From: sls2c@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: Somalia News Update, October 2
Date: 7 Oct 92 12:34:23 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <antbh.718047789@strix>, antbh@strix.udac.uu.se (Bernhard Helander) writes:
> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
>               S O M A L I A  N E W S  U P D A T E
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________
> 
>                        October 2, 1992. 
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail.
> Questions can be driected to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax number
> +46-18-151160. All is material free too quote as long as the source 
> is stated.
> 
> 
> 
>                THE DECLINE OF CLANSHIP IN SOMALIA
>                       By Bernhard Helander
>     
>     The purpose of this paper is to present a slightly different 
> perspective on the civil war in Somalia than that dominating the 
> media reports. The aim is not to give a very thorough background to 
> the conflict but rather to point to some salient landmarks in the 
> recent political history and to identify some of the key-actors that 
> are involved in the Somali civil war. I shall also point to some 
> fundamental principles of Somali political culture.
>     Before I dive into the turmoil of more recent event I like to 
> provide an image drawn from the pre-colonial Horn of Africa. In many 
> of the travel accounts from the previous century there is a recurring 
> picture of the sense of relation that people had to one another. One 
> gets the sense that although there was a feeling of a broadly 
> encompassing identity called Somali that very identity was very non-
> compelling. It didn't evoke the sense of forming a nation or a 
> unified field for political action until very late. Virginia Luling, 
> who has worked extensively with local history in the Afgooye area, 
> emphatically states that the people of Afgoye by the trun of the 
> century had no notion whatsoever of forming part of a greater 
> national unity. That very same idea has been reported by other oral 
> historians working in other parts of Somalia.
>     The idea of being a nation seems to have grown out slowly 
> partially in response to the colonial penetration of Somalia. By the 
> second world war a substantial number of Somalis had fought in the 
> armies of the Italians and the British, not only on Somali soil but 
> even elsewhere in Africa. Many of these ex-soldiers seem to have 
> brought home with them an awareness of Somalia's position within the 
> larger African anti-colonial struggle. Many people in Somalia must 
> also have felt frustrated when Italy was given back the colony it had 
> lost during the war in the form of a UN trusteeship. 
>     There is a remarkable report from 1948 called the four power 
> commissions report on Somalia. Representatives of the four winners of 
> the second world war went from house to house, from village to 
> village and asked people how what type of long-term solution they saw 
> for a post-colonial Somalia. The answers overwhelmingly demonstrated 
> that the local self-sufficiency of the early century had vanished and 
> given room for what was later to be known as Pan-Somalism; most 
> people apparently felt that they wanted a united Somali state formed 
> by both the British and the Italian colony.
>     With independence 1960, and the merging of British Somaliland and 
> the Italian trusteeship, Somalia came to develop two paradoxical 
> relations to the rest of  Africa. On the one hand the urban 
> intelligentsia expressed themselves very much in line with the zeit-
> geist of African urban politics of the time. They denounced clanship 
> claiming that old ties based on descent could not have any part in 
> the forming of a modern nation state. Many of these intellectuals, 
> when pressed for their own clan allegiance, would only agree to name 
> what they called their "ex"-clan. On the other hand, however, in 
> contraction to the expressed ambition of the OAU and other 
> continental bodies, Somali declared at a very early stage that it saw 
> the parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti inhabited by Somalis as 
> forming a natural part of Somalia. One has to bear in mind that by 
> this time these were popularly supported demands. One has also to 
> understand that from the perspective of the subsistence economy of 
> the Somali nomads, the state boundaries had no effect at all on their 
> movements.
>     The fragile party politics of the sixties descended rapidly into 
> chaos. In fact, the accusations levied against ministers and 
> parliamentarians of the late sixties have much in common with the 
> complaints of corruption and power abuse that became so expressed 
> during the latter years of Siyad Barre. The major difference was that 
> in the sixties' politicians were a novelty. It was an entirely new 
> type of people. Not colonialists, not clan elders, but perhaps 
> something in between. Many of these politicians introduced an 
> entirely new tone in Somali politics. While being seen as nothing 
> less than representatives for their own clans by most of their rural 
> electorate, they also acted to distance themselves from mere clan-
> politics. The effect of this in many cases was not that Somali moved 
> into a new era where party-politics replaced clanship as the basis 
> for political action. Rather, it served to distance the traditional 
> leadership from involvement in crucial societal issues, thus 
> depriving the traditional clan-structures of some of its vitality and 
> shifting the power-basis within the clans from the councils of elders 
> into the Assemblea Nazionale.
>     When Siyad Barre and a group of high-ranking officers took power 
> in a coup-d'tat in 1969 it was hardly surprising. What was 
> surprising however was the rapid transformation of Somalia into an 
> east-bloc ally. Another very apparent development was the swift 
> military build-up. During the sixties Somalia had received a total of 
> 57 million dollars in foreign military aid. The figure for the 
> seventies is nearly 20 times higher or well over a thousand million 
> dollars. 
