Somalia: Security vacuum compounding effects of drought
* Several years of successive rainfall failures have particularly affected pastoral and agro-pastoral communities that are being forced to travel vast distances to find grazing for their animals. Meanwhile, reduced agricultural production has led to a dramatic increase in the price of food commodities, particularly cereals.
* The 2.1 million people dependent on aid represent 25 per cent of the population and include 400,000 internally displaced persons, many of whom are at risk of dying of malnutrition if the crisis is not addressed. Families in some areas are spending 70 to 80 per cent of the little money they have just to buy water.
* There are over 1,000 national and international staff from all the UN agencies working in the country. However, there are no international personnel in the major cities of Mogadishu and Kismayu.
* Up to 80 per cent of schools in drought-affected areas are closed in a country where only 20 per cent of children have access to education under normal conditions.
* Security remains the greatest challenge to the Somali peace process. It also continues to impact on the dire humanitarian situation, worsened by the regional drought. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has made considerable progress in overcoming differences between the different Somali factions, however, several challenges could unravel the fragile peace process. Recent fighting in Mogadishu has deepened tensions, as has the presence of some armed militias in the vicinity of Baidoa, the temporary seat of government. The need to canton these groups and provide food, water and shelter for them, is being addressed by Somali leaders and the TFG with aid from donors.
This is the ninth entry in the series Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About, a group project of the Booman Tribune.
Once again, Somalia is found by the UN to be among the 10 least covered stories of the year. She was on the list last year as well; Somalia: Steps on a path to fragile peace in a shattered country – when Booman Tribune contributors also did a collaborative effort to cover the stories. For this year’s entry, I will focus on the current developments – for more background on Somalia’s recent history and the political turmoil that led up to the recent, fragile peace initiatives, please see my entry last year Somalia; Hope for the future?.
Last year’s entry ended with this paragraph:
The same Mr. Aweys believes that democracy is contrary to Islam and that the current transitional government is anti-islam.
Given this backdrop, I am not optimistic with regards to prospects for peace. While united through language and religion, the Somalis do not have a tradition as a nation. The ‘unified’ Somalia of 1960-independence had no historical basis, it was the result of the acts of the colonial powers. Somali tradition relied at the clan for support and safety. Until the clans agree to fully relinquish power to a federal system, there is not going to be peace. Wide international support to intervene is unlikely, given the experiences of UN peacekeepers and US Marines in the early ’90s. There are currently no plans for a UN peacekeeping mission – the TFG is relying on regional support.
Unfortunately, the prospects for a peaceful Somalia are even smaller today. Mr. Aweys’ Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) is now firmly in control of Mogadishu and the surrounding area, while the coalition forming the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is disintegrating. The Somali president dismissed the government last Monday, demanding that the prime minister form a new one within a week. The secular warlords have been beaten and the SICS is moving aggressively to expand it’s territory.
An excellent current analysis is found here:
Source: International Crisis Group (ICG)
Date: 10 Aug 2006Somalia has been drifting toward a new war since the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was formed in late 2004 but the trend has recently accelerated dramatically. The stand-off between the TFG and its Ethiopian ally on the one hand, and the Islamic Courts, which now control Mogadishu, on the other, threatens to escalate into a wider conflict that would consume much of the south, destabilise peaceful territories like Somaliland and Puntland and possibly involve terrorist attacks in neighbouring countries unless urgent efforts are made by both sides and the international community to put together a government of national unity.
It is well worth reading the whole article.
Western powers, including the US are working to lift the UN embargo on weapons in order to rearm the militias and the TFG army. The SICS firmly oppose the lifting of sanctions.
The SICS is gaining popular support by introducing some element of justice and order. Meanwhile, the US links SICS to al-Qaeda. As SICS advances (and they are), I think weapons and supplies will find their way back to Somalia regardless of what happens with the UN sanctions. Civil unrest will escalate, possibly to another full-scale civil war.
The U.S. believes jihadi Islamists within the Courts shield al-Qaeda operatives responsible for bombing two of its embassies in 1998. All share determination not to allow Somalia to evolve into an African version of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Transitional Federal Government is increasingly perceived within Somalia as a faction rather than a national authority and is so wracked by internal dissent and the accelerating defections of cabinet ministers that it threatens to fall apart.
(from ICG-link above)
Continued breakdown of civil society, possibly civil, cultural and ethnic war. But that is just the beginning of the suffering in Somalia these days.
Drought – the worst in many years – is killing off livestock, and decimating grazing lands and cereal and vegetable production. A quarter of the population, more than 2 million people are directly affected by the drought. The political unrest has made it exceedingly difficult for UN agencies and NGOs to implement water and sanitation projects. Water sources are now the cause of unrest:
The day we arrived in Wajid, in southern Somalia, they executed a man on the edge of town. We heard the gunshots.
He’d been involved in a scuffle over water at a distribution site the day before and shot another man. The town elders say rough, quick justice is the only way to prevent full-blown anarchy. This is how desperate the drought has made life in Somalia.RABDORE, Somalia — Villagers call it the “War of the Well,” a battle that erupted between two clans over control of a watering hole in this dusty, drought-stricken trading town.
By the time it ended two years later, 250 men were dead. Now there are well widows, well warlords and well warriors.
We will soon see a confluence of environmental and political, man-made disasters hit Somalia with full force. I am afraid that my pessimism form last year is even stronger this time.
