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More than a dozen reconciliation conferences were organised for Somalia since 1991. The last two reconciliation conferences were held in Arta town of Djibouti in 2000 and in Kenya between 2002- 2004. The Transitional National Government of Somalia (TNG) led by Abdulqasim Salad Hassan, Minister for Interior for Somalia’s last central government, was the outcome of the Djibouti conference. Arta Conference was attended by handpicked traditional leaders and politicians who held positions in Somalia last central government. It was different from reconciliation conferences that were organised before the year 2000 because of the emphasis it laid on seeking the input of traditional leaders. Ali Khalif Galaydh, former Minister for Industry, was appointed a prime minister. The new president, his prime minister and along with members of the parliament were airlifted to Mogadishu. The TNG faced a host of problems ranging from warlord influence to power struggle between the president and his successive prime ministers. President Abidiqasim had clashed with prime minister Ali Khalif Galaydh who subsequently lost the parliament’s vote of confidence and was replaced by Hassan Abshir Farah. President Abdiqasim sacked Mr Farah while attending the Somali reconciliation conference in 2004; he was replaced by Mohamed Yusuf Abdi.
Domestic legitimacy problems dogged the TNG. When Arta Reconciliation Conference was organised Puntland and Somaliland declined to have any input in the conference and rejected its outcome. Conference organisers underestimated the opposition from the two regional administrations that, unlike Somalia’s southern regions, made use of traditional leaders to demobilise clan militias and set up institutions that deliver basic services. The Arta conference was based on the notion that empowering the civil society was the best approach to reconstituting the Somali state. ‘Empower the civil society’ was a slogan to which the conference organisers paid a lip service for a couple of reasons:
Unlike the 1991 Djibouti-sponsored Somali reconciliation conference whose outcome led to armed confrontations in Mogadishu between forces loyal to the former interim president, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, and USC chairman, General Mohamed Farah Aideed, the TNG forces did not clash with the militias of warlords. TNG president made a pact with Jubba Valley Alliance—a two-clan alliance that ruled Lower Shabelle, Lower Jubba and Gedo regions— because president Abdiqasim’s clan was in the alliance. The TNG did not set up any government institutions or promote reconciliation locally but denounced what it described as “Ethiopia’s determination to destroy our chance to restore peace, stability, democratic governance and political independence to Somalia.” As the TNG mandate was coming to an end, another reconciliation conference was organised for Somalia. The venue of the new conference was Mbagathi, Kenya. Warlords in southern regions, some traditional leaders, members from the Somalia Diaspora and Puntland administration participated in the conference. The Mbagathi reconciliation conference shared one major characteristic with its predecessor –the 2000 Arta Conference: it used the 4.5 power-sharing formula but tested a new approach of getting warlords and the pro-union regional administration involved in the reconciliation conference. The failure of the TNG is attributed to the failure to consider the ‘might and influence ‘ of warlords in southern regions back in 2000 but its successor, Mbagathi conference, had all the characteristics that marred 1991, 1993 and 1998 reconciliation conferences whose participants were selected for belonging to clans with armed militias. Just as 1990s warlords made sure unarmed clans had no say in the future of the war-torn country, the Arta conference institutionalised the power-sharing ‘formula’ that lumped many clans with no armed militias together as minority clans; Embagthi conference participants retained the 4.5 formula. At Mbgathi participants drafted transitional federal charter, agreed on federalism, selected members of parliament on the basis of 4.5 power sharing formula, elected a parliamentary speaker and a president. Former Puntland president and one-time leader of the first armed group against the Somalia’s toppled military regime, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, was elected a president. He appointed Ali Mohamed Geeddi, veterinary doctor and a lecturer at the former Somali National University, a prime minister. Although Mogadishu was ruled by opposing warlords and forces loyal to the former TNG president, the new Transitional Federal Government of Somalia made Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, its base. Jowhar was under a political committee headed by Mohamed Omar Habeb who was an ally of