Somalia: a country with a still uncertain future
Somalia © United Nations / Stuart Price
Text by: Arnaud Jouve Follow
19 min
The crisis linked to the postponement of the presidential election in Somalia has plunged the country into a period of uncertainty that comes on top of a host of other unresolved crises.
A country divided between several powers still awaiting development and pacification, commented by Somalia expert Robert Kluijver.
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It is in a country still divided, held in part by the Islamist group Al-Shabaab, that a presidential election was to be held on February 8 to choose a successor to Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, whose term was expiring.
But the ballot could not be held despite last minute talks between the presidency and the 5 states of the Somali Federation.
The opposition, which accuses the president of having manipulated the electoral commissions to stay in power, no longer recognizes his legitimacy and calls for the establishment of a transition committee, because the Somali constitution does not provide for an extension of the mandate of the president beyond 4 years.
The already torn country has since entered a period of great uncertainty despite the offices of the international community trying to find an agreement between the parties.
Exchanges of fire broke out on Friday on the sidelines of an opposition demonstration in the Somali capital Mogadishu, placed under close surveillance by the security forces.
Discussions are underway in a context of tensions and insecurity in which many crises have been multiplying for a long time.
Robert Kluijver, doctoral student in political science is a researcher specializing in Somalia and the countries of the Horn of Africa, the analyzes of which can be found on his website www.robertk.space
RFI: Robert Kluijver, following the failure of the presidential election, the country has entered a period of crisis, what is the current situation in Somalia?
Robert Kluijver
:
It's a total blur.
We are waiting for the government to announce how it thinks to get out of this political crisis.
There is a disagreement between President Farmajo and several presidents of the member states of the Federation.
The main dispute is the region of Gedo, bordering Kenya, which belongs to the federal state of
Jubaland
which is militarily occupied by the federal government under the pretext of interference from Kenya;
but all Somalis consider that Farmajo occupied this region to allow his clan to control power there.
President Madobe of Jubaland is demanding that
Gedo
be returned to him before the elections are held.
Beyond this particular conflict, there is Farmajo's effort to install regimes favorable to his power in all member states, with a view to eventual re-election.
Somalis as well as foreign observers believe that this centralizing effort by the federal government goes against the federal spirit of devolution of power.
Since 2012, we have not been able to agree on a final Constitution, especially on the chapter concerning the sharing of powers and responsibilities - and revenues - between the center and the regions.
Jubaland and
Puntland
are the most opposed to Farmajo's centralizing tendencies, to the point of thinking of secession.
But ultimately, behind all these conflicts, there is another reality, well perceived by Somalis: the current impasse allows all political actors to remain in power;
it is for this reason, it is said, that these actors do not seem in any hurry to resolve this crisis.
Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmajo, in 2017 in Mogadishu.
STRINGER / AFP
How did one arrive historically with such a division in Somalia?
Somalia is a sparsely populated country of 12 million inhabitants on a territory which is more or less the size of France.
At independence in 1960, it was a bit of Africa's hope because Somalia was seen as the only true nation-state on the continent with a people, a language and a same religion, but in 1991 l 'State has failed.
President Mohamed Siad Barré, who came to power following a military coup in 1969, ruined the country and brought it to the edge of the precipice, into which he fell upon his fall in 1991 and the country sank into war very bloody civilian.
With the
fall of Siad Barré
, a northern part of the country separated from Somalia declaring itself free and independent under the name Somaliland, leaving the rest of the country to descend into civil war.
After several years of unsuccessful intervention by the international community, Somalia has been abandoned to its fate.
During this period, the country found resources in its traditions of self-governance which stabilized the situation somewhat.
But after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, security officials in the West decided that any failed Muslim country, such as Afghanistan and Somalia, could be a safe haven for terrorism. .
This gave rise to a hunt for extremists in Somalia led by the United States and then France, which had counterproductive results as it gave rise to resistance and a resurgence of Islamic courts which ultimately created a new Islamist government in the country.
In 2006, while they controlled central and southern Somalia, the international community supported Ethiopia which was worried about the development of this fundamentalist power in its neighbor, and Ethiopia invaded Somalia and took them away. driven from power.
A new sequence of conflicts resulted in which we witnessed the emergence of Al-Shabaab, which is now the Islamist nationalist movement which manages nearly 30% of the territory.
Since the 2000s, the European Union has funded almost all peacekeeping operations, and has become the largest financier of development and reconstruction in Somalia.
With this support, a federal government was reformed in 2012 and since then, we have been trying to make this federal government work, even if in reality it has very little control over the country.
So it has become more of a conduit for distributing international money in a system that can be described as patronage in the country, rather than a real government.
Who controls Somali territory?
