“Protracted State Collapse in Somalia: A Rediagnosis”
Review of African Political Economy (2003)
Ken Menkhaus
In October 2002, several hundred Somali political figures assembled for a
national reconciliation process in the Kenyan town of Eldoret.1 This internationallysponsored meeting is the latest in over a dozen external attempts since 1991 to broker a
peace and revive central government in Somalia. The Eldoret process boasts several
improvements over previous efforts – more unified support from external actors; more
comprehensive representation of armed factions; and an agenda which emphasizes a
long-term process focused on resolution of key issues of conflict rather than mere
haggling over power-sharing. Despite these laudable features, however, the talks
immediately encountered a host of all-too-familiar problems which threaten to undermine
the peace process.2 While it is too soon to write off the Kenyan initiative, it is more
likely than not that the talks will be added to the long list of unsuccessful efforts at
national reconciliation in Somalia. Wagering on failure is a safe bet in the most
protracted and comprehensive instance of state collapse in the contemporary era.
The repeated frustrations met by over a decade of reconciliation and statebuilding efforts in Somalia pose a puzzle and a problem. How is it possible that Somalia
can remain so resistant to efforts to revive its central government? How do we explain the
protracted nature of this extraordinary case of state collapse?3 These questions have
special urgency in the context of the war on terrorism. Fears that Somalia’s collapsed
state may be exploited by international terrorists have featured prominently in policy
debates since September 11 and are a renewed concern following the terrorist attacks in
Mombasa Kenya in November 2002.4
The conventional wisdom on Somalia’s crisis includes numerous explanations:
that external diplomacy has been consistently misinformed and incompetent in mediation
efforts; that Somali leaders have been irresponsible and myopic in their quest for power
and their stubborn refusal to compromise; that external states such as Ethiopia conspire to
perpetuate state collapse and warfare in Somalia for their own reasons; that collective
fear of the re-emergence of a predatory state structure undermines public support for
peace-building processes; and that the powerful centrifugal force of Somali clannism
works against coalitions and central authority, making quests to rebuild a Western-style
central state a fool’s errand.5 All of these theories have merit, and collectively they
capture much of the Somali impasse.
Still, there are opportunities to advance our understanding of Somalia’s enduring
crisis. This article seeks to do just that by drawing on several analytic tools which have
not to date been systematically applied in the Somali setting.6 First, the study
disaggregates the broad rubric of “state collapse” in Somalia into three inter-related but
distinct crises – (1) the protracted collapse of central government, (2) protracted armed
conflict, and (3) lawlessness.7 By breaking down Somalia’s crises in this manner, the
interests of key actors are easier to inventory and assess. As will be seen, certain actors
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may have a stake in perpetuating one of these crises, but not necessarily all three, an
important observation if we are to comprehend some of the complex political
maneuvering by Somali elites.
Second, the analysis critically explores the proposition that the prolonged crisis in
Somalia is not simply a product of diplomatic incompetence, missed opportunities, and
external conspiracy, but also an outcome which has been actively promoted by certain
political and economic interest groups within Somalia. The claim that protracted state
collapse and armed conflict are actually the desired outcome for key constituencies – an
opportunity from which to profiteer, not a crisis to be solved – is one of the basic tenets
of the political economy of war literature which is generating a growing body of research
on complex political emergencies in Africa and elsewhere.8 As this article will
demonstrate, the analytic tools emerging from this approach are of considerable value in
shedding light on Somalia’s crisis.
Third, special attention is paid to changes over time in the interests of Somali
political and economic actors in state collapse. There are obvious explanatory
advantages in moving beyond a static situation analysis of Somalia. Major changes in
both the dynamics of these crises and the interests in perpetuating them have occurred
since the early 1990s. Interests in warfare and lawlessness in particular are radically
different today than in the early 1990s.9
Finally, the analysis considers the extent to which risk-aversion and risk
management behavior helps to explain otherwise puzzling choices by Somali political
actors. It argues that zones of protracted state collapse tend to produce risk-averse
decision-making by political and economic actors which result in sub-optimal outcomes
(such as continued absence of a central government) and missed opportunities.10
Disaggregating the Somali Crisis
Part of the trouble encountered by analyses of Somalia is the tendency to lump
Somalia’s multiple crises into a single syndrome. This shorthand has had the unwanted
effect of disguising what are in fact a number of distinct crises which can and do exist
independent of one another, which have different dynamics requiring different remedies,
and which pose different types of threats. Specifically, three distinct crises – state
collapse, armed conflict, and lawlessness – must be disaggregated to be better understood
and diagnosed.
Protracted and complete state collapse. This is the most dramatic and unique aspect of
the Somali crisis. There has been no functional, central governing authority in Somalia
since January 1991; efforts to re-establish a central state have been both numerous and
unsuccessful. The most promising attempt was the Transitional National Government
(TNG), announced in August 2000. Unfortunately, it has failed to become minimally
operational, has not gained widespread bilateral recognition, and now appears
increasingly irrelevant. Even at the regional, district, and municipal level, formal
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administrations that have periodically popped up throughout the country have tended to
have relatively short shelf lives.
The terms “failed state” and “collapsed state” have become throw-away lines to
describe a wide range of crises. In general, the terms describe a situation in which a
central government has either lost control over a significant portion of real estate
(territorial collapse), or has lost the ability or interest to exercise meaningful control over
territory in which it has a physical presence (collapse of governing capacity) -- or both.
By this set of criteria, dozens of countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, qualify as
failed states.11 But in almost every other instance of state collapse, a weak, nominal
central government has managed to maintain juridical sovereignty as a “quasi-state,”
deemed to exist primarily because other states say so (Clapham 1996: 22). Somalia’s
inability to pull together even the most minimalist fig-leaf of a central administration
over the course of twelve years places the country in a class by itself among the world’s
failed states. The fact that Somalia’s quarreling political elites have not been able to
make such a cynical bargain among themselves – and there is little doubt that the TNG
was driven by interests hoping to establish a paper state which would attract foreign aid
but not follow through on the onerous task of rebuilding a functional administration -- is
itself a puzzle.12 Somalia is, in an odd way, a failure among failed states.
The complete and sustained collapse of the central government in Somalia has
created or contributed to numerous problems. But it is not inherently linked to other
crises in Somalia, such as criminality and armed conflict. Indeed, Somalia has repeatedly
shown that in some places and at some times communities, towns, and regions can enjoy
relatively high levels of peace, reconciliation, security, and lawfulness despite the
absence of a central authority. Moreover, a correlation between the existence of a
functioning state authority and a state of peace and lawfulness is not borne out in the
broader region. Somalis frequently and correctly point out that both criminality and
deadly armed conflict are generally worse on the Kenyan side of the border, despite the
existence of a sovereign state authority there. Those tempted to use Somaliland as
evidence to challenge this proposition may be baffled to encounter the popular opinion in
the northwest that Somaliland enjoys peace, reconciliation, lawfulness, and relative
prosperity despite, not because of, the existence of a central government there. This is
not to argue that a central state is unnecessary, or that the collapse of the state has not
come at a high cost to Somalis. It is only to assert that one cannot attribute all of
Somalia’s multiple woes to the collapse of the central government. One corollary to this
observation is that strategies to address problems such as criminality and armed conflict
in Somalia which presume that a revived central government is the solution are
incomplete and likely to result in disappointment.
