Somalia on the brink
Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 10:32 am
Despite the news that Doctors Without Borders is quitting Somalia after 20-plus years in the country, due to an increase in violent attacks, the biggest war waged in Somalia right now is not between the rebel group al-Shabaab, the fledging government of Somalia, and the African Union’s military mission. It is the war between the Western world and the Somali people.
This may be hard to imagine but it is true. Last week, during meetings in Mogadishu, it became painfully apparent that the real victims in the “war on terrorism”—and specifically how the West is choosing to combat it on the Horn of Africa—are the Somali people.
After meeting with the prime minister, the ministers of Defense, Foreign Affairs, Interior and National Security, and Natural Resources, members of Parliament, the speaker of the Parliament, and civil society leaders, the path toward rebuilding Somalia became clear.
As the recently installed Somali executive and parliamentary branches of government are scrambling to prove their mettle to a very skeptical populace, what the West is doing is actively undermining potential for this poor country’s political, economic, and social progress. If Western actors—whether in the U.S., the EU, or elsewhere—care about the future stability of Somalia, they had better change their approach, and fast.
This country hangs in a very delicate balance. While Mogadishu is bustling with business like any normal city, and nothing like the bomb-riddled war zone the world prefers to present in the press, if the international community does not change its approach, we will soon see a resurgence of instability.
First and foremost, America’s counter-terrorism approach to Somalia must be rethought completely. Government officials here know that al-Shabaab recruits heavily from the poor and unemployed sectors of Somali society and from clans who are marginalized from the political process. They know that the way to undermine al-Shabaab’s power and presence is through economic development and job creation, political participation, and inclusion, and by building the security infrastructure necessary for Somali self-governance. They know that the way to ensure that former fighters do not return to al-Shabaab is through an aggressive rehabilitation and reintegration strategy on par with what Saudi Arabia is doing with its former fighters. And yet, what most of America’s Defense and State departments are doing here is antithetical to this goal.
The U.S. and international community’s preferred approach is to pump billions into security assistance and next to nothing on economic development and job creation in Somalia. This is not an exaggeration. There is no money for transportation, power and energy grids, hospitals, and schools—all the stuff this necessary for a stable society. Witness this in Baghdad, Kabul, Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, and now in Mogadishu. Additionally, there is little to no effort to support and train a national Somali security sector. Instead, paramilitaries and private security companies like U.S.-based Bancroft are pervasive and the African Union Mission in Somalia continues to get fully funded (with no exit strategy) and with clear economic self-interest in the continuation of violence, paying its soldiers 15 times what Somali soldiers get paid.
What is needed, as one Somali businessman put it, is a “godfather”
Second, the difficulty of doing business in Somalia must be addressed. In meeting with the Chamber of Commerce in Mogadishu last week it became clear that one of the main obstacles to economic development is the lack of a financial system, internationally accredited banks and legal mechanisms for ensuring accountability.
The U.N. Somalia Monitoring Group, a Western-led oversight group that is categorically dismissed by Somali government and nongovernment leaders for doing much to undermine progress and potential in Somalia, is now singlehandedly dismantling Somalia’s sole financial effort: their Central Bank. One wonders if the current chair of the Monitoring Group, a former World Bank official based in Nairobi, is following in the footsteps of his Bank predecessors and working to undermine financial self-sufficiency that would make Somalia less dependent on international financial institutions. This has happened before by the Bank—throughout the developing world—so the suspicion has merit.
Third, the West’s penchant for resource exploitation on the African continent has no place on the Horn. Take, for example, the oil and gas exploration deal signed last week between Britain’s newly formed Soma Oil and Gas Exploration, chaired by U.K. conservative leader Lord Michael Howard, and the Somali’s Minister of Natural Resources, with whom I also met to discuss the country’s national environmental policy (the draft of which seems very forward-looking and progressive).
Read the rest here
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... brink.html
This may be hard to imagine but it is true. Last week, during meetings in Mogadishu, it became painfully apparent that the real victims in the “war on terrorism”—and specifically how the West is choosing to combat it on the Horn of Africa—are the Somali people.
After meeting with the prime minister, the ministers of Defense, Foreign Affairs, Interior and National Security, and Natural Resources, members of Parliament, the speaker of the Parliament, and civil society leaders, the path toward rebuilding Somalia became clear.
As the recently installed Somali executive and parliamentary branches of government are scrambling to prove their mettle to a very skeptical populace, what the West is doing is actively undermining potential for this poor country’s political, economic, and social progress. If Western actors—whether in the U.S., the EU, or elsewhere—care about the future stability of Somalia, they had better change their approach, and fast.
This country hangs in a very delicate balance. While Mogadishu is bustling with business like any normal city, and nothing like the bomb-riddled war zone the world prefers to present in the press, if the international community does not change its approach, we will soon see a resurgence of instability.
First and foremost, America’s counter-terrorism approach to Somalia must be rethought completely. Government officials here know that al-Shabaab recruits heavily from the poor and unemployed sectors of Somali society and from clans who are marginalized from the political process. They know that the way to undermine al-Shabaab’s power and presence is through economic development and job creation, political participation, and inclusion, and by building the security infrastructure necessary for Somali self-governance. They know that the way to ensure that former fighters do not return to al-Shabaab is through an aggressive rehabilitation and reintegration strategy on par with what Saudi Arabia is doing with its former fighters. And yet, what most of America’s Defense and State departments are doing here is antithetical to this goal.
The U.S. and international community’s preferred approach is to pump billions into security assistance and next to nothing on economic development and job creation in Somalia. This is not an exaggeration. There is no money for transportation, power and energy grids, hospitals, and schools—all the stuff this necessary for a stable society. Witness this in Baghdad, Kabul, Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, and now in Mogadishu. Additionally, there is little to no effort to support and train a national Somali security sector. Instead, paramilitaries and private security companies like U.S.-based Bancroft are pervasive and the African Union Mission in Somalia continues to get fully funded (with no exit strategy) and with clear economic self-interest in the continuation of violence, paying its soldiers 15 times what Somali soldiers get paid.
What is needed, as one Somali businessman put it, is a “godfather”
Second, the difficulty of doing business in Somalia must be addressed. In meeting with the Chamber of Commerce in Mogadishu last week it became clear that one of the main obstacles to economic development is the lack of a financial system, internationally accredited banks and legal mechanisms for ensuring accountability.
The U.N. Somalia Monitoring Group, a Western-led oversight group that is categorically dismissed by Somali government and nongovernment leaders for doing much to undermine progress and potential in Somalia, is now singlehandedly dismantling Somalia’s sole financial effort: their Central Bank. One wonders if the current chair of the Monitoring Group, a former World Bank official based in Nairobi, is following in the footsteps of his Bank predecessors and working to undermine financial self-sufficiency that would make Somalia less dependent on international financial institutions. This has happened before by the Bank—throughout the developing world—so the suspicion has merit.
Third, the West’s penchant for resource exploitation on the African continent has no place on the Horn. Take, for example, the oil and gas exploration deal signed last week between Britain’s newly formed Soma Oil and Gas Exploration, chaired by U.K. conservative leader Lord Michael Howard, and the Somali’s Minister of Natural Resources, with whom I also met to discuss the country’s national environmental policy (the draft of which seems very forward-looking and progressive).
Read the rest here
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... brink.html