There are now three governments in Somalia: the federal government backed by the international community which is entirely dependent on its supporters;
the government of Somaliland, which has been independent for 30 years, but which is still not recognized by the international community, although by all accounts it is a functioning state;
finally, there is the emirate of Al-Shabaab which governs practically all the territory of the south and the center of Somalia and other places where it shares this power with the federal government, it is what one calls for night governance and day governance.
During the day, the federal government manages these territories, but at night it is Al-Shabaab.
For example, all businesses in Mogadishu (the capital) pay war taxes to Al-Shabaab.
At the moment,
Al-Shabaab has an increasingly sustained power.
He supports deputies who are favorable to him and, where they have no support, he creates disorder through assassinations, attacks and all forms of intimidation.
Economically, how does Somalia work?
The country lives mainly on international aid, it is the primary source of funding.
The second source is the money that is sent by all Somali diasporas settled mainly in the United States, Europe, China or the United Arab Emirates, who have often been successful in doing business abroad.
In terms of the national economy, the country lives mainly from the export of cattle, goats, sheep, dromedaries and cows.
Al-Shabaab, for example, finances itself by taxing all companies that are found in areas under their control.
According to investigations by the United Nations, which took a close interest in their financial resources, Al-Shabaab has exemplary management.
There is no corruption and there is complete control over all the flow of money.
For example, when truck carriers, and there are many in Somalia, pass an Al-Shabaab checkpoint, they pay a fixed amount, known in advance, and they receive a receipt that they can present to all other Al-Shabaab checkpoints, they don't have to pay again.
On the other hand, for government checkpoints, you never know how much it will cost: there is no receipt and you have to pay back to
each check.
So Al-Shabaab lives mainly on taxation, it is said that they also receive money from al-Qaeda, but according to studies, there is very little evidence that they receive significant support from terrorism. international.
In addition, the often mentioned piracy has greatly decreased since 2012. Crime is high, but what afflicts the population the most is government corruption and the taxes collected by Al-Shabaab which are considered racketeering.
A parade of Islamist Shebab activists in Afgoye, west of the Somali capital (file photo).
KENYA-SECURITY / SOMALIA REUTERS / Feisal Omar / Files
What is the general security situation?
At the security level, the country has stagnated since 2012: there are Al-Shabaab attacks, conflicts between clans, other conflicts against the Somali national army such as what is happening in the region of Gedo in Jubaland and there are There are a lot of assassinations going on in Mogadishu right now.
These killings, often carried out by al-Shabaab, often target senior officials and elders of clans that support the government.
When I speak with the population for my research, the general feeling is that Al-Shabaab has infiltrated the government and the security services.
When someone witnesses something, they do not call the police, as they may run into an Al-Shabaab informant and risk being seen as a whistleblower and face retaliation.
For almost 10 years there has been an imbalance between these two powers which constantly oscillate between violence and normalcy, but next to that there is a large part of the country, like Puntland, which covers almost a third of the country. , who knows peace.
The conflict is local and sporadic, not generalized.
How does the population see this situation?
People often say they want neither Al-Shabaab nor this corrupt government, while saying to themselves that this government, being supported by the international community, is despite everything a window towards a future and towards the outside, because they also say they are that if Al-Shabaab took power, it would be total isolation.
But at the same time, when you ask the population about the legitimacy of the government, people say that Al-Shabaab is still a little better, because at least there is justice and it is not corrupt.
They apply a justice that does not suit us but at least it works and it is predictable.
Al-Shabaab, with justice, tries to score points with the population by guaranteeing a form of social peace, by pacifying communities and problems through judgments where all parties are heard.
Their judgments are moreover applied and one cannot derogate from them otherwise it becomes very dangerous;
it reassures people.
Al-Shabaab's goal is to take power, but over time they have settled into a
status quo
situation
.
They have a lot of power, they run a good part of the country and they know that neither the international community nor most Somalis are going to allow them to take power.
They may be looking at what is going on in Afghanistan and they say to themselves that if they continue to resist 10 or 20 more years, they will be part of the solution.
Their command is fairly unitary: they have a sort of board of directors with leaders who are rarely in the same place, which allows them to cope when they lose a commander, as has been the case several times notably through attacks by drones.
The war is permanent but it is of low intensity.
When you look at the number of violent deaths in Somalia, it is still lower than the rate seen in the United States.
It is above all the permanent tension in the face of danger, symbolized by the attacks against civilian targets, that makes the country unstable and exhausts the population.
Beyond the security problems and this permanent tension, the first concern is employment, because it is also a country which has experienced food distress several times in its history with, just over the past 30 years, two great famines.
The second concern is this uncertainty about the future, this impossibility of forecasting, of investing, of knowing what will happen the next day.
People are worried about their children and many dream of seeing them go to other countries where they will find better living conditions.