In fact, a case can be made that attempts to revive a central state structure have
actually exacerbated armed conflicts. State-building and peace-building are, in this view,
two separate and in some respects mutually antagonistic enterprises in Somalia. This is so
because the revival of a state structure is viewed in Somali quarters as a zero-sum game,
creating winners and losers in a game with potentially very high stakes (Menkhaus
1997:58). Groups (i.e., clans) which gain control over a central government will use it to
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accrue economic resources at the expense of others and to wield the law, patronage
politics, and a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence to dominate the rest. This is the
only experience of the central state Somalis have ever known, and tends to produce
conflict and risk-aversion rather than compromise whenever an effort is made to
negotiate the establishment of a national government. The spate of armed clashes which
in 2002 rendered south-central Somalia more insecure and inaccessible than at any time
in the past ten years was partially linked to political jockeying in anticipation of the
IGAD peace talks.13 It is not the existence of a functioning and effective central
government which produces conflict, but rather the process of state-building in a context
of state collapse which appears to consistently exacerbate instability and armed conflict
in Somalia.
State-building exercises have not only been a preoccupation at the national level; they
have also been a factor at the sub-national level as well. A quick inventory of these subnational administrations reveals four levels of polities – trans-regional, regional, district,
and municipal. Only one – the secessionist state of Somaliland – has endured for more
than a few years, but some have shown enough resilience and public support to warrant a
closer look.
A number of regional and trans-regional authorities have come into existence in the
past seven years, following the termination of the UNOSOM operation. Somaliland and
Puntland are the only two such entities which have achieved much functional capacity,
but a number of others -- the Rahanweyn Resistance Army’s administration of Bay and
Bakool regions in 1998-2002 and the Benadir Regional Authority in 1996 – showed some
initial promise. Strictly speaking, most of these regional and trans-regional polities are
or were essentially clan homelands, reflecting a Somali impulse to pursue a “Balkan
solution” (i.e., “clanustans”). Puntland’s borders, for instance, are explicitly drawn on
clan lines, encompassing the territory of the Harti clans in the northeast and contested
sections of Somaliland.14 Even authorities which appear to be based on a pre-war
regional unit are often thinly disguised clan polities. The periodic proclamation of a
“Hiranland,” for instance, is really an attempt by the Hawadle clan to declare and control
their own autonomous political unit, even though their control extends only to the east
bank of Hiran region (Menkhaus 1999).
In recent years, the fate of trans-regional and regional states in Somalia has been
inversely related to the status of efforts to rebuild a national government. Trans-regional
states in Somalia were at their high point in 1999, when both Somaliland and Puntland
were operational and a nascent Rahanweyn administration in Bay and Bakool regions
looked promising. The “building-block” approach to Somali state-building, a policy
favored by external donors at the time, actively promoted these incipient states (Bryden
1999). Once the Djibouti-led Arta peace process began to promote a national
government in 2000, however, the regional states declined in importance. Now, with the
demise of the TNG, the building-block approach is regaining favor. Renewed efforts to
form or consolidate regional states in coming years – almost certainly in Puntland, Bay
and Bakool regions, and the Middle Shabelle region, and possibly in Hiran, Gedo, and the
Kismayo area – are likely. If these regional states are formed as “clanustans,” however,
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they will trigger conflict and at worst ethnic cleansing. In southern Somalia -- where,
thanks to decades of migration and settlement, much of the ethnic topography resembles
the patchquilt of a Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than the ethno-state of Puntland -- the
building-block approach is only viable if regional polities are ethnically heterogeneous
experiments in co-existence and power-sharing rather than tools of ethnic hegemony.
The political administrative unit which has received the least amount of external
support but which has produced the most actual day-to-day governance in Somalia is at
the municipal and (in Mogadishu) neighborhood level. In the immediate post-UNOSOM
period, this “radical localization” of politics tended to manifest itself mainly in informal,
overlapping polities loosely held by clan elders and others (Menkhaus and Prendergast
1995). Over the course of the second half of the 1990s, these local polities often became
more structured and institutionalized.15 A variety of different types of local polities have
emerged in Somalia, but the most common manifestation has been a coalition of clan
elders, businessmen, and Muslim clergy to oversee, finance, and administer a sharia
court.
Several features of these sharia courts stand out. First, they have been widely
embraced and supported by local communities as a means of restoring rule of law.
Second, they have usually (though not always) remained under the control of traditional,
moderate elements – the clan elders, the businessmen, and the sheikhs making up this
system are usually staunchly opposed to radical Islamists. These sharia courts should
therefore not be confused with a rising tide of radicalism in the country, though in some
cases sharia courts in Mogadishu neighborhoods have been run by the radical group alIttihad (Le Sage 2001; Menkhaus 2002b:116). Third, these sharia court systems have
remained eminently local in nature, rarely able to project their authority beyond a town or
district level, and rarely able to exercise jurisdiction over clans which are not parties to
the court administration. They thus offer rule of law within, but not between, clans,
though they often facilitate inter-clan relations. Fourth, they have proven to be fragile
and very susceptible to spoilers. Finally, they appear to come and go in cycles, and are
currently in what appears to be an early phase of ascendance following a decline in the
1999-2001 period. Their current re-emergence in parts of southern Somalia is linked to
the failure of the TNG and the related rise of insecurity, and is a reflection of local efforts
to provide core functions of governance in a context of state collapse (ICG 2002a).
Whether the discussion is about the central state or sub-national administrations,
an enormous gulf separates foreigners and Somalis in consideration of and conception of
the central government. In fact, there is perhaps no other issue on which the worldviews
of external actors and Somalis are more divergent than their radically different
understanding of the state. For external actors, the conventional wisdom is that a
responsive and effective state is an essential prerequisite for development, a perfectly
reasonable proposition enshrined in virtually every World Bank and UN strategy on
development. For Somalis, the state is an instrument of accumulation and domination,
enriching and empowering those who control it and exploiting and harassing the rest of
the population. These different perceptions of the state often result in external and
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national actors talking past one another rather than with one another in discussions about
the rebuilding of the central government.
Protracted armed conflict. Somalia has been a zone of intermittent but not constant
armed conflict since 1988. Armed clashes were most destructive and widespread in
1988-1992, when Somalia was in a genuine state of civil war. Since the UNOSOM
intervention, Somalia’s armed clashes have been a source of disappointment but are
generally localized, brief, and much less costly in terms of loss of life and damage to
property. Some regions of the country – most notably Puntland – were almost entirely
spared from war in the 1990s (WSP 2000), while other locations have enjoyed relatively
long stretches of, if not peace, at least an absence of armed conflict since 1995. Armed
conflict has thus not been synonymous with state collapse in Somalia. Peace can and
does exist despite the absence of a central state. Likewise, the establishment of a central
government would not be likely to eliminate armed conflict. Instead, it would transform
at least some of the conflicts into insurrections, guerilla movements, or secessionist
movements pitting government forces against rejectionsts.
Unfortunately the trend of diminished armed conflict in Somalia was reversed in
2002.16 Somalia’s multiple and in some instances fairly serious outbreaks of armed
conflict from Gedo region to Puntland that year produced casualty levels which again
qualify the country as a zone of civil war (Bryden 2002). As was noted above, these
conflicts have been triggered by a number of factors, but some can be attributed to
political maneuvering linked to the IGAD-sponsored peace talks in October.
Collectively, they plunged southern and central Somalia into greater levels of insecurity
than at any time since 1995 (Menkhaus 2002d).
Not only has the severity of warfare in Somalia changed since 1991-92; the nature
of armed conflicts has changed over time as well. In the early 1990s, armed conflicts
were mainly inter-clan in nature, pitting large lineage groups against one another.
