Shift
attention to Somaliland
The situation in the Horn of
Africa is rapidly reaching crisis proportions and specifically
United States policy towards the one time Somali Democratic Republic
needs to be reformulated on the basis of something other than the
series of unrealistic assumptions on which it has hitherto been
predicated.
Recent events have underscored the deteriorating security conditions
faced by the international community as a whole as well as by the
Somali and their neighbours, it is time to concentrate on
Somaliland, the one part of that geopolitically sensitive space
where there is still a peace to be preserved.
As a headline of Jeffrey Gettleman’s news analysis in last Sunday’s
New York Times proclaimed: “The situation in Somalia seems,
improbably, about to get worse.”
While there are reports that the Ethiopian National Defence Force,
one of Africa’s largest and most seasoned conventional armies, were
establishing new bases in central Somalia, those positions near the
border town of Balanbal appear more to represent a strengthening of
Addis Ababa’s ability to intervene as needed in the future than a
reneging of the commitment to substantially pull out by the end of
the year.
The Ethiopians, with good reason, expect trouble from the steady
advance of Islamist insurgents spearheaded by al-Shabaab (“the
youth”), a radical group which was formally designated a “Foreign
Terrorist Organisation” earlier this year by the US State Department
which argued that it is “a violent and brutal extremist group with a
number of individuals affiliated with al-Qaeda.”
Three weeks ago, the US Treasury Department slapped travel and
financial sanctions on three leaders of the group. But even as it is
progressively being encircled, the TFG, which barely controls a few
city blocks in Mogadishu – and that only because the Ethiopians have
not withdrawn entirely – is continuing to tear itself apart in
literal squabbles over scraps. Tensions remain high between TFG
“President” Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and “Prime Minister” Nur “Adde”
Hassan Hussein.
Thus the collapse of the TFG is not that far off; then the real
problems begin. While al-Shabaab forces have been united in their
desire to drive out the Ethiopians and the TFG, the group itself is
internally divided into half a dozen or so factions that, despite
the rhetoric of transcending regional or clan affinities, are
divided along those very lines.
The faction led by Mukhtar Robow is probably the largest, with
several thousand fighters, but its composition is almost exclusively
Habr Gidr clansmen from the Hawiye.
If in their last coming the Islamists were an annoyance to the lives
of ordinary Somalis with the bans against watching World Cup
football and chewing of khat, this time they have rendered
themselves downright odious through their narrow-minded intolerance.
Against this bleary landscape, the one relatively bright spot has
been the Republic of Somaliland.
As I have told many Somaliland officials, one of the two most
important claims that make on the attention of the international
community is their country’s democratic constitutional politics.
Thus the significance of the upcoming poll for Somaliland’s future
cannot be underestimated: take away the popular participation in and
legitimacy of its institutions of governance, and the case for an
independent Somaliland becomes that much less compelling.
The other important claim which Somaliland puts forward is its role
as a bulwark for the international community’s security interest in
preventing the spread of the chaos emanating from the rest of the
former Somalia. The creation, equipping, training, and deployment of
a modernised Somaliland coast guard constitute a key component of
any viable strategy for maritime security in the Gulf of Aden and
adjacent waters.
Furthermore, Somaliland is critical to humanitarian efforts
throughout the region. However, because the international community
does not recognise Somaliland’s claim to independent statehood, the
Office of the UN Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has no mechanism
in place to register these displaced Somalis while, for its part,
Somaliland receives none of the bilateral assistance for relief and
development which would ordinarily be forthcoming to a country which
was trying to cope with a similar influx of refugees.
The incoming Obama administration would be better advised to deploy
its resources in a rough triage that privileges saving what can be
saved, rather than vain attempts to preserve that which is already
lost.
To this end, a way must be found to engage Somaliland, supplying its
under-resourced government and civil society with relief and
development aid and security assistance needed to survive the wave
of extremism and violence which will come to the region’s frontiers.
Pham is director at James Madison University in Harrisonburg,
Virginia.
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