>     Throughout the early seventies Siyad Barre was able to hold on to 
> power by appealing to the pan-somali sentiments. The steady import of 
> Rumanian, Russian and Cuban security and military advisors made that 
> rhetoric into something scaringly real. The very same advisors helped 
> to design a scheme fro governing the country that placed the head of 
> state in control of all instruments of power.
>     At the same time Siyad sought to manoeuvre within the domain of 
> the clanship system. Often when political opponents were executed he 
> personally paid diya or blood-money to that person's clan to steer of 
> antagonism and calls for vengeance. He also saw to that the clanship 
> system, although formally prohibited, came to serve his purposes. 
> Most of the cabinets throughout his regime maintained a careful 
> balance between representatives of the different clans. Again, this 
> meant that people had to turn to politicians rather than to their 
> clan leaders to obtain benefits. In the country, clan leaders became 
> salaried and often appointed by him personally. He also many times 
> sought to fuel local conflicts between different clans and then 
> supporting both sides. This, in effect, was a continuation of the 
> erosion of power within the traditional clan-structures that had been 
> initiated during the sixties.
>     With the loss of the war against Ethiopia in 1978, Siyad Barre 
> was forced into more openly relying upon his own kinsmen to be able 
> to stay in power. The rule of Siyad also became more apparently than 
> before, a rule of a group of clans over the others. It was now his 
> own clan, the Marehan and the clan of his mother, the Ogadeen and 
> that of his favourite son in law, the Dhulbahante that more or less 
> ruled Somalia.
>     The end of the eighties also saw the establishment of some armed 
> resistance movements. The SSDF was formed within the Majerteen clans 
> by previously high-ranking officers. A few years later the SNM was 
> formed among mainly the Isaaq clans in the Northwest.
>     On the international arena Somalia made a few remarkable moves. 
> Having got rid of the Russians and Cubans following the defeat in the 
> Ogadeen war, Siyad Barre turned to the Americans and the West for 
> support. From having been a comparably closed Marxist state in the 
> seventies, the eighties saw Somalia transform into a scientific 
> socialist state supported by United States, the EEC and Italy. This 
> meant that in the eighties Somalia opened up for Western aid: in 1987 
> foreign development assistance accounted for 57 per cent of the GNP.
>     The deal with the Americans was that they would take over a 
> Soviet naval base in Berbera in the North for a total of 100 million 
> dollars a year in development aid, military assistance and credits. 
> The American interest in all this was to have a base in reserve for 
> the more important Mombassa installations and also to build a landing 
> strip that could act as an emergency landing faciltity for the space 
> shuttle.
>     Economically, Somali did some progress in the 80's. Domestic 
> grain production increased, or at least the amount of grain that was 
> available in the markets increased. However, there were a number of 
> other trends that effectively blocked any possibility for the country 
> to achieve self-sufficiency. As grain prices were liberalized it 
> became increasingly attractive for the urban middle class to obtain 
> farming land. Thanks to the farm registration programme that was run 
> by the USAID it became possible for urban families to obtain fully 
> legal titles to plots of land that already were owned by local 
> farmers along the river valleys. This, of course is just one of many 
> examples of how the spreading corruption impeded economical growth.
>     In the spring of 1988 the SNM in the North were able to establish 
> control of large parts of northern Somalia. In response to this Siyad 
> called in six south African mercenary pilots to bomb Hargeysa, the 
> largest city in the North. Hargeysa that had housed at least half a 
> million inhabitants was reduced to pebbles. Armed resistance against 
> Siyad in the South gained momentum in 1989. Ogaden units of the army 
> mutinied and formed an organisation they called SPM. Among the Hawiye 
> clans in and around Mogadishu and in the central regions discontent 
> without  the regime grew and the USC movement was formed. A group of 
> largely pro-Italian urban intellectuals and business men formed 
> something they called the manifesto group, calling upon Siyad to step 
> down from the throne and hold multi-party elections. In 1990, as a 
> group of elders in Siyad's own clan protested against his rule in an 
> open letter, it became apparent that the class of politicians 
> surrounding Siyad Barre acted unsupported by the leadership in their 
> own clans.
>     After a two-month siege of the capital by SPM and USC forces in 
> late 1990, Siyad Barre fled to his clans home territory on January 
> 26, 1991.   
>     At a fairly early stage after Siyad Barre's defeat conflicts 
> arose within and between the various factions involved in his 
> overthrow. Many Hawiye inside Mogadishu took the opportunity to 
> punish members of the Daarood clans that they felt had been the 
> people benfitting from Siyad Barre's rule. A mass-exodus of Daarood 
> towards the safer areas west of the Jubba river, was paralleled by a 
> mass-invasion of rural people from the central and inter-river 
> regions into Mogadishu.
>     A power struggle within the USC arose between supporter of the 
> military wing and its leader, general Aydiid, on the one hand, and 
> the manifesto group and its leader the business man Ali Mahdi on the 
> other. This conflict is more than a personal power-struggle between  
> the two men in person, but involves unsolved disputes from the 
> fifties and sixties. Aydiid's basic fear is to have a weak Abgaal 
> president supported by the mighty Majerteyn tribes in the Northeast. 