Initially, this meant warfare between the largest clan-families in the south – the Darood
versus Hawiye. These wars were characterized by sweeping and fast-moving campaigns
across much of southern Somalia from the outskirts of Mogadishu to the Kenyan border.
The warring militias of the Darood SPM and SNA factions and the Hawiye USC faction
often ceded or gained hundreds of kilometers of territory in a day in fighting waged
mainly off the back of battlewagons known as technicals (Lyons and Samatar 1995: 2223). Both sides committed atrocities – massacres and rape -- against civilians who had the
misfortune of belonging to the wrong clan, or to a weak and defenseless clan caught in
the middle of the war (Africa Watch 1992). Pillaging and looting of captured territory
were an essential aspect of the warfare, providing war booty to otherwise unpaid
militiamen, and enriching merchants of war who served as financial backers of their
clan’s warlord.17
By late 1991, the centrifugal forces which have driven Somalia’s fragmentation
led to a new and highly destructive phase of warfare, in which both the Hawiye and
Darood clan-families fell into deadly internal quarrels. In Mogadishu, the split between
the Abgal/Hawiye (led by self-declared president Ali Madhi) and Haber Gedir/Hawiye
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clans (led by Madhi’s rival General Hussein Farah Aideed, head of the USC/SNA)
erupted into heavy warfare in November 1991. Extensive and often indiscriminate use of
mortars and RPGs leveled much of the center of the capital and incurred thousands of
casualties, and heavy fighting was waged to gain or hold single city blocks. To the south,
tensions within the Darood culminated in an explosion of clashes in and around Kismayo,
pitting Ogadeni/Darood clan militias led by Col. Omar Jess (the SPM/SNA) against the
coalition of Marehan/Darood, Mijerteen/Darood, and other clansmen in General
Morgan’s SPM.
One of the most significant trends of armed conflict since 1992 has been the
continuing devolution of warfare to lower and lower levels of clan lineages. With a few
exceptions, such as the Rahanweyn clashes with Haber Gedir occupying militias in
Baidoa in 1996, most armed conflicts since 1995 have consisted of extended family
feuds. Clashes which periodically rock parts of Mogadishu are now almost always within
the Abgal or Haber Gedir clans, not between them. Indeed, recent clashes in the Medina
neighborhood involve competing leaders and militias from within a single sub-clan of the
Abgal. Likewise, the Haber Gedir clan has long since ceased to be a cohesive political
unit; splits between the Ayr, Sa’ad, Suleiman and other sub-clans animate most of the
fighting and political intrigue within the Haber Gedir. Other clans have followed suit.
The Rahanweyn now fight among themselves in Baidoa, not against their hegemonic
neighbors the Marehan and Haber Gedir; and the fighting which plagues Gedo region is a
deadly intramural squabble of the Marehan clan (UN 2002c: para 7-11).
The fragmentation of warfare in Somalia into much lower levels of lineage
identity over time has many implications. It has meant that warfare has become much
more localized; clashes are contained within a sub-clan’s territory or neighborhoods.
Conflicts are shorter in duration and less deadly, in part because of limited support from
lineage members for such internal squabbles, in part because clan elders are in a better
position to intervene, and in part because ammunition is more scarce. Conflicts are
somewhat less predictable, often precipitated by a series of incidents involving theft or
other misdemeanors. Atrocities against civilians are now almost unheard of, as
combatants are much more likely to be accountable in subsequent clan reconciliation
processes. Pillaging and looting are no longer as common, in part because little territory
is gained or lost in localized clashes, and in part because commodities worth stealing are
generally in the hands of businessmen with paid security forces protecting them.
“Warlords” have become less of a factor, as only a few have funds to pay a militia, and
even those which do find it harder to manipulate clannism in a context of increased (and
renewed) inter-linkages between clans for commercial purposes.18 Since 1999
businessmen in Mogadishu who had previously provided funds to warlords in their clan
have refused to pay, instead funding their own militias. These salaries are generally quite
low – a dollar or two per day per militiaman. With few exceptions, gunmen fight for
whomever will pay them, not for a clan or a cause – though in the event the clan is under
attack, clan elders will mobilize gunmen for temporary purposes. The paucity of
opportunities to loot, and the low salaries offered to militiamen, means that the status and
earning power of a gunman is not what it used to be in Somalia, prompting a gradual,
spontaneous demobilization by militiamen, and reducing incentives for the new
7
generation of young teens to take up arms as a form of employment. It has, however,
increased problems of lawlessness, especially kidnapping for ransom – a topic discussed
below.
International efforts to negotiate an end to these armed conflicts are uncommon.
Instead, reconciliation efforts are generally the domain of clan elders, with the
international community simply suspending aid operations in battle zones until security
for staff is deemed adequate. The main exception is the role Ethiopia has unsuccessfully
attempted to play in mediating armed clashes between Ethiopian clients. Otherwise,
external mediation tends to focus on state-building, not peace-building, despite the fact
that the average Somali needs and benefits more immediately from a state of peace than a
revived central government.
Lawlessness and criminality. The third crisis facing Somalia is lawlessness and
criminality. An enduring stereotype linked to Somalia’s protracted state collapse is the
“Mad Max” anarchy of young, armed gunmen riding battlewagons and terrorizing
citizens. Concerns about transnational criminals or terrorists exploiting Somalia’s lack of
law enforcement capacity have long been raised as a global security issue, a concern
heightened in the aftermath of September 11. The collapse of the state has in fact created
conditions ripe for lawless behavior, just as outbreaks of armed conflict also create an
environment conducive to opportunistic criminality (looting, rape). But Somalia has
repeatedly shown that even in a context of state collapse and armed conflict, informal
systems of governance can insure rule of law and in some instances exceptionally high
levels of personal security. In fact, one of the most intriguing paradoxes of
contemporary Somalia is how dramatically and quickly rule of law and personal security
can change. A town or neighborhood which is notoriously bandit-ridden can within a year
boast stalls of street-corner money-changers and open roads; likewise, towns lauded for
their peace and security can fall quickly into lawless criminality.
Where Somali communities have been able to establish and maintain a high level
of lawful behavior and personal security, it has almost always been accomplished either
by clan customary law (xeer), enforcement of blood payments (diya) for wrongs
committed, or application of Islamic law by local sharia courts. The latter complements
rather than replaces traditional sources of law. Several necessary but not sufficient
conditions must obtain for customary law to successfully maintain order. One is the
restoration of authority and responsibility of clan elders, who negotiate all disputes. A
second is the establishment of a rough balance of power within local clan groupings. The
capacity of a lineage to seek revenge for a wrong committed is critical in inducing other
clans to seek settlement of disputes through customary law. Very weak and powerless
clans (including the minority or low-caste clans) rarely enjoy the protection of an
enforced customary law; the best such lineages can do is seek client status with a more
powerful clan and hope that that clan fulfills its obligations. In this sense, both lawful
and predatory behavior in contemporary Somalia is much better understood through the
lens of international relations theory – as patterns of cooperation and conflict in a context
of anarchy. Clans constantly seek a rough balance of power both to avoid being overrun
and to enhance enforcement of customary law and routinized patterns of cooperation,
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reinforced by repeated adherence by all sides -- what international relations theorists
would call “regimes.”
