131)

A simple effort to exact tribute from the region in the late 1800’s had served

to turn an entire region over to Ethiopia, partly out of guilt for complacency during

the invasion by Italy in the 1930’s. There was much instability in the area during

the 1950’s to the late 1970’s, yet war was unlikely for many years due to lack of

supplies and attempts to create institutional accountability in the region. Ethiopia

took a lead role in the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in

1963. One of the primary characteristics of the new organization was the

acceptance of colonial boundaries where they stood, thus reinforcing Ethiopia’s

claims on the Ogaden region. Resolution 16, passed in 1964 by the OAU, states

that the organization, “solemnly declares that all member states pledge themselves

to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national

independence.”The OAU and UN continued to deny Somalian claims to the

Ogaden throughout the 60’s and 70’s (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 138).

Somalia claimed that the Ogaden region was traditionally part of Somalia

and was only under the control of Ethiopia because of British intervention. It is

estimated that at least 500,000 Muslims of Somalian decent lived in the region,

making it a ripe spot for rebel activity against the disintegrating state of Ethiopia.

Early desires of the independent state of Somalia were advanced by nationalistic

calls for a united Somalia and were even included in the constitution. Prime

Minister AbdillahiIse in 1959 exclaimed,

“They (“The Somali”) inhabit a vast territory which, in its turn,

constitutes a well-defined geographic unit. All must know that the

government of Somalia will strive its uttermost, with the legal and

peaceful means which are its democratic prerogative to attain this

end: the union of Somalis unite all Somalis and form a single

Greater Somalia.” (Lewis 1988: 161)

Somalia either hoped to invade and take the territory, or to institute a

plebiscite in the region that would turn the territory formally over to Somalia with

proper international support. Ideology and resources were not key factors in this

crisis. Although ideology led the Soviets to support the Ethiopians, they also

initially supported the Somalis. Both states claimed Marxist origins, yet each was

a simple military dictatorship. The Ogaden region had no important territorial

resources.

2.8 ALLIANCES

Somalia took particular care to become aligned with China and the Soviet

Union rather than the West. It bore particular resentment towards Great Britain

after losing important territories to Ethiopia. In 1963, Somali officially refused

Western military assistance valued at 6.5 million pounds in favour of Soviet aid

valued at 11 million pounds (Lewis 1988: 201). Somalia was also the only non-

Arabic speaking state to join the Arab League. Early alliance patterns clearly

raised tensions in the dyad and resulted in the development of rivalry (Valeriano

2003) and then arms races.

The United States supported Ethiopia through much of its post-World War

II era. Initially this support was sought to balance the imposing control of the

British (Bahru 2001: 184). In 1953, the Ethiopia-US Treaty was signed.

“In return for continued use of the communications base in

Asmara…the United States undertook to launch a military aid

programme…By 1970, Ethiopia had come to absorb some 60% of

US military aid to the whole of Africa.” (Bahru 2001: 187)

In an effort to keep potential enemies on their side of the global fight against

Communism, the United States threw money at the Ethiopian military for years. It

has also been claimed that Israelis were brought in by the Ethiopian military to

service and train pilots of American-made F-5s, although Ethiopia denies this

activity (Cooper 2003). Eventually, the alliance soured with the rise of anti-

American imperialist sentiment and new technology that made the Ethiopian bases

irrelevant. By May of 1977, the Derg had cut off ties with America and the “1953

mutual defense agreement had been terminated.” (Bahru 2001: 254)

After severing ties with America, Castro of Cuba visited Ethiopia in April of

1977 and Mengistu visited Moscow in May of the same year (Bahru 2001: 254).

The Soviet Union became the key actor in the build up to this crisis. In 1974,

Somalia signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union

(Laitin and Samatar 1987: 139). Soviet support of both states emboldened both

sides to continue to assert their claims in the conflict, but fear that Soviet support

of Ethiopia would eventually end possibilities of integration of the Ogaden spurred

the Somalis to action.

The United States had been the primary supporter of Ethiopia prior to the

conflict, but in May 1977, Soviet offers of support were accepted instead. The new

Ethiopian leader and the Soviet Union worked out thirteen mutual agreements.

Lewis notes the disturbing events of 1977 from the Somali point of view,

“The new Cuban-trained and Russian-armed peasant army,

numbering at least 70,000, wars proudly paraded in Addis Ababa.

If the Ogaden Somalis were to recover their independence there

was clearly not much time left.” (Lewis 1988: 233)

Late alliance realignments drove the Somalis to act out of fears of predation.

The Soviet Union came to believe that the Ethiopian government truly expressed

Marxist ideals. Most historians seem to agree with this view, “the Derg has

passed into history – not without reason – as one of the most doctrinaire Marxist

regimes that has appeared in the twentieth century.” (Bahru 2001: 243) On

November 13, 1977 a final rupture was made between the Soviets and Somalia.

Lewis notes,

“all naval, air and ground military facilities – including the

important communications and submarine missile handling station

at Berbera – were withdrawn, the Somali-Soviet treaty of

friendship (whose terms Russia had violated by supplying arms to

Ethiopia) was renounced, and 6,000 military and civilian

personnel and their families given a week to leave the country.”

(Lewis 1988: 235)

Somalia had already lined up support from Saudi Arabia and hoped for a

quick conflict with Ethiopia instead of an armed engagement with Ethiopia, Cuba,

and the Soviet Union at the same time. It is also to be noted that Ethiopia and

Kenya were allied together against Somalia. They had an active mutual defence

pact aimed at Somalian aggression and together issued a joint statement

condemning Somalian aggression on September 7, 1977 (Lewis 1988: 234).

Kenya had its own long standing rivalry with Somalia and allowed Ethiopia to

receive arms shipments through Kenyan territory and denied Somalia access to

airspace.

Formally (Gibler and Sarkees 2002), there are alliances between Somalia

and the Arab League in which Somali officially joined in 1974 (alliance #3120 and

3523). Ethiopia and Kenya had an on-going alliance from 1963 (alliance #3550).

Ethiopia also officially signed an alliance with the Soviet Union on November 11,

1978 (#3583), but it has been noted that defence agreements were officially signed

prior to the war in 1977. The 1977 agreements were signed prior to the war to

support the Ethiopians, but a formal “20 year friendship” was ratified in 1978

(#3583).

Overall, the constellation of alliances and alignments that Mengistu was able

to gather together resulted in his victory and domination of the region for years to

come. Lewis notes this “unholy alliance” as a key to victory,

“Perhaps marriage is too strong a term for the curious melange of

Russian (and other East European), Cuban, South Yemeni, Israeli

and Libyan support which enabled Mengistu to re-impose

Ethiopian rule in the Ogaden.” (Lewis 1988: 241)

2.9 MILITARY BUILDUPS

There was a clear military arms race in the region. Somalia was acquiring

weapons quickly from Egypt, China and the Soviet Union. This led to an increase

in weapons acquisitions from Ethiopia. The New York Times noted the races at

the time, “in East Africa, at least two major arms races appear to be

underway…and the other between Ethiopia and Somalia.” (Kandell, 1977) Under

the context of a rivalry and later instability in Ethiopia, the region was ripe for war

in the late 1970’s. Sample lists arms races as being in effect for the years of 1975

and 1978 (Sample 2002). There were no arms races during the disputes in the

years of 1973 and 1977. Laitin and Samatar and also note, “In 1964 the average

military expenditure as a percentage of GNP in Africa was 2.4; in Somalia it was

3.4.” (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 138) Gibler, Rider and Hutchinson find an arms

race between Somalia and Ethiopia from 1972 to 1974 (Gibler, Rider et al. 2005).

Ethiopia also has an arms race with Sudan from 1973 to 1975. Kenya and Somalia

have an arms race from 1977 to 1979 (Gibler, Rider et al. 2005). Correlates of

War National Military Expenditure data (updated to 2000) shows a steady increase

in military expenditures for each state (Singer 1987). Somalia goes from spending

16 million in 1973 to 21.4 million in 74, 23 million in 75, 26.2 million in 76, and

31.7 million in 1977. Ethiopia jumps from spending 48.5 million in 1973 to

spending 74.8 million in 1974 and 125 million in 1975. Ethiopian expenditures

hold steady after that point.

Somalia broke off diplomatic ties with Britain in 1963 and thereafter lost out

on 1.3 million pounds a year in development aid (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 138).

The country briefly supported economic integration of the North African region

but these plans were harmed by Somali irredentialism. In 1974, Somalia joined the

Arab League and was able to illicit resources and military supplies from its new

Arab allies (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 139). The Soviets, based on the 1974 treaty,

provided 250 T-35 and T-54 tanks, 50 MiG fighters, and as many as 3,600 Soviet

advisors (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 140). The region was highly militarized which

then raised tensions within the dyad.

Somalia was outnumbered by Ethiopian military forces, yet they were able

to take an immediate upper hand in the rivalry due to the initial patronage of the

Soviet Union. Somalia had a tank force three times larger than that of Ethiopia and

also had a larger air force. It is reported that the Somalis had about 250 Soviet

tanks and 52 fighter aircraft, about half of which were Soviet advanced MiGs

(Security 2006). The Ethiopians were also acquiring advanced F-5s from Iran.

When the Soviets switched sides to support Ethiopia during the conflict, the

initiative had been lost and Somalia was not able to refit or repair its hardware.

Somalia continued to receive aid from the Soviet’s rival, China. During this time,

North Korea and Yemen supported Ethiopia. An air bridge between Ethiopia and

the Soviet Union resulted in the immediate delivery of equipment and troops

during the early stages of the conflict, which allowed the Ethiopians to

counterattack and eventually regain their territory (Lewis 1988: 234).

“From May 1977 through March 1978, by land and sea, the Soviet

Union supplied about $1.5 billion in military equipment to

Ethiopia. This represented more than seven times the military aid

that the Soviets had supplied to Somalia during the previous three

years.” (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 142)

Certainly arguments regarding power transitions come into the equation in

the debate as to the causes of the war (Kugler and Lemke 1996), yet it seems that

all the steps to war were in operation.

It has never been asserted that the causes attributed to the Steps to War

research program are exclusive of the Power Transition program and it seems that

regional issues of a transition of power were in operation during this conflict and

the others under investigation (Lemke 2002). Acceptance of OAU norms on

territorial boundaries is clearly dependent on the power of the revisionist actors

and their dissatisfaction with the status quo, but this process starts with the steps of

territorial claims, rivalry, arms races, alliances, and hardliners coming into the

equation first.

2.10 REPEATED DISPUTES

There was a clear rivalry between Ethiopia and Somalia. This rivalry was

“born at independence” when Somalia became independent in 1960 (Goertz and

Diehl 1995). This lead to an immediate conflict posture based on Somalian claims

to the Ogaden territory.Bennett suggests that the rivalry lasted from 1960 until

1992 since no formal settlement had been reached by that time (Bennett 1998).

Diehl and Goertz (Diehl and Goertz 2000) find an enduring rivalry that lasted from

1960 until 1985 with 18 militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). Nine of these

MIDs occurred before the 1977 war. Thompson codes a strategic rivalry from

1960 until 1988 (Thompson 2001). The general point here is that every major

rivalry dataset codes Ethiopia - Somalia as a serious and deadly rivalry.

The first militarized dispute was recorded in 1960 over movements of

Somali tribesman across the border. There were brief “border wars” in 1961,

1963 and 1964 (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 136). The New York Times reports,

“Somalia and Ethiopia accused each other of aggression in the

border conflict, which has produced hundreds of casualties in

armed clashes between troops of the two countries since last

Friday.”

The Organization for African Unity reaffirmed established borders in

Ethiopia’s favour (Bahru 2001: 182). The on-going rivalry and inability to settle

border claims (at least in Somalia’s favour) made the rivalry persist at least until

the 1980’s.

2.11 HARDLINERS

The main hardliner in this case appears to be Siad Barre. The leader of

Somalia was using internal discord in Ethiopia as an opportunity to attack and

claim a territory he felt was part of Somalia. He rose to power in 1969 after a coup

and maintained a dictatorship for the length of his rule. The rule of Barre was one

of traditional monopoly on violence internally and the use of external threats to

impose consolidation and order at home. Yet, Barre’s support for the Ogaden was

also personal.

“Not only was the Ogaden area more central to the Somali

economy and society, but it also was crucial to the legitimacy of

Siyadd’s regime. Siyadd’s mother was from the Ogaadeen clan,

and the Ogaadeen people played a central role in the president’s

tribal coalition.” (Laitin and Samatar 1987: 140)

Mengistu of Ethiopia seems to be an accomodationist during this conflict.

He only came to power in February 1977 and spent much of the time prior to the

invasion cracking down on domestic opposition. This is that not to say that

Mengistu was a pacifist. His rule and time with the Derg was filled with blood and

violence. Mengistu was not ready for war in 1977 and did not seek to press the

issue against the Somalis. In fact, he may have been willing to support Ethiopian

devolution of territories (Lewis 1988: 233). Notes from a diplomatic meeting

between Cuba, Ethiopia, and Somalia in March 1977 illustrate the point that

Mengistu was not seeking to push this conflict into a war. This (settlement) proved

impossible to attain, because Siad Barre unequivocally rejected all of the

suggestions presented at the meeting. While the meeting did not lead to an

agreement, nevertheless Siad Barre promised not to attack Ethiopia.

The impressive diplomacy that the Cubans asserted seems to prove that

Somalia had been the aggressor all along and they never considered negotiating

while their power appeared to be on the assent. It also seemed highly unlikely to

Barre that Ethiopia would gain the military support of Cuba and the Soviet Union

so quickly. Yet, to dismiss the wishes of the Soviet Union and Cuba in this

conflict seems foolhardy. Barre was likely blinded into action by his massive

military build-up and the internal weakness of Ethiopia at the time.

The territorial claim on the Ogaden region was present at Somalian

independence in 1960. This issue sparked the beginnings of the rivalry between

the two states. Ethiopia was allied to the United States from 1953 to 1977.

Ethiopia also seems to have acquired an alliance with Kenya in 1963 as an early

response to the territorial issue and emerging rivalry with Somalia. In 1974

Somalia joins the Arab League to develop its own alliance ties and counter

Ethiopian predation. Arms races are observed in 1972, 1974, and 1975 in response

to these developing alliance ties and the repeated disputes festering between the

two states. There is a clear causal chain of events that show first a territorial claim,

then alliance developments, rivalry then emerges and the response at this point is

to build-up the military power of each state. With these four variables in operation

and being cumulative, the raise of any strong hardliner coupled with insecurity led

to the war in 1977.

Table 1 clearly shows the timing of each important variable in this analysis.

Ethiopian-Somalian War (1977-

1978)

Start date 07/23/77 Somalia invades Ogaden region

Main Issue Territory- Ogaden region

Notes (Secondary Issues) Ethnic Somalis under Ethiopian rule

MID Issue Territory

Alliances 1953-5/1977 Mutual Defense treaty between U.S. and Ethiopia

1977 (May) Agreements between Soviet Union and Ethiopian

1963 Kenya and Ethiopian

1974 Somalia joins the Arab League

Arms Races 1972 1974 1975

Rivalry 1960-1985 (Enduring)

Domestic Actors Ethiopia Mengistu Accomodationist

Somalia SiadBarre Hardliner

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CHAPTER THREE

3.0 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF SOMALIA AND THE HORN OF

AFRICA

It was the contours of Somalia’s coastline on the Indian Ocean and the Gulf

of Aden that gave birth to the geographical term, ‘the Horn of Africa’. However, in

due course the term acquired a distinct political flavour too. According to

Woodward, its legitimacy as a geopolitical term is largely because:

“[…] there seems to be a history of common problems in the

region: disputes over borders both between states and within them;

widespread and prolonged civil war threatening not only

governments but the survival of states themselves; economic

regression that appears to owe something at least to domestic

policy failure, as well as the vagaries of the world economy and

environmental decay; in addition to the famines that seemed to

grow in scale and regularity” (Woodward, 2003).

However, such commonalities should not obscure the fact that the region is

also marked by powerful (but not immutable) cleavages – to name just a few, those

between Islam and Christianity, those between clans, ethnic groups, states and

competing ideologies, those between pastoralists and agriculturalists, not to

mention a cleavage that is too often overlooked by analysts – that of class.

Cleavages such as these have been deployed, sometimes singly, sometimes in

combination, to explain the root causes of conflict in the Horn of Africa. Each

cleavage has a significant impact on the viability and legitimacy of the ‘failed’,

‘emergent’ or more established states that together make up the region.

The geopolitical term first came to be used widely during the Cold War,

when influence over the region was contested (through local proxies) by the United

States (US) and the Soviet Union. In terms of state formations, at the core of the

region were Somalia and Ethiopia, but as their fates became intertwined, Sudan

also came to be included. Finally, Djibouti was included as part of the region

(when observers remembered that it existed). The end of the Cold War contributed

to a reconfiguration of the region, as Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia

and Somalia collapsed as a state, leading in time to the emergence of two

additional Somali polities, Somaliland and Puntland.

This chapter of this research looks at recent developments in the states and

polities of the Horn of Africa. It also provides some brief background and history

for each as a foundation on which to build a better understanding of the distinct but

overlapping crises that currently affect the region. This chapter will also discuss a

number of overarching themes that have often been deployed by analysts and

policy-makers seeking to identify the ‘root causes’ of conflict in the Horn. In

doing so, the explanatory power and value of these overarching themes is

reviewed.

3.1 SOMALIA

Somalia was one of three separate European colonies to be established in the

Somali lands of the Horn of Africa in the late 19th century in the context of the

‘Scramble for Africa’. Along with Eritrea, the southern Somali lands came under

Italian control. Other Somali lands fell under British and French control. Ethiopia

also incorporated Somalis into its westernmost region as part of the carve-up, while

a substantial number of Somalis to the far south found themselves under British

rule in Kenya. The population of Somalia today is roughly estimated at 7-8

million; it is over 20 years since the last official census (European Regional Survey

for Africa, 2006).

3.2 THE COLONIAL PERIOD: 1880s-1960

In relation to modern statehood the beginnings of Somali history can be

traced to 1839-40 when the British occupied the post of Aden on the Southern tip

of what is now Yemen in order to secure a base for contact with India. The base at

Aden grew and soon demanded more supplies of foodstuffs than could be supplied

by the meagre hinterland of Aden. Therefore British attention soon turned to the

northern Somali coast and established trade links with pastoralists in order to

secure a supply of cattle and sheep. In 1884 the Anglo-Somali relations were

formalized in a series of treaties with the clans of the area, in effect establishing

Somaliland as a British protectorate (ICG, 2003:2).Somaliland was inhabited by

three major clans: the Isaaq 66 %, the Darod 19 per cent% and the Dir 15 per

cent% (ICG, 2003:2).

In the 1890s the Italians established a presence in Southern Somalia and in

1893 a formal colony. In the south, they came into contact with agricultural

communities and highly advanced urban communities as well as pastoralist

communities (Kassim, 1995:29-43).

Earlier the British had been joined by the French who had established a base

to the north of the British protectorate in what is now Djibouti. Somali clans in the

west were brought under Ethiopian rule as emperor Menelik established suzerainty

over the Ogaden region in what is now eastern Ethiopia. The southernmost of the

Somali were over time incorporated into the British colony of Kenya (Lyons

&Samatar, 1995; 11).

No unified Somali political entity existed prior to the colonial period and it

is from the late 19th century that traditions of state structures in the different parts

of what is now the legal entity of Somalia began to deviate from each other. In

Somaliland, the British ruled with as little engagement as possible preferring

‘indirect rule’ to deeper engagement. The Dervish revolt of 1899 required a

substantial military effort to quell led to slightly greater British engagement in

Somaliland. Still the system of ‘indirect rule’ continued. In effect, this meant that

the British preferred to rule through local clan chiefs and their system of authority,

which was left largely intact, rather than to introduce a more developed colonial

administration. It was perhaps of consequence to later developments in Somaliland

that the revolt of 1899 divided rather than united the clans of protectorate. The

Isaaq sided with the British, while the two Darod sub-clans, the Dhulbahante and

the Warsengeli, joined the rebellion (ICG, 2003: 3).

Apart from creating a historical precedent for much later conflict, the

rebellion in 1899 may have contributed to creating greater clan cohesion in the

north-west, particularly among the Isaaq. Italian Somalia and British Somaliland

were both drawn into World War II as Italian forces briefly occupied Somaliland

before being driven back by the British who instead placed Somalia under military

administration.

In 1950, Somalia was returned to Italian trusteeship under a United Nations

resolution that determined that the country would be granted independence in

1960. Originally, the British had no such plans but Somali pressure for

independence (as well as developments elsewhere in Africa) led to a change of

plans and Somaliland was set on the course to independence. In 1957 the Somali

Legislative Council was created and reconstituted in 1959 to include twelve elected

representative. In 1960 an executive branch was formed and elections held.

Independence was formally granted on 25 June 1960 after the Somaliland Council

of Elders had given their approval the previous month. For Somali nationalists this

was an important first step towards creating a single Somali state that would

ultimately encompass all Somalis in Ethiopia, French Somaliland and northern

Kenya. Dreams of a ‘Greater Somalia’ were crucial in sustaining the fragile

civilian-led cross-clan coalitions that governed Somalia for the first decade after

independence. The new government supported insurgencies in each of these areas.

However, tensions between and within different clan families were present from

the birth of the new state and grew in intensity as expansionist dreams ran aground.

3.3 THE REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA: 1960-1991

3.3.1 INDEPENDENCE 1960

On 1 July 1960, the Somalia, the territory entrusted to Italy, was granted

independence and five days later the two entities merged into the republic of

Somalia through an Act of Union. Relations between the north-west (Somaliland)

and the rest of the country were highly unequal in the Somali republic. Political

institutions, such as the National Assembly, were dominated by Southerners who

also held the posts of Prime Minister and President as well as other senior

ministerial positions. Even more problematic was the South’s dominance of the

officer corps of the national army (Lyons &Samatar, 1995: 12).

The economy of the Republic of Somali also became dominated by the

South, impoverishing the North and further fuelling discontent with the Union.

Inequalities in the top tier of the government were addressed somewhat by the

appointment of Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, the leader of Somaliland’s

independence movement, to the position of Prime Minister in 1967.

Throughout the era of the Republic, the North and the South remained quite

distinct and popular support of the merger of the two colonies in a single state

quickly waned. Internally, Somalia quickly developed the traits of a ‘predatory

state’ in which membership in the state regime provided a rapid and efficient

means of enrichment, either on a personal or a clan base (Buzan&Waever, 2004:

229).

3.3.2 SOMALIA’S JOURNEY TOWARDS DEMOCRATIZATION

The aptitude of Somalia’s regime in securing foreign aid might have been a

contributing factor. Despite the corruption, factionalism and clientilism that

dominated politics, Somalia remained a formal democracy until 1969. The largest

party emerging out of the 1964 elections was the Somali Youth League (SYL),

originally with 69 out of 123 seats -later to be expanded to 92 as other deputies

joined the SYL to share the spoils.

In the 1969 election, more than 60 parties appeared. To defend its hold on

power, the SYL used funds from the national treasury and employed the National

Police Force in order to secure its victory (Lyons & Samatar, 1995: 13).

The existence of formal parties should not obscure the fact that the candidates

mainly sought to further clan interests. In most cases, clans had supplied the

financial means necessary to campaign and expected returns of their investments.

Appealing to clan loyalties was initially a means used by the candidates in

parliamentary elections to optimizing their chances of winning. It is significant that

even at the starting-point of Somalia’s existence as a modern state the clan

structure was not only affirmed by modern political structures but actually

reinforced. The SYL won a majority in the election but within a few days almost

all other parliamentarians had joined the party in order to be in a better position to

secure funds.

In 1969 Somalia was thus a one-party state but with little party discipline

since the SYL was a means for individuals to plunder the state. Behind the

parliamentarians, stood the clans, which were becoming increasingly powerful and

increasingly salient as vehicles of identification and collective action. Not for the

last time in its history, Somalia was an entity characterized by many layers of

different organizing principles that it would be difficult for outsiders to choose

between in understanding its politics.

3.3.3 SIAD BARRE ERA AND THE BIRTH OF ETHIOPIAN RIVALRY

The predatory one-party state of the SYL did not even last a year. In

October 1969, a group of military leaders calling itself the Supreme Revolutionary

Council (SRC) led by Major-General Siad Barré had staged a coup d’état

following the assassination of the President. The SRC embarked on a rapid process

of modernization of the country, adopting ‘scientific socialism’ in 1970 as its

guiding principle and aligning Somalia with the Soviet bloc. Modernization in this

sense entails creating a system of education, including a script for the national

language, infrastructure –including sanitation-, organizing a traditional

subsistence/merchant economy into a national economy linked to public finances.

Ostensibly promoting national unity by promoting a pan-Somali ideology, Siad

Barré’s reign was itself heavily clannish in character, resting on the support of the

Marehan, Dhulbahante and Ogaden clans (belonging to the Darod clan-family).

The regime manipulated and strengthened clan rivalries in order to undercut

the possibility of opposition. Thereby, the clan structure was strengthened by the

one-party dictatorship just as it had been by the flawed experiment with liberal

democracy.

The ideology of ‘Pan-Somalism’, whose express goal was to bring all

people of Somali descent into a single national state, naturally had severe

international repercussions. A significant number of Somalis, belonging to the

Darod clan- family, lived in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia. Somali

nationalism and irredentist ideology were important tools in holding clan rivalries

in check (Meredith, 2005: 466).

International developments were also to become important for Somalia. In

1974 a coup d’état had taken place in Ethiopia, whereby the ailing emperor Haile

Salassie had been ousted from power by Colonel Mengistu. The country had been

cast in considerable disarray during the last years of the emperor’s reign, with

famine, civil strife and rampant mismanagement. The situation was hardly

improved after the downfall of the old regime. Mengistu soon turned to

revolutionary socialism, nationalizing banks, companies and all rural land

(Meredith, 2005: 244).

This move endeared him the Soviet Union and even more so to Cuba, who

began to support the regime and prefer Ethiopia to its former client, Somalia.

Representatives of the old establishment soon rose in revolt all over the country.

The most serious challenge to the revolution was territorially based, however, as

the Eritreans and the Tigray province intensified their struggles for independence.

Somalia supported the Oromo Liberation Front in the South of Ethiopia and began

to infiltrate the region and supply the insurgents with weapons.