> Ali Mahdis supporters' fear is to hand over business interest and 
> power to competitors within the Hawaadle and Habar Gedir clans.
>     In the beginning of the summer 1991 a so-called national 
> reconciliation conference was held in Djibouti. The conference agreed 
> to reinstall the constitution of the 1960s and to have a parliament 
> with 123 seats to elect an interim president. The delegates at the 
> meeting had little or no accountability vis--vis their own groupings 
> and the outcome was that Ali Mahdi declared himself president of 
> Somalia. The North had already decided to form an independent state 
> under the name of Somaliland republic.
>     Heavy fighting broke out between Ali Mahdi's forces and Aydiid's 
> forces inside Mogadishu in November 1991. While Aydiid's side was the 
> military stronger side, Ali Mahdi enjoyed the support of the Italians 
> and of being presented as the good guy in the media. There is 
> evidence to suggest that Ali Mahdi's ambition was to create a 
> humanitarian disaster to obtain a foreign intervention by forces that 
> would secure his position. 
>     A fragile cease-fire was signed in March this year. This 
> effectively divided Mogadishu into a northern Abgaal, Ali Mahdi part 
> and a southern Aydiid Habar Gedir part. The port was controlled by 
> another Hawiye clan, the Murusadde that attempted to straddle between 
> the two camps, The airport fell into the hands of yet another Hawiye 
> clan, the Hawadle. Even within the various factions there were 
> differences. For instance, Abgal, the principle supporters of Ali 
> Mahdi, are made up of 9 different subclans and each one of these 
> clans manoeuvred on its own to obtain benefits for its members. 
> Together there are more than thirty different factions inside 
> Mogadishu alone that are involved in the current struggles.
>     In the south direct hostilities and artillery duels continued 
> longer than inside Mogadishu. A former general to Siyad Barre called 
> Morgan, long sought to win control over the city Kismayo. When he was 
> finally pushed in to northern Kenya he destabilized large parts of 
> Lamu district until he recently withdrew into Ethiopia. In South-
> westernmost Somalia the Marehan clan in the organisation called SNF 
> entertained clear plans to play a role in the politics of Somalia. 
> During may this year motorized infantry reached as far as Afgoye, 30 
> kilometres outside Mogadishu.
>     With the establishment of Aydiid's headquarters in Baardheere the 
> SNF are at least in part blocked from access to the inter-river area. 
> The fragile alliance between the Ogaden forces in the SPM and Aydiid 
> has established a hegemony over most of the inter-river area. The 
> sufferers from this alliance are of course the Rahanweyn and Digil 
> clans whose organisation, the SDM, has been more or less forced into 
> accepting the supremacy of the mighty Ogaden-Habar Gedir alliance. On 
> the other hand the Habar Gedir hasn't had much of a choice since 
> large numbers of them were forced to flee from their home territory 
> bordering on the Majerteyn clan in the Northeast.
>     Throughout this civil war the humanitarian situation has lapsed 
> into something that may well be the worst catastrophe in Africa ever. 
> Two spring rains have failed and large numbers of people are 
> displaced from their home territories. Wells have been poisoned and 
> live-stock looted. A normal year in the eighties Somalia imported 
> something like 500 000 metric tons of food. During the past twelve 
> moths only half of that amount has reached the country. The relief 
> food now reaching the country has become a part of the power base of 
> the different armed gangs that also constitute the supporter of the 
> various factions. The uncoordinated shipments of food by many of the 
> smaller NGOs have paved the ground for organized looting. Armed 
> guards hired by the organisations to accompany the lorries destined 
> for the hinterland, grab hold of the vehicles and sell them back to 
> the organisations. Groups controlling the airstrips demand high fees 
> to allow the relief planes to land. Behind all this is of course the 
> late awakening of the international community and the shortage of 
> food. However, another important reason relates to the weakening of 
> the power of the traditional clan leaders how have little or nothing 
> to put up against the military might of the war lords who recruit 
> soldiers along clan lines. 
>     Very briefly, the only thing that would seem to effectively stop 
> the famine would be to flood the country with food and to hand over 
> the control of transports to a massive force of UN troops. An 
> initiation of a food-for-weapons or food-for-money scheme could work 
> out together with lower level clan leadership and that would also 
> help to erode some of the power basis of the war lords. Somalis had 
> definitely had enough and there are few Somalis in Somalia at least, 
> that still believe in any form of a military victory. 
>     
>     
>     
> 
> -- 
> *****************************************************************************
> *                                  *                                        *
> * Bernhard Helander                * Telephone: +46-18-182289 (office)      *
> * Dept of Cultural Anthropology    *            +46-18-303448 (home)        *
> * University of Uppsala            *                                        *
> * Tradgardsgatan 18                * Fax:       +46-18-151160               *
> * S-753 09 Uppsala                 *                                        *
> * Sweden                           * E-mail: Bernhard.Helander@antro.uu.se  *
> *                                  *                                        *
> *****************************************************************************
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