Is Somalia turning the corner?

There is cause for cautious optimism

Book fairs in Mogadishu are a thing. The city is experiencing a property boom. Al-Shabaab appears to be on the back foot, with several clans abandoning them in their strongholds. The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) is scheduled to depart in 2024. Last month the East African Community (EAC) started assessing Somalia’s readiness to join the economic bloc. And just last week presidents from Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya were in Mogadishu to talk peace and regional cooperation.

Source: State House, Nairobi

Is this the beginning of the end of Somalia’s decades-long civil war?

I have a number of reasons to be cautiously optimistic. First, after more than a decade of “managed democracy,” Somali elites appear to have internalized the need for peaceful politics. Consequently, the institutionalization of politics in the country is underway. Second, Somalia’s fractious clan politics no longer work in favor of Al-Shabaab. A crippling drought may have pushed populations under Al-Shabaab to the brink. In addition, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has signaled that he will not pursue a policy of containment, and instead wants to defeat Al-Shabaab on the battlefield. Third, Somalia’s neighbors (especially Kenya and Ethiopia) appear to be finally invested in real peace. As I describe below, for a long time they have been disinterested in Somalia’s peace and stability. Fourth, Türkiye has emerged as a major economic and security partner. Türkiye’s presence and the potential entry into the EAC are exciting opportunities for Somalia to begin rebuilding its economy and provide its citizens with even greater (economic) incentives for peace and stability.

I: An endless irredentist nightmare

Somalia has never recovered from defeat in the 1977-78 Ogaden War against Ethiopia. Barely a month after President Siad Barre was forced to withdraw troops from the Ogaden, disgruntled soldiers staged an unsuccessful coup attempt. Among their grievances was Barre’s mishandling of the war. Barre clamped down, forcing much of the opposition to flee abroad, go underground, and/or take up arms. Defections from the military and the ruling party as well as erosion of mass support followed. Not even a new constitution in 1979 could save Barre and the regime. Eventually, a full-blown civil war forced him to flee the country in 1991.

The trouble started with the irredentist designs of a section of Somali nationalist elites. Ethnic Somalis lived in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti (see map below). The nationalists wanted to unite them all in one Greater Somalia. This dream ended up being codified in the 1961 constitution which mandated the government to support secessionist movements in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Article 6(4) of the constitution stated:

The Somali Republic shall promote, by legal and peaceful means, the union of Somali territories and encourage solidarity among the peoples of the world, and in particular among African and Islamic peoples.

The “peaceful” part was conveniently ignored. Beginning in 1963 Somalia supported armed secessionists in Kenya’s northeast. The conflict, known as the “Shifta War,” only ended with a formal ceasefire in 1977. Later that year Somalia invaded Ethiopia’s Ogaden region and lost badly. It is worth noting that Ethiopia, too, harbored dreams of annexing parts of Somalia that had once been part of or tributaries to the Ethiopian empire centuries before.

Source: Wikipedia

For much of the 1980s Somalia and Ethiopia engaged each other in proxy wars, with both supporting rebels in their respective civil wars. Ethiopia was armed by the Soviet Union, while Somalia was supported by the United States. The Soviet’s abandoned Somalia at their hour of need and were instrumental in Ethiopia’s battlefield victory.

II: Keeping Somalia divided and weak

The above account is important for understanding the reactions by Ethiopia and Kenya to Somalia’s civil war since 1991. In short, Nairobi and Addis Ababa have always been wary of a strong Mogadishu. Both countries have always held the contradictory positions of wanting a peaceful and stable Somalia, but one that is fragmented and lacking a strong central government. Ethiopia’s invasion against the Islamic Courts Union in 2006 and Kenya’s invasion in 2011 against Al-Shabaab were designed primarily to serve the two countries security interests and not necessarily to support state-building efforts in Somalia. It does not help that Kenya and Somalia have an unresolved maritime boundary dispute.

Source: Crisis Group

This contradiction has been evident throughout the duration of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM):

Kenya and Ethiopia, although they have suspended some of their mutual rivalries, still mostly cultivate proxies in their sectors to create buffer areas, prevent the leakage of terrorism into their countries, disrupt support for separatists within their own countries, and project land and sea power.

