Broken Hopes: The Case of Somalia
By Faisal Roble
Is there hope in the Cairo peace declaration? Or, is it another "peace conference," just like the previous ones, most recently the Sodere one, to be undermined by another meaningless conference? A short, yet plausible answer is that there is no hope in the Cairo declaration and there will certainly be another conference to follow it. This continuous process of peace conferences is now a common part of the political landscape in Somalia. In fact, the Somalia peace process, after twenty one of such conferences and almost seven years, has become an endless process of conferences with no tangible results.
Within the last six months there have been two peace accords which gave a glimmer of hope to the Somali people: the Sodere and the Cairo accords. Both of these accords were to be followed by conferences inside the countryin Bossaso and Baidoa, respectively. The Bossaso and Baidoa conferences have two things in common. First, assuming that Baidoa conference does not materialize, both would have been follow-up conferences to preceding offshore conferences. Second, both were "dead on arrival." As Sodere died early on before delegates left Ethiopia, the Cairo one too died before delegates left Cairo.
The Sodere conference was held last year in the Ethiopian resort town of Soderenear the capital of Addis Abeba. The conference was coordinated and financed by the EPRDF ruling government of Ethiopia under the tutelage of its foreign minister, Ato Seyoum Mesfin. Conference participants included all factions to the Somali conflict except the factions of Hussien Aydid and Mahamed Haji Ibrahim Igal, president of the breakaway region of Somaliland. The participants at Sodere elected an inclusive body, the National Salvation Council, chaired by five leaders representing Darood (2), Hawiya (2) and Rahanwayn (1). They also allocated portions of seats to the future delegates of Somaliland. The council included all Somali clans. It was, one could argue, a council of clans. The conference agreed to convene this past November in the port city of Bossaso and set up a transitional government, which would have included Mr. Igal and Mr. Aydid, despite their absence from Sodere. Funding was promised by many sources including Arab countries who started early on to hire Somali expatriates to help them start the ground work. What went wrong that killed the Bossaso hope?
Right at the outset, Hawiya political operatives saw the Sodere initiative as a Darood project, even though Ali Mahdi and Osman Ato both signatories to the accord of Sodereare members of the Hawiya clan. Moreover, the emergence of Bossaso as the safest and economically thriving city in the south, which both foreign journalists and governments alike started to recognize, seems to have upset Hawiya leaders. Hawiya leaders immediately equated going to Bossaso to mean passing leadership in peacemaking to Majerteen and Daroods at large. By the time Ali Mahdi and Osman Ato returned to Mogadishu and started meeting with Mr. Aydid, a pan-Hawiya sentiment was registered with them. Within a month, both signatories to the Sodere accord were reportedly to start planning another conference with Aydid.
Additionally, Sodere had some inherent problems which could not resist Mr. Aydid's effort to undermine it. First, the EPRDF government's invasion of south western Somalia and the loss of several hundred innocent lives in Dolow and Luq while the conference was still underway, cast doubt on the prospects of Sodere conference. This imprudent action on the part of EPRDF government further eroded any hope for many Somalis to legitimize an EPRDF-brokered peace accord. A second problem is EPRDF's tenacity to wage war in the Ogaden region, where ethnic Somalis live, and grossly violate the human rights of traditional and religious leaders of the region. People often asked how EPRDF government, while killing Somali people and violating its territorial integrity, could bring about peace in Somalia. With Omar Jess, himself an Ogadeni affiliated to the Ogaden region by blood, on Aydid's side, Somali insurgents sought help from Aydid, and South Mogadishu soon became a haven for opposition against Ethiopia. The Darood unanimity around the Sodere initiative was suddenly divided and the Ethiopian-brokered peace was shattered.
By late November, Aydid and Ali Mahdi were together organizing the Cairo conference with Egyptian sponsorship. Once again, Ali Mahdi, true to his character of not sticking to anything he signs, was in the forefront of undermining the Bossaso follow-up conference. By early December 1997, funding parties to the Bossaso conference showed fissures and the process of Cairo conference was in full swing.
Likewise, the Cairo conference was pronounced dead on arrival as news reported that two major Darood leaders (Abdulahi Yusuf of Somali Salvation Democratic Front/SSDF and Adan Gabyow of Somali Patriotic Movement/SPM) pulled out of the Cairo talks. The Cairo accord had a formula which sought to apportion seats in a future government in Somalia not based on clan balance but on party affiliation. In this arrangement, one party is led by Aydid and another by Ali Mahdi. It was also reported that Ali Mahdi will have the position of his dream president of Somaliaand Aydid a prime minister. This satisfied the single most important issue of reconciling Habar Gidir and Abgal subclansestablishing a pan-Hawiya dominated government.
