Conflict in Somalia - Essay Example

Conflict in Somalia Introduction Why did all the parties involved in Somali conflict break all legality, international or domestic, as they unleashed cruelty on the Somali people? Looking back at this conflict, Mubarak (1996, pp. 50) hinted that bad economic policies implemented in Somalia since 1971 have impoverished this small country of 9 million people and destroyed its political landscape and has plunged the country into poverty that has encouraged extremity and militancy of all forms, which have fueled the crisis in Somalia for decades on end. With its constituent states in constant disagreement based on political and religious agendas, Somali has been unable to shake itself out of the crisis, which was exacerbated by the declaration of Somalia as a failed State in 1991 by its failing and shaking Transitional government headed by moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad (Chopra, 1998). Somali conflict has also been affected by the actions of regional and international powers that have worsen it instead of resolving the issue on most occasions. But how long will this conflict continue? B. THE CONFLICT PARTIES AND ISSUES Who are the core conflict parties? Bariagaber (2006, pp. 66) pointed out that Somalia had been divided along ethnic lines, which had segmented the country into several clans or tribal divisions. Couldn’t the issue of embracing different ideologies by different clans be enough to keep Somali people apart and make peaceful co-existence impossible? Each of the clans has its form of Islamic religion being practiced by its people: from the moderate Islam to the fanatical and more dangerous ones; even some of the Muslim groups in Somalia have been put on United States’ terrorist list because of their connection with Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qeada Organization. Considering the enormity of the conflict in Somalia, it is apt to investigate what are the internal-subgroups and what constituencies do they depend on. Apart from internal segregation due to tribal affiliations, it has been discovered that some internal-subgroups do exist; which are directly linked with religious ideologies. The main radical sub-group is called Al-Shabab, an extremist group that was carved out by the remaining supporters of Union of Islamic Courts. The constituencies that Al-Shabab controls include the South and Central Somalia, which it rules with iron-hand imposing Sharia on the Somali people in these places. There is another notorious sub-group named Hisbul-Islam that was created shortly after the moderate Islamist government was formed: an action some former members of Union of Islamic Court perceived as act of betrayal as the government maximum support from foreign governments, including the United Nations and the United States (BBC, 2009). Hisbul-Islam has a strong influence on the northern section of the country. Having different sub-groups that have made Somali ungovernable and conflict prone these past years, one may want to know if there is any possibility of distinguishing the different positions, needs and values among these groups. Palmer et al (2007, pp. 144) noticed that the moderate Islam that is being practiced by most Somali doesn’t have any effect on the Jihadist groups like Al-Shabah and Hisbul-Islam, which receive weapons and other military assistance from terrorist organizations outside Somalia. The main need of each of these groups is political power with which they could govern the Somalis using harsh Sharia that would rob them of all their fundamental human rights (BBC, 2009). They have no value for human lives as long as their jihadist agendas are on course! But are there any kinds of relationship between these conflict parties? And if at all certain relationship exists among them, is it asymmetrically quantitative or qualitative? Hamilton (2007, pp. 32) critically explained that no form of relationship exist between all these groups-turned-warlords as they battled against the failing government from different sections of the country. Their intentions were to first pull down the government they perceived as a betrayal because of its massive support by foreign governments, and then to confront one another in a hot battle for assuming the mantle of power in Mogadishu. Therefore, what are the different perceptions of the causes and nature of conflict among the conflict parties? It has been repeated often that the first signal of trouble in Somalia had stemmed from ethnic disunity that arose as some ethnic groups feel marginalized and their economic and welfare needs are not attended to by the ruling tribal group. And since several economic experiments adopted by succeeding governments in Somalia had done nothing to alleviate poverty, average Somali has clung to religion as a way to solve their personal problems. And when Islamic fanaticism finds its way into the country, so many people were easily converted into becoming religious hardliners (Milas & UNICEF Somalia, 1997). But each of the warring groups have often pointed an accusing finger at external influence, which they alleged has destabilized their country and teach their people to act like infidels and disregard Islamic rule. There are two distinct but similar perceptions of this conflict from all the conflict parties: they see their actions as a necessary fight for their constitutional rights and also as a way to redeem their Islamic sanctity. The nature of the conflict, in recent years, has turned religious and political rather than for economic purpose With the intensity of internal warfare among all the conflict parties in Somalia, it is interesting to investigate the current behavior of the parties. Has the conflict reached an escalatory or de-escalatory phase? Zartman (2001, pp. 30) explained that the inter-ethnic strife in Somalia is far from coming to an end, even though the level of confrontation between Somalia and one of its neighbors, Kenya, has de-escalated. After the invasion of Ethiopian Forces in 2006, backed by the international communities, many of the conflict groups have re-assembled and enjoyed military support from terrorist groups in Middle East or other African countries that provide ammunition and other weapons to the warlords. There is no doubt that the conflict groups seem well-organized and battle-ready: but who are the leaders of these conflict parties? Are they the elites or individuals? And what are their