In mid-1977, the Ethiopian army had lost control over the countryside in

Eritrea; a programme of ‘red terror’ had been unleashed by Mengistu all over

Ethiopia which contributed to the chaos and dissolution. Seeing this state of

weakness in its neighbor Siad Barré decided that it was time to act and declared

war. Somali forces were initially successful, capturing most of Ogaden in two

months. In November of 1977, Mengistu’s and Barré’s erstwhile backer, the Soviet

Union intervened on the former’s behalf. A massive air- and sealift brought

hundreds of armour, aircraft and artillery to Ethiopia. Together with a contingent

of 17,000 Cuban soldiers, they provided sufficient support for Ethiopia to

decisively defeat Somalia in 1978 (Meredith, 2005: 247).

The military disaster led to serious political repercussions within Somalia.

Two major rebel groups emerged in 1978. Immediately after the Ogaden war, a

group of army colonels belonging to the Majerteen clan (Darod clan family) staged

a coup attempt that quickly failed. In response the regime launched communal

reprisals against all members of the clan, with killings and the destruction of wells

and livestock –the lifeblood of a pastoralist community–. Out of this campaign of

clan repression the Somali Democratic Salvation Front (SSDF) was formed.

Originally it encompassed several clans, but soon developed into an exclusively

Majerteen movement. One of its leaders was Colonel Addullahi Yussuf who had

participated in the failed coup.

In the north-west the Somali National Movement (SNM), based on the Isaaq

clan group in former British Somaliland emerged in 1981 (Meredith, 2005: 467).

The origins of the SNM lay in the conflicts that ensued when members of the

Ogaden clan (Darod clan- family) who were supportive of Siad Barré fled from

Ethiopia and resettled in the north. The Barré regime was openly supportive of the

quarter of a million refugees and discriminatory against the ‘native’ Isaaq. Not

only were the refugees given preferential access to social services and international

aid but also arms that were often put to use against Isaaq civilians (ICG, 2003: 5).

Together with the failing economy and the loss of regime legitimacy after

the defeat in the Ogaden war the renewed discrimination awoke grievances from

the 1960s over regional inequality within Somalia. Both SSDF and SNM were

supported by and operated out of Ethiopia. The major groups the Majerteen clan

and Isaaq clan-family that had been fighting the Barré regime in the 1980s (as

SSDF and SNM) and also suffered heavily at the hands of the regime were

subsequently those that were most successful in forming territorial entities in the

1990s, Puntland and Somaliland, respectively. Furthermore, in the north-western

and north-eastern parts of the country no external interventions took place after

1991.

3.3.4 SIAD BARRE RADICAL TRANSFORMATION AND THE BIRTH

OF CLAN INSURGENCY

In the 1980s, Siad Barré had become a protégé of the West, in particular of

the United States and Italy who made provided large amounts of money in foreign

aid, military and otherwise. By 1988 the country as well as the regime had become

dependent on foreign aid for its survival (Meredith, 2005: 468).

Military aid was a particular necessity as civil war raged against both the

SSDF and the SNM. In 1988, the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia and the Barré

regime in Somalia realised that they had something in common: the need to combat

insurgencies within their respective countries efficiently. Consequently, they

signed an accord in which they pledged non-aggression and the end of support to

insurgents in the neighbouring country. The accord led to intensified fighting in the

north of Somalia as SNM forces rapidly advanced to take control over most of the

countryside in the area inhabited by members of the Isaaq clan-family. The regime

answered with unrestricted aerial and artillery bombardment of Hargeysa and

employing loyal Ogadeni militias to attach the civilian Isaaq population.

In 1989, Western economic aid ceased as the Cold War was coming to an

end. In the South new armed challenges to the Barré regime arose in the form of

Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) and the United Somali Congress (USC), which

was based on the Hawiye clan group. The USC had been formed as an answer to

communal punishments of Hawiye civilians by the Barré regime. The tendency of

organizing violent resistance on the basis on clans and clan-groups was rein-

forced by the regime’s increasing tendency to base support and membership of the

army on membership of the Marehan clan (Darod clan-family) (Lyons &Samatar,

1995: 19).

Thus, the practice of viewing politics in a clan-perspective is an interactive

process between different groups analogous to an arm-race. From the view-point of

trying to create a society corresponding to national borders, this was and still is

extremely problematic since it undermines trust in the common polity. The

problem is that while recourse to the clan can be interpreted as a response to the

lack of trust in common institutions and identities, each such recourse undermines

the possibility of building societal trust (Giddens, 1984).

Meanwhile, popular protests erupted in Mogadishu, which met with harsh

reactions from the regime. A central feature of the regime’s response was

collective punishment of communities who were seen as the supporters of

oppositional movements. During 1990, Somalia’s central institutions deteriorated

rapidly. The army split into several factions based on different clans. SiadBarré

finally fled Mogadishu in January 1991 supported only by a small group of loyal

fighters from the Marehan clan (Darod clan-family) (Lyons &Samatar, 1995: 21).

The SSDF gained control over the north-east, the traditional homeland of

the Majarteen clan. From 1991 onwards, the trajectories of the different regions

began to diverge. In the south fighting reigned between the forces of SiadBarré and

the USC, under the leadership of General Muhammed Farah ‘Aideed’. The USC

soon split in two different Hawiye factions, each based on a different clan: The

Habar Gibir under Aideed and the Abgal under Ali Mahdi Mohammed. During

1991 Mogadishu was divided between the two groups who fought each other

ferociously, leaving the city in ruins. To make matters worse, SiyadBarré’s troops

were still active to the south of Mogadishu, were they fought with Aideed’s forces

for control over Somalia’s most fertile lands between the Jubba and Shebelle

rivers. Caught in the middle were neutral clans who had neither armed nor

organized themselves, the Rewein groups.

Attempting to build the polity on the clan system may have been a

contributing factor to the fact that already by the mid-1980s Somalia fitted the

label of a failed state (Menkhaus, 2006: 80). Strategies of divide and rule may be

effective in order to vanquish potential and actual rivals during a limited period,

but it provides self-destructive in the long run since it creates very uncertain

conditions for governance.

3.4 COLLAPSE OF CENTRAL GOVERNMENT, CIVIL WAR AND UN

INTERVENTION 1991-1995

A focus on the major actors in the struggle for Somalia runs the risk giving

the impression of a more orderly situation than in fact was the case in Somalia. A

major part of the problem in 1991 and still today is the rampant banditry in many

parts of the country. One little-reported dimension of conflict was the rural-urban

divide which exploded into violence in the early 1990s as militiamen from

marginalized pastoralist backgrounds took revenge on the townspeople that they

perceived as their oppressors (Brons, 2001: 223).

Another is the violence that took place along community lines between

marginalized minority groups (e.g. former slave populations of Bantu descent, but

now assimilated into the clan structure) and more powerful majority clans in the

South (Webersik, 2004).

Plunder and pillage became the principal sources of income, transforming

the country into a war economy. The situation in the country was made more

chaotic and devastating because of the famine, mostly human-induced, that swept

the country in 1992 (Quaranto, 2008: 21).

The grave humanitarian situation in the country brought it into the

international spotlight of the post-Cold War era. Already in 1990 all UN officials

had evacuated Somalia and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

was the only major aid organization still at work in Somalia (Meredith, 2005: 471-

472).

In 1992 a ceasefire between Aideed and Mahdi provided the possibility for

the UN to re-enter the country. In April 1992 the UN Security Council established

the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). The first emissary to arrive

was Mohamed Sahnoun who soon won the respect of the Somali actors he met

with. Sahnoun strove to use the clan system and to increase intra-clan cohesion and

inter-clan reconciliation. However, the UN mission was plagued by inefficiency

and Sahnoun’s complaints about the lack of funding, staffing and organization led

to his dismissal by the UN Secretary-General Boutrous-Ghali.

By mid-1992 an Islamic political group had also emerged, the al-Ittihad al-

Islam, which represented the birth of organized radical Islamic politics in the

country. With the humanitarian situation deteriorating rapidly, the UN imposed

an arms embargo on Somalia and sent in a small peace-keeping force in September

1992, but it struggled to win the stable consent of the main factions. The UN’s

humanitarian work was also widely criticized as too slow.

3.4.1 THE BIRTH OF UNISOM AND THE RISE OF SOMALI

NATIONAL ALLIANCE

In June 1993, what was by then known as the UN Operation in Somalia

(UNOSOM) was mandated by the Security Council to engage in peace

enforcement, including the disarmament of the factions, without their consent if

necessary. Within a few months, a 30,000 strong force (at full strength), which had

heavy American representation, was engaged in major clashes with Aidid’s forces,

whose capture it now sought. Critics accused UNOSOM, as well as Aidid, of

responsibility for widespread human rights abuses against civilians in the capital.

In late 1993, after suffering a series of reversals, the UN changed policy in

favour of withdrawing most of its troops and encouraging negotiations between the

warring Somali factions, including Aidid. During 1994 these efforts came to

nothing. With violence continuing, UNOSOM withdrew the rest of its troops from

Mogadishu in March 1995 with US support, once again leaving Somalia to its own

devices. Arguments that the withdrawal of foreign troops would concentrate the

minds of the Somali factions proved over-optimistic. When in June 1995 Aidid

was elected ‘President of Somalia’ by a conference of his supporters, now known

as the Somali National Alliance (SNA), other factions immediately rejected his

authority.

Sporadic fighting continued into 1996 and in August Aidid died as a result

of injuries incurred in a skirmish. However, his death had little effect on the

situation. His mantle was taken on by his son, Hussein Mohammed Aidid. With no

progress being made towards resolving the wider differences between the SNA and

its many enemies, attention turned in some parts of the country towards local

efforts to end violence. One such initiative led to the establishment in 1998 of an

autonomous government in Puntland region.

3.4.2 THE EMERGENCE OF TRANSITIONAL NATIONAL

GOVERNMENT AND THE RISE OF FACTIONALISM

However, unlike the Republic of Somaliland, it did not seek international

recognition as a sovereign state. From 1996 the Intergovernmental Authority on

Development (IGAD), the main intergovernmental organization in the region, with

UN backing, became involved in efforts to mediate between the factions. In 1998

IGAD proposed holding a national peace conference. Similarly named initiatives

had been tried on many occasions before and failed, but this one gathered some

momentum and eventually a conference took place in May 2000 in Djibouti. There

was an effort to ensure that as many parts of Somali society as possible were

present, although it was only partially successful. Neither Somaliland not Puntland

sent representatives. The conference agreed that Somalia would adopt a federal

system and set up a Transitional National Assembly (TNA) with a view to

eventually establishing a Transitional National Government (TNG).

In August 2000, the new TNA elected Abdulkasim Salad Hasan, a Hawiye,

as the President of Somalia. He appointed a TNG in October. However, it quickly

became clear that the TNG lacked legitimacy and support. It had little presence in

Mogadishu. The SNA rejected its claims.

Opponents simply saw the TNG as the ‘UN faction’ and moved to set up an

alternative ‘national government’ by forming the Somali Reconciliation and

Restoration Council (SRRC). By late 2001 what support the TNG had garnered

was beginning to hemorrhage away. IGAD-led attempts to reconcile the TNG and

the SRRC failed. In March 2002 a new ‘State of South-western Somalia’ was

announced by opponents of the TNG. Although this meant little in practice,

Somalia’s fractures appeared to be deepening rather than closing. With the TNG’s

original mandate approaching expiry, IGAD decided that there was no alternative

but to return virtually to the starting-blocks by convening a new peace and

reconciliation conference. It met for the first time in Eldoret, Kenya, in October

2002.

Its first positive outcome was the signing of a ceasefire between the TNG

and five Mogadishu-based factions in December. The TNG remained extremely

suspicious of the process but could not escape the fact that its mandate ended in

August 2003. The effectiveness of IGAD’s mediation was hampered by the rival

agendas of key member states. Nonetheless, after numerous false starts, a relatively

wide range of factions agreed to the establishment of a Transitional Federal

Charter in January 2004 in Nairobi.

It was also agreed that a new Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP) would

be created, comprising 275 members, 12 per cent of whom were to be women. The

country’s major clan families would receive 61 seats each, with a coalition of

smaller clans receiving 31 seats. The TFP would then elect a President, who would

appoint a Prime Minister mandated to appoint a Transitional Federal Government

(TFG) and prepare for elections in 2009, after which a new Constitution would be

negotiated. The TFP met for the first time in September 2004. In October it

elected Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a Darod and President of Puntland, as

President of Somalia. In November he appointed Ali Mohammed Ghedi, a Hawiye,

as Prime Minister. Both were known to be close to Ethiopia. The TFG was

appointed in the following month. The key test was whether the new TFG would

have more success than its predecessor in persuading the Somali factions outside it

to co-operate. Unfortunately, despite widespread international support, it proved

nearly as ineffectual and divided on this count as the TNG.

A major split quickly emerged between President Yusuf Ahmed and what

became known as the ‘Mogadishu group’, which was considerably less hostile than

he was to the rising Islamist influence in the capital. As a consequence, the TFG

proved unable to exert much influence over the warlords that had dominated

Mogadishu since the collapse of the authoritarian regime of Siad Barre in 1991.

They carried on largely unimpeded until early 2006 when they were successfully

challenged by an entirely different and, as far as President Yusuf Ahmed was

concerned, antithetical political force, the Council of Somali Islamic Courts

(CSIC).

3.4.3 THE RISE OF RADICAL ISLAM AND ISLAMISTS’ POWER

However, the Islamists militarily defeated the Alliance in June 2006 and

then established the CSIC. It subsequently increased the area under its control and

brought a degree of order to Somalia not seen since 1991. The CSIC did gain

considerable popularity among Somalis in those areas it controlled, although some

of its restrictive social measures were resented. The US was highly suspicious of

the CSIC but was initially prepared to accept that it had an important role to play in

rebuilding Somalia. Neighbors’ such as Ethiopia and Kenya, both strong

supporters of the TFG, took a similar position but also expressed concerns, not

least when CSIC leaders called for a ‘Greater Somalia’.

The border between Ethiopia and Somalia remains a provisional boundary

rather than an agreed international border. The CSIC was also reported to be

supporting Ethiopian rebel groups. It received military support from a number of

Muslim countries and was backed by Ethiopia’s main regional opponent following

their 1998-2000 border war – Eritrea.

Enmity between the TFG and the CSIC also had a clan dimension, with the

TFG viewed as having a strong Darod identity. The CSIC, although not primarily a

clan-based movement, nonetheless brought many clan elders under its umbrella as

it consolidated its power. Its opponents accused it of having a pronounced Hawiye

character (Marchal, 2007).

Matters came to a head between the CSIC and the TFG in December 2006.

CSIC militias advanced to within a short distance of the town of Baidoa, where the

TFG was based. Despite initial denials that it was doing so, Ethiopia moved a

number of combat troops to Baidoa in support of the TFG.

3.4.4 UN RESOLUTION 1725

On 6 December 2006 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1725 on

Somalia. Resolution 1725, whose lead sponsor was the US, is a Chapter VII

resolution under the UN Charter. It authorised IGAD and member states of the

African Union (AU) to establish a “protection and training mission” in Somalia.

Known as the Peacekeeping Mission of IGAD in Somalia (IGASOM), its

protection mandate extended to the “members of the Transitional Federal

Institutions and Government as well as their key infrastructure.” It was expected to

be about 8,000 strong. It was also agreed that states bordering Somalia should not

deploy troops in the country.

IGAD was divided, with Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan reportedly unhappy

about the terms of the Resolution. By contrast, the TFG and its regional allies

warmly welcomed the Resolution. Despite much bellicose talk by the rival

groups, there were also some peace efforts. Representatives of the TFG and CSIC

met twice for peace talks in Khartoum, facilitated by the Arab League, after the

CSIC took Mogadishu. On 22 June 2006 the two sides agreed what is known as the

Khartoum Declaration. Significant as this sounded; in fact it amounted to little

more than an agreement to refrain from violence, recognize each other and to meet

again. At a further meeting in September, the two sides did little more than

reiterate these principles. A few days before Resolution 1725 was approved, the

CSIC agreed a communiqué in Djibouti with IGAD (or, at least a faction within it)

in which it promised to respect the territorial integrity of Somalia’s neighbors and

cease support to insurgent groups. It also condemned terrorism. There were those

who were relatively optimistic that talks could eventually bear fruit.

3.5 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN SOMALIA

The CSIC effectively disbanded itself on 27 December 2006, handing back

political leadership to the clan leaders that it had allied itself with as it consolidated

its power earlier in the year. However, military elements within it, such as the

militants of al Shabaab (the Youth), remained largely intact and threatened a long

guerrilla war. They formed alliances with a number of clan interests, including

Hawiye opponents of the TFG, who took on the mantle of Somali nationalism.

There were credible reports from UN officials of continuing Eritrean support for

these elements. Ethiopian and TFG forces, with US logistical (and, on occasions,

direct military) support, pursued some of these elements south towards the Kenyan

border and had considerable success in eliminating them. In February the UN

Security Council further relaxed the arms embargo against Somalia to allow for

military support to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and for the

TFG’S security sector institutions (UN Security Council Resolution 1744, 2007).

3.5.1 THE DECLINE OF TFG AND THE BIRTH OF AMISOM

There was a lull in the violence in Mogadishu after its fall, but from March

2007 onwards the level of attacks against Ethiopian and TFG forces began to rise,

stoked by the TFG’s unpopularity in the capital and considerable anti-Ethiopian

feeling among the population. While the TFG moved to Mogadishu soon after its

victory as a way of showing that it intended to turn itself into a genuinely national

government, it was unable to establish full control. Efforts to promote disarmament

made little progress. It was forced to promote the establishment of vigilante groups

to supplement its efforts to gain control. These became a particular target of attacks

by TFG opponents in Mogadishu.

Ethiopia, conscious of the ill-feeling against it, quickly announced that it

would begin withdrawing some of its troops. Some troops did leave in January

2007, but it proved to be a token gesture. This was accompanied by efforts to get

an AU peacekeeping force into Somalia quickly. The AU adapted the IGASOM

concept, as set out in UN Security Council Resolution 1725. It agreed a six-month

mandate for the force, known as the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), in

January 2007.

The UN Security Council endorsed it under Resolution 1744 of 20 February

2007, which was unanimously adopted. Under Resolution 1772 of 20 August

2007, the Security Council mandated the UN Secretariat to begin the groundwork

for a UN peacekeeping force to take over from AMISOM, probably in early 2008.

At that time, there were hopes that the security situation could be stabilizing.

However, major doubts were expressed in many quarters about the feasibility of

such a force, due to the deteriorating security situation. In a report to the Security

Council later in the year, the UN Secretary-General, Ban ki-Moon, stated that it

was currently too dangerous to send in a UN force, suggesting that a multinational

force composed of a ‘coalition of the willing’ might be a better alternative, at least

in the short-term. However, he was extremely vague about what its mandate should

be.

AU troops on several occasions became targets of the insurgents in

Mogadishu and had to fire back to defend themselves. In November 2007, a rebel

leader called on insurgents to target peacekeepers. There was talk of Arab forces

being sent to Somalia to supplement AMISOM, but this also came to nothing.They

were accused of employing indiscriminate and disproportionate military tactics,

leaving many districts in the capital empty and devastated. The insurgents were

also (and continue to be) accused of serious human rights abuses. Over 500,000

were estimated to have fled the capital, Mogadishu, by the end of 2007, leading aid

agencies to speak of a humanitarian emergency equivalent to, or even greater than,

Darfur. Approximately 1.5 million Somalis were by then dependent upon

humanitarian assistance. The international community viewed the defeat of the

CSIC as a ‘historic opportunity’ for Somalia.

It supported AU efforts to set up AMISOM – the EU initially pledged Euro

15 million – while pushing for moves towards a government of national unity

based on ‘inclusive dialogue’ between all groups that had renounced violence. It

had set up an International Contact Group, involving Italy, Kenya, Norway,

Sweden, Tanzania, UK, US, UN, AU, EU, IGAD and the Arab League, in mid-

2006. It now swung into action. However, relations were not always easy with the

TFG. When a senior ex-CSIC leader, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed – believed by

many to be relatively moderate – surrendered to the Kenyan authorities, the

international community urged the TFG to begin talks with him. However, it was

frustrated by the TFG’s lack of urgency and enthusiasm for doing so.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed demonstrated little practical enthusiasm

for such a process. Critics viewed him more as a ‘warlord’ than a genuine

President, sitting at the head of a fractious coalition of other warlords. The human

rights record of the TFG during 2007 was also far from good. For example, there

were incidents of harassment of the independent media, with four radio stations

being closed down. The international community condemned the sacking of the

Speaker of Parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, at the behest of President

Yusuf in January 2007 as contrary to the ‘spirit of reconciliation’. Adan had been

involved in negotiations with the CSIC prior to December 2006.

In September many of the TFG’s opponents came together to form the

Alliance for the Liberation and Reconstitution of Somalia (ARS) following a

meeting in Eritrea. It was composed of the former members of the CSIC, a faction

led by Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, representatives of the diaspora and some civil

society groups that were sympathetic to the CSIC. President Yusuf was viewed as

relatively moderate compared with his Prime Minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi. Gedi,

a Hawiye, was a close ally of Ethiopia and tarred as a ‘collaborator’ by many other

Hawiye clan leaders. Among the many issues that Gedi and Yusuf had reportedly

fallen out over were plans to co-operate with China over oil exploration. Yusuf had

taken the lead on the issue; Gedi argued that he and his government should be in

control of exploration negotiations. However, in late-October Gedi resigned. This

increased hopes that the ‘political track’ might now lead somewhere. In November,

a new Prime Minister, Nur Hassan Hussein Adde (henceforth NurAdde), also a

member of the Hawiye clan, but hopefully more attractive to its other leaders, was

appointed. 70 years old, NurAdde, had been head of the Somali Red Crescent since

1991 and was described as coming to the job with “good contacts across the

political spectrum and clan structures but little political baggage” (Marchal,

2007).

In late November 2007 Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi acknowledged

that his forces had become bogged down in Somalia. Attacks by insurgents

prompted major operations by Ethiopian forces against them. Meanwhile the new

Prime Minister named a new Cabinet. However, a significant number of ministers

resigned in protest at its composition. Ethiopia declared itself dissatisfied with it

and there were reports that western countries also regretted that an opportunity had

been missed to bring in individuals currently outside the Transitional Federal

Parliament, as recommended by the NRC. NurAdde agreed to review the Cabinet

again. The main international player in Somalia during 2007 remained the US,

which continued to view the situation there largely in terms of the wider ‘war on

terror’. It is not always clear how much attention it paid to the views of other

members of the International Contact Group. The prospect of a radical Islamic

state in Somalia was viewed with predictable distaste by the administration.

Although there has been no definitive confirmation and Ethiopia itself has denied

it, there were persistent reports during 2007 suggesting that the US had given

Ethiopia the ‘green light’ to intervene on behalf of the TFG in late 2006.

3.5.2 EXTERNAL ACTORS AND THE WAR ON TERROR IN

SOMALIA

The American experience of direct involvement in Somalia in the early

1990s ensured that it was not keen to allow its own forces to become embroiled

there again. However, there were claims of American aircraft supporting military

attacks by the TFG and Ethiopian forces against CSIC and jihadist elements in the

far south of Somalia following the capture of Mogadishu in late 2006.

In June 2007 the US Navy fired missiles at suspected al-Qaeda operatives in

Puntland. US ‘anti-terror’ operations were assisted by the decision of neighboring

Kenya to close its border with Somalia soon after the fall of the CSIC. It remains

closed to this day. In a move that caused much domestic controversy, Kenya

reportedly also transferred a number of Somali militants in its custody to Ethiopian

prisons for interrogation in what critics called another case of ‘extraordinary

rendition’. The US also warned Eritrea that it might declare it a state sponsor of

terrorism unless it ended its support for the insurgency and foreign jihadists, some

of which it claimed were involved in the attacks on US Embassies in Kenya and

Tanzania. Towards the end of the year there were reports of divisions within the

US administration over future strategy, with the Pentagon shifting towards building

ties with the Republic of Somaliland, which would require recognition of its

independence, while the State Department remained wedded to trying to rebuild

Somalia as a whole (Washington Post, 4 December 2007).

The TFG called for US$1 billion from the international community to

rebuild Somalia. Its need for donor funds did give donors some leverage over the

TFG. In January 2008 Prime Minister NurAdde bowed to critics and appointed a

new, much smaller but more widely accepted Cabinet. Nine of 18 ministers were to

be non-parliamentarians. NurAdde also pledged to begin extending the

reconciliation process to grassroots communities and opposition groups willing to

engage in dialogue. Also in January 2008, 850 soldiers from Burundi arrived,

bringing AMISOM’s strength to 2,613. The UN continued to develop contingency

plans for a possible UN peace-keeping force during the first quarter of the year, but

there remained little sign that the Security Council had much appetite for it (Report

of the UN Secretary General on the situation in Somalia, S/2008/178, and 14

March 2008).

A gap between militant Islamists and those opposition elements with a more

moderate orientation appeared to be opening up. This did not prevent the TFG and

ARS reaching an agreement in Djibouti on 9 June, which provided inter alia for an

initial cessation of hostilities of 90 days and an eventual ceasefire agreement, a

joint request to the UN Security Council to deploy an international stabilization

force within four months, excluding neighboring states, as a prelude to a UN

peace-keeping force, the concomitant withdrawal of Ethiopian forces and the

convening of an international donors’ conference within six months (Report of the

UN Secretary General on the situation in Somalia, S/2008/466, 16 July 2008).

In March the US placed al-Shabaab on its list of terrorist organizations. Its

leader declared this to be a badge of honour (Financial Times, 21 March 2008). Al-

Shabaab did not seem to be set back much by the killing of its commander, Sheikh

Aden HashiAyrow, by a US airstrike at the beginning of May. Ayrow, who had

links with al-Qaida, had been in their sights for some time. There had also been an

unsuccessful airstrike in March against an alleged al- Qaida operative, Saleh Ali

SalehNabhan, in the far south of Somalia. The rebels have periodically been able to

seize control of towns in central and southern Somalia, but have tended to cede

them before they face frontal attack from TFG/Ethiopian forces.

Several attacks have been launched on Ethiopian military bases in Mogadishu

itself. AMISOM has also come under regular attack. There has been a least one

assassination attempt on President Yusuf Ahmed during 2008 (BBC News Online,

18 June 2008). There have been claims that the rebels have been weakened in

Mogadishu, but there is little firm evidence that this is the case. In July 2008, the

Mayor of Mogadishu, former warlord Mohammed Dheere, was sacked by

NurAdde for his failure to improve security in the capital (BBC News Online, 30

July 2008).