Paul Williams’ excellent book on AMISOM sheds more light on the matter:

Many Somalis believed that it was Kenyan and Ethiopian policy to keep Somalia weak and divided, and hence for economic and national security reasons they would seek to undermine the creation of a strong central government in Mogadishu. AMISOM became entangled in this issue because the Federal Government was worried that it might become an instrument of IGAD’s agenda, which was dominated by Ethiopia and Kenya.

IGAD’s agenda crystalized in June 2012 when Kenya initiated a process to establish a Jubaland state under the IGAD Grand Stabilization Plan, which had been agreed in January 2012. The Somali Federal Government’s position was that it should lead any such process. Its suspicions of ulterior motives were confirmed when Kenya and Ethiopia signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the IGAD Joint committee for the Grand Stabilization of South Central Somalia on 6 December 2012. This set out a framework whereby a Joint Committee comprising Ethiopia and Kenya would take the lead in implementing IGAD’s Grand Stabilization Plan ‘to support the development of an inclusive process, in determining the political and administrative arrangements for the liberated areas’ (Preamble).

Despite their joint desire for a weak Mogadishu, Addis Ababa and Nairobi have not always been on the same page regarding strategy. Take the question of federalism and subnational autonomy. On paper, strengthening Somalia’s mostly clan-based states creates potential proxies that can be used by either Ethiopia or Kenya against a hostile central government in Mogadishu. However, Kenya’s support for the government of Jubaland (dominated by Ogadenis) threatens Ethiopia whose Ogadeni majority Somali region has had a simmering insurgency for decades. As noted above, these suspicions have often hindered productive cooperation between Ethiopia and Kenya.

III: A new hope for peace and stability?

Perhaps the most compelling reason to be hopeful about Somalia’s path to peace is its elites’ newfound willingness to invest in the institutionalization of politics. Ahead of the May 2022 presidential election, it was not clear whether President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo would step down if he lost the election. He had tried all sorts of maneuvers to delay the poll or unfairly influence its outcome. Yet in the end he lost to Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and stepped down because his fellow politicians chose to stand their ground and punish him for failing to deliver on his promises. This is progress that the country can now build on even as it takes the war to Al-Shabaab.

It also means that there is hope for economic recovery. To this end Somalia will benefit from having in Türkiye a dependable partner that is on a mission to increase its global commercial footprint. In 2011 Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Mogadishu in an effort to establish relations and help rebuild the country. Since then:

Ankara [has] built the largest Turkish embassy in the Somali capital. Turkish companies reconstructed the Mogadishu seaport, the airport and secured contracts for the management and maintenance of the country’s two largest sources of revenues.

Ankara currently trains thousands of special military and police forces in Camp TurkSom, Turkey’s largest overseas military base that opened its doors in Mogadishu in 2017. 

In terms of trade, Turkish exports to Somalia reached above $200 million last year as Turkish companies invested $100 million in the country. 

It is important to highlight Türkiye’s role in Somalia’s stabilization because it adds an ingredient that so far has been lacking: expanding Somalia’s commercial connections to the rest of the world. For understandable reasons, over the last two decades the African Union and its partners (including the U.S. which continues to conduct military operations in Somalia) have mostly focused on pressing security and humanitarian issues. Now that Al-Shabaab appears to be in retreat, it is time to also pay attention to Somalia’s economic recovery.

Therefore, Somalia’s potential entry into the EAC should be viewed (and supported) as an important step towards economic recovery. By facilitating trade and other exchanges, the move will deepen the material incentives for peace. It will also provide a more institutionalized forum for airing and (hopefully) settling disputes with Kenya; while also providing Somalia more geopolitical leverage vis-a-vis Addis Ababa.

IV: Conclusion

Few people remember that Somalia was the first postcolonial African country in which an incumbent president lost an election and stepped down. When President Aden Abdulle Osman Daar lost the 1967 election to Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, he graciously handed over power and proceeded to live in retirement to the ripe old age of 98. Had Sharmarke not been assassinated in 1969 Somalia would have likely had a very different political and economy history. I have reason to believe that we may be witnessing the beginning of Somalia’s return to the path that it abandoned after the assassination and Siad Barre’s subsequent coup.