Two days after the new president of Somalia was elected in early September, three suicide bombers attacked his temporary residence. The Shabab, an Islamist insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed four, including an African Union (AU) soldier, but spared the new president. It underscores the long road that Somalia faces as it tries to establish a permanent government.
Mogadishu, once infamous as the shattered capital of the failed state of Somalia, is making a comeback. Business at the Bakara Market—the city’s main commercial district—is booming. On nearby streets, horns blare while vehicles compete with donkey carts laden with goods. Residents of coastal areas are flocking to the beach for a dip in the Indian Ocean—a pastime forbidden when the Islamists were in power.
The recapture of Mogadishu with help from AU troops has been key to restoring the rule of law in a country scarred by three decades of civil war. Along with the return of street life, war-torn Mogadishu is getting a face-lift as new hospitals, schools and other infrastructure projects hail the dawn of a new era for this country in the Horn of Africa.
Somalia is Africa’s most homogenous country. Unlike many African states, all Somalis are Muslim and share the same language and culture. Decades of war between its numerous clans have traumatised this country of 9.5m. It is notorious for its pirates who seize ships and hostages along its coasts on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Since 1991, the country has been rudderless, without an effective government, adrift in a sea of conflict and chaos.
But last August 1st, a National Constituent Assembly comprising of 825 Somali leaders approved a new constitution, following a roadmap to establish a permanent government. Under this constitution, elders from each clan were then tasked with nominating the MPs, not exactly a democratic process, but one that the United Nations (UN) nevertheless backed.
On August 20th, Somalia reached an important milestone when its first formal parliament in 20 years held its inaugural session. Under the watchful eyes of AU troops, 211 out of 275 new MPs took their oaths in a dusty airport car park in Mogadishu, the safest place to carry out the ceremony. A technical selection committee disqualified the remaining MPs for failing the criteria that candidates must be Somali citizens of “sound mind”, hold a high school diploma and have no links to the warlords or to the atrocities committed during the civil war.
The parliament then elected new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on September 10th. His administration takes over from the transitional federal government (TFG), established with UN backing in 2004. The new parliament is also responsible for formally ratifying the constitution and enacting special laws to determine when the country will hold elections.
Somalia has long topped the list of Africa’s failed states and is notorious for its warlords and pirates. In 1960 the British and Italian parts of Somalia merged to form the independent United Republic of Somalia and elected its first president. Nine years later, Major General Siad Barre, then commander of the army, seized power in a bloodless coup.
He ruled with an iron fist until 1991, when he was ousted by a coalition of clan- based opposition groups. An ensuing power struggle between these warlords led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. Somalia plunged into lawlessness and anarchy.
In 2000 clan elders appointed an interim president at a conference in Djibouti. He was tasked with reconciling warring clan militias and setting up what became the TFG. But only after protracted talks in neighbouring Kenya in 2004 did the main clan leaders agree to set up an entirely new parliament, which then appointed a president. This administration was the 14th attempt to establish a government since 1991.
The lawlessness, however, continued as rival militia groups killed scores of people and injured hundreds in March and May 2006, the worst violence Somalia had withstood in nearly a decade. Islamist militias eventually took control of Mogadishu and other parts of the south.
For the next five years, southern Somalia was a battleground between rival militias and Islamist insurgents. The Shabab would gain control only to lose it to forces that included Somali troops sometimes assisted by Ethiopian boots and sometimes by United States air strikes targeting al-Qaeda suspects and reportedly killing an unknown number of civilians.
This ongoing state of lawlessness led to a huge increase in piracy off the Indian Ocean coast. Somalia’s coastline became notorious as a major security threat to international shipping, according to the International Maritime Bureau (see p. 9).
After a series of kidnappings in 2011, Kenyan troops invaded Somalia. This, combined with government and African peacekeeper offensives, eventually drove the Shabab from Mogadishu that August, followed by Baidoa in February 2012, Afgoye in May 2012 and, most recently, Merca in August this year. By early September, AU troops were pushing towards the port of Kismayo, a key source of funding for the militia. They rely on revenues from the export of charcoal, according to the UN.
A concerted effort by the UN, the AU, neighbouring states and Somalia’s diaspora community has made it possible to establish the new government. But there are many stumbling blocks that the new president and parliament will need to avoid if their path toward democracy is to be successful.
No doubt the greatest challenge the new government will face is ending the violence and lawlessness. Peace in Somalia has no chance of taking hold unless the root causes of the conflict are addressed: competition for scarce resources, the easy availability of cheap weapons and a large population of unemployed youth.
To make matters worse, Somalia must deal with more than 2m hungry people “of concern”, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR). More than 1m Somali refugees are living elsewhere in the world, and another 1.3m are displaced. A famine declared last year, though officially over, continues to affect many people.
Whether the new government will mark the end of the corruption that report accused TFG officials of stealing seven out of every ten dollars they received in aid money. Tellingly, the selection process of the new parliament was also tainted by allegations of bribery and corruption. Some of the parliamentary seats were allegedly sold for as much as $25,000.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’][/author_image] [author_info]Charles Kerich is a Kenyan journalist working as the deputy editor of the Star newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya. He has more than 15 years’ experience in print and radio journalism. He enjoys African politics as well as legal and investigative reporting. Charles holds a degree in Communication from Daystar University, Kenya, and is completing a master’s degree in International Studies at the University of Nairobi. [/author_info] [/author]