September and October 2008 saw heavier fighting in the capital. For their

part, TFG forces are weak, appear to have low morale and have at times not been

paid for prolonged periods. Many of them act in practice as autonomous,

freebooting militias. There have been many instances of them robbing civilians

(New York Times, 29 March 2008).

Without the presence of Ethiopian troops, it is unlikely that the deeply

dysfunctional TFG would have survived. The TFG suffered a major setback in

August 2008, when al-Shabaab took the southern port of Kismayo. However, this

also set in train growing differences between ARS-Asmara and al-Shabaab. The

ARS-Asmara criticised al-Shabaab’s choice to head the new administration. In

September it condemned al-Shabaab’s announcement that it would shell

Mogadishu’s main airport if it was not shut down.

3.5.3 TALKS TOWARDS DJIBOUTI AGREEMENT

The Djibouti agreement initially prompted hopes that, with the humanitarian

situation exacerbated by high food and fuel prices, it would soon become easier for

humanitarian and aid agencies to operate in Somalia. However, their workers were

at growing risk either of abduction or execution. While anti-TFG forces were

responsible for many of these attacks, a significant number appear to have been

conducted by TFG ‘hardliners’, who view humanitarian aid as giving succour to

the enemy (Enough Strategy Paper, September 2008). Since the death in May of

the commander of al-Shabaab, Aden Hashi Ayrow, some of the groups affiliated

with it have increased their targeting of aid workers and their local ‘collaborators’.

There was a small-scale addition to the complement of AMISOM in October

2008, with the arrival of 400 more Burundian troops. This brought the size of

AMISOM on the ground to 3,400 – still fewer than 50 per cent of the planned total

when it was created. The appalling security situation makes it hardly surprising

that other countries continue to hesitate, although Uganda said earlier this year that

it would send more if the funding could be found. In recent weeks, Kenya has also

expressed a willingness to send troops. This follows a marked increase in attacks

across the Kenya-Somalia border by Somali insurgents (New Vision, 8 March

2008).

Given the deepening divisions that exist on both the TFG and ARS sides, the

failure of the Djibouti agreement to quickly bring peace is unsurprising. On the

ARS side, most of the weapons remain in the hands of ‘rejectionists’. It is just

about possible to envisage the ARS-Asmara faction joining a peace process,

provided Ethiopia withdraws without delay. However, bringing an increasingly

fragmented al-Shabaab on board would appear to be an increasingly difficult task.

According to one analyst, some of the clan or criminal militias now using that label

have little real commitment to an Islamist agenda. There have been numerous

recent reports of different militias turning their guns on each other in some areas

(Enough Strategy Paper, September 2008).

There was a flurry of renewed diplomatic activity in late-October. The ARS-

Djibouti and the TFG met again under UN auspices in Djibouti to try and agree a

firm timetable for Ethiopian withdrawal and implementation of the ceasefire. The

talks took place with sides beginning to talk optimistically about a ‘power-sharing’

arrangement. On 26 October 2008 it was agreed to implement the ceasefire from 5

November, with Ethiopia beginning to withdraw its troops from Mogadishu and

other areas from 21 November and completing a full withdrawal within 120 days.

The TFG and ARS-Djibouti were to establish a joint security force and work

closely with AMISOM to bring order to the country. However, this new

agreement, like others before it, has not led to a reduction in levels of violence

around the country. Somaliland and Puntland have also been subjected to insurgent

attacks and there have been attacks on a town on the Kenyan side of the Somalia-

Kenya border, one of which led to the abduction of three Catholic nuns. There are

calls on the Kenyan side for its forces to launch attacks back across the border

against al-Shabaab militias (BBC Monitoring Africa, 6 November 2008).

The ARS-Asmara, al-Shabaab and Eritrea have all condemned the 26 October

agreement. The Hawiye Council is reported to be trying to mediate between the

ARS-Djibouti and those forces that have rejected the agreement (BBC Monitoring

Africa, 4 November 2008). It was also agreed in Djibouti on 26 October that a

new unity government would be the subject of further negotiation under IGAD

auspices (BBC Monitoring Africa, 27 October 2008).

Within days, political leaders from both sides were meeting in Nairobi. While

there was no firm outcome, Prime Minister NurAdde announced that he would

announce the composition of a new, more inclusive, government by 12 November.

However, with the mandate of the TFG having less than a year to run, there were

reports that supporters of President Yusuf would not be included. The future of the

President himself, whose health has been poor for a number of years, now looked

under increasing threat. He swiftly began another rearguard action. Sheikh Sharif

Ahmed, one of the top leaders of the ARS-Djibouti, has returned to Somalia.

However, the TFG’s position grows weaker by the day. It now effectively controls

only parts of Mogadishu and the town of Baidoa (BBC News Online, 15 November

2008).

Given the many divisions that exist within the opposition to the TFG, its

violent overthrow will not necessarily mean a return to the kind of ‘Islamist order’

which the CSIC was able briefly to establish in 2006. Ethiopian pull-out left the

powerless TFG incapable of sustaining itself, setting the stage for a scramble for

power among the fragmented factions, forcing each of them into a posture of pro-

active self-defense.

3.6 OVERVIEW: UNDERSTANDING THE ROOT CAUSES OF

CONFLICT IN THE HORN

In this part of the research, the main causal factors that have been invoked by

commentators and policy-makers to explain the root causes of conflict in the Horn

of Africa are briefly evaluated. A common thread that runs through them all is their

varying impact on the viability and legitimacy of the ‘failed’, ‘emergent’ or more

established states that make up the region.

3.6.1 CLAN

Conflict between and within clans has been the most common point of

reference for much of the Western media and policy-makers as they have sought to

identify the root causes of conflict in Somalia since 1991, conflict which has had

major regional ramifications. In essence, it is argued that clan conflicts have

consumed the Somali state and continue to obstruct efforts at reconstruction,

leaving only chaos and anarchy. However, understanding of Somali clan structures

and how they operate politically has often been lacking. Some have argued that

during the 1980s and since the collapse of Somalia, clan politics has indeed

become even more volatile and fragile. It has also been claimed that clan

affiliations have come to be increasingly deployed by at least some of Somalia’s

‘warlords’ in the context of perpetual struggles over economic and political

resources (Marchal, 2007).

For those who place emphasis on such struggles, the importance of clan

politics in promoting conflict in Somalia can sometimes be exaggerated. Indeed,

there are those who would go so far as to assert that the roots of current conflicts in

Somalia might better be understood through the concept of class – albeit class

refracted through the language and culture of clan. During the 1980s, as the Barre

regime gradually unravelled, there was massive land-grabbing and accumulation

across Somalia, including in the capital Mogadishu, particularly by those factions

of an emerging mercantile class which had access to state power.

Since 1991, as the context shifted to unrestrained plunder and looting, these

assets have continued to be fought over, leaving an unresolved legacy that remains

to this day. According to this view, one of the reasons why it has proven so

difficult to rebuild a state is that competing factions all view the state as a vehicle

for doing the same on a ‘winner take all’ basis. As a result:

The consistent pattern has been that any force or coalition of

forces that came close to assuming state power conjured up an

equal and opposite array of forces that succeeded in preventing

this from happening (De Waal, 2007).

So is the lesson of Somalia that clan and statehood are like oil and water? It

is true that there is not much of a ‘state tradition’ in Somalia. SiadBarre claimed

that his intention was to subordinate clan politics to ‘nation-building’.

However, he eventually became overly reliant upon repression and the

narrow support of particular clans within the Darod clan family – above all, his

own clan, the Marehan. His attempts to ‘hold the ring’ also collapsed because the

resources available to him for patronage diminished as external backers withdrew.

Nonetheless, Somalia did have a state of sorts under Barre during the 22 years he

ruled. Some argue that it might have had a state of sorts again under the CSIC,

strongly backed by business interests in Mogadishu, had its time in power lasted

longer; an argument perhaps with analogies to debates about the Taliban’s rule in

Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. Nor does pervasive clan-based ‘warlordism’

necessarily rule out subsequent state formation. Historically, many states

experienced prolonged periods of warlordism before a more durable basis for the

political institutionalisation of power and authority became possible.

Those who espouse a more class-focused analysis argue that Somaliland

“began as a commercial agreement” backed by a dominant class (livestock

traders) within a dominant clan family, the Isaaq. There was also relatively few

unresolved property disputes in Somaliland on which conflict could feed (De

Waal, 2007).

Not everybody is convinced that a minimalist approach to statehood will

work. In the case of Somaliland, sceptics wonder whether it can ever deliver

anything more than minimal security or minimal development for a finite period

(Woodward, 2003).

The above discussion underscores why a better informed and more nuanced

debate about the meaning and importance of clan politics in promoting conflict in

the Somali lands of the Horn matters so much. It has major implications for those

seeking to achieve peace, stability and security in Somalia. De Waal (2007) goes

so far as to argue that attempts to reconstruct the Somali state should only begin

after outstanding property disputes have been resolved, perhaps through the

establishment of an independent arbitration commission, adding:

“Arguably, the future economic dispensation in Somalia – control

of the monetary authority, mechanisms for contracting, land tenure

system – should be established before any political settlement is

agreed. This will take some of the heat out of the current political

competition.”(De Waal, 2007).

3.6.2 ETHNICITY

Ethnicity is the category which much of the Western media and many

policy-makers instinctively reach for when seeking to understand politics in sub-

Saharan Africa as a whole. All too often it appears self-evident that it is the

primary cause of conflict across the sub-continent. There is no doubt that ethnicity

has indeed often played an important role. However, ethnicity must be understood

in a historical and political context. Ethnic identities are not ‘primordial’. Indeed,

many of them emerged and then hardened under colonial rule. Ethnicity – like clan

in the context of Somalia – is rarely a factor by itself. It combines with other

affiliations and interests.

In the post-colonial context, ethnic politics has promoted conflict in sub-

Saharan Africa when it has become the exclusive way by which ordinary people

define themselves, when elites have deliberately deployed it as a vehicle for violent

political mobilization and when the political and economic resources being

competed for have become increasingly scarce and the ‘rules of the game’ have

shifted towards ‘winner takes all’. Ethnicity becomes particularly dangerous when

linked to a political ideology of hatred. Conflict can also be generated at times by

intra-ethnic tensions within the ruling elite. Although not all have materialized in

practice, such variables potentially apply as much to parts of the Horn of Africa as

they do, say, to the African Great Lakes region. In the Horn, ethnicity has played

the strongest role as a driver of conflict in Ethiopia.

Given the importance of Ethiopia in the region, the consequences of such

conflict for the rest of the Horn have always been significant. The experience of

Ethiopia is unusual in that it did not undergo a prolonged period of European rule.

However, since the late-19 century, Ethiopia has been a multi-ethnic ‘empire’ ruled

by regimes dominated to a greater or lesser extent by one ‘indigenous’ ethnic

group.

Under Haile Selasse, the Amhara were the dominant group. Since 1991

members of the Tigrayan ethnic group have been the dominant force within the

Government. However, with a view to ending this tradition, over the last 17 years

the Ethiopian polity has been restructured by the ruling party, the Ethiopian

People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, along ‘ethnic federal’ lines. The regions

it created were new constructions. The limits of success can clearly be seen in the

Ogaden and elsewhere. But most impartial observers do not consider that the

experiment has simply been a sham. Debate continues to rage fiercely over how far

‘ethnic federalism’ has placed limits on the power of the Tigrayan elite, which still

dominates the EPRDF, and may be creating the conditions for a more genuinely

inclusive political system. Haggman (2007) has asserted that the EPRDF has been

genuinely committed to the success of ethnic federalism. Its track-record is

nonetheless mixed, not least in Somali regional state:

“EPRDF lost Somalis ‘hearts and minds’ by dishonouring the

region’s constitutionally guaranteed autonomy, by meddling in its

internal decision- making, and by the ruthless conduct of its

security forces […] After taking power EPRDF sought to accelerate

development in the country’s marginalised lowland areas belonging

to the Somali, Afar, Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz regional

states. Despite their limited financial absorption capacity, federal

budget transfers to the so-called ‘backward regions’ steadily

increased over the past decade. The granting of self-government

and investments in human capacity-building for the first time in

modern Ethiopian history enabled the emergence of educated elite

within the periphery. Somali Region forcefully demonstrates that

national identity cannot be decreed or engineered by financial

subsidies, political quotas or the holding of elections” (Haggman,

2007).

Samatar (2004) has asserted, with Somali regional state very much in mind,

that inept and weak local elites are partly responsible for the failure of ‘ethnic

federalism’ to realize its promise. Finally, Vaughan and Tronvoll (2003) have

claimed:

“Given the ethnic federal arrangements, minority ethnic groups,

even numerically small ones, are less marginalised at the national

political level than ever previously before in modern Ethiopia’s

history. However, a number of occupational or clan minorities

within ethnic groups continue to be marginalised, despised and

disadvantaged, their political representation subsumed within the

wider ethnic group. Such stigmatised groups (often craftsmen or

hunters) exist among many of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups, and a

number have been encouraged by ethnic federalism to petition for

separate representation […] Ethnic federalism has, in some

instances, added a new dimension to pre-existing local conflicts

over land, water, government budgets and other resources,

sometimes adding legitimacy and motivation to an ‘ethnic

rationale’ for the dispute. There are confusing and contradictory

processes at work: some inspired by ‘rightful’ or ‘exaggerated’

claims by local communities, others imposed from above; some

driven by political entrepreneurs for their own purposes, others

perhaps seeking to diffuse opposition” (Vaughan and Tronvoll,

2003)

It is, then, a complex picture. There are no guarantees that, in the medium-

to long-term, ethnic federalism will be a successful mechanism for conflict

resolution within Ethiopia. The Ethiopian state still lacks legitimacy among key

ethnic groups. What is more, some analysts believe that it is a high-risk strategy to

try and combine state-building and democratization in African states with a history

of ethnic division.

3.6.3 ENVIRONMENTAL INSECURITY

There is a growing consensus that there is a correlation between

environmental insecurity and conflict. The Western media and policy-makers have

often had cause to make the link between the two in the context of the Horn of

Africa over the past thirty years, although some analysts assert that there has been

a tendency to do so only relatively late in the day, once a crisis has become

extreme and visible – for example, where there is famine. Over the past year, the

Horn of Africa has been experiencing severe food shortages again.

Whenever there is drought, large numbers can quickly become vulnerable to

food insecurity. However, while there can be conflict between cultivators and the

state, which remains the owner of all land in Ethiopia, it is less pervasive than that

between pastoralists over access rights. The 2004 PAES report adds:

“Conflicts are almost certain to arise where a weak state fails to

deliver law and order, provide transparent and accountable

administration, implement unbiased and fair policy, or effective

mechanisms to address and resolve grievances and disputes”

(Ejigu, 2005).

While it is certainly possible to point to progress and positive achievements

in this regard by those countries of the Horn which have a functioning state, it is

fair to say that, nonetheless, they all continue to fit this definition of ‘weakness’.

Furthermore, the impact of climate change in an area that already suffers from

significant environmental insecurities is likely to exacerbate any weaknesses. The

latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the expected

impacts of climate change, published in 2007, summarized the impact in Africa as

follows:

• Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and climate

variability, a situation aggravated by the interaction of ‘multiple stresses’,

occurring at various levels, and low adaptive capacity.

• Climate change will aggravate the water stress currently faced by some countries,

while some countries that currently do not experience water stress will become at

risk of water stress.

• Climate variability and change could result in low-lying lands being inundated,

with resultant impacts on coastal settlements.

• Human health, already compromised by a range of factors, could be further

negatively impacted by climate change and climate variability, e.g., malaria in

southern Africa and the East African highlands (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report,

2007).

A Conflict and Early Warning Response Network (CEWARN) was established in

2003 by IGAD. Since 2005 it has collaborated with IGAD’s Climate Prediction

and Assessment Centre (ICPAC), with the aim of ensuring that conflict prevention

and disaster management experts in both bodies develop a coherent, multi-

dimensional approach to early warning efforts (Meier, 2007).

Finally, there is another type of ‘environment-induced conflict’ to add to the

list offered by the 2004 PAES report. That is conflict between states. One of the

most likely sources of inter-state conflict in the Horn of Africa is water. However,

it is most likely to involve a clash between Egypt and Ethiopia. The headwaters of

the River Nile are to be found in Ethiopia. Egypt, whose economy is heavily

dependent upon the waters of the Nile, has always feared the consequences of

Ethiopian control over the headwaters. At present, Ethiopia does not make heavy

use of the headwaters for its own purposes. Were that to change, relations between

the two countries could come rapidly under strain (Muhammad, 2007).

Both countries, along with Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda Burundi,

Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea, make up the ten member

states of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), an organization comprising the riparian

states of the River Nile. Its goal is to develop the water resources of the Nile Basin

in a sustainable and equitable way to ensure prosperity, security, and peace for all

its peoples. As part of the NBI, there is also an Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action

Programme. The body is supported by the World Bank and other donors.

Commentators believe that so far the NBI has made a positive contribution to

resolving issues between member states, but it has not yet faced a major crisis.

3.6.4 ISLAMIC MILITANCY AND TERRORISM

The ‘failed state’ of Somalia has often been described by parts of the

Western media and policy-makers as a breeding ground for terrorist organizations,

including al-Qaida. The rise of the CSIC, which included ‘hardliners’ with alleged

links to al-Qaida, increased fears that parts of the Horn of Africa could become a

heartland of militant Islam and that what might initially have been a symptom of

conflict could metamorphose into a ‘root cause’.

As for the CSIC, some analysts claim that, for a moment, it did appear to

offer a potential way out of perpetual clan conflict in Somalia. Menkhaus stated:

“Some detractors […] argued that the movement was simply a

Hawiye front; supporters […] argued vigorously that the Islamists

transcended clannism. The truth lies somewhere in between

(Menkhaus, 2007).

Lewis (2008) claimed that overall Islam is a “veil lightly worn” in Somalia. It

is important to note that the dominant tradition of Islam amongst Somalis has been

the Sufi tradition. This tradition tends to be relatively relaxed on doctrinal matters

and has a mystical orientation. There are three main Sufi brotherhoods in Somalia:

the Qadiriya, Ahmadiya and Salihiya. The Qadiriya is the most numerous and least

inclined towards Puritanism. Nonetheless, there have been moments of ‘home-

grown’ radical reformism in the past. The Salihiya brotherhood, which was an off-

shoot of the Ahmadiya, has a more fundamentalist orientation. It was the main

force behind an armed jihad against Ethiopia and the British and Italian colonial

powers between 1900 and 1920 which spread across what is modern day

Somaliland, Puntland and Ethiopia’s Somali regional state. This means that there is

soil in which more militant, ‘foreign’ traditions can put down roots, as with

Wahhabism and al-Ittihad al-Islam in the 1990s. Even so, radical reformism in

Somalia has more often taken a peaceful form (Lewis, 2008).

Western anxieties that Somalia is a breeding ground for international

terrorism have also fuelled concerns about its place in global criminal networks

that might be helping to sustain al-Qaida and its Somali allies. Following the

attacks of 11 September 2001, the US Government led the way in seeking to block

informal flows of money through the hawala system, on which many Somalis

depended for banking and remittances. Critics have argued that such measures

have usually done more harm than good, cutting off much-needed income flows

and in the process alienating many Somalis. Marchal (2007) noted that, since the

freezing of the assets of the Somali business known as al- Baraakat, which had

been involved in money transfers and telecoms, no criminal action has been

brought against anybody who worked for it.

Fears have been expressed that revenues generated by the export of the leaf

known as Khat, which when chewed has a psychoactive effect, could help to fund

terrorist activities in Somalia. Khat is hugely in demand in all the Somali lands and

in the diaspora, including Britain. For example, some observer has claimed that

Somaliland, where Islamic militancy has had some, albeit so far relatively limited,

purchase, is in danger of turning into a “narco-economy”.

Khat is now one of Somaliland’s chief export crops. Livestock, its

traditional main export, reportedly went into decline after Saudi Arabia, its biggest

customer, imposed an embargo on the grounds that Somaliland’s cattle were

infected with Rift Valley fever. Khat is now a key source of government revenue in

Somaliland, which could stand in the way of effective efforts to reduce production.

However, as yet there appears to be little hard evidence to suggest that funds

gained from the export of Khat are being used to support international terrorism

(Africa Research Bulletin, August 2005).

Puntland is currently the base for most of the pirates operating from

Somalia. The only period in recent history when piracy virtually disappeared

around the country was during the brief rule of the CSIC. Since its downfall, the

phenomenon has reappeared on a rapidly growing scale. Middleton (2002)

discussed a “worst-case scenario” in which pirates develop links with

international terrorism. It states that “there is no firm evidence of this happening.

In a speech in mid-November 2008, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency

argued that al-Qaida is taking advantage of the success of the insurgency to

“revitalize operations” in Somalia (BBC News Online, 14 November 2008).

3.6.5 EXTERNAL ACTORS

Many different external actors have been cited by the Western media and

policy-makers as playing a role in promoting conflict in the Horn of Africa today.

Due to timeframe the research will not discuss every dimension of external

involvement in the region.

The research will focus on two interrelated issues: the recent record of

Western powers and their regional allies in Somalia; and the ways in which

countries of the region continue to seek to achieve their policy objectives through

the sponsorship of proxy forces.

The ineffectiveness and inappropriateness of outside interventions in the

Horn of Africa has long been the subject of criticism by commentators on the

region. Recent actions are no exception. For example, Jonathan Steele has

condemned the “inconsistencies in international policy-making” on Somalia since

2006. Writing in February 2008 he argued that the issue had “dropped off the

radar, abandoned …because it all seems so difficult.”

Some might claim that the same has happened with regard to the Eritrean-

Ethiopian border dispute; having invested in the Algiers agreements and UNMEE,

it has been argued that the international community has failed to put sufficient

pressure on both countries to resolve their differences, so increasing the prospect of

a return to hostilities. This failure has been understood as a failure of both will and

capacity (ICG, 2008).

Steele was particularly critical of the role of the US in Somalia. He claimed

that, obsessed with the ‘war on terror’, the US had colluded in the Ethiopian

invasion of Somalia in December 2006, without being challenged by other western

governments – with disastrous consequences on the ground. Not everybody is

entirely convinced by conspiratorial arguments. Menkhaus has claimed that:

“[…] while the US and Ethiopian militaries and intelligence

agencies unquestionably collaborated closely, Ethiopia’s offensive

would likely have occurred with or without US tacit approval

(Menkhaus, 2007).

Many have also been critical of the effectiveness of US military operations

against al- Qaida operatives in Somalia, which – as elsewhere in the world – do

appear to have had mixed results. One European official, speaking in February

2008 after a further round of US air strikes, claimed: “They haven’t got anybody. It

has been an absolute disaster.” The US disputes such negative views. In March

2008, Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, claimed that al-

Qaida has been denied a foothold in Somalia as a result of the success of

operations since December 2006. The successful attack on the leader of al-

Shabaab, Sheikh Aden HashiAyrow in May 2008 marked a change in fortunes for

US forces in the region.

US counter-terrorism co-operation with the TFG has also been criticised. It

has been claimed that this co-operation is in practice with particular security

officials who exercise a high degree of autonomy from the government, raising

questions in some minds about how far the US approach on counter-terrorism is

really contributing to wider peace- building and state-building agendas (Enough

Strategy Paper, September 2008).

Seeking to achieve their policy objectives through the sponsorship of proxy

forces also has a long history in the Horn of Africa. As Healey has written:

“Pursuing (regional) foreign policy through proxy forces in

neighbouring countries has been the ‘normal’ pattern of relations

for decades […] The states of the region all act as enablers and

multipliers of conflict to the detriment of their neighbours. This

regional dynamic is sufficiently powerful to act as a cause of

conflict in its own right, especially where so many problems of

governance abound […] In this context foreign policy, especially

foreign policy, becomes an intimate part of the government’s

strategy for internal stability (Healy, 2008).

To many observers, conflict appears to be inscribed in the very DNA of the

Horn of Africa. However, there are grounds for resisting fatalism. While Somalia

remains convulsed by violence and misery, Somaliland appears to suggest that the

institutionalization of authority and establishment of accountability is not an

impossible dream, provided that certain Western assumptions about what it should

involve and how it can be constructed are put aside. 17 years into an experiment in

‘ethnic federalism’, Ethiopia faces many problems, but the experiment is certainly

not pre-ordained to fail – it may yet successfully create a new and viable political

and cultural reality. Eritrea’s role in the region as a ‘spoiler’ may be problematic

and its democratization at home indefinitely postponed, but its existence as a state

is not seriously in doubt. Djibouti, although it is preoccupied as ever with avoiding

the destabilization that always threatens in such a tough neighborhood, is

domestically reasonably stable. In the short- to medium-term, the keys to peace

and security in the ‘core’ Horn of Africa lie in: first, resolving the stalemate

between Ethiopia and Eritrea over their common border; and, second, in

constructing a durable domestic political and economic settlement in Somalia that

is acceptable to the majority of Somalis and to external actors.

Somalia poses an incredibly complex challenge. If a durable political and

economic settlement is one where there is a relatively stable balance of power

within society which offers those actors committed to state-building and

development the means and the opportunity to do so, including sufficient security

and minimally effective and legitimate public institutions, Somalia is about as far

from this scenario as it is possible to be. It seems likely that any durable settlement

in Somalia will have to be federal in character, highly decentralized and

constructed largely from below, as has been the case in Somaliland. The

emergence of the CSIC in 2006 held out some promise for the stabilization of

Somalia but its foreign policy fatally de-legitimized it in the eyes of the US and

Ethiopia, prompting an Ethiopian invasion which removed one ‘security problem’

while arguably helping to manufacture new ones.

How, more broadly, can the international community assist in ending

conflict in the region? Some analysts have claimed that it is vital that the

international community ceases to compartmentalize the various conflicts of the

region and acknowledge that they are intertwined. By this reasoning, the Horn

should be viewed by outsiders as a “Regional Security Complex”, as the African

Great Lakes region arguably has come to be, and regional ‘security architecture’

should be constructed. However, it is also accepted that efforts to intervene on this

basis will continue to be hampered by the fact that IGAD, the international

community’s main partner in the region, is heavily compromised by internal

rivalry, and therefore a very weak vehicle for managing, reducing or ending

conflict.

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New York: I.B. Tauris.