Like armed conflict, lawlessness in Somalia has changed considerably over the
course of the 1990s. The early years of civil war – from 1988 to 1992 – featured a level
of impunity and gratuitous violence which has long since passed. Wholesale looting,
rape, and murder associated with armed clashes simply do not occur. Violent crimes and
thefts are much more likely to be addressed via customary law and blood payments than
before, serving both as a deterrent to would be criminals and reassurance to communities
that criminals cannot commit crimes with complete impunity. Neighborhoods and towns
(often of mixed clan composition) have in some places organized the equivalent of
“neighborhood watch” systems, sometimes absorbing former young gunmen into paid
protection forces. Vigilante justice is not unknown against both individual criminals and
gangs – often by their own kinsmen.19 Militia gangs which terrorized villages in the early
1990s have increasingly “settled down,” making arrangements to “tax” a portion of
village harvests in return for protection (Marchal 1997). These protection rackets and
Mafioso behavior are hardly ideal, and sometimes engender local resistance, but do
provide a more predictable security environment for local communities. In some cases,
these arrangements have moved into a curious gray area between extortion and taxation,
between protection racket and nascent police force.
Importantly, rule of law in Somalia was in the past never associated with formal
judiciary and police. Most of the law and order Somalia enjoyed prior to the late 1980s –
and Somalia was unquestionably one of the safest places in Africa – was a reflection of
social contract more than the capacity of the police. Most Somalis took their legal
disputes to a local sheikh or elder for mediation or adjudication, rather than to a court of
law. The extensive and costly capacity-building efforts of international aid agencies to
support police and judiciaries throughout Somalia often presume they are rebuilding a set
of institutions when actually they are trying to make them functional for the first time.
Lawless behavior in contemporary Somalia remains a serious problem, especially
in the more troubled south. Ironically, the most egregious crimes (if measured in value
stolen or lives lost) are committed by many of the top political and business leaders
whom the international community convenes for peace conferences. This includes
incitement of deadly communal violence for narrow political purposes, embezzlement of
foreign aid funds, introduction of counterfeit currency into circulation (which, by creating
hyperinflation, robs average Somalis of most of their savings), huge land grabs by force
of arms, export of charcoal (illegal in the past government and highly destructive), and
involvement in piracy, among others. This criminal behavior tends to get less attention
than street crimes such as carjackings, murders, and kidnappings which are usually
perpetrated by gangs or individuals and which are at epidemic proportions in some
places, but which pale in comparison to the cost of the “white collar crimes” of their
political and business leadership.
One of the most troubling and growing types of crime affecting both international
agencies and local Somalis is kidnapping. It is most common in Mogadishu, but not
9
unheard of elsewhere. Kidnapping falls into several different categories. The most
common is kidnapping for profit, and has exploded as a major criminal activity because
kidnapping currently is one of the few profitable ventures for Mogadishu street criminals.
This tends to target Somali nationals who are linked to a likely source of funds, such as a
job with an international agency or family members in the diaspora. UN agencies have
been especially plagued by kidnappings of national staff in recent years. Somalis from
weak or minority clans are especially vulnerable to this predatory behavior, which often
yields only a small ransom (as low as a few hundred dollars). The scarcity of
employment and opportunities for looting have made kidnapping an obvious alternative
income-generating activity for armed gangs, a few of whom have come to specialize in
kidnapping. There is evidence that in some cases these gangs exchange kidnap victims to
more powerful warlord for a fee, at which point the warlord assumes the risk of
negotiating for a ransom. Clan elders who mediate the release of the kidnapping victim
also routinely receive a “cut” of the ransom for their services, giving them a stake in the
industry.20
A second type of kidnapping involves debtors who have defaulted on or
repeatedly postponed repayments. Somalis lend and borrow an extraordinary amount of
money to one another, as part of the extensive web of mutual obligations that are at the
heart of lineage-based societies. Not surprisingly, rates of default are also quite high.
Kidnapping in these cases involves the ultimate collateral – the debtor himself – whose
family must scrape together the funds to secure his release. Some high-visibility
kidnappings, including of some MPs and ministers in the TNG, have been debt collection
actions. Third, kidnapping is in some instances a political tool, designed to frighten off
international agencies or humiliate a political opponent by demonstrating his incapacity
to control an area he claims to administer. The dramatic kidnapping of UN and
international NGO staff members in north Mogadishu in March 2001 was executed by a
warlord and explicitly intended to humiliate the TNG and expose its inability to provide
international aid workers with security, in order to scuttle a proposed establishment of a
UN peacebuilding presence in Mogadishu. A more recent form of kidnapping has
involved militias targeting wealthy businessmen from their own clan in order to finance
armed attacks. Those businessmen once funded the militias but have since 1999 refused
to do so, which explains this otherwise puzzling practice. Whatever the motive,
internationals traveling and working in parts of southern Somalia are now at a
considerable risk of kidnapping, one of the main reasons that aid agencies have cut back
so substantially on the number of international staff members in the field.
What is surprising is the fact that Somalia’s state of lawlessness has not attracted
the level of transnational criminality one might expect. In principle, the protracted
collapse of any formal law-enforcement capacity in Somalia should be an attractive safe
haven for a wide range of criminal elements – terrorists, smugglers (of drugs, guns,
people, and other contraband), money-launderers, pirates, and criminals on the run -seeking to position themselves beyond the reach of the law. In reality, Somalia has to
date proven to be relatively inhospitable terrain for international criminals (Bryden, 2002;
ICG 2002a). Foreign criminals are at the mercy of the same sources of insecurity which
plague international aid workers – they are prone to extortion, threats, and betrayal from
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Somali hosts seeking to profit from their presence, and their activities and whereabouts
poorly kept secrets among Somalis, who are extremely alert to the agendas of foreigners
in their land. Somalia is a reminder that mafias and other organized crime flourish not
where rule of law is absent but rather where rule of law is thoroughly corruptible.
Nonetheless, misuse of Somalia’s lawless environment by external criminals and
terrorists should and will remain an item of enduring concern. If it is proven that Somali
territory was used as a base for the Mombasa terrorist attacks in November 2002, or that
the Somali Islamist organization Al-Ittihad was involved in the attack, these concerns
will become front-burner issues. The greatest threat of terrorist exploitation of Somalia’s
collapsed state will almost certainly be not as a fixed operational base but as a short-term
point of transit for men, money, and materiel into other states in the Horn of Africa
(Menkhaus 2002a).
Interest-driven crises?
Explanations of Somalia’s protracted crises part into two distinct but not entirely
antithetical camps over a key question: are the crises enduring despite the fact that key
Somali constituencies would benefit from peace and government or because key interests
are served by prolonging a state of collapse, war, and lawlessness? Most diplomatic
initiatives have presumed the former, an analysis which logically leads to certain
prescriptive actions ranging from civil society peace-building workshops to national
reconciliation conferences – all designed to promote greater understanding and
communication. The latter proposition – that the protracted Somali crisis actually reflects
the interests and objectives of key actors – suggests that there is a method to the madness,
that a certain level of rationality, expressed in pursuit of well-defined individual or group
interests, is driving the Somali crisis. How feasible is it to conclude that Somalia’s triple
crises of state collapse, armed conflict, and lawlessness have endured because that is the
outcome which key players seek?21
When one considers the evidence of the past decade in Somalia in light of the
political economy of war theory, several things become clearer. First, there is an
impressive but shrinking set of actors whose interests are served by protracted conflict
and lawlessness, and who appear to actively and successfully promote both. But there are
not many Somali players who clearly benefit from complete state collapse, though some
nonetheless scuttle efforts to revive a central state. The “war economy” theory is thus of
real use in explaining part, but not all, of the Somali debacle. Finally, the closer one
looks at both interests and behavior in Somalia over time, the more apparent it is that the
interests of some social and economic groups have changed considerably over time,
prompting in some instances marked changes in behavior toward state-building and
peace-building projects. This malleability of interests in Somalia may constitute one of
the most important opportunities for external actors seeking to promote peace and rule of
law there. To the extent that interests, not identity, are increasingly at the root of
Somalia’s crises, and to the extent that interests of key players can be shaped or reshaped,
external actors may be able to better promote peacebuilding in Somalia.22
11
One useful aspect of this approach is that it forces us to conduct an inventory of
actors in Somalia, organized not only around the question “whose interests are served by
conflict, state collapse, and/or lawlessness?” but also around the question “whose
interests matter?” The latter question highlights the central issue of power, or -- more
precisely -- veto power.
