Somalia’s transition to a full-fledged system of national governance is desired by all Somalis, at home and abroad, but the path to peace is not with which many agree on. While some Somalis and Somali-philes wish to see a better Somalia, there are clear and concrete problems with these many sides, even when the intention of harm may not be all there.
As Somalia gears up for its most important election since 1968 we take a look at some of the elements who may spoil or otherwise slow down the process to statehood. Putting aside obvious armed spoilers to the peace process, we’ve handpicked the biggest internal problems that the process of transition faces.
Under-qualified presidential candidates
Among Somalia’s long roster of presidential hopefuls are some familiar faces with a track record that speaks for itself. To credit among those candidates are former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, Somalia’s Harvard-educated and current Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, and current President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
But in the crowd of hopefuls are a large number of unfamiliar faces without any credibility inside Somalia. One such example is University of Minnesota’s Abdi Samatar, a longtime diaspora commoner whose trips to Somalia were negligible and often done for academic research rather than activism or philanthropy. With no backing or credibility, Samatar skipped the political process and went right ahead to form a political party at a time when there was no such law in place approving yet of political parties. Another, more extreme example is former Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Abdirahman Abdishakur, who in 2009 wrote off a chunk of Somalia’s territorial waters under Kenya in exchange for a pathetic bribe. And to no one’s surprise, Mr. Abdushakur is a friend of Mr. Samatar and the two are commonly seen together in Mogadishu.
These latter two figures and their cohorts don’t pose a serious or direct threat to the transitional process, but they certainly water down the quality of Somalia’s upcoming elections. And with the track record of figures like Abdirahman Abdishakur, Somalia’s own sovereignty is threatened.
Unruly elders
Another major hurdle to the peace process are unruly traditional elders, or worse yet, pretenders to the throne. The biggest examples are Ahmed Diriye and Mohamed Haad. These two men, who today pretend to represent one of Mogadishu’s dominant clans, got their start in 2007 when they used their military and financial networks in the Somali capital to bankroll and arm the opposition to the transitional government. They operated much akin to Iraq’s troublemakers, doling out large sums of money to the urban poor for setting up improvised explosive devices and other insurgent-style booby traps, effectively delivering Mogadishu its worst nightmare since the early 90s period. Since then they have renounced their violent and rebellious ways and turned to a traditional role. Their most recent antics have caused a halt in the constitutional process and threatens to derail the entire transition.
Foreign roadblocks
Two big concerns coming from the outside are nations interfering in the political process and and individuals in major NGOs with a biased slant on Somalia’s issues. While the role of some outside nations, such as the US and the UK have been supplementary, one nation has decided to inject itself into Somalia’s political woes–Turkey. Both the Americans and the British accepted the Somali federal framework and did their best during the London Conference to back the wishes of the Somali people, Turkey on the contrary has reversed the homegrown Somali federalism agreements and slyly attempted to force centralization as a condition of its support. Even the traditional strongmen in Washington and London haven’t tried to interfere on that level.
When it comes to individuals attempting to squeeze Somalis into misery, one name comes to mind–Matthew Bryden, and he is the UN’s coordinator for the Somalia and Eritrea monitoring program. Bryden has been known to regularly support Somaliland independence and often refuses to refer to Somalia as a sovereign republic. But as Somalia regains international support and priority, his role in the nation’s affairs have since diminished.
Over-the-top activism
The single biggest internal threat to the transitional process, and thus the pacification and progress of Somalia, is the militant activism by some in the diaspora in an attempt to keep Somalia in its status quo. The first official Somali environmental group to be formed by Somalis was announced in January of this year, coinciding with the spudding of the nation’s first oil well. Not long after, Somalis across the globe were chattering about the environmental effects of oil exploration–in what is already a very arid region with very little potential in the way of water contamination (unlike the moisture-rich and troubled Mississippi Delta).
In the last generation of Somalia’s conflict, amid ruinous deforestation and the dumping of toxic waste, none of these individuals and groups asked about the condition of the nation’s environment, but as soon as Somalia received its first real incentive for trading a bit of its soil all parties were up in arms about this negligible environmental risk.
Somalia faces many roadblocks, but the biggest threats to Somalia’s, no different than ten, twenty, or fifty years ago, are its own sons and daughters.
{DN Staff Writers}
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