president Yusuf. Rift emerged between the president and the parliamentary speaker, Sharif Hassan in 2005. President Ali Abdalla Salah of Yemen’s initiative helped the two leaders to reconcile their differences and work in Baydhabo where the Transitional parliament was based. The same rift emerged in 2006 when the parliamentary speaker visited Mogadishu under the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and signed agreement with Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sharif Ahmed, then leaders of the UIC. The anti-Ethiopia rhetoric of UIC and its attempt to capture Baydhabo, the former seat of the TFG, led to the intervention of Ethiopia with a view to back the weak TFG and respond to threats of attack made by the former defence secretary of UIC, Sheikh Yusuf Mohamud Siyad Indha’adde. Supporters of the UIC and Al Shabab, then a fringe group within UIC, led insurgency against the TFG and its Ethiopian backers. The UIC leaders fled Mogadishu, ended up in Eritrea as exiles and along with members from the Somali Diaspora, set up the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS). In 2007 Ali Mahdi Mohamed, former interim president of Somalia chaired a reconciliation conference held in Mogadishu in which the 4.5 formula was quashed to make it 5 on the basis of five ‘major clans’. Neither Somaliland nor ARS supporters participated in the conference. In 2009 a UN-sponsored peace initiative has facilitated negotiations between the TFG and the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia. The resignation of president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who was against negotiations with the ARS, paved the way for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops and the election of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, then chairman of ARS, as a president in Djibouti in January 2009 by an expanded parliament of more than 500 members. The new ARS members of parliament in the parliament were distributed along the 4.5 power-sharing formula. The ARS wing led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aways rejected the TNG and arrived in Mogadishu to form Hizbul Islam to, like rebranded Al Shabab, wage a war against the TFG under president Sheikh Sharif Ahmed . The TFG under Presiden Sheikh Sharif Ahmed calls itself a government of national unity but it is protected by African peacekeeping forces. Al Shabab and Hizbul Islam have rejected calls for negotiations with the “apostate” TFG . TFG parliament’s unanimous decision to adopt Sharia law has not persuaded Islamist groups to stop insurgency and support the TFG. Nearly twenty years have passed when the Somali state collapsed and was replaced by warlords ruling clan fiefdoms. Power struggles that made Somalia a country known for famine, extremism, clan warfare and piracy were further complicated by struggle over the nature of the future Somalia state. Puntland is in favour of federalism; many southern clans associated with the former United Somali Congress are against federalism but in favour of 4.5 power-sharing formula under a central government with a seat in Mogadishu; Extremist groups (Al Shabab and Hizbul Islam) are for an Islamic Sharia-based state. Different political realities prevailing in Somalia affect how Somalis perceive the outcome of the conferences. “Within the [current] Somali sociopolitical context there are hardly any countervailing structures or institutions capable of preventing the repetition of a monopolistic appropriation of power," wrote Martin Doornbos. The civil war altered power relations in southern regions particularly Mogadishu and nearby regions known in the past for the diversity of clans. Many southern clans in the south with no armed clan militias are viewed as minorities but they could have played a bigger role in pacifying Mogadishu and neighbouring regions had clans with armed clan militias and traditional leaders supporting them took the southern Somalia regions’ diversity in terms of nomadic, agricultural, fishing communities. Since 1991 every transitional administration was undermined by Mogadishu-based militias. This does not mean Mogadishu people are against law and order but their need for reconciliation locally is unwisely overridden by top-down approach to reconciliation conferences held in a foreign country for Somalis. Past reconciliation initiatives have given give warlords, failed leaders and extremists an opportunity to advance their interests. Reconciliation is the best way forward to recover from a civil war but the history of Somali reconciliation conferences shows that no attention has ever been paid to Somalia’s recent political history. Liban Ahmad _____________________________________________________________________ We welcome the submission of all articles for possible publication on WardheerNews.com
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