There has in fact been a fairly substantial shift in the rise and fall of different political
actors in Somalia since 1991. Factions, for instance, have virtually disappeared from the
political landscape, a remarkable fact considering they were the centerpiece of
reconciliation efforts for over six years in the early to mid-1990s. Warlords and militia
leaders are with few exceptions much less powerful than they were in the early years of
the crisis. Conversely, businessmen have emerged as a major political force in urban
centers and now operate with considerable, though not complete, autonomy from clans
and warlords in pursuit of their interests. Clan elders have also gradually reasserted their
authority, and civil society leaders play a more robust (though still modest) role.
Despite the rising and falling fortunes of specific groups of actors in Somalia, one
fact has remained relatively constant – that is, there is a wide range of players who are
not necessarily powerful enough to shape a peace accord or government, but who enjoy
the ability to veto political developments they do not like. In the current Somali
environment – one featuring a very high level of communal distrust and accumulated
grievances, a zero-sum attitude toward revival of the central state, a highly-armed
society, a corps of frustrated, unemployed gunmen, and weakened and sometimes
corruptible social authority of clan elders -- it takes relatively little to scuttle peace talks
or render an administration stillborn. Promising local and regional initiatives to seal a
peace between warring clans or operate a local sharia court administration have
frequently been torpedoed by a small gang of gunmen, a single warlord, or a group of
clan elders corrupted by small bribes. Thus the answer to the question “whose interests
matter?” is that a broad section of Somali society possesses veto power over statebuilding, peace-building, and law enforcement. This makes negotiating towards those
objectives all the more difficult, and means that mediators need to take great care to
insure that proposed power-sharing and resource-sharing formula are acceptable to a very
wide range of actors, some of whom may not have enough political legitimacy or clout to
attend a peace conference but who nonetheless retain enough power to sabotage the
results. When one adds to this calculation the numerous external actors who possess the
interests and capacity to play spoiler of political developments they do not like (Ethiopia
is the most obvious but not sole example), the task of brokering an accord becomes even
more challenging.
Spoilers in Somalia come in three types. One type are actors who seek to undermine
efforts at state-building or peace-building because they are unsatisfied with the size of the
pie they were accorded. These can be individuals or whole clans. For instance, the
Eldoret peace talks in Kenya have been bogged down by grievances over levels of
representation by clan. These are “situational” spoilers, who in some instances have
legitimate grievances (though in most cases their motive is greed) and who in theory can
be bought in to a state-building venture with appropriate concessions. A second type are
12
“intrinsic” spoilers. These are actors with a fundamental interest in maintaining a state of
lawlessness, state collapse, and/or armed conflict. War criminals are the most obvious
candidates, but a host of other social and economic groups – young gunmen, merchants
of war, individuals and groups holding valuable state and private assets which they would
likely lose were government and peace re-established – can also fall into this category.
Whole clans have benefited from armed occupation and settlement of towns and valuable
riverine land in southern Somalia over the course of the war, and will be unlikely to
accept accords which require relinquishing those spoils of war (Besteman and Cassanelli
1996). It is this set of interests that the political economy of war theory is best suited to
explain.
A final and more complex set of spoilers are those whose opposition to state-building
and peace-building initiatives are driven by risk-aversion. They could potentially benefit
from peace and governance and rule of law, but face such a high level of uncertainty
about the impact those developments would have on their interests that they choose a
sub-optimal but safe route of scuttling initiatives which might alter an operating
environment which, while not ideal, is at least familiar and in which they have learned to
profit. Some of the major businessmen in Mogadishu who are believed to be quietly
subverting the TNG fall into this category.
Interests in Protracted Conflict. The cluster of interests groups which have benefited
from and promoted armed conflicts in Somalia has changed considerably over time. In
the early years of the crisis (1990-92) an overwhelming array of interests profiteered
from armed conflict and the humanitarian crisis it provoked. Warlords used the threat of
armed clashes to maintain constituent support, sought conflicts and conquest to provide
war booty for their militiamen, and provoked famine to attract relief agencies and food
aid which became a major source of revenue. Militiamen fed their families by pillaging
occupied villages and government buildings. Merchants of war profiteered from
diversion of food aid, export of scrap metal, and gun sales. And some entire clans
acquired by armed conquest and occupation valuable real estate in Mogadishu and
riverine regions. Many of the features of protracted conflict depicted in the political
economy of war literature closely match patterns of conflict in southern Somalia of the
early 1990s, except for the fact that Somalia’s war economy has at no point attracted the
level of external economic interests which has occurred in the mineral and timber-rich
countries of Sierra Leone, Angola, and Congo.
In the post-UNOSOM period, however, the constituencies which benefit from war
and lack of reconciliation have shrunk.23 The fact that warfare in Somalia has until this
year gradually diminished in scope suggests a possible causal link between interests and
conflict. Warlords have seen their capacity to foment conflict reduced – though not
eliminated – due to the loss of financial support from businessmen and from their own
war-weary clans. Opportunities for looting following armed conflict is much more
limited, reducing incentives for militiamen to fight. Most businessmen who initially
profiteered from a war economy have transitioned to quasi-legitimate commerce in
import-exports, telecommunications, and transport, and in some cases hold valuable fixed
assets which cannot be relocated in times of war. They thus have a greater interest in
13
peace and paying customers, not armed clashes and famine victims. Some still indulge in
questionable or illegal business activities, but these do not require and are not well served
by armed conflict. War is now, for the most part, bad for business. The net result of these
changed interests is that the armed conflicts which exist today in Somalia tend to be
driven less by economic interests (as they were in 1991-92) and more by the very
parochial political agendas of individual leaders in power struggles, usually within their
own clans and sub-clans. Brief outbreaks of armed conflicts are also triggered by feuds
between militias and clans over carjackings, murders, land disputes, taxes at roadblocks,
wells, contract disputes, and other matters, but these are generally contained fairly
quickly by clan elders. This latter type of armed conflict walks a fine line between “war”
and criminality, since the armed clashes themselves are often a response to a crime
committed, in a setting in which blood payment, collective responsibility, and revenge
killings are the ultimate source of enforcement of customary law.
In sum, the interests which are perpetuating armed conflict in Somalia are far less
potent and extensive than in earlier phases of the crisis, and the interests in peace – or at
least suspension of armed conflict – have grown appreciably in the country. Warfare is no
longer an “instrument of enterprise” as it was in the early years of the crisis. The fact that
Somalia today is gripped by more widespread insecurity and armed clashes than at any
time since 1996 disguises the fact that these are for the most part very parochial,
politically-driven clashes serving the interests of an increasingly narrow group of figures.
Unfortunately, conditions in the country make it easy for small numbers of individuals
and groups to incite armed clashes.