Lack of access to healthcare, education, infrastructure and basic services makes life difficult.
There are hardly any paved roads in the country for example, because the country has faced a general lack of development for a very long time.
How does the federal government work in this context of permanent crises?
In Somalia, politics is the power of the clans.
For example, President Farmajo, who is from the Marehan clan, mobilized his clan for the elections.
But since they are not very numerous, he had to seek support from other clans.
All the Somali population belongs to the same ethnic group which is divided into clans, sub-clans, and sub-sub-clans, etc. It is a hierarchical system which unites all Somalis.
It is the network of support, of solidarity, which has always functioned, even during the civil war, and which has always enabled the Somalis to survive.
The clans do not oppose each other directly, it is the personalities who constitute them who oppose each other even if everyone knows that behind it is the clan.
When you read the Somali press, there is never any reference to clans.
But when we speak with the population, everything is linked to the clans.
Clans are central to Somalia's indirect electoral system.
The 275 members of Parliament, who represent the entire country, should be elected, each in their region, by electoral groups of 101 people, according to the pattern agreed last September, to the detriment of the promise of universal suffrage.
This also applies to independent Somaliland, considered by the federal government to be part of the country.
Al-Shabaab-controlled areas are also represented to the government by men who live in Mogadishu and who never visit their constituencies because they would be murdered.
So these large voters vote and are paid, depending on the election, between $ 5,000 or $ 30,000 per vote.
In some cases, it can go up to $ 100,000 to get a candidate elected.
It is a way of ensuring that only Somalis who represent major economic interests, or who represent foreign powers, are elected to parliament.
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the main financiers of this system.
Turkey also donates a lot of money.
Then we find Kenya, Ethiopia, China and others: each pays to try to secure its interests with the candidates.
It's a system that nobody likes but that works for everyone.
There is no ideological position, because the objective is to capture the vote of the clan and, in a clan, there are all the sensibilities, so we are not going to take an ideological position.
There is no party that positions itself ideologically in Somalia.
Everyone holds an anti-corruption rhetoric, including the president, and all of them have an anti-Al-Shabaab rhetoric because they are funded from abroad, but on this subject they are also very careful for fear of assassinations.
Attack in Mogadishu in December 2019 REUTERS / Feisal Omar
Are there
economic interests that could explain this foreign funding?
It is a potential interest but it is not for the short term.
For example, on January 8, the government announced that it was going to put oil exploitation blocks up for sale, but on January 9, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervened to tell them that Somalia could not borrow. money in international markets because there is no legal framework for selling oil exploitation blocks in Somalia.
So there are government efforts, but speculators do not wish to enter land under current conditions.
For example, I had met Chinese businessmen who were interested in big projects in Puntland, because it is a more stable region: they met all the authorities to see if they could invest and they are left saying that the legal framework being completely vague, it was impossible to invest in the current context to protect their investments.
The Turks are practically the only ones to invest very concretely in the seaport of Mogadishu, in the construction of hospitals and roads.
They are highly regarded in Somalia, because of all the donors, they are the only ones who ensure that their money does not disappear into the pockets of Somali politicians.
They do everything themselves, with Turkish companies that they have brought in.
In addition, they train the Somali army and obtain protection from it.
What is your view on the action of the international community in Somalia?
The international community seems more interested in the political system than in its current adventures, like the surrounding countries.
She is exasperated that there is still no liberal democratic system based on universal suffrage - although it is highly debatable whether such a system would be better than indirect elections or a non-electoral system.
For example, what does a quota for women in parliament mean in a clan electoral system, if women cannot represent the interests of the clans?
Do elections automatically bring more democracy?
'Democracy', as it is practiced today, above all helps to consolidate a small oligarchy which represents the great interests of Somali business and regional geopolitics.
The population does not see what this can bring them.
There is no public debate on the future of the country.
Traditional governance in Somalia is consensus.
We keep talking until everyone agrees, and only then do we apply the agreement.
Elections are a system where, through institutional intervention, we arrive at a winner who does not necessarily have the absolute majority of votes.
And that winner takes it all, which is an anti-consensual system and the result at the political level in Somalia is more conflict.
These are questions that the international community must ask itself if it is to achieve primarily pacification.
Perhaps we still have to go through indirect elections, organize a public debate.
Why can't we talk to Al-Shabaab, which rules 30% of the country?
Will we have to wait, as with the Taliban in Afghanistan, for it to control 70% of the country?
It all costs a lot of money: just maintaining the Amisom peacekeeping troops costs 250 million euros a year at a minimum, and that is, almost entirely funded by the European Union.
It would be good to have a real debate on this issue in Europe and with the international community, but especially in Somalia, with the Somalis.
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