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0 DATA ANALYSIS ON BORDER DISPUTES AND STATE FAILURE

IN SOMALIA: A CASE STUDY OF ETHIOPIA-SOMALIA DISPUTE ON

OGADEN REGION

This Chapter aims to explain how the sources in the preceding chapters are

to be used to develop variables for analyzing the process of border disputes and

state failure in the Horn of Africa region using Somalia as case study. This chapter

outlines the design method used during the conduct of the research. The

methodology used is the qualitative method of research aimed at evaluating the

case study by using secondary sources of data and information to establish the

regional security implications of border disputes and state failure in the Horn of

Africa. The research aims at identifying and analyzing answers to the secondary

questions that will facilitate the answering of the research primary question. One

method of analysis is the qualitative method, which involves analysis of data such

as words, pictures, objects and artifacts. In this method of research, the researcher

is the main data-gathering instrument.

Qualitative research is one of the two major approaches to research

methodology in social sciences. Qualitative research involves an in-depth

understanding of human behaviour and the reasons that govern human behaviour.

Unlike quantitative research, qualitative research relies on reasons behind various

aspects of behaviour. Simply put, it investigates the why and how of decision-

making, as compared to what, where, and when of quantitative research. Hence,

the need is for smaller but focused samples, rather than large random samples by

which qualitative research categorizes data into patterns as the primary basis for

organizing and reporting results. Unlike quantitative research, which relies

exclusively on the analysis of numerical or quantifiable data, data for qualitative

research comes in many media - including text, sound, still and moving images.

(Free Dictionary 2010).

As put forward in a study by Anne-Marie Ambert, qualitative methods trade

comparative objective studies of a broad range of subjects for depth, to facilitate

understanding on a more finite sampling. Qualitative methods focus on how and

why people behave, think, and make meaning, rather than focusing on what people

do or believe on a large scale. Another benefit, according to Ambert, is that

qualitative research enables the researcher to analyze data from the macro to the

micro level without risking analytical integrity by comparing the proverbial apples

to oranges (Ambert et al., 1995: 880).

According to Ellen Taylor-Powell, in analyzing qualitative data, the

researcher must know the material, focus the analysis, and categorize the

information by identifying themes or patterns and organizing them into coherent

categories. The researcher then continues with an interpretation of the data where

he attaches meaning and significance to the analysis (Taylor-Powell, 2003: 2).

The congruence method, a subset of qualitative analysis, allows for such

challenging data to be analyzed and compared within each individual case study to

extract the impact of the various relational characteristics without the necessary

requirement of finding multiple case studies that can be compared on an even plane

to objectively measure the accuracy of the hypothesis. The congruence method

tests a hypothesis’s ability to predict whether the variables vary in the expected

directions, to the expected magnitude, along the expected dimensions, or whether

there is still unexplained variance in one or more dimensions (George and Bennett,

2005: 181-183).

4.1 SELECTION CRITERIA AND EXPLANATION

The first step in the development of the research questions was to examine

available background material on the growing trend of border disputes and state

failure and their effects on Somalia the archetypal of failed state. The

characteristics were identified from instances where different authors, citing

different sources, came to similar conclusions about the influence of a particular

criterion, giving credibility to the characteristics. The variables that will be used

for this analysis are: colonialism, pan-Somali nationalism, superpower national

interests and political interference in the region, regional conflicts in the Horn of

Africa, Ogaden war and the impacts of radical Islam and terrorism. This section

provides a closer look at each characteristic and why it was selected as criteria.

4.1.1 COLONIALISM

Colonialism plays a key role in the growth and spread of statelessness in

Somalia. The seeds of the current conflicts in Somalia to a large extent date back to

the European colonial experience in the Horn of Africa even though most of the

conflicts’ root causes predate this experience (Chege, 1987:88; Ayoob, 1980:137).

Indeed, at the end of the nineteenth century and after the construction of the Suez

Canal (Woodward, 1996:14), the European colonial powers partitioned the

previously free constituent parts of the Horn of Africa, joining unrelated areas and

peoples into territorial units. The establishment of new states (Sudan got its

independence in 1956, British and Italian Somalilands in 1960, Kenya in 1963, and

Djibouti in 1977 while Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia in 1952 and forcefully

gained its independence in 1993, leaving Ethiopia landlocked) was thus based on

misdrawn borders which were agreed upon by the colonial powers and basically

ignored ethnic, cultural, historical and religious groups’ natural lines. And

consequently, it resulted in intra-state conflicts (in particular demands for

autonomy for ethnic groups) as well as in the regimes of the newly independent

states lodging territorial claims in turn leading to conflict with other states.

The Italian Somali-Ethiopian border dispute was a direct result of

colonialism in the region. Borders imposed on Somalia and Ethiopia were

something that the “Somali nomads had neither needed nor encountered before”

and were ambiguously assigned, hung on non-existent points, or established

around nomadic tribe and clan territory ( Zartman 1985:75). This resulted in

tensions between two nations that both relied on a common region for nomadic

survival. The Ethiopians were

“Arguing a legal case over where the border was and the Italians

[were] arguing a social-moral case on behalf of the Somalis over

where the border should be” (Zartman 1985:76).

The Ethiopians were justified to claim the territory by law, and the Somalis were

convinced of their claim through colonial power support. Despite Italian support,

colonial Somaliland gained nothing from the dispute as they could not reclaim the

lost region of Ogaden. Somali bitterness toward colonial rule led to independence

movements that resulted in a United Somalia by 1960. This newly emergent state

of Somalia was comprised of tribal leadership and had no continuity for central

governance. Consequently, tumultuous power struggles ensued and the

development of relationships between bordering nations of Eritrea, Djibouti e.t.c

created conflict as the new state struggled to establish its identity in the region

(Zartman 1985:95).

The challenge was also compounded by the fact that the framework of

colonial laws and institutions had been designed to exploit local divisions rather

than to overcome them. Colonialism also disrupted the political, social and

economic lives of pastoral societies. The emergence of colonial ports as well as the

development of modern transport systems disrupted the ancient trade networks on

which pastoralists depended, coastal markets disappearing in many cases.

Moreover, transportation networks and related physical infrastructure were

designed to satisfy the needs of the colonial power rather than to support the

balanced growth of an indigenous economy.

During the same period, by taking advantage of inter-European rivalries, the

Ethiopian rulers doubled through conquest the geographic size of their independent

state built on the interior highlands. A vast and multi-ethnic state was created there.

The need to maintain intact the unity of this fragile and disparate entity led to the

excessive centralization of political and economic power which in turn stimulated

widespread infringement upon local cultures and led to religious coercion and

political repression (Woodward, 1996).

Conflicts were also triggered by ethno-centrism arising from colonial rule

which favoured certain ethnic groups accorded access to education and economic

privileges. This was done at the expense of other ethnic groups in the context of

divide and rule tactics employed by the colonial powers and inflicted deep societal

wounds in some states. In the post-colonial era, ill-advised policies have

entrenched colonially-designed disparities and chronic injustice, thereby worsening

ethnic animosities and antagonisms in most states of the region. This animosities

and antagonisms serve as the best platform to analyse the origin of state failure in

Somalia.

4.1.2 PAN SOMALI NATIONALISM

Arising from the impact of colonialism is the ideology of greater Somalia

Nationalism, which has always been used by Somali politicians to win political

power within the country as well as against Somalia’s neighbors which could also

provide an insight into the current status quo of Somalia. It should be recalled that

the Somali leaders in the 1960s believed that Somalia, being one nation with one

language and one religion would be more easily governable and better off

compared to other African countries that were more diverse.

The greater Somalia philosophy demanded that British Somalia in the south,

Italian Somaliland in the north and French Somalia (Djibouti), be merged into one

country with a strong central government. This motive to unite Somalis has always

been viewed by Somalia Neighbors’ as a means of expansionism and

encroachment into the misdrawn colonial borders of neighboring states. This has

frequently heightened the inter-state rivalry in the region and every effort to restore

the state-building process in Somalia (Claude, 1964).

When Somalia gained independence, and later when Siad Barre took over,

Somalia quickly made enemies out of their neighbors. With the goal of

incorporating every land that has a majority of Somalis into the greater Somalia,

they clashed with Kenya and Ethiopia. Somalia in the aftermath of independence

wanted to join all the Somali speaking land together to create a Greater Somalia.

The new Somali flag with the five pointed star in the middle represented the

northern and the southern regions of the republic, as well as the unredeemed north

eastern provenance of Kenya, the Ogaden provenance of Ethiopia, and the French

territories of the Afar and Issas (Djibouti).

These three political entities are largely Somali in population. The Ogaden

Provenance is rich in oil deposits and natural gas, which made it a prize possession

for the Ethiopians to keep and the Somalis to take. In 1963 President Osman of

Somalia called the Ethiopians expansionist and called for the Ogaden to be part of

Greater Somalia. The Ethiopians responded by calling the Somalis expansionists;

because they were the ones seeking to take other peoples land and incorporated

into their own. This exchange of words finally reached its boiling point and in

1964 war broke out between Ethiopia and Somalia around each other’s border. The

philosophy of Greater Somalia has also not only generated regional hostility by the

neighboring countries of Somalia; it has also generated the capacity to sustain

subversive activities towards the establishment of a central government that pursue

such policy in Somalia, a situation that appears as a mechanism that frustrate every

actions and steps taken towards state-building in Somalia.

4.1.3 SUPERPOWERS NATIONAL INTERESTS AND POLITICAL

INTERFERENCE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

The Horn of Africa has never acquired a strategic importance for its raw

materials or for any other continental advantage (Imru, 1989:55). Indeed, the

region has always been allotted a relatively important strategic value owing to its

proximity to the Red Sea which is an important and expeditious route of

international trade and communications between Europe, the Middle East and the

Far East as well as the navigation route through which oil is transported from the

Persian Gulf (in which the largest oil deposits of the world are located) to

consumers in North America and Europe (Legum, 1985:193; Lefebvre, 1996:388).

Hence, the states of the Horn of Africa were forced into economic, political

and military dependence on either one of the two superpowers of the Cold War –

the US and the Soviet Union. Competing to establish positions of influence and

military advantage in the strategically significant regions of the Persian Gulf and

Indian Ocean, the two superpowers supported client states in the adjacent Horn of

Africa primarily by injecting military aid and undermined inimical states by

supporting rebel movements and weaving unfriendly alliances and counter-

alliances (Abbink, 2003:407).

The interests of the U.S can be explained in terms of securing access to oil

for the West in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. It was thus in the

interests of the U.S. to fend off any expansion of Soviet power and influence,

whether through proxies or not, in the Middle East, Indian Ocean and the Horn of

Africa. Conversely, the Soviet Union aimed at promoting its credibility as a

superpower by influencing and over-arming the largest number of strategically

placed client states (Imru, 1989:57), at imperilling oil tankers bound to the West

via the Suez Canal and at reducing to nil the influence of the US in the above

mentioned regions. Geopolitical logic also required the Soviet Union which needed

to have maritime staging areas for its rapidly increasing navy to control the arc

running from South Asia to the Horn of Africa (Farer, 1979:114-115).

The struggle to harness the various national interests of the superpowers

created an unstable shift in alliance and supports of states in the region a situation

that later escalated the inter-state rivalry in the region. This rivalry was well

exemplified between Ethiopia and Somalia in which pursuing regional foreign

policy through proxy forces in neighbouring countries has been the normal pattern

of relations for decades. This activity has proved persistent over time and has

survived radical political reconfigurations, including changes of regime (Healy,

2008a:39). Mengistu engaged Barre in a proxy guerrilla war in which they each

supported the other’s insurgent (Lefebvre, 1996:397). Their presence i.e. U.S. and

the Soviet Union stimulated the bitter border rivalry and conflicts between the

bitter rivals in the Horn of Africa, conflicts that would have otherwise been unable

to continue.

Both Ethiopia and Somalia have reason to make strong allies of world

superpowers. Ethiopia desired regional hegemony, and its “size, military strength,

and geographic position would make it the dominant state… [But]

underdevelopment and tenuous national unity kept this role out of its reach”.

Somalia desired control of the Ogaden region, but could not do so without

matching Ethiopia’s conventional army. Before the United States and Soviet Union

left the region, they each intervened in both countries and dramatically reversed

alliances and mid-conflict (Paul, 1994). This swift alliance formation and support

from the superpowers contributed to the military build-ups of the states in the

region and an eventual outbreak of violence and conflicts between the states in the

region. This outbreak of violence and conflicts gives an account of the seemingly

failure of the Somali state.

4.1.4 REGIONAL CONFLICTS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

The Horn of Africa is the most conflict-ridden region in the world (Shinn,

2009:1) with conflicts, exacerbated by external interference and accompanied by

widespread human rights violations, raging sometimes simultaneously within and

between states. In fact, the African continent’s longest-running intra-state conflicts,

the Eritrean conflict and the South-Sudanese conflict with an estimated death toll

of over two million, took place in the Horn of Africa. It is also generally held that,

due to natural and man-made disasters, the Horn of Africa has the highest

percentage of refugees, estimated to have reached 700,000 in 2003 which is

roughly Djibouti’s population, and internally displaced persons in Africa, a trend

reinforcing future cycles of conflict. In 2008, the total number of internally

displaced persons in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Uganda was estimated at 2.74

million out of which an estimated 1.3 million people were displaced in Somalia

which is one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters (OCHA, 2008). In Sudan

alone, in 2003, there were over 4 million internally displaced persons, virtually

Eritrea’s entire population.

Also, given the highly personalized milieu in which politics operates in the

Horn of Africa, it was possible for a ‘strong-man benevolent leader’ (Rupiya,

2008:14) in the likes of Mengistu Haile Mariam, Gaafar Nimeiri or Siad Barre who

were all deeply insecure behind their ruthlessness and vindictive egomania, to

shape the political destiny of a state almost single-handedly and to enter into warm

or conflictual relations with other states, inducing civilian populations to join in

and converting them into military and para-military groups (Wasara, 2002:39). In

fact, despite the devastation they brought, such leaders and their behind-the-scenes

operators used senseless conflicts to divert popular impatience to their inability to

improve conditions. Moreover, there is in these states, a lack of trained personnel

mustering a long-term vision and with long experience in security policy-making

and management who prefer to go abroad in order to better their lives or escape

systematic maltreatment. Leaders exploiting the international community’s laissez-

faire attitude turn deaf ears to the advice of professional policy advisors and

opinion-formers. This automatically leads to what an observer of regional politics

described as ‘short-term thinking’ (Medhanie, 2004:7).

Furthermore, in order to hold on to power, to hold the state together and to

defend it against the claims and attacks of other states and rebel movements,

governing regimes build and maintain military forces of large dimensions (See

Tables 1and 2).

Table 1: Military Balance in the Horn of Africa in 1972

Asset Ethiopia Kenya Somalia Sudan

Personnel

Strength

44,000 6,000 13,000 36,000

Tanks 50 ---------- 150 130

Combat

Aircraft

46 ---------- 21 40

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Military Balance 1972-1973

Table 2: Military Balance in the Horn of Africa in 1989

Asset Djibouti Ethiopia Kenya Somalia Sudan

Personnel

Strength

4,000 315,000 23,000 65,000 72,000

Tanks ---------- 750 76 290 175

Combat

Aircraft

---------- 143 28 63 45

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Military Balance 1989-1990

They spend a large share of national expenditure disproportionate to

available economic resources and existing security threats. This kind of excessive

militarization eventually entails an increased burden especially in the present times

of dwindling resources and economic crises. Excessive military spending is

essentially a wasteful expenditure because of which social projects in education or

health remain stagnant or even non-existent. It also heightens the perception of

mutual threat with a wide range of unintended political consequences.

On the one hand, external threats will be used to distract attention from real

internal problems. On the other hand, a politicized, compromised and restless

military with its proneness to usurp state power and resources will represent a

grave danger to inherently fragile regimes as well as their political and security

structures.

Furthermore, the role Somalia played in the various regional conflicts that

ensued in neighbouring states as well as the nature of her alliance could also define

the motives of state actors such as Ethiopia and Kenya and their role in the

emergence of state failure in Somalia.

Table 3: Selected Intra-State Conflicts in and around the Horn of Africa

State Selected Rebel

Movements

Year of Origin Motivation Active Regional

Backing

Djibouti Front for the

Restoration of Unity

and

Democracy

1991 Change of

Regime

Eritrea

Eritrea Eritrean Islamic Jihad 1989 Change of

Regime

Sudan

Eritrean Democratic

Alliance

--------- Change of

Regime

Ethiopia

Afar Red Sea

Democratic Front

1998 Autonomy Ethiopia

Ethiopia Eritrean Liberation

Front

1961 Secession Sudan, Somalia,

Egypt

Eritrean People’s

Liberation Front

1972 Secession Sudan, Saudi

Arabia

Tigray People’s

Liberation Front

1975 Autonomy and

Change of

Regime

Sudan

Oromo Liberation

Front

1976 Secession Sudan, Somalia,

Eritrea

Western Somali

Liberation Front

1961/1976 Secession Somalia

Ogaden National

Liberation Front

1986 Secession Eritrea

Ethiopian People’s

Patriotic Front

1998 Change of

Regime

Eritrea

Kenya Shifta War 1963 Secession Somalia

Libya National Front for the

Salvation of Libya

1981 Change of

Regime

Sudan

Somalia Somali Salvation

Democratic Front

1979 Change of

Regime

Ethiopia

Somali National 1981 Secession Ethiopia

Movement

Al Itihad Al Islamiya

1983

1983 Islamization Sudan, Eritrea

Somali Patriotic

Movement

1989 Change of

Regime

---------

United Somali

Congress

1989 Change of

Regime

Ethiopia

Al Shabab Al

Mujahedeen

2006 Change of

Regime

Eritrea

Sudan Beja Congress 1958 Autonomy Eritrea

Anyanya 1960 Secession Ethiopia

Sudan People’s

Liberation Army

1983 Secession Ethiopia, Libya,

Uganda,

Eritrea, Kenya

National Democratic

Alliance

1995 Change of

Regime

Eritrea,

Ethiopia

Justice and Equality

Movement

2003 Darfur Eritrea, Chad

Sudan Liberation

Movement

2003 Darfur Eritrea

Uganda National Resistance

Army

1981 Change of

Regime

----------

Lord’s Resistance

Army

1987 Autonomy Sudan

Source: Mesfin, B. (2002), The Horn of Africa as a Security Complex: Towards a

Theoretical Framework

From the table above, we can deduce the fact that Somalia regional backing

for the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1961, Oromo Liberation Front in 1976, and

Western Somali Liberation Front in 1961/1976 against Ethiopia as well as their

support for Shifta war in 1963 against Kenya which represent the active regional

backing Somalia has ever involved in increased the rivalry of the two states against

Somalia as well as their posture towards supporting rebel movements in Somalia a

situation that further aggravated the state failure in Somalia.

4.1.5 OGADEN WAR

The discriminatory amalgamation and partitioning that took place in the

course of colonialism between the shared border of Somalia and Ethiopia has

generated a bitter rivalry between the two countries a rivalry that has generated

into escalation of instability and conflicts by the stakeholders of each countries

thus strengthening their capabilities to recover the region.

The leaders of the two countries, especially since Somalia’s independence,

have kept a topsy-turvy relationship marked by skirmishes and wars. When

Somalia got independence in 1960, it directed its internal security concern to

preventing Ethiopia from dominating affairs in the Horn of Africa. The boldest

step Somalia took to challenge Ethiopia’s dominance in the Horn so far was to

support insurgents planning to withdraw from Ethiopia. This insurgency led to the

Ogaden War that lasted from 1977 to 1978. The government of Somalia was trying

to take advantage of the turmoil in Ethiopia caused by the overthrow of Haile

Selassie and the bloodletting the Derg was perpetrating on opponents of the

revolution. The Somali government threw its support behind the Western Somali

Liberation Front (WSLF), which was a pro-Somali liberation group in the Ogaden,

planning to withdraw. The initial support the Barre government gave the WSLF

was covert and when Ethiopia accused President Barre of interference, he replied

that only “volunteers” had been given leave from the army to fight.

By September 1977, regular Somali troops’ involvement in the conflict

could no longer be disguised, as they had pushed some 700 kilometers into

Ethiopian territory and captured a provincial capital (Tiruneh, 1993). By the end of

1977, Somali forces had captured 60% of the Ogaden (Ofcansky, 1992). Ethiopia

blames the Ogaden war on Somalia’s irredentism, a wish by Siad Barre to annex

the Ogaden area of Ethiopia (Turner, 1993).

Desperate for help, Mengistu Haile Mariam the leader of the Derg, turned to

the Soviet Union which obliged by providing military supplies and advisers, as the

Soviets simultaneously cut off supplies for the Somali army. This triggered what

Lewis calls a “seismic shift in superpower alignments in the Horn of Africa”

(Lewis, 1989: 575), as Cuba sent troops to help the Ethiopian army. On his part,

Siad Barre turned to the United States and friendly Arab countries for economic

and military help.

Nevertheless, the WSLF with its Somali military support was defeated in

1978 and Siad Barre forbade the WSLF from using Somali territory to attack

Ethiopia. In retaliation for Somalia’s misdeeds, Ethiopia in the early 1980s

provided sanctuary and support for the Somali National Movement (SNM), which

was a dissident group formed by Isaaq exiles in London to overthrow the Barre’s

government.

Discontented the President had not represented their interests, the Isaaq

conducted guerrilla raids against Somali government-held territory from Dira

Dawa, Ethiopia. President Barre responded by launching a military campaign to

the north against the Issaq. After the fall of Siad Barre in 1991, the United Somali

Congress (USC), one of the rebelling factions competing for control, became

dominant. Competition and alliances between groups such as the Somali Salvation

Democratic Front (SSDF) and Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) eventually

resulted in the collapse of the USC leadership.

The political vacuum created led to the resurgence of clan identities which

has always been an integral part of Somali culture. Conflicting ambitions among

clan leaders was largely responsible for the civil war and the social and political

instability that defined the lives of Somalis in the 1990s. According to Adam

(1999), differences between United Somali Council (USC) leaders Ali Mahdi of

the Agbal clan and General Mohamed Farah Aidid of the Habar Gedir clan, were

the most notable. When Ali Mahdi declared himself “interim president,” Aidid’s

faction of the USC rejected that claim. The rift among clans widened as they

fought for control of various towns. By 1992 Somalia had collapsed as a state

caused largely by dispute among clans. Hunger, famine and deaths ravaged the

country.

According to Metz (1992), living standards worsening rapidly in Somalia,

was caused not only by civil war but the drought in central and southern Somalia

that left hundreds of thousands starving. By August 1992, Somali refugees that had

settled in neighbouring countries were estimated at 500,000 in Ethiopia, 300,000 in

Kenya, 65,000 in Yemen, 15,000 in Djibouti and about 100,000 in Europe. United

Nations peacekeepers sent to Somalia were met by warlords that resented their

presence, resulting in deadly assaults on them. Out of humanitarian concern,

however, United States marines were sent to Somalia to bolster the United Nations

peacekeepers. Deadly assaults on United States troops caused their withdrawal in

1993.

With regard to the Ogaden Province of Eastern Ethiopia which Somalia

claims, Addis Ababa maintains that the province had been an integral part of

Ethiopia since the reigns of Emperors Amde Tsion[1312-1342], Dawit[1382-

1411], Yeshaque[1414-1429], Zere Yacob [1434-1468], and Sertse Dingil 1563-

1597]. Furthermore, Addis Ababa also argues that its dispute with Somalia centres

only on the demarcation of the borders of former Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia.

The northern portion -i.e. the Ethiopia-British Somaliland border, it says, has

already been demarcated, and therefore, cannot be a subject for discussion, let

alone negotiation. In point of fact, Ethiopia maintains that its borders with Somalia

are internationally recognized, and have been confirmed on ten different occasions

from 1897 to 1988.

1. On July 28, 1897, when the Anglo-Ethiopian Boundary Treaty was affirmed by

the British Parliament and duly ratified by Queen Victoria;

2. On June 16, 1908, when the Italian Parliament ratified the Italo- Ethiopian

Boundary Treaty of 1897 and the Convention of 1908. Duly concluded, signed and

ratified, it legally binds the signatory parties and their successors, either directly or

by right of devolution;

For the Somali Republic, the dispute with Ethiopia has nothing to do with

problems associated with border demarcation. Rather, it is a question of respecting

the rights of the people of the Ogaden to self-determination, and of recovering

land, which Mogadishu claims, that it “lost” because of the 19th century treaties

that Ethiopia signed with the various European colonial powers.

1. Somalia contends that both the U.N and OAU Charters affirm the rights of

peoples to self-determination, and that Article 103 of the U.N. Charter on self-

determination prevails over rights which Ethiopia claims under treaties that it

signed with the various European colonial powers;

2. Somalia accuses Ethiopia of being a colonialist state, and argues that the people

of the Ogaden are under alien domination. They must therefore be beneficiary to

all the relevant resolutions on de-colonization in order to be able to exercise their

rights to self-determination;

3. Somalia contends that it was never a party to these treaties, and as such, it

should not be expected to accept them;

4. That such resolutions adopted by the OAU and the Non-Aligned countries refer

to new disputes, and not to those which already exist; and

5. That it has registered its serious reservations to such resolutions and therefore is

not bound by them.

The Ethiopians have challenged Somalia’s position by contending that, to

begin with, a state has to have defined boundaries. Since there was no state in

history called “Somalia” before 1960, they could not have taken land from a non-

existent entity. Ethiopia has also referred to Article 62 (a) of the Vienna

Convention on the Law of Treaties, which provides that

“A fundamental change of circumstances which has occurred with

regard to those existing at the time of the conclusion of a treaty,

and which are not foreseen by the parties, may not be invoked as a

ground for terminating or withdrawing from a treaty, if the Treaty

establishes a boundary.”

Addis Ababa has also referred to the International Law Commission’s Report that

was approved by the U.N. General Assembly, which maintains that,

“The clean state principle does not in any event relieve a newly

independent state of the obligation to respect a boundary

settlement and certain other situations of a territorial character

established by Treaty.”

For Ethiopia, the right of self-determination cannot have preponderance

over the principle of sovereignty, and it emphasizes that Ethiopian Somalis, who

leave in the Ogaden Province, enjoy the right to govern themselves, to establish

their own regional constitution, to elect their own representatives to regional and

federal assemblies, and to use their language as a medium of instruction in schools,

and in that way, they exercise the right to self-determination. One could also add

that if Somalia’s views on self-determination are to be taken seriously, it should be

the first to recognize the Republic of Somaliland because the majority of its

citizens have already voted for independence.