Interests Promoting Lawlessness. Interests served by an ongoing state of lawlessness in
Somalia have also changed over time. Over the course of the 1990s, grassroots elements
in Somalia have gradually asserted greater control over young gunman from their own
clans, and clan elders have recaptured their traditional role in enforcing customary law
and managing disputes. Young gunmen (mooryaan) who once wore T-shirts emblazened
with the apt slogan “I am the boss” in 1992 can no longer make that claim, and are much
more likely to be held accountable by their own clan for thefts and murder. Indeed, the
social status of young Somali gunmen has plunged – mooryaan now inspire disdain, not
awe, and far fewer young men are taking up the occupation. As business opportunities
and interests have changed in Somalia from an economy of plunder to an economy based
mainly on extensive trans-regional and cross-border commerce and a service economy
sustained by remittances, business groups at all levels now have a much greater interest
in promoting a predictable, safe environment free of extortionate militia checkpoints,
carjackings, and theft. Security has, like most services and commodities in Somalia, been
radically privatized, with businessmen and others who can afford it hiring armed guards
for their security. The break which leading Mogadishu businessmen made with warlords
in 1999 – when they refused to pay “taxes” to the militia leaders, and instead bought the
militiamen away from the warlords and sub-contracted out management of the militia to
sharia courts – was the moment when the business community realized that privatization
of security was inadequate, and that a certain level of security had to be assured as a
“public good,” especially in open roads for commerce. It was also a clear indication of
14
the confidence the businessmen had that they would win a showdown with the warlords,
whose interests were increasingly divergent from those of the businessmen.24
But it is worth pointing out that the business class has focused on a fairly narrow
range of criminality for elimination or control. The sharia courts and sharia militia the
businessmen financed in 1999 and 2000 (until the establishment of the TNG) addressed
street crime – they kept the seaport town of Merka safe, patrolled the main road between
Merka and the warehouses at Bakara market in Mogadishu, and improved security from
theft in south Mogadishu. They did not and could not address the Somali equivalent of
“white collar crimes” which some of the businessmen themselves are involved in. This is
a crucial point – it highlights the fact that “rule of law” and impunity from the law can
exist at several levels. Some of the most powerful constituencies in Somalia are those
served by a rule of law which controls criminality by the underclass, but not a system
which has the regulatory, investigatory, and enforcement capacity to address “metacriminality” -- war crimes, incitement of communal violence, expropriation of land and
buildings by force, forced labor, distribution of counterfeit currency, money laundering,
piracy, drug smuggling, illegal exportation of charcoal and embezzlement of foreign aid
and tax money from the coffers of regional government or the TNG, to name a few.25
The local sharia courts fit this limited legal role rather well, which is one reason we can
expect to see their reemergence. For regulation and prosecution of the kinds of crimes
committed by some political and economic leaders (including both economic crimes and
war crimes), a functional state with an autonomous judiciary and police capacity is
needed.
There are some constituencies which are threatened even by the fairly narrow scope
of the sharia courts, and which work to undermine efforts to build local rule of law.
Gangs of bandits and gunmen clearly stand to lose from enforcement of laws against theft
and extortion. Gunmen making a living by providing security to international agencies
and wealthy businessmen would find their source of income threatened. Some warlords
may quietly work to undermine sharia courts because they represent a rival political force
of businessmen, elders, and clerics, and because even the modest level of administration
the sharia courts provide exposes the complete absence of administration under the
warlords.26 These groups represent only a small percentage of the population, but have
often proven to be an effective veto coalition against local efforts to impose rule of law.
This is usually done by undermining local confidence in the sharia courts, and typically
involves clever manipulation of clannism and sometimes a certain level of collusion
between rival gangs or militias whose animosity toward one another is set aside in
common cause against a greater threat. They are one of the reasons that criminality and
extortion continue to plague much of southern Somalia, despite the best efforts of elders,
sharia courts, and others.
Interests Promoting State Collapse. Here is where “war economy” theories are weakest
as an explanation in the Somali setting. If the most powerful interests in Somalia were to
pursue their best interests rationally (in the sense of seeking optimal outcomes), then we
would expect to see a scenario other than complete state collapse. We would instead
predict collusion among the country’s economic and political elites to produce a “paper
15
state.” That would create a state which would be legitimate enough to win full external
recognition, attracting all of the many benefits conferred upon such states, from World
Bank loans to profits derived from property rental to diplomatic missions. It would
dramatically increase the spoils over which various political predators could feast. But it
would remain unable to enforce a level of rule of law which would threaten the illicit
interests of this elite. The paper state would allow virtually all of Somalia’s top
economic and political elite to have their cake and eat it too – to enjoy all of the benefits
of a central state without any of the encumbrances.
This was in fact the motive some suspect was behind the effort to establish the TNG
in 2000. Nearly all of the political energies devoted to the Arta process (which
culminated in the creation of the TNG) focused on a division of anticipated spoils –
namely, the proportion of seats in the parliament and cabinet by clan. And once the TNG
was established, virtually all subsequent political energy was geared to courting foreign
aid. Very little attention was paid to actual administration of the country – or, more
precisely, the portions of Mogadishu which the TNG controlled. This appeared to many
observers a fairly straightforward recipe for a paper state. For many of the top
businessmen and politicos involved in the Arta process, the TNG was in essence a piece
of paper on a fish hook, thrown into international waters in hopes of luring foreign aid
which could then be diverted into appropriate pockets (Le Sage 2002a; Menkhaus
2002c). The gambit ultimately failed, in that the TNG never received much bilateral
recognition, but it succeeded in netting enough aid (roughly $50 million over two years,
mainly from Gulf Arab states) to make it a worthwhile if short-term venture for its
principal actors. In fact, one of the final nails in the TNG’s coffin was the explosion of
domestic and international anger over allegations in 2001 that most of the foreign aid
provided to the TNG was pocketed by top figures, a charge which led to the ouster of the
Prime Minister. Reports of a variety of “sweet-heart deals,” in which inflated TNG
contracts were tendered to their business supporters as a way of allowing them a healthy
return on their investment, further soured public confidence in the TNG.
Ironically, the main objective of the TNG – attracting foreign aid – also sowed the
seeds of its failure. The most promising source of foreign aid was the Gulf Arab states.
This was immediately recognized by the TNG leadership, which went so far as to call for
an “Arab Marshall Plan” for Somalia. But the very act of courting aid from the Gulf
states guaranteed that Ethiopia would view the TNG as an unacceptable threat (as a
beachhead for anti-Ethiopian Islamism in the Horn) and would exercise its “veto” by
supporting anti-TNG elements. Over the year 2001, Ethiopian-backed militias and
factions succeeded in blocking TNG efforts to extend its presence beyond parts of
Mogadishu, leading to a loss of confidence in the TNG within a year of its declaration.
But Ethiopia’s opposition to the TNG shadow state cannot fully explain the failure of
the TNG. Elements inside Somalia have worked to undermine the TNG as well,
including some who in theory stand to gain from a successful central state. This suggests
the possibility that even had Ethiopia acquiesced to the TNG, internal interests in Somalia
would have probably doomed the initiative.
16
There were very different reasons Somali political actors opposed the TNG. Some
political groups – the Puntland leadership, for example – opposed the Arta process
because it was structured around criteria for representation which worked against
regional administrations. Others opposed the TNG when it became clear that they would
not receive top leadership positions. Still others became obstructionists because that won
them valuable support from an Ethiopian government which went from cautious to
hostile to paranoid about the TNG over the course of six months.