objectives, policies, interests, relative strengths and weaknesses? Deng et al (1996, pp. 155) strongly believed that internal politics and tribal divisions within the ethnicities have been spearheaded by their leaders, who are the tribal kings, chiefs, local administrators and religious leaders, like imams, Islamic clerics and other influential citizens in the country. Their major objective is to create different distinct tribal identities within Somali statehood: a strategy that has never worked but often leads to the segregation of the tribal people from one another. Their selfish policies have been to take over the government and rule the people as they desire, using Sharia laws. And they are mostly interested in shutting Somalia out of connecting with the rest of the world, as they seem to dislike the kind of waywardness common in some certain areas of the world. They would do everything in their power to stop foreign influence from taking over Somalis. However, the main strengths of these leaders have come from the willingness of some Somalis to follow their leadership without questioning. But the inability of the leaders to successfully co-ordinate their followers has been their main weakness. C. The Context: Global, regional and state-level factors: At the state level, Lake and Rothchild (1998, pp. 288) recognized that even though ethnical conflict could result in a warfare of state-wide dimension, it could also be spread abroad through certain machinery. Somali conflict has started basically as a result of the government inability to eradicate poverty through functional economic policies. And since the central government has lost control of most of the country’s parts in 1991, it was difficult to arrange any fora where all stakeholders or warlords could come together to discuss the way out of the conflict. And this has left the government in a completely helpless situation (Nhema, 2008). Somalia has been involved in some bloody clashes with its regional neighbors on account of boundary disputes. Although its conflict with Kenya has de-escalated without any serious official mediation, but its on-going conflict with Ethiopia is far from over (Sriram et al, 2004). And the Somali dissidents living in those countries often enjoy certain assistance from the countries, for example, Ethiopia, to protest against the oppressive government in Mogadishu ( Copson, 1994). Experts have described the impact of an international factor which further fuelled the conflict in Somalia as purely political. The intervention of US in 1991 to overthrow the then military dictator has been deemed truly political (Amstutz, 2005). The United States came in to reduce the possibility of Osama Bin Laden receiving financial support from the former Somali military president. Also, the impacts of armed peacekeepers have been discovered to constitute a political manipulation, as United Nations in collaboration with African Union want the peacekeepers stationed in Somali to keep peace and order, why encouraging the Somalis to embrace democracy (Clarke et al, 1997). But have all these international efforts to stop the crisis in Somalia been effective? It is hard to believe they have: take for instance, the US intervention in the crisis when US troops were sent to crush the militants and help establish a Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia. Instead, this action had made the majority of Somalis to hate the United States. It was unfortunate that more fundamentalists were produced as a result of the presence of American soldiers in Somalia. This unexpected development had got Washington strategists worrying about the long-time effects of anti-Americanism spreading through Somalia. Because the primary reason for getting into Somalia was to cut off any groups that may be sympathetic with Osama Bin Laden. But, in the contrary, US intervention had bred a new set of diehard militants, who had acquired weapons and ammunition to fight the American troops. This group of fanatics eventually made the country ungovernable for the president of TGF, which finally led to the collapse of the government. And US Army had lost some soldiers in this military misadventure that had yielded no reasonable result. Bibliographies 1. Mubarak, Jamil A., 1996. From bad policy to chaos in Somalia: how an economy fell apart. Westport, Cincinnati: Greenwood Publishing Group. 2. Chopra, Jarat. 1998. The politics of peace-maintenance. Boulder. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 3. Clarke, Walter C. & Herbst, Jeffrey I., 1997. Learning from Somalia: the lessons of armed humanitarian intervention. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. 4. Bariagaber, Assefaw. 2006. Conflict and the refugee experience: flight, exile, and repatriation in the Horn of Africa. Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 5. British Broadcasting Corporation. 2009. Q & A: Somalia’s conflicts.(Online) (Updated 13 May 2009). Available at Accessed on May 10 2009. 6. Palmer, Monte & Palmer, Princess. 2007. Islamic extremism: causes, diversity, and challenges. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. 7. Hamilton, Janice. 2007. Somalia in Pictures. Colorado: Twenty-First Century Books. 8. Milas, Seifulaziz L & UNICEF SOMALIA. 1997. Causes and Consequences of the Somalia Conflict. Paris: Unicef. 9. Zartman, William I., 2001. Preventive negotiation: avoiding conflict escalation. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. 10. Deng, Francis M., Rothchild, D & Zartman, William I., 1996. Sovereignty as responsibility: conflict management in Africa. New York: Brookings Institution Press. 11. Lake, David A & Rothchild, Donald S. 1998. The international spread of ethnic conflict: fear, diffusion, and escalation. New Jersey. Princeton University Press. 12. Sriram. Chandra L., Nielsen, Zoe & International Peace Academy. 2004. Exploring subregional conflict: opportunities for conflict prevention. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 13. Amstutz, Mark R., 2005. International ethics: concepts, theories, and cases in global politics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. 14. Copson, Raymond W., 1994. Africas wars and prospects for peace. New York: M.E. Sharpe. 15. Nhema, Alfred G., Zeleza, Tiyambe & Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern Africa. 2008. The resolution of African conflicts: the management of conflict resolution & post-conflict reconstruction. Ohio: Ohio University Press. Read More