Unfortunate as it is, Ethiopia and Somalia have gone to war five times in the

last forty seven years over the Ogaden. Similarly, Kenya and Somalia have also

fought three times over the Northern Frontier District. In both cases, the result has

been death, destruction of property, and the displacement of millions of people. We

can therefore deduce that the prolonged war Somalia experienced with her most

contending rivals in the region (Ethiopia and Kenya) over border disputes

contribute to the failure of the Somali state.

4.1.6 THE IMPACTS OF RADICAL ISLAM AND TERRORISM

Almost the entire population of Somalia consists of Sunnis, making Somalia

one of the most religiously homogenous countries in Africa. The Islamic influence

came about through trade contacts with the Arab Peninsula, as well as reciprocal

migration, which has been established as beginning in the 9th century. As early as

the 16th century there are incidents of fighting between Christian Amharic

populations in the Ethiopian highlands and Muslim Sultanates in the eastern

lowlands (present-day Somalia). This rivalry date back to the 16th century, when an

Ethiopian born Muslim warrior by the name of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, or

what the Ethiopians called him Ahmed Gragn (the left handed), declared a jihad on

the Ethiopian Christian Empire. He started his campaign from his home, Harar. He

enlisted Somali soldiers to his army which the Somalis made up the majority.

Through this campaign he was able to destroy a lot of churches and kill many

Christians. Because of this campaign the Ethiopian Christians have a deep

animosity and hatred against the Somalis for helping with the Jihad and the arrival

of the European colonial powers further complicated relations (Metz, 1992).

The wide religious discrepancies between Somalia and Ethiopia have often

geared intense opposition from the two nations. Somalia has often tend to identify

with countries in the Arab World that share the same religious values with it, an

action that is frequently been viewed from security implications to the region by

neighbouring states. For instance, Somalia alongside Sudan are the only countries

that possesses ties to the Arab League so also aid and technical assistance from

neighbouring Islamic nations.

However, since the mid-1990s, the states in the Horn of Africa have

witnessed hundreds of acts of terrorism against foreign as well as local citizens and

interests. The region is accordingly considered both as a breeding ground and a

safe haven for terrorist organizations, especially after the September 11, 2001

terrorist attacks in the US. Hence, this region has come under increased scrutiny in

the war against terrorism. For instance, Kenya in which around 10 % of the

population is Muslim was the site of the 1998 terrorist attack on the US embassy in

Nairobi, the bombing of a Mombasa hotel and the missile attack on an Israeli

commercial jetliner in 2002. These acts have accentuated the fear that Kenya’s

Muslim-dominated coastal areas may fall under fundamentalist influence and

affect the state’s internal structure and foreign relations as well as exacerbate

latently existing social and ethnic conflicts (Usama, 2009:25-26).

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in the US, Somalia came under the

watchful eyes of Western intelligence services and military forces. In view of

Somalia’s lengthy and easily penetrable seacoast as well as the prolonged absence

of a functioning administration, the US worried that Al Qaeda might establish

training bases or use it as a conduit of money, personnel and material for future

terrorist operations beyond the Horn of Africa.

The US thus created a Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CTJF-

HOA) with an area of responsibility covering the Horn of Africa plus Yemen. The

US is only bent on reducing the ability of terrorist organizations to operate and

move in the region. The actions of the US clearly show a discrepancy between its

own interest of fighting terrorism in the Horn of Africa and that of the regional

regimes which have an utter disdain for its concerns. In fact, the diffusion of

modern military technologies and state-of-the-art techniques of organization which

the US approaches entailed went beyond the modernization of the military or the

transfer of weapons. It led to the institutionalized surveillance of entire populations

and the blind wholesale suppression of all political opponents, leading in effect to

the diffusion of ideas such as Islamist fundamentalism with resultant security

problems particularly in Somalia. An observer of the Horn of Africa said that

Outside actors need to respond judiciously to the allegations of

terrorism levelled against various parties to conflict in the Horn.

The underlying conflicts in the region are older than the

contemporary war on terrorism and will probably outlast it.

Outsiders need to recognize the tactical value of their support and

the interests at stake in representing local adversaries as

associates of terrorism. They also need to weigh the possible gains

(in terms of international terrorism) from intervention against the

risks of greater radicalization, alienation and conflict generation

in the region (Healy, 2008a:44-45).

The U.S declaration of ‘War against Terror’ ushered into the Horn of Africa

another dimension of inter-state rivalry. With international support and U.S

backing, Ethiopia the arch-rival of Somalia once again justified their invasion of

Somalia on the basis of checkmating the rise of radical Islam and the terrorism

threat to the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia fearing the growing influence of these courts

tried to meddle in Somalia’s affairs in the 1990s, when government forces

repeatedly clashed with Islamic backed militias. In 1999, factional leaders in

Somalia lodged a complaint with the Security Council over a border incursion by

Ethiopian forces. Heavily armed Ethiopian troops entered towns along the border

and allegedly took over local administration and detained officials in the towns

(“Somalia Protests Ethiopian”, 1999). The two Somali leaders at the time, Ali

Mahdi and Hussein Aideed, issued a joint statement calling on both the Security

Council and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to intervene to end

Ethiopia’s aggression.

The 9-11 attacks in the United States aggravated another fear that Somalia

would soon become a haven for terrorists. The United States, in fact, had linked

one court, the Al Itihad al Islami, with an estimated membership of 50,000 -

60,000, to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. The Ethiopian government also actively

supported the overthrow of Al Itihad, fearing that importing radical Islamists into

restive Somalia would also risk security in Ethiopia (Le Sage, 2001).

In 2004, a regional body called the Inter-Governmental Authority on Trade

and Development (IGAD) comprising Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea,

Djibouti and Somalia set up the Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG)

to restore peace and order. In August 2004 a transitional government called the

Transitional Federal Institutions (TFI) was formed following settlement among

several factions. The TFI included a transitional parliament, the Transitional

Federal Assembly, a transitional president, a prime minister and a cabinet known

as the Council of Ministers. In October 2004, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was elected

the Transitional Federal President of Somalia. Selecting Abdullahi Ahmed seemed

a vindication for Ethiopia’s covert involvement in Somalia, since the Ethiopian

government considered him an ally.

Backed by the African Union and the United Nations Security Council, the

Transitional Federal Government was given the international recognition the

Islamic Courts lacked. The TFG’s support, however, was confined to Southern

Somalia. Despite the threat of sectarianism, Islamic militants were unified by their

singular goal of undermining the legitimacy of the TFG. Until he was forced to

resign in December 2008, after conceding that Islamist insurgents had overtaken

much of the country and that he had been unable to unify the unendingly

fragmented Somali nation, Yusuf Ahmed’s presidential authority had repeatedly

been undermined by the Islamist groups.

It came as no surprise, therefore, that the Ethiopian parliament passed a

resolution in November 2006 to allow the government “to take all necessary steps

to ward off attacks by the Islamic Council in Somalia.” This was a euphemism for

Ethiopian forces to cross the border into Somalia, which they subsequently did in

December 2006. The United States considers Ethiopia a pro-Christian nation and

by inference, its government being disinclined to show any leaning to sponsor

international terrorism of the kind some Islamic countries would do.

Ethiopia’s neighbours of Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt and the

autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland being Islamic, also gives added

poignancy to the friendship the United States intends to keep with Ethiopia. United

States and Ethiopia’s security concerns in the Horn have become intertwined by

their common suspicion of Islamist-backed militias gaining ascendancy in war-torn

Somalia. The common security interests the United States and Ethiopia shared in

the Horn, probably short-circuited any thoughtful analysis of the ramifications on

politics and security arising from Ethiopian troops crossing the border. While top

officials of the Bush administration discreetly avoided volunteering information

that would have suggested United States complicity in Ethiopia’s invasion, lower

administration officials, on the other hand were not so careful. A US State

Department spokesperson stated rather paternalistically:

Ethiopia’s attack is a response to aggression by Islamists and an

attempt to stem the flow of outside arms shipments to them.

Washington is also concerned about reports the Islamists were

using soldiers and abusing Ethiopian prisoners of war (“US Backs

Ethiopia”, 2006).

Observers critical to the invasion have not been so complimentary.

Prendergast and Thomas-Jensen (2007) claim recent US policy in the Horn of

Africa including Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda have worsened

security in the region. Stemming the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies

has become such an overwhelming strategic objective for Washington that it has

overshadowed US efforts to resolve conflicts and promote good governance.

4.2 ANALYSIS OF THE OGADEN BORDER DISPUTES

The purpose of this section is to analyze the Ethiopia-Somalia border

disputes on the Ogaden region and its resultant effect on state failure in Somalia as

case study. In doing so, the variables identified above will be analyzed in relation

to evidence adduced with a view to ascertain the consequences of the case study on

Somalia statelessness.

4.2.1 BACKGROUND TO THE CONFLICT

4.2.1.1 SOMALI NATIONALISM IN ETHIOPIA

The partition of the Horn of Africa at the twilight of the colonial period saw

the establishment of new state borders that did not necessarily trace the boundaries

of the Somali nation. In an outcome reminiscent of the process throughout much of

the post-colonial world, ethnic Somalis found themselves living within a number

of different states including Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia (Laitin 1979). Ethiopia

regained sovereignty over the Ogaden (the region that Somali nationalists refer to

as “Western Somalia”) from the British in the autumn of 1948. The region was

predominantly flat, dry, pastoral land that had remained virtually untouched by any

form of economic, infrastructural, or social development. Besides some scattered

areas of rich grazing land, the Ogaden had few forests or natural mineral wealth for

potential colonizers to exploit. Consequently, at first, the Ethiopian state had little

incentive or opportunity to mobilize the poor and thinly populated region, and

largely refrained from introducing tax collection and strong governance (Gorman,

1981: 30).

Source: Chaliand, 1978: 122

No widespread uprising against Ethiopian rule occurred in 1948, which

suggests that any misgivings the Somali population had over the handover from the

British to the Ethiopians did not warrant violent resistance (Markakis, 1987: 174;

Touval, 1963: 134). It appears that while Addis Ababa allowed the traditional

Ogaden Somali social and political structures to remain in place, and did not

collect taxes, the wider population was generally willing to accept the shift in

political regime. However, two political forces in the Horn of Africa were to act

together to stir Somali nationalist sentiment in Ogaden. The first was the creation

of a pan-Somali conscience which was associated with the establishment of the

Somali Republic. As 1960 (and the independence of the Somali Republic)

approached, a strong sense of Somali identity was stirred across the region (Lewis,

1963: 150; Gebru, 1991; Sheik-Abdi, 1977: 657; Mayall, 1990: 60). Second, over

the course of the 1950s and 1960s, Addis Ababa had gradually expanded its

political and economic involvement in Ogaden. The growth of state control over

what had been for all practical purposes an autonomous region was strongly

resented by the local population. These two currents in the relationship between the

government and the Ogaden Somalis culminated in the increasing levels of social

unrest.

4.3. THE ETHIOPIAN-OGADEN CIVIL WAR

The 1974 Ethiopian revolution unleashed centrifugal forces in the multi-

ethnic state. It was not the first time in Ethiopian history that groups within

Ethiopia had attempted to exploit the perceived vulnerability of a weak transitional

government to begin a nationalist revolt (Gerbu, 1985: 77-92; Berhe, 2004: 572).

However, the insurgencies sparked by the 1974 military coup were unrivalled in

Ethiopian history for their intensity, scope and frequency. New insurgencies were

organized and old insurgencies intensified in Eritrea, Tigray, Bale and Ogaden.

These various nationalist movements were unified only in opposition to the

perceived domination of another ethnic group, the Amhara. As one insurgent

leader stated:

The Abyssinian State, or if you like, the Ethiopian State, was and is

the State of the colonizer, the victor or the ruler. As such it has

been, and still is solely serving the interests of its founders – the

Abyssinians or the Amhara to be more exact. The fact that there

was transfer of leadership from Menelik to Haile Selassie, to the

present military rulers does not make any difference (Selassie,

1990: 132).

The fact that 109 of the Derg’s 123 member General Assembly and 14 of

the 16 members of the Central Committee were Amhara was not lost on Ethiopia’s

marginalized ethnic groups (Firebrace, 1982: 88; Schwab, 1985: 55). Although

most nationalist movements shared a general resentment towards the central

government, it is here that most similarities end. The different national fronts had

an array of political objectives ranging from independence, revolution, national

autonomy and irredentism. The Somali irredentists of Ogaden were unique among

the Ethiopian insurgent groups for they alone had a foreign power directly

supporting their military operations by providing troops, weapons, training and

supplies.

The Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) owed much of its fighting

capabilities to support it received from Somalia. The inclusion of all lands

occupied by ethnic Somalis was a founding principle of the newly independent

state. This objective, above all, meant the transfer of sovereignty of the Ogaden

region from Ethiopia to Somalia. As such, Mogadishu was forthcoming with

military aid and financial assistance to the Ogaden Somali irredentist movement,

support that in 1977 was expanded to direct military involvement in the civil war.

The Derg, on the other hand, owed much of its continued effectiveness to

Soviet and Cuban support. Until 1976, the United States had been the leading

guarantor of Ethiopian security. Beginning in 1954, Ethiopia had been one of the

United States’ closest allies in Africa. However, the new Ethiopian President,

Mengistu Haile Mariam, believed the United States was not willing to support the

massive expansion of the Ethiopian armed forces that the Derg deemed necessary

for winning the civil war. As such, in one of the greatest reshuffles of Cold War

alignments, Ethiopia dramatically jumped into the Soviet sphere while the Somali

Republic swapped to the United States. Beginning in 1976, the Soviet Union began

to cement its new relationship with Addis Ababa by commencing arms shipments,

officer exchange programs, and financial aid. These efforts peaked after the Somali

forces directly intervened in the Ethiopian-Ogaden civil war in 1977-78.

4.3.1 PHASE ONE: GUERRILLA AND COUNTERINSURGENCY

WARFARE, 1976-1977

The civil war in the Ogaden region grew in scale, ferocity and geographical

location over the initial years of the insurrection. From humble beginnings in 1976,

the WSLF developed into one of the largest and most capable insurgent

movements in Africa. The rapid rise of the WSLF owed a great deal to the

logistical support provided by Somalia. Although, in the first phase the WSLF

expanded in size and capability the insurgent actor never reached a comparable

military balance with the central government. The Derg, armed with sophisticated

American and Soviet weapons, including tanks, artillery and aircraft, completely

outmatched the guerrilla fighters. Any concentrated formations of insurgents were

easy targets for the Ethiopian army and air force. As such, the first phase of the

civil war was characterized by guerrilla and counterinsurgency warfare in which

the incumbent came to control all the major towns in the province while the

insurgents increasingly came to have free rein over the vast rural expanses of

eastern Ethiopia.

4.3.2. CHANGING CAMPS: EARLY SOVIET INTERVENTION IN

THE ETHIOPIAN CIVIL WAR

Ethiopian foreign relations underwent a radical realignment following

Mengistu’s seizure of power. The United States had been the major provider of

arms, equipment, and military training to the forces of Emperor Haile Selassie.

Between 1950 and 1973 the United States spent some $161 million in military aid

to Ethiopia that, in 1966, even included the relatively advanced F-5 fighter-

bombers (Lefebvre, 1991: 111-130; Agyeman-Duah, 1986: 289). The United

States military aid to Ethiopia represented 82 percent of its total aid to Africa.

These high levels of assistance from the United States allowed the Emperor to

maintain a regular army of approximately 40,000 soldiers. The final break in

Ethiopian-American relations occurred in April 1977, when Mengistu – having

been seduced by Soviet promises of more military aid than the United States was

willing to provide – dramatically switched camps.

Shortly after the revolution, Ethiopia began receiving military aid from the

Soviet Union. Reportedly the Ethiopians not only received T-34, T-54, and T-55

tanks and armoured personnel carriers but also equipment Moscow reserved for

close allies including SAM-7 anti-aircraft missiles, Mi-8 helicopters and self-

propelled guns (Ayoob, 1980: 19). Nevertheless, the initial volume of assistance

from the Soviet Union and eastern European states was modest. In 1976, the Derg

received only $18 million – a figure that was eclipsed by the United States residual

arms transfer of $103 million (SIPRI 2006). However, the initial Soviet supplies

were not a true indication of Moscow’s commitment to its relationship with Addis

Ababa. But the USSR could not afford to send additional aid while its superpower

rival was still in the process of supplying the arms that had been agreed to with

Ethiopia in previously signed contracts.

4.3.3 THE BEGINNINGS OF SOMALI INTERVENTION

Besides captured and stolen equipment, the arms pipelines running between

the Somali border towns and the WSLF guerrilla units operating inside Ethiopia

were the Front’s sole source of weapons and equipment. With no other foreign

source of military aid, the WSLF’s war effort was heavily dependent upon

Mogadishu. Initially, Somalia sent significant quantities of rifles (mostly Soviet

supplied Kalashnikovs), rocket-propelled grenades and land-mines. However, from

early in the civil war Somali army officers were also reported to be advising, and

in some cases directly leading, WSLF guerrilla units. The Somali regular soldiers

removed their Somalia National Army (SNA) insignias to disguise themselves as

WSLF members.

Somalia’s support for the WSLF grew in proportion with the insurgency’s

successes. It seems that as reports of WSLF victories increasingly made their way

back to President Siad in Mogadishu, so did his confidence in supporting the

insurgents. Training camps were built on the Somali side of the border specifically

to train new WSLF recruits. Recruits graduating ran from the Somali army ran

programs were then armed by Mogadishu and sent back across the border to fight

in the Ogaden.

4.3.4 MEDIUM INTENSITY GUERRILLA WARFARE

The WSLF political leadership was mostly in self-imposed exile, generally

in Mogadishu, in 1974 when the Ethiopian revolution propelled the Derg into

power. These events apparently caught the WSLF by surprise. Whereas most other

insurgent actors in Ethiopia began, reignited, or intensified their military efforts in

1974-75, the WSLF were not prepared to begin the military dimension of its

campaign until 1976. Nevertheless, the WSLF was eager to exploit the confusion

in Addis Ababa, and in the early months of 1976 the WSLF steadily stepped up its

attacks in the Ogaden, Bale and Sidamo (Korn, 1986: 24). At this early stage, the

best sources available have estimated that the WSLF guerrillas only numbered

3,000 to 5,000 (Gorman, 1981: 62). However, bolstered by support from the

population they were able to move freely around the region further galvanizing

civilians’ collaboration in their cause. Due to Somali assistance the insurgents,

although small in number, was well organized, trained, armed and, above all else,

was coalesced under a single unified political and military command.

The WSLF challenge of expanding its size was helped by the large number

of Ogaden Somali refugees in Somalia. The 1974 drought in eastern Ethiopia, had

forced large numbers of the scattered nomadic population of the Ogaden to migrate

over the border into Somalia and concentrated around food distribution centres.

The Somali famine-relief camps facilitated recruitment into the WSLF. As the

refugees were already inside Somalia, the difficult and dangerous logistical

problem of moving large numbers of new recruits to training camps across the

border in the Republic was moderated (Patman, 1990: 157). Mogadishu played a

central role in training these recruits, many of whom were (before Somalia’s spilt

with the Soviet Union in 1977) also sent abroad to the Soviet Union, Cuba and

North Korea for specialist training (Ottaway, 1982: 83). Refugees and other

Ogaden Somali volunteers, after being armed, trained and organized into guerrilla

units begun to stream back across the border into Ethiopia. By the end of 1976, the

size of the WSLF guerrilla force operating in Ogaden was estimated by the

Ethiopian government to be 30,000, with an additional 6,000 Somali observers

(Ottaway, 1978: 209).

The first months of 1977 marked a turning point for the WSLF. The

frequency, size and effectiveness of the WSLF raids against government

installations increased. Targets of the WSLF guerrilla included key transportation

routes, Ethiopian army convoys, police stations, and even fixed army positions

(Patman, 1990: 209). At this precise time, the first journalistic dispatches from the

Horn began mentioning the presence of up to 1,500 Somali regulars operating in

Ethiopia (Ottaway, 1978: 209). Reports of Somali participation in the conflict

became more frequent as the intensity of the conflict increased. Although the

Somali Republic had been steadily supplying and training the WSLF (a point

Mogadishu had never denied) the reports in February 1977 were the first to cite

Somali units directly involved in supporting the WSLF. From February 1977 until

the full Somali invasion in July 1977, the WSLF guerrillas captured village after

village in the Ogaden. The available information supports the WSLF claim that not

long into 1977 they had effectively wrestled 60 percent of the disputed territory

away from the Ethiopian government’s control (Porter, 1984: 184). The Ethiopian

army had become largely confined to the garrison towns of Jijiga, Gode, Warder,

Degehabour, Kebridehar and further south in Dolo, Ginir, Goba, Neghelli and

Shakisso (Gilkes, 1991: 722).

During 1977, the WSLF increased the tempo of its operations. In early July

1977 the fighting escalated sharply with the WSLF expanding its area of

operations to include targets on the outmost boundary of the territory it claimed.

On 14 July 1977, fighting erupted at the strategically important train junction at

Dire Dawa. The railway linked Addis Ababa with the Djibouti and from there the

outside world. The track was vital to the Ethiopian economy as it carried an

estimated sixty percent of Ethiopia’s exports and imports (Anonymous 1977b, 2),

and a successful attack would interrupt military supplies coming from overseas to

Addis Ababa. Fighting lasted two to three days with heavy causalities being

suffered by both sides (Anonymous 1977b, 2). The WSLF was able to blow up the

two railway bridges on either side of the city however, as is typical of guerrilla

forces, they lacked the offensive capabilities to capture the fortified town.

4.4 PHASE TWO: CONVENTIONAL WARFARE, 1977-1978

On the whole, the WSLF during the guerrilla phase of the conflict did not

have the heavy weapons required to breach the defences of the Ethiopian garrisons,

and contented themselves with preventing the Ethiopian soldiers from venturing

out of their strongholds to patrol. However, the invasion by the Somali regular

army in July changed this dynamic and many garrisons, including the airfield at

Gode, quickly fell to the invaders. It seemed likely that the insurgents, with the

addition of direct Somali assistance, would succeed in annexing the Ogaden region

into the Somali Republic. Massive Soviet and Cuban intervention, however, swung

the balance of forces in the Ogaden theatre back in favour of the incumbent. This

phase saw both the incumbent and insurgent receive comparable levels of

assistance from their respective external supporters. The course of the civil war

during this phase underwent revolutionary transformation. The WSLF’s tactics,

unit formations and general conduct evolved into patterns characteristic of

conventional warfare. In response, the incumbent ceased counterinsurgency

operations against the WSLF and engaged them in major conventional

confrontations before eventually defeating the insurgents at Harar and Jijjiga.

Although the Somali National Army’s direct intervention greatly increased

the capabilities of the WSLF its strength was not on parity with Ethiopian

government. Conventional warfare favours the side with the greater military

resources and so, after the initial impetus of the Somali invasion fizzled and the

conflict became one of attrition, the Derg held the military advantage.

4.4.1 DIRECT SOVIET UNION AND CUBAN INTERVENTION

In mid-1977, the Ethiopian Foreign minister visited Moscow and Havana in

a successful attempt to persuade these states to send troops in a repeat of the Soviet

and Cuban intervention in Angola (Ayoob, 1980: 157). On 26 November 1977, an

emergency airlift began originating in the Soviet Union and destined for Addis

Ababa. Several An-22 and Tu-76 transport aircraft logged over 200 return flights

to Ethiopia and still, transport aircraft had to be borrowed from eastern European

states because the superpower’s own air force did not possess the huge number of

aircraft required for such a mammoth operation (Porter, 1984: 201). Reports tell of

flights in early January leaving every 20 minutes from their bases at Tbilisi, north

of the Black Sea. However, it was the sealift that accounted for the majority (an

estimated 75 percent) of the military aid sent by the USSR. Between June 1977 and

July 1978 over 35 freighters made the journey from the Black Sea, via the Turkish

Straits and Suez Canal, to eventually arrive at the Eritrean ports (then part of

Ethiopia) of Assab or Massawa. The unloaded vehicles and weapons then hurriedly

dashed through Eritrea and Tigray (two provinces combating powerful insurgents

themselves) to join the fight in the Ogaden (Porter, 1984: 202).

In total, Moscow sent an estimated 1,000 Soviet military advisors along with

some 300 T-54/T-54 main battle tanks, over 300 artillery pieces, and thousands of

small arms (Porter, 1984: 200; Darnton, 1978: 1). In addition, Cuba supplied

15,000 troops which were heavily involved in fighting against the combined

WSLF and SNA invasion (Darnton, 1978: A3).

4.4.2 THE SOMALI INVASION

The invasion consisted of 35,000 SNA regulars, 250 tanks (most with 250-

mm cannons), 300 armoured personnel carriers, 200 pieces of mobile artillery and

supported by the Somali air force (Marcus, 1994: 196-197). The invasion also

included an additional 15,000 WSLF fighters that had crossed into Somalia to

participate in the assault. The skill and organization Somali advance, under the

leadership of the SNA General Amantar, greatly impressed American military

observers (Laitin, 1979: 166). Although the Somali invasion involved almost twice

as many SNA soldiers than supplied to Addis Ababa, the quantity of equipment

was comparable.

The major flaw in the Somali invasion was not the lack of troops and

equipment, but the fragility of its logistical lines of communication. By the time

the invading forces reached the outskirts of Harar in November, the Somali

logistical lines stretched back over 225km across the border to the northern Somali

city of Hargeisa. Neglected by consecutive Ethiopian governments, the Ogaden

region had few roads linking the major cities that could facilitate the easy

movement of supplies. Besides the obvious quantitative impact the lack of supplies

had on the Somali forces at the front, there were reportedly also important negative

effects on the morale of the Somali forces (Watson, 1986: 167).

4.4.3 WSLF SWITCH TO CONVENTIONAL WARFARE

On 18 June, the first small numbers of regular SNA units began moving

over the border into the Ogaden. The WSLF quickly joined with the SNA troops

and began the push towards the major government controlled garrison towns

(Gilkes, 1991: 722). From the earliest contact with the SNA forces, the WSLF

style of warfare began to radically change. Falling into formation behind the

advancing SNA columns of armour, the WSLF were largely incorporated into the

Somali order-of-battle, fighting alongside the regular soldiers of the Somali

Republic. As discussed, the WSLF’s raid on Dire Dara on 14 July had been

classically guerrilla in character. The insurgents had attacked key railway bridges

before hurriedly withdrawing before the Ethiopian forces could mount a

counterattack. However, the second assault, which also included a SNA brigade

almost, captured the important garrison city. The most telling change in the WSLF

behaviour was the reaction of the attackers after the assault was repelled. Instead of

dispersing, the WSLF and SNA withdrew to the surrounding hills where they dug-

in and from fixed positions set about shelling the city with artillery and mortars.