But a fourth set of actors appears to have opted to undermine the TNG not because
the TNG would clearly work against their interests, but because it threatened to change
their operating environment in ways which made it difficult to predict impact on business
and politics. For Mogadishu businessmen who made their fortunes in a setting of
complete state collapse, the transition to an environment of state governance – even if a
paper state – proved too risky to accept.27 For the businessmen operating the private
beach port facilities at El Ma’an in north Mogadishu, for instance, the prospects of a state
authority re-opening the main Mogadishu seaport was bound to hurt their business. Even
offers from the TNG to that business group to manage the Mogadishu port were turned
down, though this position had the potential to be a major cash cow for the port
managers. Some other business interests are alleged to have quietly undermined the TNG
(by supporting anti-TNG elements, even while publicly voicing commitment to the TNG)
out of fear of the possibility the TNG might evolve into more than a paper state and
assume capacities which might put an end to lucrative but illicit business interests, or
which might assume a capacity to tax them without delivering basic security and services
in return. These rumors of a double-game by some Mogadishu businessmen are almost
impossible to verify, but were the subject of intense discussion and speculation among
the informed Somali public in the summer of 2002.28
This can only be understood as risk-averse behavior in an environment of
considerable uncertainty. It is not irrational, but rather “bounded rationality,” a
willingness to seek sub-optimal but acceptable outcomes rather than face the risks a
revived state would entail. State collapse may be unpalatable, inconvenient, and
undesirable on any number of counts, but for some political and economic actors who
have survived and thrived in a stateless setting, embracing a state-building agenda
appears to constitute a leap of faith they are currently not willing to take.
Conclusion
This article is a first-cut at a line of inquiry which will require considerably more
investigation if conclusive answers can be reached as to why the Somali crisis has
endured for over 12 years. The analysis presented here is intended not so much to
generate answers as to better frame the questions we need to pursue.
By breaking down Somalia’s crisis of state collapse into three discrete issues –
armed conflict, lawlessness, and collapse of central government – the interests of key
Somali actors can be mapped with more accuracy. More accurate inventories of interests
17
can in turn provide us with better tools for assessing the extent to which Somalia’s
protracted crisis is (or is not) driven by parochial political and economic agendas. It also
facilitates our ability to track those interests over time, with an eye toward identifying
potential shifts in interests which could create a more robust constituency for
peacebuilding and state-building in Somalia, as well as opportunities for international
actors to influence those shifting interests.
Using an interest-centric approach to the Somali crisis, this article confirms much
of what the war economy literature asserts – that over the course of the past decade an
impressive array of actors have profited from and sought to perpetuate a state of
lawlessness and armed conflict in Somalia. It tracks important shifts in the interests of
some key actors, especially the emerging business class, who were in the early 1990s
stakeholders in an economy of plunder but whose business activities have since moved
into quasi-legitimate commerce requiring greater levels of predictability and security.
The fact that both uncontrolled criminality (of the street crime variety) and intense armed
conflict have both diminished considerably over the course of the 1990s is thus an
especially significant trend, suggesting the possibility that the changing interests of the
business class (and others) may be a causal factor in promoting these trends.29 If so – and
this is a tentative finding which clearly warrants further exploration -- then Somali
commercial and business interests demand much closer scrutiny in our political analyses
of Somalia than has been the case to date. This scrutiny must include more nuanced
approaches to issues such as business interests in rule of law. As this article argues, the
top business figures in Mogadishu stand to benefit from certain types of rule of law – the
kind that reduces street crime and insecurity on commercial arteries – but not necessarily
the kind of rule of law which might encroach upon the lucrative “white collar crime”
which some of the business elite are themselves complicit in. If true, that means that the
Mogadishu business community is likely to promote state-building ventures which
produce a paper state -- a central government legitimate enough to attract foreign aid and
the return of foreign embassies, but not strong enough to impinge on illicit business
activities.
The fact that a paper state has not yet been cobbled together, though it would
appear to produce optimal benefits for both the political and economic elite in Somalia,
cannot be easily explained by political economy of war theories. This article suggests that
only by introducing the notion of risk management and risk aversion in a context of high
uncertainty can we begin to explain why key actors in Somalia might prefer to sabotage
state-building initiatives, even at the expense of their long-term economic and political
interests. The protracted Somali crisis of state collapse is from this perspective neither an
inevitable outcome produced by rational actors in pursuit of narrow interests – as cruder
versions of war economy theories would have it – nor is it simply the result of myopic,
failed leadership.
Ken Menkhaus, Department of Political Science, Davidson College, North Carolina,
USA. E-mail: kemenkhaus@davidson.edu
18
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Evans, Dietrich Rueschemyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back
In. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169-191.
United Nations, Security Council. 2002a. Report of the Secretary-General on the
Situation in Somalia. New York: United Nations (21 February).
United Nations, Security Council. 2002b. Report of the Secretary-General on the
Situation in Somalia. New York: United Nations (27 June).
United Nations, Security Council. 2002c. Report of the Secretary-General on the
Situation in Somalia. New York: United Nations (S/20021201) (25 October).
United Nations, Security Council. 2002d. Report of the team of Experts Appointed
Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1407 (2002), Paragraph 1, Concerning
Somalia. New York: United Nations (3 July).
War-Torn Societies Project. 2000. Rebuilding Somalia: Issues and Possibilities for
Puntland. London: Haan Associates.
Endnotes
At one point up to 1,000 “representatives” found their way to Eldoret and claimed a right to participate in
the proceedings. The Kenyan diplomatic team had to intervene to reduce the number.
2
A detailed assessment of the Eldoret peace process (as of early December) is available in International
Crisis Group (2002b). See also Le Sage (2002b).
3
This article excludes Somaliland (the unrecognized secessionist state in the northwest of Somalia) from
discussion, as it has enjoyed a fundamentally different political and economic trajectory than the rest of the
country since the mid-1990s.
4
At the time of this writing, several Somalis were detained for possible involvement in the terrorist attack,
and suspicions were high that the terrorists used Somalia as a base for the attack. Whether these charges
have merit or not remains to be seen. See for example James Risen, “U.S. Suspects Qaeda Link to Bombing
in Mombasa,” New York Times (30 November 2002): “Source: Somali Group among Kenya Suspects,”
CNN.com (29 November 2002); Jack Donelly, “”Terrorism Traced to Somalia,” Boston Globe (6
December 2002) p. A1; and Martin Plaut, “Meles Links Somalis to Kenya Attacks” BBC news online (7
December 2002) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2554285.stm) . For a more skeptical view in the
media, see Richard Dowden, “Don’t Blame the Usual Suspects,” The Observer (London) (1 December
202).
1
21
Most of this “conventional wisdom” circulates on the dozens of websites devoted to Somalia or in
unpublished conference roundtables. Several such roundtables were recently held at the 2002 African
Studies Association conference in Washington DC, where opinions on the matter ranged from criticism of
corrupt Somali leaders to Ethiopia-bashing. For examples of such website discussions (which run the
gamut from illuminating to polemic), see the recent exchanges over an October 25 2002 lecture by I.M.
Lewis in London entitled “The Scrap Merchants of Mogadishu” on the websites “Somalia watch”
(www.somaliawatch.org) and “Somali UK” (www.somaliuk.com). For a sampling of publications
contemplating explanations of Somalia’s long crisis, see Ahmed I. Samatar (1994); Adam and Ford,
(1997); Lyons and Samatar (1995); and Lewis (1993).
6
Some recent research applying the war economy theory to Somalia has been initiated by Le Sage (2002b)
and Reno (2003).
7
The terms lawlessness and lawfulness are used here not in the strict sense of the words, which would be
absurd given the absence of a sovereign state authority to enforce the law. They are meant instead to
convey a sense of the extent to which common criminal behavior (murder, robbery, extortion, kidnapping,
etc.) is or is not taking place.