The negative impact of this rather benign architecture of future Somalia is that it pulled together two major Darood clans to oppose the Cairo conference. Abdulahi Yusuf, who earned the enviable position of being first to oppose Siad Barre, and the protector of Darood interest (Somalia Africa's Problem Child) seems to command the clan sentiment of many Daroods in their opposition to the Cairo accord. In addition, having Adan Gabyow on his side brings Majerteen and Ogadenthe two largest Darood members in the same position to oppose the upcoming Baidoa conference.
Moreover, Ethiopia which lately emerged as a regional power to whom the U.S. government passed the baton of Somalia's peace making process, is bent on undermining the Cairo accord. Mr. Kinfe of the foreign ministry dubbed the Cairo accord as an agreement between two Hawiya clans, not between all Somali clans. It is widely believed that Mr. Kinfe's remark represents a widely held view by the Darood and other clan members in the country. Recently, the IGAD grouping of governments in the Horn of Africa region passed a resolution of condemning the Egyptian promotion of the Cairo accord.
One may wonder whether Aydid and Ali Mahdi can use Mahamed Abshir (Majerteen) and Omar Jess (Ogaden) in Baidoa in lieu of Abdulahi Yusuf and Adan Gabyow. The former participated in the Cairo accord and promised to attend the Baidoa conference. It is unlikely such a substitution will bring any weight to bear on the Baidoa conference. Despite his intellect and honesty, though too eager to reconstitute the former democratic republic of Somalia, Mr. Abshir does not command enough fire power to strongly negotiate on behalf of his constituency. And Colonel Jess can not replace Gabyow for the simple reason that he is too closely associated with Aydid's interests to be taken seriously by his own Ogadanis in today's clan marred politics of Somalia.
A fourth factor to the detriment of the upcoming Baidoa conference is the position of the Rahanwayn clans. Despite Zoppe's participation in the Cairo accord, his own Rahanwayn Resistance Army (RRA), which has been in bitter conflict with Aydid's invading Moryan militia, resolved to fight on until Aydid removes his troops from Baidoa and its environs. According to the RRA, Baidoa cannot host a peace conference when it is under Habar Gidir occupation. As legitimate as this claim sounds, both Aydid and Ali Mahdi chose to overlook it, especially since Ali Mahdi's questioning of this issue could fracture the tenuous pan-Hawiya effort.
With this facing the upcoming Baidoa conference, we cannot expect much from the Cairo declaration. To this end, the Kenyan foreign minister and current chairman of the IGAD group has already alluded to the need for another conference whose neutral site would be determined at a future date. He suggested that April would be a good time. Furthermore, he questioned the seriousness of the parties involved in the Cairo peace project given the absence of Abdulahi Yusuf and Adan Gabyow from the talks. His emphasis on this matter was second only to that of the Ethiopian spokesperson who alleged the Cairo talks to be nothing more than talks between two Hawiya subclans.
If the Baidoa conference is already dead, what is in store for the country? It is reported that Abdulahi Yusuf and his SSDF will host a conference in February to unveil the "Puntland Administration" which is expected to be an autonomous administration. While this administration will not declare independence for the Bari-Mudug regions, it would sever relations with Mogadishu. And future talks between Abdulahi Yusuf and authorities in Mogadishu would be talks between two autonomous parties. Furthermore, those close to SSDF leaders suggest that talks have already started between Abdulahi Yusuf and M.I. Igal of Hargeisa. As this article goes to print, both of these leaders are hosted by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia who is encouraging the said talk. Sources at the BBC suggest that the Ogaden of the lower Juba region have already established the "Buale Administration," and Adan Gabyow is its leader. This opens a new chapter in the politics of Somalia. It is the first time important southern groups sought autonomy from Mogadishu. What Somaliland started has spread to regions that traditionally opposed the idea of seeking autonomy from Mogadishu. Today, four regions including Somaliland, the Puntland, the Buale administration and the less recognized Rahanwayn local governance exist independently of Mogadishu. Indeed, most of them enjoy more peace and better governance than Mogadishu. Neither do they need Mogadishu for economic reasons. Both Somaliland and Puntland are economically better off. The Rahanwayn and Lower Juba regions may also experience less exploitation of their local products than before. It is time that Mogadishu learns that Somali nationalism is better served by free union than force as the latter inhibits the concept of Somali unity. After all "Somaliyey toosa, toosa oo siku tiirsa, Kolbakiina taag daren tageera Waligeen," was a concept of brotherhood and free union, not forced rule. If Mogadishu fails to understand this, Somalia will have many mini-states which may reflect clan affiliations. Meanwhile, we wait to see another conference in the coming few months, but this time participants may be addressed as delegates from Puntland, the Buale Administration, the Rahanwayn government, the Somaliland Republic, the Hawiya confederates, etc. And the next task would be to carve a federal system out of these mini-states.
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Faisal Roble is a Contributing Editor of ER. He resides in Los Angeles.