The Somali forces found the initial stages of the invasion of Ethiopia

relatively easy going. The guerrilla force had captured most towns in the Ogaden

region as far north as Dire Dawa. Faced by regular Somali units the few thousand

Ethiopian soldiers in scattered garrisons throughout the territory were totally

overwhelmed. It is reported that by 3 August the guerrillas had control over every

town in the region except for three: Dire Dawa, Harar and Jijjiga. However, the

triad of towns represented the most important political, economic and population

centres in the Ogaden. Even more importantly, the towns were along the major

northern road leading from Somali to the Addis Ababa and therefore their capture

was strategically crucial for the Somali war plan. The Derg was equally aware of

the strategic value of these towns’ and consequently extensively fortified them

with Ethiopian regular and militia units.

In early February 1978, under the direction of a Soviet three-star general,

named Vasilii Petrov, and two Soviet brigadier-generals the Ethiopian

counteroffensive built momentum. From this point onwards the war tilted

decisively Ethiopia’s favour. There had been roughly 2,000 Cuban troops fighting

alongside the Ethiopian army, however, in early February the number leapt to over

11,000, many of whom had been flown in from Angola by Ethiopian airlines and

then rushed to the front in order to help maintain the impetus of the

counteroffensive. By early March, Cuban strength in Ethiopia had grown to 15,000

in addition to 1,500 Soviet advisors (Porter, 1984: 204).

The most decisive battle of the war occurred at the strategically important

town of Jijiga. The third largest city in the Ogaden, Jijiga was the gateway from the

eastern highlands to the western plateaus, had changed hands twice before finally

falling to the Somalis on 2 September 1977. To the west of the town Ethiopian

amour, infantry and the Cuban contingent steadily began crossing the Ahmar

Mountains between Jijiga and the Somali border. Western sources reported that

roughly 75,000 Ethiopian and 7,000 Cuban soldiers were involved in the operation

(Kaufman, 1978: A4). Meanwhile, giant Soviet Mi-6 transport helicopters airlifted

Ethiopian and Cuban tanks (two at a time) around the back the Somali defences to

the other side of the mountains. The logistical triumph succeeded in both bypassing

the heavily fortified Somali defences at the Gara Marada Pass while

simultaneously encircling the majority of the WSLF and SNA forces in the

mountains. What ensued was the largest and most decisive conventional

confrontation of the war. The Somali forces – trapped, outnumbered and

outgunned – suffered horrific causalities, which included the annihilation of an

entire armour brigade (Porter, 1984: 186). Jijiga fell to the Ethiopian forces on 5

March 1978.

The routed SNA and WSLF forces that were able to escaped Jijiga fled in

disorder back over the Somali border. Except for two distant and isolated towns in

southeast, every city in Ogaden was back in the hands of Addis Ababa within a

week of Jijiga. On 9 March, hostilities between Ethiopia and Somalia ended with

President Siyaad’s public declaration that all SNA forces would be withdrawn

from Ethiopian territory (Porter, 1984: 186).

4.5 PHASE THREE: REVERSION BACK TO GUERRILLA WARFARE,

1979-1980

The civil war, however, did not end with the SNA defeat at Jigija. After a

respite, the WSLF renewed its military campaign against the Ethiopian central

government. The continuation of the war prompted the Soviet Union to continue its

substantial military aid to the incumbent regime. The WSLF did not fair as well

with its international supporter. Mogadishu was still smarting from its

comprehensive defeat in 1978 at the hands of the Ethiopian army. Somalia had

become disenchanted with the pan-Somali ideals that were so strong in the fervour

of independence. Support for the WSLF persisted, but at a much reduced overall

level. In sum, the incumbent found itself in the strongest position it had to that

point in the civil war, while the WSLF found itself in its weakest. The warfare

during this period reflected this new strategic reality with the insurgent reverting to

guerrilla warfare.

4.5.1 CONTINUED SOVIET INVENTION

The Soviet Union, along with the other major foreign supporters of the

Derg, believed the repulsion of the Somali regular army and the regular formations

of the WSLF signalled the end of the Ethiopian civil war in the Ogaden theatre.

The level of foreign assistance to Addis Ababa in 1979 reflects this optimistic

view. The volume of foreign support dived from $917 million in 1978 to a mere

$112 million in 1979 (SIPRI 2006). However, in the face of continued fighting in

Ethiopia, Soviet and Eastern European arms transfers more than tripled in 1980

and continued to rise until the mid-1980s when abruptly Ethiopia became a victim

of Perestroika. Although the volume of external assistance to the Ethiopia dipped

in 1979, the temporary loss of foreign military aid had no real impact upon the

Ethiopian government’s massive expansion of its army. The army, in 1975 and

before Soviet intervention, was roughly 50,000 strong. Yet, with foreign weapons,

money and training the army had rapidly increased to 225,000 in 1977 and by 1979

had numbered 250,000 men (US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1982).

The level of external intervention was sufficient to maintain the Ethiopian army’s

military dominance over all the insurgent groups active in the country.

4.5.2 SOMALI DISENGAGEMENT FROM THE ETHIOPIAN-

OGADEN CIVIL WAR

Following the Somali defeat in 1978 Mogadishu continued, if nominally, to

sponsor the WSLF’s military operations in the Ogaden (Lewis, 1989: 576). The

balance of power in the Horn of Africa had decisively shifted towards Ethiopia. As

such, Mogadishu was reluctant to continue direct military support for the

irredentist cause. The Somali assistance to the guerrillas began to be scaled back to

only include indirect military and economic assistance. Economically, Somalia

continued to supply some food to the WSLF, but most of their logistics had to be

obtained from the sympathetic, or intimidated, civilian population or captured from

the Ethiopian forces. Wren reports that following a night raid by the WSLF on an

Ethiopian military convoy, the malnourished guerrillas immediately sat down to

devour the captured rations (Wren, 1980: A2). This suggests that supplies were

becoming more difficult to acquire from Mogadishu than they had been in previous

years.

4.5.3 LOW INTENSITY GUERRILLA WARFARE

Following the defeat of the Somali regular army’s invasion of the Ogaden,

the balance of capabilities between the belligerents dramatically shifted back in

favour of the incumbent. Although the WSLF continued their campaign against

Addis Ababa, they had suffered a traumatic shock at the hands of the Ethiopian,

Russian, and Cuban soldiers. Most of the surviving WSLF members withdrew with

the Somali forces back across the border in order to recuperate (Wiberg, 1979:

191). Others, however, simply returned to the relative safety of their villages in the

Ogaden. In response to the falling levels of guerrilla activity, several Ethiopian

regular and militia units were redeployed north to the Eritrean and Tigrayian

fronts. Government forces in the region probably fell to around 60,000 Ethiopian

and 12,000 Cuban soldiers (Jaynes, 1979: E3).

When in 1980 the WSLF returned in small numbers, the response of the

central government was fast and decisive. The incumbent’s counterinsurgency

campaign had two main thrusts. The first was a classic isolation strategy, while the

second was aimed at the eradication of the guerrilla fighters.

The rural population had “helped the rebels, willingly or under duress, by

providing sustenance, shelter and intelligence information” (Gebru, 2002: 470).

The isolation of the insurgents from the population of the Ogaden became the

incumbent’s most pressing strategic objective. Mengistu took two different

approaches to the isolation of the WSLF. The first method involved coercively

encouraging the Ogaden Somali population to migrate over the border into

Somalia. In 1980, (before the Soviets had begun employing a similar strategy in

Afghanistan) Somalia had the largest population of refugees of any single country.

There were 700,000 Ogaden Somalis living in refugee camps and approximately

another 600,000 living elsewhere in Somalia (Moseley, 1980: A1). The second

strategy aimed to resettle the remaining civilian population in the areas where the

WSLF was still active into fortified villages. The “villagization” program enabled

the government to tightly control the movement of the population and thereby

denying access to the guerrillas.

The second dimension to the government’s counterinsurgency strategy was

designed to military confront and destroy the guerrilla bands. The largest and most

successful eradication operations was coded named “Lash”. Its aim was to, in

conjunction with the isolation strategy, military apply pressure on the WSLF

guerrillas. According to Gebru, six divisions representing roughly 60,000 soldiers

were involved in the massive offensive. Besides the main striking forces, there

were also two divisions already assigned to in the region, air support flying from

Dire Dawa, thousands of militiamen, and the Cuban tank and mechanized brigades

based at Jijiga (Gebru, 2002: 471). The standard tactics in the operation were for

the Ethiopian army after “stationing troops near the border to block suspected

entry and exit points” would mobilize multiple columns of troops and with the

support of armour and helicopters comb the area pushing the guerrillas into

prepared ambushes (Gebru, 2002: 471). The few WSLF members that escaped

across to the border were no longer safe even there. The second element of the

Ethiopian eradication strategy was to sponsor an opposing guerrilla force inside of

Somalia. In 1979, some disgruntled former Somali army officers formed the

Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF). The only fixed installations operated

by the WSLF were inside Somalia, and therefore protected from Addis Ababa by

Somali sovereignty. However, these logistical targets, which had previously been

impervious to attack, now came under assault from the Somali insurgent group.

The SSDF also frequently crossed the border into Ethiopia to help their allies hunt

down the WSLF.

The WSLF military campaign progressively began to taper out during the

early 1980s. Without substantial military aid the guerrilla campaign continued to

be a pest to the central government but hardly a serious threat to the regimes’

existence or the territorial integrity of the state. With the exception of two peaks in

intensity, that roughly corresponded with Ethiopian and Somali border clashes in

1980 and 1982, the WSLF campaign on the whole began to lose momentum (Korn,

1986: 76). The April 1988 peace accord between Presidents Mengistu and Siad

included the provision which put a complete end to the sponsorship of each other’s

insurgent groups (Marcus, 1994: 212; Lewis, 1989: 576).

Due to the military defeat, at the end of the 1970s Somalia was once again

in a weak position with respect to Ethiopia. The remnants of the army were busy

fending off attacks by guerillas and individual Ethiopian units. Against this

background the (sub-) clans openly vented their displeasure, exacerbating rifts in

Somali society that had previously been suppressed by Barre’s authoritarian rule

and pan-Somali visions. However, in the 1980s Barre continued to pursue a policy

of “divide and conquer” in an attempt to prevent the formation of united

opposition, heightening clan antipathies and playing them against each other. For

example, he gave political and military posts as well as money and weapons to

members of marginalized sub-clans.

The April 1988 peace accord between Mengistu and Siad triggered an

outbreak of the Somali civil war. Ethiopia cut off its support to the SNM, which

deprived of its base, pulled together for a military strike in the Isak region in

Northern Somalia, starting an open civil war. Mutinying Ogadeni and Hawiye

engaged the Somali army on further fronts. Ultimately, by 1989 the Somali army

controlled only a few larger cities and the area around the capital, which gained

Barre the nickname “Mayor of Mogadishu” On January 27, 1991 Barre fled to the

area of his Marehan sub-clan in the southwest of the country, later escaping from

there to Kenya. After Barre’s flight, bloody battles for supremacy broke out in

Mogadishu between the militias of the most powerful warlords, Ali Mahdi and

Mohammed Aideed. These Bloody battles ushered into Somalia Political history

the indicators that best categorize Somalia as the world perfect example of a failed

state foremost of which is the collapse of the central government in Mogadishu.

The collapse of the central government in Mogadishu also ushered into the

international political jargon the emergence of a Transitional National Government

and subsequently a Transitional Federal Government established towards

achieving state-building in Somalia both of which run the affairs of Somalia from

exile and largely dependent on external actors for security which posit its low level

of sovereignty. The emergence of the above-mentioned governments ushered a

new conceptualization of the term “Government” owing to the practical absence of

sovereignty and the exiled prognosis that best describe these two forms of

government.

4.6 TRANSITIONAL NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IN SOMALIA

In 1996, after multiple failed peace conferences aimed at building a central

government, donors and neighboring states coalesced around the notion of

encouraging formation of regional administrations to serve as “building blocks”

for eventual national reconciliation and state-building in Somalia. This was to

allow a government to be formed eventually by negotiations between functioning

regional authorities not simply armed factions.

From 1996 the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the

main intergovernmental organization in the region, with UN backing became

involved in efforts to mediate between the factions. In 1998 IGAD proposed

holding a national peace conference. Similarly named initiatives had been tried on

many occasions before and failed, but this one gathered some momentum and

eventually took place in May 2000 in Djibouti termed the ‘Arta Conference’. The

conference agreed that Somalia would adopt a federal system and set up a

Transitional National Assembly (TNA) with a view to eventually establishing a

Transitional National Government (TNG). The establishment of the Transitional

National Government in August 2000 had appeared at the time to be a significant

development. The optimism with which it was greeted in many quarters, has

largely evaporated as it has failed to widen its support or deliver public services in

its limited areas of control. In August 2000, the new TNA elected Abdulkasim

Salad Hasan, a Hawiye, as the President of Somalia. He appointed a TNG in

October 2000. However, it quickly became clear that the TNG lacked legitimacy

and support as a result of its little presence in Mogadishu.

The Transitional National Government was plagued by fundamental

problems. It was formed on the basis of a very incomplete peace process as it

excludes some key actors in its reconciliation process. While more broadly

representative than past national reconciliation efforts, it lacked important

constituencies – including Somaliland and Puntland, the Rahanweyn Resistance

Army, and five or six major militia and faction leaders.

Of all Somalia’s major clans, only the Hawiye was virtually united in its

support. Others were divided or hostile. Opposition groups refuse to recognize the

Transitional National Government’s claim to be the sole legitimate national

authority and dismiss it as the “Arta faction”. It was unable to extend its authority

into much of the country.

Indeed, the Transitional National Government controls only half of

Mogadishu and a few areas in the interior. Even in Mogadishu most day-to-day

governance is at the neighborhood level by informal systems of policing and clan-

based Sharia courts. Establishment of the Transitional National Government did

not improve security in the capital. Instead, banditry worsened and armed clashes

increased throughout the South (ICG, 2002).

The Transitional National Government soon became irrelevant and also

failed to ensure credibility and stability in Somalia. It faced a crisis of legitimacy

even among its own supporters because of infighting, corruption, and the scandal

of its business backers’ involvement with counterfeit shillings that have sparked

hyperinflation (Le Sage, 2002). In the words of Andre Le Sage (2002), he argued

that this and other incidents demonstrate that the Transitional National

Government is little more than a thinly-veiled business cartel that supports the

interests of a group of wealthy merchants who use it as a more legitimate form of

protection.

The Transitional National Government was also cast into turmoil after it

reconstituted itself following the dissolution of the cabinet by the parliament in

October 2001. Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah announced a new cabinet in

February 2002, but it represents little change. The only concession was the

reservation of four ministerial posts for opposition leaders. This appears to be in

direct contravention of an agreement reached in the Kenya Conference in January

2002 with a number of factions that was to pave the way for a more broadly

representative government (ICG, 2002). While the TNG took over Somalia’s seat

in the UN, was admitted to the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic

Conference and IGAD, and gained recognition from Arab states, Ethiopia soon

began to back its rivals.

The Transitional National Government faced the daunting problem of

Ethiopian opposition. Ethiopia views it as a stalking horse for Arab and Islamic

domination of the Horn of Africa, and also accuses it of being a front for al-Qaeda.

Given its military strength and ability to fund militia groups, Ethiopia effectively

exercises veto power over political developments inside Somalia.

In March 2001, Ethiopia engineered the formation of the Somali

Reconciliation and Restoration Council, an alliance of southern faction leaders

which sought, unconvincingly, to portray itself as an alternative government. TNG

received its major support mostly from external actors in the Arab League. In very

general terms, the Arab League has maintained a unified position on Somalia

despite natural differences between its members. The most important actor in this

group is Egypt, which had an active relationship with Somalia in support of the

Transitional National Government (ICG, 2002).

Its interests in the country, stand in contrast to a much more passive set of

Arab actors who have little interest in Somalia as a bloc. Egypt and Djibouti have

worked together to undergird the Transitional National Government and counter

Ethiopian influence in Somalia.

Egypt and Sudan both perceive a strong, unified Somali state as an essential

counterweight to Ethiopian influence in the Horn. Cairo’s concerns are conditioned

primarily by the perennial dispute with Ethiopia over the waters of the Nile, while

Khartoum seeks Ethiopia’s non-interference in its long-running civil war (ICG,

2002).

The Gulf States – notably Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and the United Arab

Emirates (UAE) – have historical commercial ties with Somalia and have remained

politically engaged, albeit at a greater distance. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE

have provided funds to Islamic NGOs for humanitarian and social welfare

programs throughout the Somali crisis. Libya has had sporadic involvement in

Somali affairs, mainly because of Gaddafi’s personal familiarity with numerous

Somali leaders since the 1970s and his apparent desire to recast his country as a

regional power broker.

Arab states had given the Transitional National Government approximately

U.S$25 million in grants through February 2002 (Donald, 2002). The security

forces were initially paid, armed and equipped with a grant from Saudi Arabia,

supplemented by smaller contributions from Qatar, UAE, Yemen and Libya.

The Ethiopian opposition to neither the Transitional National Government

contributed to a perception that it desires neither a unified nor a stable Somalia,

Ethiopia remains central to any lasting peace agreement. It has had a multifaceted

involvement over the past decade. Ethiopia’s most immediate concern in Somalia

is its own national security. Southern Somalia has long served as a base for armed

groups opposed to the Ethiopian government, including the Ogaden National

Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Front, and al-Itihaad. The cross-border

activities of these groups provoked an Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia in

1996, after al- Itihaad was implicated in terrorist acts in Addis Ababa and Dire

Dawa (ICG, 2002). However in 2001, Ethiopia requested that the Transitional

National Government deny these groups permission to operate and demonstrated

that it will police Somali territory unilaterally, mainly along the southern border

(ICG, 2002).

Ethiopia accuses members of the Transitional National Government of

membership in al-Itihaad, al-Islah and other Islamist organizations and has sought

an American green light to disrupt or destroy what it describes as a terrorist threat.

In the Ethiopian view, external Islamist sources provide Somali

organizations with significant resources for social services and commercial

investment as part of a broader agenda to lay the foundation for an Islamic state.

Ethiopia does not have the financial resources to engage in Somalia in the same

way, but it does have troops and arms with which it is prepared to counter the

Islamists.

Indeed it was this fear of Islamization that propel Ethiopian invasion into

Somalia affairs and a rapid collapse of the Transitional National Government

owing to the corrupt political leadership of the TNG under Abdiqassim Salad

Hassan. In an interview, Ethiopian ambassador to the United Nations, Abdulmejid

Hussein, underscored his authorities’ determination to counter Islamist influence in

the region:

“If you allow these people to infiltrate Somalia, our multicultural,

multi-religious and multiethnic country will pay a price…If the

Somalis don't solve their problems, then we will do it for them...We

won't wait forever” (IRIN, 2002).

A major initiative employed by the regional organization IGAD to address

the problems faced by the TNG was to commence new negotiations that facilitated

the establishment of a transitional parliament and a new transitional government.

This time, following a proportional system that included all relevant clans and

warlords among the delegates, a total of 275 representatives were selected.

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, former leader of the SSDF and later leader of the

Puntland region, former resistance fighter against Siyad Barre and ally of the

Ethiopian regime under Meles Zenawi, was elected as Somalia’s new president in

October 2004 in Kenya.

4.7 ABDULLAHI YUSUF’S REGIME AND THE ERA OF GOVERNMENT-

IN-EXILE

The Government of Abdullahi Yusuf in the aftermath of his victory as the

new elected president of Somalia could not operate directly in Somalia but rather

directs Somalia affairs from the neighboring countries most specifically Kenya.

This attributed the feature of a government-in-exile to his regime. A government in

exile is a political group that claims to be a country's legitimate government, but

for various reasons is unable to exercise its legal power, and instead resides in a

foreign country. Governments in exile usually operate under the assumption that

they will one day return to their native country and regain power. The intense

security situation of Mogadishu prevented the operation of his regime in Somalia.

President Abdullahi Yusuf gave some reasons for why his government operates

from exile on the basis that "The government needs to prepare the grounds for

having some security forces". He also said that "We need to prepare on the

reconciliation side - the government will make sure that when it's moving into

Mogadishu, Mogadishu is ready in terms of accommodating the government”.

Finally he said "We want to solve the problems in Somalia peacefully - including

Somaliland, we would never resolve matters through force. Dialogue and

discussion is much better than resorting to violence" (ICG, 2008).

There was also a practical absence of all the state apparatus that can ensure

the proper functioning of the government in Somalia. There was the absence of

government buildings, army as well as a viable economy. The role played by

Ethiopia in the emergence of the new TNG also created lack of legitimacy and

support for the government as the government was practically viewed as a practical

extension of Ethiopia influence in Somalia. The wide feeling of animosity directed

towards the new TNG influenced its decisions to call for international intervention

a situation that further deteriorate its sovereignty and legitimacy. President

Abdullahi Yusuf said: "We need international help. We don't have proper police,

military or security forces. Without international support our job will be difficult;

everyone knows that" (ICG, 2008). President Yusuf was faced with significant

resistance of over 50,000 well-armed militia members in the country which

provided little chance of success for the new Government without significant

military help from other African nations. President Yusuf originally requested

15,000 troops from the 53-nation African Union to help regain control of his

country but he was provided with only 2000 troops (ICG, 2008). The quest of

sustaining the new TNG has also provided external actors the opportunity to

intervene into Somalia affairs. The new TNG was only capable of functioning in

Somalia a year later with a decision to move to Baidoa, northwest of the capital

near the Ethiopian border. At about the same time as the new TFG was securing

stability for a stable government in Mogadishu, an organization emerged that first

became known as the Supreme Council of Sharia Courts in Somalia. It was

intended to function as an umbrella organization for Somalia’s Islamic courts. The

emergence of the new force drastically altered the power relations and almost

established itself permanently as the new rulers of Somalia.

4.8 THE RISE OF UNION OF ISLAMIC COURTS AND ETHIOPIAN

INVASION

The capture of political power by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in June

2006 opened a new chapter in this seemingly intractable conflict when they took

control of the capital Mogadishu and most of the south of the country. As the UIC

consolidated its power and expanded its influence across the country, fears were

raised as to how far this expansion could reach. Many fears were expressed as to

its Islamist ideology, links to Al-Qaeda and regional threats to peace and security.

Ethiopia’s military offensive against the UIC in late December 2006, in

support of the TFG, and the subsequent ousting of the UIC, pushed Somalia further

into instability and opened, yet another chapter in the country’s troubled history of

conflict and insecurity.

Ethiopian authorities were from the outset the most suspicious of the UIC

and agreed only reluctantly and at U.S. insistence to give political dialogue a

chance. Once the U.S. position on the courts shifted in late 2006, the Ethiopians

were able to pursue a military solution to what they considered an unacceptable

threat on their country’s borders. The subsequent relationship with the Americans

as they prepared and executed an offensive was more complex and contentious

than has generally been acknowledged. The U.S. did not “sub-contract out” its

war on terror to a regional ally, or “puppet”, as some commentators subsequently

claimed (Mark, 2007). There were sharp differences in Washington over Somalia

policy between the Departments of State and Defence, and the U.S. was initially

reluctant to support the offensive. It did so only once it was clear that Ethiopia was

committed to it, and then in order to ensure it succeeded and also served its own

counterterrorism purposes.

Ethiopia’s primary objective was to crush the UIC and the core interest

groups on which it was based – the Islamists and the wider “Mogadishu Group”

coalition centred on the Habar Gidir clans, which have challenged its interests in

Somalia since the mid-1990s. Its principal fear is the rise of a strong, centralist,

nationalist or Islamist state there that would revive irredentist claims on Ethiopian

territory and like Eritrea, sponsor armed insurgencies inside the country. A

secondary but important policy priority was to ensure the survival of its client, the

TFG.

The U.S. preoccupation was narrower, focused almost entirely on fighting,

with the help of Mogadishu-based militia leaders and the TFG, the few foreign al-

Qaeda operatives believed to be enjoying safe haven in southern Somalia

(Menkhaus, 2007). Both partners however, lacked the required significant support

among the powerful Habar Gidir clans, especially the Habar Gidir/Ayr sub-clan.

Analysts have warned for years that Ethiopia risked getting caught in a quagmire if

it occupied Somalia militarily, recalling the 1993 debacle in Mogadishu, when the

UN mission (UNOSOM) became involved in an unwinnable guerrilla war (Seattle

times, 1998). It was believed that UIC hardliners hoped to trigger exactly that kind

of urban war – one which would bog Ethiopia down in the capital and spark both a

popular uprising and extensive support from the Islamic world. Conventional

wisdom however, held that Ethiopia understood this trap and would therefore seek

to avoid it, either by redeploying after a quick strike or by surrounding rather than

occupying Mogadishu.

The actual trajectory of the war that erupted in late December 2006,

however, took virtually everyone by surprise and produced a “stunning reversal of

fortune” for the Islamists (Jeffrey, 2006). First, the UIC inexplicably deployed

large forces – including many poorly trained recruits and some foreign mujahidin

fighters – in the open countryside, where they were routed by the technologically

superior Ethiopian army. The fighters then fell back to Mogadishu, where it was

expected they would at last conduct an urban guerrilla war. Instead, facing

recriminations from clan elders, moderate Islamists and business supporters, the

UIC dissolved its council and turned over most weapons and armed men to clan

leaders in the capital. UIC leaders and residual members of the Al-Shabaab militia

then fled south toward Kenya, where they took more losses in another engagement.

Some were arrested trying to cross the border; others regrouped in the remote bush

of coastal southern Somalia (ICG, 2008).

The UIC’s sudden retreat toward the Kenyan border led to a third surprise, a

U.S. decision to launch two AC-130 gunship attacks on convoys suspected of

transporting three high-value foreign al-Qaeda suspects near the Kenyan border.