8
The literature on war economies and “resource wars” is now quite large. For a sample of some of the most
influential pieces on the subject, see Berdal and Malone (2000); Keen (1998); Reno (2000); Duffield
(1996); and Collier and Hoeffler (2000).
9
The proposition that the interests of “warlords” can shift over time to embrace state-building projects and
rule of law is not new; it is adapted from Charles Tilly’s seminal historical work on the rise of states in
Europe (Tilly 1985).
10
The extent to which risk-averse behavior plays a role in the dynamics of contemporary civil wars is a
proposition considered in King (1997).
11
The State Failure Task Force, a CIA-sponsored research project established in 1994 to explore causes of
state failure, identified 127 cases of state failure between 1955 and 1996. The project’s working definition
of state failure was instances when “the institutions of the state were so weakened that they could no longer
maintain authority or political order beyond the capital city, and sometimes not even there. [Cases of state
failure] are all part of a syndrome of serious political crisis which, in the extreme case, leads to the collapse
of governance.” A summary of the task force’s findings are available online in the Wilson Center’s
“Environmental Change and Security Report.” See Esty, Goldstone, Gurr, et al. (1999).
12
This is not to argue that all participants in the attempt to build the TNG were driven by such motives.
Many of the people involved, including at the highest levels, were very respectable figures and by all
accounts sincerely hoped to establish a functioning government.
13
This is a controversial assertion in diplomatic circles, but is persuasive especially in explaining the
serious armed clashes in Puntland and Baidoa in 2002 – in both cases conflicts were at root efforts by rival
political leaders to assert primacy over territory and leadership positions in order to insure a place at the
table in Eldoret. Even UN reports to the Security Council, which are normally purged of any politically
sensitive statements, have acknowledged that preparations for the Eldoret peace process set in motion
intense political jockeying between rival groups in places like Mogadishu and in some cases led to
bloodshed. See UN (2002a) para 6, and UN (2002d) para. 28, 32.
14
The contested regions of Sool and Sanaag (home of the Dolbahante/Harti and Warsengeli/Harti clans),
have for several years been a source of tension between Puntland and Somaliland, but not outright armed
conflict. Somaliland claims the regions based on their inclusion in colonial British Somaliland, a border
which is the legal basis for Somaliland’s claim of independence. Puntland claims the areas based on the
fact that the Harti clan resides in the two regions, invoking a sort of “right of lineage self-determination”
for its clan. Each administration has named its own governor to the two regions, creating an odd situation
where two governors live in the same town. Since neither actually governs, the situation is less problematic
than it would seem. Still, in late 2002 armed clashes erupted in the regional capital of Las Anod which
drew forces from both Somaliland and Puntland into the fray.
15
The author conducted research on local governance for the UN Development Office for Somalia in 1998
in five regions of southern Somalia – a summary report of trends in Somali local governance based on that
research is available in Menkhaus (1998a).
16
A bleak summary of the deteriorating state of security in Somalia in 2002 is provided in the October 25
2002 UN Secretary-General’s Report to the Security Council. See UN (2002c) para 7-17.
17
Looting in southern Somalia set new and appalling standards for wartime banditry. Pillaging was not
5
22
limited to the personal belongings of villagers and townspeople (including the metal sheets serving as the
roofs of their homes), but the entire infrastructure – even underground waterpipes and telephone lines -was dismantled and sold as scrap metal in Mombasa Kenya. One leading Somali political and financial
figure was implicated in the most outrageous instance of criminal looting – the dismantling of the $225
million Juba Sugar Project factory, which reportedly fetched one million dollars as scrap metal in Kenya.
18
Indeed, one of the puzzling aspects of Somali warlordism is why so few of these militia leaders had the
foresight to develop their own sustainable sources of funding. Most are forced to ask for support from
businessmen and elders in their clans, or to rely on the sporadic support of an external state. One example
of warlord entrepreneurism is the Mogadishu-based militia leader Mohamed Qanyare, who has a
diversified portfolio of business interests ranging from fishing to a private airstrip in the neighborhood of
Deynile. This has afforded him the capacity to pay militia consistently and remain independent of external
patrons, clan elders, and businessmen, and has meant that he has come to enjoy a position of strength
relative to less business-savvy warlords.
19
In some instances, kinsmen lose patience with the costs of criminality by a member of their diya (blood
compensation) group and have the individual arrested or executed. Vigilante justice is also associated with
neighborhood security groups and with the militia of private businessmen, who occasionally hunt down
criminal gangs. One such posse killed six professional criminals in an attack outside of Mogadishu in
November 2002 (personal correspondence, November 2002).
20
An excellent journalistic piece on the interests entangled in kidnapping in Somalia is Masciarelli (2002).
21
The broader literature on contemporary war casts this debate in terms of “greed versus grievance;” see a
summary of this debate in the introduction to Berdal and Malone (2000).
22
The external actors supporting the current peace talks in Kenya have consciously sought to shape these
interests in state-building, mainly via threats of “smart sanctions” against recalcitrant warlords if they fail
to cooperate. Mike Crawley, “Somalia Restarts Search for Way to End 11 Years of War and Chaos,”
Christian Science Monitor (16 October 2002), accessed via ReliefWeb at
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf
23
The distinction between armed conflict and absence of reconciliation alluded to in this sentence is
significant in the Somali context, but space is too short in this article to elaborate. Here it is enough to
observe that some Somali warlords have politically exploited clan tensions but not to the point of warfare.
General Morgan, who has controlled or contested the strategic port city of Kismayo through much of the
1990s, is the most obvious example. While in control of Kismayo, his political stock was highest when clan
tensions were high (allowing him to play divide and rule and play on security fears of his core constituents)
but not to the point of triggering armed conflict (at which point he was forced to choose sides within his
multi-clan alliance).
24
It should be noted that some individuals wear both of these hats.
25
Roland Marchal has articulated this view with regard to the business class and its importation of
counterfeit currency. See the chapter on the business class and development in the UNDP publication
Somalia Human Development Report 2001 (Bradbury, Marchal, and Menkhaus 2001). The hyperinflation
created by illegal importation of counterfeit currency by businessmen with close ties to the TNG prompted
public riots in Mogadishu in April 2001 and badly eroded public support for the TNG.
26
This appeared to be a major factor in the undermining of what was for a time a highly effective local
sharia court system in Beled Weyn (Hiran region) in the late 1990s. There, the “governor” of the region, a
warlord notorious in aid agency circles for having overseen the looting of the WFP warehouse in 1993,
used his sub-clan’s unruly gunmen to challenge and eventually bring down a court system which had
enjoyed widespread popular support and which had delivered much more by way of good governance than
the governor could countenance. See Menkhaus (1999).
27
Here an important distinction need to be drawn between different categories of businessmen in
Mogadishu. A very small group – perhaps as small as three wealthy individuals – appear to have been
wholly committed to the TNG, for political, business, and clan reasons. A second category of businessmen
supported the TNG tactically, viewing their financial contributions as venture capital which they expected
to recoup once foreign aid flowed to the TNG. This was the group which appeared to treat the TNG as a
“fishing expedition” for a windfall of aid, and nothing more. A third group of businessmen supported the
TNG only because they were forced to by social pressures, but were from the start much less enthusiastic
about the venture than media reports suggested at the time.
28
Author’s fieldwork, June-August 2002.
23
29
Appropriate caution must be taken in distinguishing between correlation and causality here. This finding
should in no way be misconstrued as a reductionist attempt to overemphasize economic interests to the
exclusion of the many other factors which come into play in Somalia’s complex political scene. But it does
suggest that interests of key political and economic actors need to be tracked closely and taken seriously if
we are to make sense of the Somali impasse.
24