Although these failed to kill their targets, they had a lasting political impact in

Somalia, as they reinforced a widespread conviction that the Ethiopian offensive

was directed and orchestrated by Washington. For regional analysts, the air strikes

– which were aimed at foreign al-Qaeda suspects, not Somali Islamists – confirmed

that the U.S. and Ethiopia were waging two distinct wars in Somalia – one against

Somali Islamists threatening Ethiopian interests, the other against an al-Qaeda cell

threatening U.S. security (ICG, 2008). U.S. and Ethiopian energies had been

devoted almost entirely to the military operation, and whatever little planning had

been done with regard to post-UIC Somalia was quickly overtaken by events. The

result was a scramble to improvise policy in the face of a dramatically new

Mogadishu situation.

4.9 CHALLENGES FACED BY PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF

REGIME

The TFG formed in October 2004 after two years of difficult negotiations in

Kenya was led by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development

(IGAD). It has been weakened by continuous infighting between the presidency

and the prime minister that led to the (welcome) ousting of Prime Minister Ali

Mohammed Gedi in late 2007; President Abdillahi Yusuf’s repeated rebuffs of

efforts to make it more inclusive; failure to meet any of its own targets for the

transition; and the military prowess of the insurgency. Some of the challenges of

the government include:

4.9.1 STRUCTURAL FLAWS

The structural problems that plague the TFG hinge on three main issues: the

Transitional Federal Charter (TFC), the composition of parliament (TFP) and

federalism. The Charter’s system of governance is meant to be based on

democratic and pluralist principles consistent with the profound attachment of the

Somali people to their religion and culture (ICG, 2004). But it is an awkward, ill-

defined and overly elaborate document, replete with errors, inconsistencies and

contradictions. Its failure to establish checks and balances, in particular a clear

division of labor between the president and the prime minister facilitated Yusuf’s

efforts to undermine his chief minister (ICG, 2008).

Similarly, the vaguely defined process for replacing members of parliament

turned the TFP into a fractious body marked by a constant struggle between

political and clan blocs. This also led to seat-swapping mainly on grounds of

political expedience, and has enabled the president to fill the institution with his

own supporters. There were allegations that members are regularly bribed or

pressured to vote in a certain way, often in the interest of the president. Salaries are

usually paid on time, and members also get non-statutory “allowances” not

available to other public servants. However, with the worsened security situation,

they come to Baidoa only for a major vote, if at all. The parliamentary calendar is

not known before-hand, and bills are often introduced without having been

scrutinized by a committee as regulations stipulate. Months can elapse before a

quorum is available (ICG, 2008).

Yet, in spite of these shortcomings, the competing power blocs often see

parliament as a crucial institution in their struggles. President Yusuf long felt

politically unassailable, with a loyal speaker and a majority of members on his

side. This began to change rapidly after Ethiopia and the international community

foiled an attempt by his supporters to oust Prime Minister Nur Adde in August

2008. Since then, a majority of members began to side with the prime minister,

who then enjoys extensive support in the body and for that time being, at least,

appears more secure than Yusuf. The division between president and parliament

became more dramatic yet in mid-December 2007, when the legislators again

rebuffed the president’s effort to remove Nur Adde, and Yusuf responded by

insisting he would name a replacement unilaterally (Jeffery, 2008).

Lastly, federalism remains controversial, seen by many as a shift towards

Ethiopia’s agenda and a major concession to Yusuf, who has long advocated a

federal Somalia. Though the concept was written into the Charter, it was

impossible to implement. The federal institutions, with few exceptions, are non-

existent; a constitutional referendum is not imminent because the document has not

been completed, and Somaliland’s demands for self-determination have not been

addressed.

4.9.2 CLAN DYNAMICS

The process that led to creation of the TFG was acrimonious and deeply

divisive with each clan staking claims to key cabinet posts. Although the 4.5 clan-

quota system for allocating cabinet posts was agreed, it was inevitable that some

clans who failed to obtain such posts would feel aggrieved. Beneath the unity and

reconciliation rhetoric, TFG infighting also reflects complex inter-clan rivalry.

Darod-Hawiye mistrust and rivalry have disfigured politics since independence.

These two major clans have cooperated or forged temporary alliances, but even at

the best of times their relationship is one of uneasy détente. With Yusuf

representing Darod interests and the Prime Minister Hawiye interests, a balance

should have been established. But the Hawiye view the president as the archetypal

Darod warlord, bent on perpetuating his clan’s supremacy, an impression that has

been reinforced by policies that have led to the destruction of the capital,

displacement of hundreds of thousands and serious damage to the Bakaaraha

market, the hub of Hawiye economic power (ICG, 2008).

It is thus no surprise that the strongest opposition to Yusuf often came from

the Hawiye, who were also been the backbone of the UIC and the ongoing Islamist

insurgency. The bulk of UIC fighters and supporters were Hawiye, as is a majority

of the Al-Shabaab militia. Despite its Hawiye roots, the UIC was determined to

build itself as an Islamist ideological movement across all the major clans. It used

deeply rooted anti-Ethiopia sentiments to project itself as a nationalist movement

fighting the oppressor.

However, the cliché reduction of everything in the country to the clan

dynamic is inadequate to explain power and societal trends. Power configurations

are not necessarily determined by such factors. The reality was murkier and

sometimes paradoxical. The political landscape witnessed the emergence of cross-

clan power configurations, based sometimes on ideology as the UIC, but at times

on political expediency as the TFG or even the opposition Alliance for Re-

Liberation of Somalia (ARS). The TFG was founded on a clan-quota system; the

ARS was equally representative of all the major clans. This cross-clan alliance

building trend is also contradicted by the re-emergence of clan enclaves, as large

swathes of the country revert back to a style of clan governance that predates

colonialism (ICG, 2008).

The rise of criminal gangs operating largely outside the clan system is

another novel phenomenon. The new organized crime – piracy, people smuggling,

counterfeit banknotes and kidnapping – is run by syndicates that have forged cross-

clan networks. This is particularly discernible in the north-eastern autonomous

region of Puntland, where sophisticated syndicates have emerged. That clan elders

are now targets in the violence sweeping the country is the best indicator that the

classical clan system is fraying. Even during the worst of inter-clan feuds, elders

had always been respected and played a recognized conflict mediation role, with

access to the key players. The apparent erosion of their power does not mean that

they no longer wield influence. Part of the crisis in the south stems from the

inability perhaps the unwillingness to bring them fully into the political decision-

making process. No headway can be made in any peace-making process in the

south if clan elders do not have an effective part (ICG, 2008). The rapid decline of

support for the TFG under President Abdullahi led to the regime change in Somalia

and the formation of a new government under Shaykh Sherif Ahmed an influential

figure in the defunct UIC who was considered a moderate and was believed could

bridge the wide animosity between the TFG and the Islamist militias.

4.10 SOMALIA AND THE CHALLENGES OF PIRACY

There is no law and order of any kind in Somalia due to the lack of a central

government and extreme poverty. As a result, criminal activity is rampant

throughout the country. While some engage in criminal behavior for basic survival,

others have created a professional criminal enterprise, especially in the form of

piracy. Those who participate in criminal activities typically resist any efforts to

establish a safe and stable Somalia, because stability impedes their criminal

activity and long term interests.

Although the international community has not always taken the problem of

piracy seriously, recent events have led to more widespread international concern.

It has become apparent that unless piracy is contested, it will spiral out of control,

threatening the sea lanes that transport almost half of the world’s cargo and

effectively underwriting terrorist movements.

Piracy is defined in international law by Article 101 of the UN Convention

on the Law of the Sea (Law of the Sea Convention) and consists of:

(a) Any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed

for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft,

and directed: (i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against

persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; (ii) against a ship, aircraft,

persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;

(b) Any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft

with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;

(c) Any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in

subparagraph (a) or (b) (Boleslaw, 2005).

Piracy has become particularly lucrative in Somalia because in terms of

maritime traffic, Somalia is one of the most geographically well-positioned

countries in the world. Located between the Horn of Africa and the southernmost

tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia is situated at the crux of all major regional

shipping lanes (Lauren et al, 2009). The strait adjacent to Somalia links the Indian

Ocean, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, and the Suez Canal. The most

noticeable trend observed in the past years has been a shift in the main area of

activity, from southern Somalia and the port of Mogadishu to the Gulf of Aden

(Roger, 2008).

The primary objective of Somali piracy is usually to obtain ransom for both

ships and crew members. Consequently, shipping companies have already suffered

losses in excess of one hundred million dollars. To date, piracy has rarely resulted

in the killing of hostages (Lauren et al, 2009). While the amounts of ransom

demanded are increasing, the average ranges from half a million to two million

dollars. In most cases, pirates and shipping companies negotiate the ransom, which

is paid in cash. Somali piracy has been a major problem since 1991. However, the

incidence of such piracy has grown significantly in recent years both in terms of

scope and scale. Since 2008, it has expanded to cover the entire maritime region. In

addition, pirates have become masterful at identifying vessels that are vulnerable

due to slow sailing speeds, small crews, poor security, and ineffective counter-

piracy procedures (Roger, 2008). The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reports

that in May 2009 the number of incidents of Somali piracy, including 114

attempted hijackings and twenty-nine successful hijackings, had already surpassed

all attacks in the previous year.

Pirate operations, while developing into more sophisticated and professional

undertakings, have also become more aggressive and ruthless. Since 1990, the total

number of pirates has increased from the hundreds to the thousands (Roger, 2008).

These increases in the extent of piracy appear to be related to the development of

more effective methods, including the use of more sophisticated equipment by

pirates. For example, pirates now use captured fishing trawlers as base ships that

can operate much farther away from the coastline than their traditional small skiffs.

These ‘mother ships,’ increase the pirates’ range out to sea. In addition,

some pirates now use a system that combines Automatic Identification System

interception and satellite positioning to identify and track an intended target, as

well as “spotters,” who work in ports around the region and provide advanced

knowledge of a potential target’s routes.

These means of more rapid target identification can facilitate an attack in

less than fifteen minutes between identification and contact. Such efficient timing

explains why more ships are captured even when there are international patrols in

the area. More effective methodologies not only allow pirates to attack more

vessels, but they also allow pirates to go after more lucrative targets that can garner

greater ransoms. For example, at the beginning of 2009 Somali pirates released a

number of hostages and hijacked ships for more than $120 million in total ransom.

Those released included the Ukrainian MV Faina, which was loaded with T-72

tanks and a significant amount of ammunition and small arms, as well as the Sirius

Star Saudi oil supertanker, each of which garnered over $3 million dollars in

ransom (Lauren et al, 2009).

Overall, pirates have earned millions of dollars in ransom while disrupting

global trade and causing untold damage to the world’s economy. As a result,

several countries, including the United States, Russia, and India have deployed

warships to tackle piracy in the Horn of Africa region. Due to the various networks

of pirates located in different locations and ports, it is generally accepted that no

central strategic command structure exists. Although not established conclusively,

government officials and clan leaders are likely directly involved in piracy. At a

minimum, they undoubtedly receive some form of compensation for their role in

these activities—or at least for their lack of effort to stop the pirates (Roger, 2008).

Piracy is believed to be Somalia’s biggest industry, and individual pirates are

among the country’s wealthiest persons (David, 2009). Ultimately, piracy has

grown rapidly in Somalia due to several factors, including poverty, lack of

employment, environmental hardship, pitifully low incomes, reduction of

pastoralist and maritime resources due to drought and illegal fishing, and a volatile

security and political situation.

4.11 THE STATE OF EVENTS IN THE PRESENT

The nature and composition of key domestic actors in Somalia have changed

significantly since the early 1990s, reflecting the contested nature of authority in

stateless Somalia and the fluidity of coalitions. “Factions” for instance, were the

central political actors through the first half of the 1990s. Most were led by a

militia leader and represented a single clan. They monopolized representation in

national reconciliation talks only to fade into irrelevance. Regional and municipal

polities have at times assumed importance, though rarely at the level of national

peace talks.

Since the late 1990s, an array of loose coalitions has served as principal

actors at the national level. From 2000 to 2004 for instance, the Ethiopian-backed

Somali Reconstruction and Reconciliation Council (SRRC), led by Abdullahi

Yusuf served as an effective coalition against the Transitional National

Government (TNG). In 2005, the “Mogadishu Group”, bringing together a

collection of militia leaders, Islamists, civic leaders, and businesspeople mainly

from the Hawiye clan, was a short-lived but powerful coalition opposing the

Ethiopian-backed TFG. The broad Islamist coalition housed in the CIC took

control of Mogadishu and much of South-Central Somalia in 2006 before being

routed in an Ethiopian military offensive in late December of that year.

In a few instances political actors have emerged and have earned a

permanent place on the Somali political game board. These are generally groups

which exert considerable power and influence in Somalia (and hence must be

accounted for in peace talks) but which are poorly organized and divided, hence

not “actors” in the strict sense of the word politically. One such group is the

robust Somali business community, which controls considerable resources and

private militias and is sought after as an ally by governments and coalitions. The

business community enjoys impressive cross-clan partnerships but is invariably

divided over its political fealties, and has generally been reluctant to jump directly

into the political arena. The business community’s typical response is to negotiate

with whoever is in control of seaports and towns to maintain access to markets.

Another emerging group is the large Somali diaspora now numbering over

one million. The diaspora is the most important part of the Somali economy,

sending between $500 million to $1 billion in remittances to Somalia annually. It

provides significant financial and other support to political movements, and is

increasingly a vital pool of leadership for political groups in country.

While specific factions and coalitions have come and gone in Somalia since

1991, two broad groupings have endured in various guises. The purist expression

of these two coalitions was the SRRC (2000–04) and the Mogadishu Group (2005).

The SRRC was backed by Ethiopia, anti-Islamist, dominated by the Darod clan,

based largely in regions outside of Mogadishu, and committed to federalism. The

Mogadishu Group was the exact opposite – it was fiercely anti-Ethiopian, close to

Gulf states and Islamic interests, inclusive of Islamists in its coalition, centred

around powerful sub-clans of the Hawiye clan family (especially the Haber

Gedir/Ayr), based in Mogadishu, and more inclined to support a strong central

state, not a federal system. These two coalitions have assumed different forms.

In between these two coalitions are a host of “floaters” – opportunistic

militia and political figures who move back and forth between the alliances and

who are trusted by neither. The floaters give external observers the false

impression of political movement and significant coalition-building when in fact

the Somali political scene has been locked into a relatively fixed conflict between

the two coalitions.

In December 2010, UN Security Council Resolution 1964 mandated an

increase in the size of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) from

8,000, having finally got close to that complement during 2010, to 12,000. The

largest contributor Uganda, which was the target of two bomb attacks in Kampala

in July 2010 by the largest Somali insurgent group, al-Shabaab, has pledged 1,800

additional troops. Also in December 2010, a ‘merger’ was announced between the

two main insurgent groups, Al-Shabaab and Hizb-ul-Islam. The AU had been

calling for an increase to 20,000 troops. Western and Ethiopian support will

continue but unless the performance of the TFG security forces and supporting

militias improves markedly, it is difficult to see anything other than a continuation

of the current military ebb and flow. At present, the main domestic political actors

include the following:

THE TRANSITIONAL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: - The TFG has

from the outset been a very weak actor in Somalia despite its formal role. Its

weakness is due in part to its low legitimacy in the eyes of most Somalis, who

argue that TFG leaders were selected in a disputed process and are puppets of

Ethiopia. In the two and half years since its creation, the TFG remains a woefully

underdeveloped administration and has made almost no progress on key transition

tasks. Making matters worse, the TFG has been actively complicit in the very

heavy-handed counter-insurgency campaign led by Ethiopian forces in Mogadishu.

Far from being a source of public order, TFG security forces are the

principal sources of insecurity for the Mogadishu public. The TFG’s low

legitimacy levels have been exacerbated by the fact that the government, which

was intended to be a government of national unity, is instead founded on a narrow

clan coalition excluding important lineages from top positions in the government.

The transitional parliament which in theory is the repository of Somali sovereignty

and the embodiment of proportional clan representation was purged of opposition

figures in 2007; some, if not most of the current members of parliament cast votes

on the basis of payments rendered from the executive branch, making parliament

somewhat less than an ideal embodiment of the democratic process.

What we today call the TFG is in reality a collection of increasingly

autonomous armed factions led by different TFG officials who are seeking to shore

up their own powerbases and control of parts of the capital. That level of internal

division makes it difficult to speak of the TFG as a monolithic actor. Many of the

TFG’s top political figures appear to be driven by very short-term profit-taking,

hoping to seize whatever funds they can before the entire TFG enterprise collapses.

This reflects what William Reno has described as the “shortened political

horizon” of political actors in “shadow states” (Reno 2000: 45).

THE OPPOSITION: - Most Somalis deeply oppose both the TFG which

they view as an illegitimate puppet of Ethiopia and other perceived Christian

dominated states of the region. The Ethiopian occupation encompasses an

enormous range of groups in Somalia with virtually nothing in common except a

shared desire to evict Ethiopia’s influence from Somali territory and block the TFG

from becoming operational. Opposition to the TFG and Ethiopian occupation

consists of two distinct categories of actors. One is a core set of Somali groups

with interests profoundly at odds with those of the TFG and Ethiopia (described

above as the “Mogadishu Group”); the second is a set of opportunistic or

situational opponents whose fealty to the TFG and the opposition has shifted over

time and who have concluded the future lies with the opposition. The “core

opposition” won control of the TNG in 2000, which was successfully opposed and

derailed by the Ethiopian-backed rejectionist group, the SRRC; it was also the

main source of support for the short-lived administration set up by the CIC in

2006.

THE AL-SHABAAB MILITIA: - The Al-Shabaab (“the youth” in Arabic)

militia was originally a special armed unit of the Shari’a court system in

Mogadishu established sometime after 1998 by Islamist hardliner Hassan Dahir

Aweys. Aweys sought to create a well trained, well-equipped, multi-clan militia

which answered to the top leaders of the Islamic Courts. At that time, all other

Shari’a militia in Mogadishu was clan-based, only loosely dedicated to the

Islamists, and limited only to the local jurisdiction of their sub-clans Shari’a court.

By contrast, Al-Shabaab was a sort of Somali mujahideen, composed of young

fighters committed to a radical Islamist agenda. Al-Shabaab is believed to have

numbered more than 400 fighters, and is currently led by a veteran of Afghanistan,

Shaykh Abu Zubair. Al-Shabaab engaged in a war that takes the form of political

assassinations against opponents of the Islamists, including civic leaders but

especially Somali security personnel suspected of linkages to Western intelligence

agencies. Already by 2004, speculation arose that Al-Shabaab was an autonomous

and radically violent force no longer controlled by Aweys (ICG 2005a, 2005b).

The relationship between Al-Shabaab and the Islamist leadership has remained a

topic of speculation. When Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia in December 2006,

Al-Shabaab took heavy losses as Ayro the former leader was killed. But remnants

of the militia regrouped in Mogadishu, and form the core of the increasingly robust

insurgency against the TFG and Ethiopia. In the few public pronouncements it has

made, Al-Shabaab insists that it is leading the insurgency, and that opposition

outside the country supports them. All this points to the fact that Al-Shabaab

cannot be assumed to be spoken for in any peace talks involving the TFG and the

opposition in exile. It is also not clear that anyone can marginalize Al-Shabaab.

The future dispensation of Al-Shabaab is one of the most difficult long-term

challenges in Somalia.

BUSINESS COMMUNITY: - The business community as noted above is a

major player on the Somali political scene mainly as a pivotal source of revenue

for political movements and governments. The business community’s interests are

divided, and the group as a whole tends to be ill-equipped to deal directly with

politics. Business people have little choice but to provide “taxes” to whomever

controls a government or seaport. Efforts to bring the business community more

directly into peace talks to revive a central state are increasingly believed to be

essential.

CIVIL SOCIETY: - Somali civil society has grown in importance over the

past decade, and is an important force for peace and state revival. However, the

political violence, assassinations, and crackdowns by both the TFG and the

Islamists in the past two years have severely weakened civil society. The

independent media has been especially hard hit.

4.12 CONTEMPORARY SOMALIA: EXTERNAL ACTORS AND

INTERESTS

ETHIOPIA: - No other actor is as decisive to the outcome in Somalia as is

the government of Ethiopia. Its military occupation of southern Somalia was the

main catalyst for the armed insurgency; its troops constitute an essential source of

protection for the TFG before its withdrawal, without which the government would

quickly be driven out of the capital; and it enjoys direct backing by the United

States. The prolonged occupation of Mogadishu by the Ethiopian National Defense

Force (ENDF) which was costly to Ethiopia on multiple levels – financially,

diplomatically, and in terms of mounting casualties led to its withdrawal from the

axis of Mogadishu. But the strain of a prolonged and inconclusive

counterinsurgency campaign has to date proven to be a manageable burden on the

government of Ethiopia. The ENDF is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest standing army

and can absorb the strain of simultaneous deployments in Somalia, eastern

Ethiopia, and along the Eritrean border. If the war and casualties in Somalia are

unpopular in Ethiopia, the Meles Zenawi government faces little threat of domestic

unrest after its draconian crackdown on opposition parties in 2005. Its ally the

United States has shielded the Meles government from much of the diplomatic

criticism it could have faced, especially in light of the horrific humanitarian crisis

linked to its counter-insurgency tactics.

In sum, Ethiopia is caught in a quagmire in Somalia, but not a “hurting

quagmire”. Most of the costs of the current insurgency and counter-insurgency are

being shouldered by the Somali people, not Ethiopia. This gives the Meles

government the option of continuing the war either physically or in proxies if

better options do not present themselves. By all accounts, the current crisis in

Mogadishu – the failure of the TFG and the persistent and worsening insurgency –

is costly to Ethiopia, deeply frustrating to Ethiopian officials, and not at all a

scenario they prefer. But the only fear of withdrawal and a subsequent victory by

the insurgents over the embattled TFG tends to decide the fate of Ethiopia and the

Meles government in Mogadishu. This raises the issue of what it is precisely that

the Meles government wants in Somalia, and what outcomes it is willing to live

with. This question is critical to a mediated outcome in Somalia, and is the subject

of considerable debate.

Most diplomats following Somalia – including US officials who enjoy

closer ties to Ethiopian decision-makers – express uncertainty about Ethiopian

policy objectives in Somalia. Resolution of the Somali crisis will, at some point

requires Ethiopia and the Islamist opposition to reach a Modus Vivendi. That a

decade of diplomacy has not focused on bringing these two main protagonists

together for direct talks underscores the weakness of its conflict analysis. The

Somali opposition must address its legitimate security concerns if it wants Ethiopia

to accept a negotiated settlement. If a Somali government or political movement

pursues irredentist policies against Ethiopia, gives support to armed insurgencies

directed against the Ethiopian government, allows itself to be used as a platform

for radical Islamists or pursues close relations with Eritrea, it can expect Addis

Ababa to work against it. Recognition of Ethiopian security imperatives is a

concession Somali political movements of all types must make if Ethiopia is to

support a revived Somali central government.

An additional dimension is Eritrea’s support for the insurgency. Their deep

animosity has led both countries to support opposition groups in the other and look

for additional places to make trouble. Ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden region

bordering Somalia are perceived to pose a particular threat to the Ethiopian regime.

It accuses the armed movement there, the Ogaden National Liberation Front

(ONLF), of supporting the UIC in Somalia and vice versa and also accuses Eritrea

of supporting the ONLF. The Somalia war has caught Ethiopia in a quagmire that

Eritrea is happy to see perpetuated. However, Eritrea has played its hand badly

with the international community. Due to its acrimonious behavior, the resolution

of the border dispute between the two countries has been largely abandoned by the

international community in favor of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, the consequences of

that unresolved dispute are felt throughout the region. The calculations of both

regimes are tied to political survival and this is nowhere more acute than over the

border issue. Ethiopia has conflicts on three fronts: in Somalia, in its own Ogaden

region, and at the border with Eritrea. The latter holds the key to a long-term

resolution of the Somalia conflict as well as to movement on the Ogaden issue.

ERITREA: - Eritrea sponsors the Committee for the Re-liberation of

Somalia, providing it a base in Asmara and logistical support. It has also provided

arms and training to the CIC when it held Mogadishu, and now is believed to

funnel arms to the insurgency fighting Ethiopia in Mogadishu. Eritrea’s aims are

clear and simple: to use armed groups in Somalia, both Islamist and non-Islamist,

as proxies against its rival Ethiopia.

Eritrea is hoping to keep Ethiopia bogged down in a quagmire in Somalia,

and is willing to support hard-line Islamists to that end despite the fact that the

government of Eritrea is a secular government that has cracked down on both the

Islamist and other opposition based in the Gulf or in Eritrea. Eritrea has little

interest in seeing a negotiated peace which would allow Ethiopia to extricate itself

from Somalia. In terms of state-building, Eritrea was a strong supporter of the CIC

and its short-lived governance efforts in 2006.

UNITED NATIONS AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL

ORGANIZATIONS: - The UN plays a lead role in humanitarian relief, state-

building programmes and mediation in Somalia. Like the donors, the UN

specialized agencies and it’s Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) are based in

Nairobi. The UN’s performance has been uneven in Somalia, and it has

periodically come under criticism from Somali groups and others. In recent times,

the UN’s lead role in diplomatic efforts to end the insurgency in Somalia has

gained donor support and confidence.

SOMALI DIASPORA: - As noted earlier, the Somali diaspora is very large

– numbering about one million people and powerful. The Diaspora also sends

funds to political movements; the CIC derived considerable revenue from fund-

raising among the Diaspora. The Diaspora is not united in its political positions,

but in general has been exceptionally vocal in its condemnation of Ethiopian

occupation of Mogadishu. It is very likely that the diaspora will continue to see its

role in Somali political affairs grow in years to come, as it is the repository of

many of the country’s professional class.

FOREIGN ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS: - A variety of foreign Islamist

movements mainly based out of the Gulf States play an important role in Somalia

mainly as sources of funding. These Islamist groups are usually though not always

Salafist in orientation, embracing a strict interpretation of Islam that is deeply at

odds with traditional Sufi Islam practiced in Somalia. These groups include

Salafist missionaries like Tabliq, which helps fund new mosque construction,

sends clerics, and provides scholarship money to Somali followers. There are also

more progressive Islamic groups providing funding for Somali movements like al-

Islah, which has helped establish schools and hospitals in southern Somalia. A

more dangerous foreign Islamist actor in Somalia consists of al-Qaeda and other

radical groups and individuals believed to be providing funds to the Shabaab

militia. One of the missing elements in talks to promote peace and state revival in

Somalia has been active partnership of the Islamic charities and movements with

Nairobi-based Western diplomacy.

UNITED STATES: - The United States government has pursued a policy

in Somalia informed principally by counter-terrorism concerns. That led the US to

support an alliance of militia leaders in Mogadishu who were eventually defeated

by the CIC in 2006. Since that time, the US has backed the TFG and Ethiopia in

their efforts to build a government and defeat the complex insurgency in

Mogadishu. The US pressed hard for an African Union peacekeeping force to

replace the Ethiopians, on the understanding that the continued presence of the

Ethiopians became the main catalyst for the insurgency. The US also pressed the

TFG leadership to engage in negotiations with the opposition to create a more

inclusive government. But the US has consistently blamed the armed opposition

for the crisis in Mogadishu, supports the Ethiopian occupation, categorized the

Islamist opposition as extremist, and insists that it renounce violence as a

precondition for engagement in political dialogue.

Recent statements suggest the US may be prepared to shift policy on

Somalia to place greater emphasis on fulfilling the political transition rather than

strengthening the governance-capacity of the TFG.

GULF STATES: - Gulf States – principally Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen,

and the UAE – play an intermittent role in Somalia but do not give the country

sustained attention. They periodically provide foreign aid, and are as a result

sought after by Somali factions and transitional governments. They have good

offices with the opposition, and have at times allowed the opposition – both

Islamist and non-Islamist – to operate freely in their countries for residency and

fund-raising. At the same time, they have sought to maintain working relations

with the TFG and Ethiopia, and have been called on by the US for diplomatic

support on Somalia. They all play a critical role in Somalia’s economy, with the

UAE serving as the main commercial and financial hub for Somalia, Saudi Arabia

as the main foreign market, and Yemen as the main source of small arms and a

primary transit stop for Somali migrants seeking work in the Gulf. Some diplomats

have expressed hope that some Gulf States will lead a “coalition of the willing”

peacekeeping force to allow the Ethiopian forces to withdraw.

DONOR COMMUNITY (WESTERN STATES): - Donor states

principally European countries and the European Commission (EC) play an

important role both as sources of foreign aid and in diplomacy in Somalia. All are

based in Nairobi. The European Commission has for years been the largest donor

in Somalia, and at times has exercised considerable clout in Somali political

affairs. Among European countries, Italy has played a lead role on Somalia, with

the United Kingdom and Scandinavian states also more engaged than others on

Somalia. The Western donor states have not always agreed on Somalia policy; the

US in particular has found itself increasingly isolated due to its preoccupation with

counter-terrorism – an agenda shared with less enthusiasm by other donors. In the

past, all Somali political movements and factions sought close relations with the

Nairobi-based donor groups, and Nairobi was the diplomatic hub of Somalia.

Today, with the Islamist and other opposition based in the Gulf or in Eritrea, and

linked more closely to the Islamic world than to the West, the diplomatic centre of

gravity has shifted away from Nairobi. The impact of Western donor states on

Somali state-building efforts has been variable and in some quarters contested.

Some of the most innovative aid projects in local governance and democratization

have been funded by Western donor states, but much of the donor efforts at state

revival tend to be formulaic and accusations have been made that it is exacerbating

the problems of warlordism and corruption.

4.12 CONCLUSION

Somalia’s civil war has been fuelled in large part by distrust and

competition between the country’s byzantine network of clans and sub-clans and

by warlords with a vested interest in instability. A brief flicker of hope

accompanied the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops and the accession of Shaykh

Sherif Ahmed to the presidency of the country’s Transitional Federal Government.

But that hope was dimmed by fierce fighting and the capture of key towns by

Islamist insurgents. While Somalia’s humanitarian disaster is the region’s most

pressing issue, a longer-term question is whether the war-wracked country as

presently configured can survive. Its northwestern region known as Somaliland has

declared independence, after building a functional administration and maintaining

a comparatively peaceful, democratic existence for the last decade.

Somalia’s prolonged crisis of state failure calls for more imaginative,

unconventional approaches to reconciliation and state building. The challenge is to

restore the institutions of government without plunging the country back into full-

scale war. Past Somali peace initiatives have encouraged the perception of central

government as a “cake” – a source of revenue to enrich those with access to it.

Somali political actors have thus devoted all their energies to the carefully

negotiated dividing up of positions in a government by clan rather than address the

main substantive issues related to actual administration of the country and

reconciliation. Progress is likely to begin only when much of the “cake” is taken

out of the central government, via political decentralization that leaves only core,

minimal functions and budgets for Mogadishu. Too many external mediation

efforts in the past have been based on wishful thinking. Efforts at state building

and reconciliation in Somalia need to be informed by a new realism about what is

and is not possible at this time. As a point of departure, the international

community should work with, rather than against, the flow of Somali political and

economic developments. This will require getting Somali political actors to focus

on substantive issues like the extent of political decentralization appropriate for the

country, or key reconciliation issues like return of stolen or occupied property

(carefully avoided to date) and the sensitive topic of human rights abuses over the

past decade and more of conflict.

Recognition of legitimate political actors must be based on their

demonstrated capacity actually to govern the communities and territories they

claim to represent. An empirical yardstick for legitimacy is essential to rid the

country’s political process of warlords and political opportunists whose sole

interest is appropriating anticipated resources from a central state. Warlords with

no relevance beyond a degree of "name recognition" or an external sponsor should

be marginalized or excluded altogether. On this score, the Transitional National

Government needs to be reassessed for what it is, not what it claims to be. It is a

regional authority controlling pockets of the greater Mogadishu area, not a national

government. Economic realities in the country also make clear that a future

central authority will necessarily have extremely modest revenues. The sooner the

state-building goals reflect this, the better the situation will expect in Somalia.

Efforts to rebuild regional government and, ultimately, a national state must

presume that the end product will be a minimalist central government, performing

only the most essential tasks and leaving all other functions to local authorities or

the private sector. Peace processes that solely focus on cementing reconciliation by

creating bloated and unsustainable parliaments and cabinets are counterproductive,

unrealistic and unsustainable.

The hard questions have not been asked as to what sort of a nation-state

Somalia should look like. The focus has been on creating a national government,

unfortunately, in spite of a lot of investment in the last 15 years, we are nowhere

near a functioning, credible nation-state in Somalia. Western policy in the region

has been influenced largely by the perception that Somalia’s lawlessness provides

a safe haven for al Qaeda. Somalia’s radical Islamist al-Shabaab militia, the most

violent extremist and anti- American adversary are now rife in Somalia due in

large part to the blowback from policies that focused too narrowly on

counterterrorism objectives.

If there is reason for optimism, it is that the Obama administration in

Washington has signaled its willingness to focus more on human rights and

stability and less on waging war against radical Islamists and their allies. Such a

move would involve both pressing Ethiopia to resolve its border dispute with

Eritrea and showing a greater willingness to work with moderate Islamists in

Somalia who many believe are the only force capable of bridging the divide

between the country’s constantly warring clans.

.

CHAPTER 5

5. SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS

Somalia, officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali

Democratic Republic, is located on the east coast of Africa between the Gulf of

Aden on the north and the Indian Ocean on the east and has the longest coastline in

Africa. Together with Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti it is often referred to as the

Horn of Africa because of its resemblance on the map to a rhinoceros's horn. It is

bordered by Djibouti on the northwest, Kenya on its southwest, the Gulf of Aden

with Yemen on its north, the Indian Ocean on its East and Ethiopia on the west.

Due to its strategic location in one of the world's main maritime arteries and

trade routes, connecting the Middle East and Europe with the Far East, and its

location on the shores of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, just across the

Gulf of Aden from the Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopia and the Arab world struggled

over expanding their influence zones over Somalia. For Ethiopia, which has always

striven for an outlet to the sea and to world commerce, spreading its control and

influence into Somalia has been vital, while for the Arabs from the Arabian

Peninsula and Egypt, Somalia served as the gate for the proliferation of Islam and

Arab influence into the rest of Africa, especially East Africa.

However, Somalia has over the last two decades deteriorated into one of the

world’s worst security and humanitarian challenges. Characterized by insidious

conflict, political fragmentation and an informal economy, Somalia represents the

archetypal failed state. Throughout its history, Somalia has witnessed a lot of local

conflicts between rival clans and sub-clans as well as some major regional

conflicts with Ethiopia. The common characteristic of all those major conflicts has

been its self-reproducing capacity to develop into violence and insurgency thus

undermining the effective functioning of the central government in Somalia.

Available literature on Somalia has often focused on certain indicators such

as the violent conflicts in southern and central Somalia; the humanitarian situation

in Somalia; inter-state rivalry in the Horn of Africa; and Somalia as a base for

terrorist organisations and organised criminal syndicates as the causative factors

for analysing the failure of the Somali state.

However, the attempts by the international community and by regional

actors to resuscitate a centralised state have so far utterly failed and there are no

signs indicating that they could work in the future. In the light of these failures and

of the catastrophic situation in the country new approaches and solutions are

clearly called for. Such approaches require new conceptualisations of the situation.

This research argued that recognising the impacts of border disputes in the Horn of

Africa will provide adequate conceptualisations of the recurring incidence of state

failure in Somalia.

The conflict in Somalia has repeatedly geared the state into the failed state

discourse focusing on the numbers of regional, continental, and global players

involved; the unprecedented active involvement of foreign players in Somali local

affairs; and the immediate local, regional, and global circumstances at hand as well

as the most important role border disputes has played in Somali conflict.

The research explains how the immediate local, regional, and global

circumstances at hand have made Somalia currently one of the main battlefields

between regional powers and between the US and the Islamists Movements. Thus,

this research analyzed the social and historical roots of border disputes and its

impacts on state failure in Somalia, the course of the disputes, the role of radical

Islam in the dispute; and the intervention of external regional and global players in

the dispute and their motives.

In the course of the research, the following findings were identified by the

researcher as a strategic focus towards understanding the paradox of state failure in

Somalia:

1. The indiscriminate border partition by the colonial powers in the Horn of

Africa is the source and foundation of the regional rivalry that defines the

political situation of member states within the region.

2. The wide religious differences of states in the region contributed to a

perceived regional security and rivalry.

3. The struggle of Somalia towards the “Greater Somalia” philosophy

contributed to regional hostility towards Somalia from rival neighbours.

4. The Nomadic as well as Pastoral dependence in addition to the oil deposits

in Ogaden contributed to the intense struggle by the two rival nations

(Ethiopia and Somalia) for its acquisition.

5. The Economic and Political marginalization of the Somali-inhabited areas of

Ogaden spurred the emergence of insurgency and liberation movements that

seeks to achieve self-determination and to unite themselves with other

Somalis for the dream of “Greater Somalia”.

6. Somalia’s claim of Ethiopia inherent expansionist dynamic as well as

Ethiopia’s black imperialism influenced its support and alliance formation

with Eritrea and an animosity towards Ethiopia and Kenya.

7. The seismic shift in the superpower alignments in the Horn of Africa

contributed to intense regional rivalry and alliance formation by the

countries in the region.

8. The predominance of Clan Politics on a “winner take all” basis has often

contributed to the emergence of competing factions in the state that play key

role in Somalia state failure.

9. The ineffectiveness of the TFG to persuade warlords that had dominated

Mogadishu since the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime particularly the

“Mogadishu Group” influenced the rising force of CSIS and other Islamists

movements.

10.The Ethiopian occupation of Somalia and there constant support for the TFG

have generated a recruiting mechanism for the Somali Islamists.

11.The Ethiopia-Eritrea border disputes affects the efforts towards state-

building in Somalia as both countries fight each other through proxies in

Somalia.

12.The spread of radical Islam and the invasion of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist

organizations into Somalia have heightened the regional rivalry as it also

provides justification for invasion into Somali by rival neighbours.

13. The ineffectiveness and inappropriateness of outside interventions in

Somalia particularly U.S under the “War on Terror” has become a key

promoter of conflict in Somalia.

14.Mediation efforts towards state-building in Somalia have often been

hampered by the rival agendas of key member states.

15.Ethiopia’s immediate concern in Somalia is its own National Security this

explains why Ethiopia often supports government that declares animosity

towards Islamic fundamentalism in Somalia.

16.The failure of the reconciliation political process by all the regimes that

headed the TFG have often worsened efforts towards state-building as a

result of marginalization of key actors such as clan leaders as well as Islamic

militias from the process.

17.The emergence of statelessness in Somalia has also influenced the

emergence of piracy which has also assumes international security concern

similar to the trends of failed state.

5.2 CONCLUSION

The restoration of peace and security in Somalia is critical to the

establishment and maintenance of stability in the region. Unless there is genuine

political will and sustained engagement from the region, the continent and the

broader international community on the conflict in Somalia and its resolution,

Somalia is likely to continue to devolve into a vicious cycle of conflict. All actions

to resolve the conflict in Somalia should bear an international stamp that secures

collective responsibility to secure peace and stability in Somalia and the Horn of

Africa. With the parallel reconciliation processes (TFG and the opposition), the

likelihood of the international/donor community taking a step back from the crisis

in Somalia is a real prospect.

Regional politics and security concerns continue to play themselves out

often violently within Somalia. Regional tensions have often been essentially

replicated by political cleavages inside the country and the tendency of regional

powers to use local militias to advance their goals. While it is tempting to portray

some of these tensions as a “clash of civilizations” between a highland Christian

Ethiopian leadership and a lowland Muslim bloc that combines Somalis, Arabs and

other ethnic groups, the reality seems to be more complex. Somalia’s relationship

with Ethiopia is very uneven, with some areas reviling their neighbor and others

looking to it for support.

Clannism in Somalia, even though viewed as a driver of the conflict, could

be transformed to become a critical connector for peace in the country. The risk of

heightened regional insecurity and the possibility of another Ethiopia/Eritrea war

could be triggered by the events playing out in Somalia. The Horn of Africa is

once again at the brink of a protracted period of conflict and all efforts to avert this

must be deployed as a matter of urgency.

Somalia is a threat to international peace and security because of its

potential as a terrorist breeding ground and safe haven. However, it is the

instability resulting from the failure of the Somali state itself that poses the greatest

danger both to the outside world and to Somalis themselves. The current Somali

"government" with the widest international recognition controls little more than

half of the capital, Mogadishu, and is simply unable to combat terrorism in a

meaningful way. It cannot police its borders, provide viable political or economic

alternatives to radical groups, or even gather meaningful intelligence. If left in such

a dismal condition, Somalia will incubate or at least offer shelter to extremist

elements that can operate unchallenged and undetected. Action to reconstruct the

state is needed now, or Somalia will remain a danger for many years to come. The

protagonists in the Somali conflict have long been at an impasse, unable to gain a

decisive political or military advantage. The intervention of regional powers has

deepened the deadlock, not resolved it, while escalating the violence. Current

peace initiatives hold little promise of a breakthrough.

Stalemate is in the interests of neither Somalis nor international security.

Whatever course the U.S. and its allies choose in the war on terrorism, serious

diplomatic and political leverage will have to be brought to bear if Somalia is to

cross the threshold from failed state to frail state and resume its place as a

responsible member of the international community. However, a fresh approach is

clearly required.

In order to achieve both its short-term and long- term counter-terrorism

objectives, it is imperative that the international community re-engage politically in

the complex and difficult process of state reconstruction in Somalia. A functioning

state, capable of cooperating in counter-terrorism efforts and able to support

political and economic development, would be the most effective bulwark against

terrorism. This requires, in the first instance, more direct international

involvement in and greater support for efforts at peace and reconciliation,

principally through what must be a greatly enhanced IGAD initiative. It is critical

that Somalis and their international partners move quickly to construct substantive

alternatives to the vacuum and to foreign-funded Islamist agendas through the

reconstruction of a viable state, with a functional national administration that can

provide security, deliver services, facilitate economic opportunities and resolve

disputes before they escalate to violence. The twin imperatives of fighting

terrorism and reconstructing the state are intimately linked. Military threats,

increased intelligence gathering and perhaps limited, targeted military operations

to seize certain individuals may all have their place and in the short run deter

terrorists from using Somalia as a haven. But such a strategy is unsustainable if it

is not linked with a process aimed ultimately at reconciliation and good

governance.

The most significant external actor in Somali affairs continues to be

Ethiopia. The primary security threat from an Ethiopian perspective would be a

full-blown secessionist movement gaining ground in Ogaden. The secondary one

would be the establishment of an Islamic or, in the worst case, a Jihadist state in

Somalia. Such an entity would risk inciting dissent, and possibly terrorism and

secessionist claims from Ethiopia’s Muslims. Also, any stable and centralised

Somali state that would be acceptable to Ethiopia would have to foreswear

irredentism and pan-Somali ideology in a credible way. This would be very

difficult to achieve. No other actor is as decisive to the outcome in Somalia as is

the government of Ethiopia. Its military occupation of southern Somalia is the

main catalyst for the armed insurgency; its troops before their withdrawal

constitute an essential source of protection for the TFG, without which the

government would have quickly be driven out of the capital; and it enjoys direct

backing by the United States.

Most diplomats following Somalia – including US officials who enjoy

closer ties to Ethiopian decision-makers – express uncertainty about Ethiopian

policy objectives in Somalia. Many angry Somali pundits argue that Ethiopia is

committed to perpetuating a state of warlordism and chaos on Somalia and that

Somalia can never be at peace until the Ethiopian state is brought down. Others

claim Ethiopia will be satisfied with nothing less than a puppet government in

Mogadishu, replicating in Somalia its authoritarian rule over the nominally

autonomous ethnic federal states within its own borders.

Still others accuse Ethiopia of being unwilling to accept any role for

Islamists in Somalia, a position which guarantees perpetual conflict given the

ascent of political Islam as a major force in Somalia politics. Uncertainty about the

kind of government Ethiopia is willing to accept in Mogadishu is likely to remain.

But a few points about Ethiopian interests and positions are clear, and serve as

points of departure for more effective diplomatic strategy. First, since the late

1990s Ethiopia has been a key actor in the Somalia crisis. This point is obvious,

and yet Ethiopia has never been brought directly into reconciliation talks, which

have always focused only on Somali actors. For all the many conflict drivers

exacerbating Somalia’s prolonged state of collapse, the most important has been

Ethiopia’s prolonged struggle against the coalition of anti-Ethiopian groups based

in Mogadishu. Ethiopia has worked against this “Mogadishu Group” indirectly,

through its Somali clients (until 2004, via the SRRC) and now directly in its

military occupation of southern Somalia. Resolution of the Somali crisis will, at

some point, require that Ethiopia and this Mogadishu-based coalition reach a

modus Vivendi. That the previous decade of diplomatic work on Somalia has not

focused on bringing these two main protagonists in the conflict together for direct

talks underscores the weakness of the conflict analysis informing past diplomacy in

Somalia.

Second, Ethiopia has legitimate security concerns in Somalia that must be

recognised and addressed by the Somali opposition if Ethiopia is to accept a

negotiated settlement in Mogadishu. The temptation in Somali opposition circles to

dismiss Ethiopian security needs is a non-starter. If a Somali government or

political movement embraces irredentist policies against Ethiopia, provides

logistical support to armed insurgencies aimed at the Ethiopian government, allows

itself to be used as a platform for radical Islamists, or pursues close relations with

Ethiopia’s regional rival Eritrea, the government in Addis Ababa can be expected

to work against that government. The need to recognise Ethiopia’s security

imperatives is a painful but essential concession that Somali political movements

of all types must accept if Ethiopia is to support a revived Somali central

government.

Ethiopia is arguably the only external actor with both vital interests in the

political outcome in Somalia and with the military power and capacity to act in

pursuit of those interests. By contrast, other external actors tend to dabble

opportunistically in Somalia, either because Somalia is of secondary importance

or, in the case of states like Kenya, because they like the capacity to play a robust

role inside Somalia. This is another reason Ethiopia’s interests must be placed at

the centre of realistic political solutions in Somalia. Ethiopian leaders have clearly

been taken by surprise at the persistence and strength of the armed insurgency and

have been deeply frustrated at the inability of the TFG to become functional. There

is no question that Ethiopia miscalculated when it opted to occupy Mogadishu,

misreading both Somali politics and the willingness of other African leaders to

supply peacekeepers to the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). The

current situation is unquestionably not the outcome Ethiopia expected or wants in

Somalia. But the lack of clearly preferably alternatives from Ethiopia’s perspective

means that the Meles government is likely to continue with the same course of

action – including its preference for heavy-handed counterinsurgency tactics

involving collective punishment and disproportionate response all of which are

capable of jeopardising every efforts towards state-building in Somalia

5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the research findings identified in the course of the research as

well as the analysis of the border disputes in the Horn of Africa and its resulting

consequences on Somalia state failure, the rising trend of State Failure in Somalia

can be addressed if the contending actors in the Somali conflict implement the

following recommendations:

5.3.1 POLITICAL RECONCILIATION AND STABILITY

The situation in Somalia requires urgent and active commitment from both

internal parties to the conflict, the TFG and the opposition groups. Political

reconciliation needs to be given the highest priority if any progress is to be made

towards peace and stability. The TFG has to be persuaded to initiate a genuine,

inclusive process of political reconciliation, and the opponents of the TFG, at least

the political opposition groups, need to be actively engaged to ensure their

participation.

The option preferred by the TFG of applying a selective social reconciliation

mechanism to mitigate the current tensions and conflict in Somalia is not a viable

option. Inclusive citizens’ participation, the prospect of political tolerance and

power-sharing with the new opposition currently based in Asmara must be on the

table for any meaningful political reconciliation to take root in Somalia. Efforts

should also be directed towards political as well as economic incorporation for the

people of Ogaden by the Ethiopia government as this will reduce the grievance and

hostile posture of the Somali-inhabited areas towards the Ethiopian government.

5.3.2 PEACE AND SECURITY

International pressure needs to be intensified on external regional actors to

disengage their vested interests that continue to exacerbate the conflict in Somalia.

This would create the necessary space for the Somali people to express their

aspirations through inclusive political dialogue. The withdrawal of Ethiopian

troops from Somalia appears to have assisted the pace of insurgency in Somalia,

but the on-going dispatch of soldiers from Burundi, Uganda and Nigeria might also

stimulate the perception of occupation within Somalia which might also frustrate

every effort towards restoring order in Somalia. The enforcement of the UN arms

embargo on Somalia need to also be intensified to put an end to illicit arms flows

that feed the conflict system in Somalia.

Immediate measures should be taken to stabilise the current situation in

Somalia and secure the cessation of hostilities and the enforcement of peace in the

country. The AU peacekeeping mission to Somalia has to be strengthened through

the deployment of sufficient troops to fulfil its mandate but it must present a non-

partisan posture to all the warring factions in Somalia. The peacekeeping mission

in Somalia requires urgent international support and this could be in the form of a

robust hybrid peacekeeping mission that would create the enabling environment

necessary for political dialogue and reconciliation. This can only be achieved

through a commitment of the requisite logistical and financial resources from the

larger international community.

The proposed peacekeeping mission must have within its mandate the

ability to enforce peace and conduct comprehensive security sector reform in

Somalia as a means to ensuring structured capacity of the Somali people to keep

and maintain peace in their country. This factor can also assist in curtailing the

activities of the pirates.

5.3.3 REGIONAL SECURITY

The situation in Somalia continues to negatively impact on stability in the

region. The conflict situation has drawn in external regional actors actively

involved in the conflict, most notably, Ethiopia and Eritrea, who continue to use

Somalia as a proxy for their simmering border dispute. There has to be greater

international pressure on the two countries to disengage from the Somalia conflict.

In addition, greater efforts have to be put into the resolution of the Ethiopia/Eritrea

border dispute, if the two countries are to be successfully disengaged from

Somalia. The TFG will negotiate only if pressured by Ethiopia, and the United

States has more leverage on Ethiopia than any other external actor.

By contrast, Washington lacks direct leverage with the new Somali

opposition and has excluded clan elders. Therefore, diplomacy targeting this group

should focus on getting governments in the region and in the Arab League to

persuade them to accept a comprehensive reconciliation and power-sharing

arrangement. The current conflict in Somalia, which is a major concern for all

neighbouring states in the region, continues to have a negatively re-enforcing

impact on regional peace, security and stability in the greater Horn region.

5.2.4 REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ACTORS’ INVOLVEMENT

There should be stronger and more determined political will, both on the

continent and internationally, to commit to the resolution of the conflict in

Somalia, if peace and stability are to be restored in Somalia. The AU should

demonstrate proactive leadership on the Somalia conflict, particularly on initiatives

towards political reconciliation. The broader international community should

commit and mobilise resources towards the restoration of peace, and there has to

be sustained engagement on its part on the Somali question.

The external actors involved in initiatives towards resolving the conflict

situation in Somalia need to engage in continuous in-depth analysis of the

situation. Any meaningful responses to bring about sustainable peace, security and

stability in Somalia must be underpinned by continuous in-depth analysis of the

context in Somalia. Current initiatives are driven largely by macro-level situational

analysis, mainly when there is a flare up in violence in the country. This kind of

analysis not only presents a snapshot frame of the larger context at a particular

moment, but also does not capture the key drivers and dividers feeding the conflict

and more often than not, the connectors and opportunities that exist for peace. The

risk, therefore, is that, any responses modelled on macro-situational analysis may

not be effective, appropriate or timely.

5.3 POLICY CONSIDERATIONS

Apart from the recommendations above, the following policy should also be

considered by the following actors as a means of enhancing the state-building

process in Somalia.

5.3.1 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY (UNITED NATIONS/ EUROPEAN

UNION/ARAB LEAGUE)

• Overcome its stance of benign neglect of Somalia and treat Somalia as a priority

case.

• Signal willingness to accept and work with any government that emerges in

Somalia, rather than seek to impose one, work with that government to dissuade

it’s from acts of extremism.

• Take strong and resolute measures to deal with local grievances including those

that relate to illegal exploitation of Somali maritime resources and toxic waste

dumping off the coast of Somalia (including banning the dumping chemical waste

and the illegal fishing in Somali waters).

• Mount a full-scale diplomatic effort to support humanitarian activities in Somalia.

5.3.2 UNITED STATES

• Develop a policy strategy towards Somalia that is not solely underpinned by the

war on terror and its security agenda but rather one that supports locally owned

efforts even when this could offend United States’ sensibilities.

5.3.3 AFRICAN UNION (AU) AND THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL

AUTHORITY ON DEVELOPMENT (IGAD)

• Maximize diplomatic efforts to focus international attention on the need to go

beyond military deterrence in order to address the underlying challenges of

establishing a functioning government in Somalia.

• Bolster points of stability in Somalia by identifying and working with local

authorities/ groups toward the promotion of an inclusive government.

• Promote the agenda of political reconciliation to stabilize the country

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