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International Crisis Group Report On Somaliland Democratization And Its Discontents, Part II
[Continued from our previous issue]
C. INTERLUDE: DICTATORSHIP AND CIVIL WAR
Somali President Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke was assassinated by a disgruntled policeman on 15 October 1969, and less than a week later the military staged a coup d’état under the leadership of General Mohamed Siyaad Barre. Many Somalis were hopeful that the military takeover would represent an improvement over the decrepit civilian administration, which had become spoiled by corruption and nepotism.
The military also embraced a “Greater Somalia” policy of political and military irredentism, which had lapsed in the late 1960s, reviving some of the popular enthusiasm that had underpinned the original union between north and south.
The honeymoon was short lived. The regime’s disastrous defeat in the 1977-78 Ogaden War with Ethiopia, its dependence on select branches of the Darod clan for political support, and its increasingly brutal character all contributed to public disillusionment. An attempted coup by Majerteen officers from the northeast of the country triggered brutal government reprisals around the town of Gaalka’yo and led to the formation of the first Somali opposition group, the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF). But disaffection with the military regime was felt most keenly in the former British Somaliland: public expenditure in the northwest compared unfavorably with other regions (less than 7 per cent of development assistance was allocated to the north), and the government’s economic policies seemed to be aimed at curbing the influence of the wealthy Isaaq trading community.
In the aftermath of the Ogaden War, approximately a quarter of a million refugees had been settled in the northwest by the Somali government, with the assistance of UNHCR. Most were ethnic Somalis from the Ogaden branch of the Darod clan, although some were members of the Oromo and other Ethiopian ethnic groups. For several years, traditional competition between the Isaaq and the Ogaden for pasture and water in the southern Haud had been aggravated by the Somali government’s provision of arms, ammunition and training to the Ogaden fighters of the Western Somali Liberation Front. Although intended for use against the Ethiopian government, this military assistance was often directed instead against Isaaq civilians in the Haud. Government favoritism towards the Ogaden refugees, who enjoyed preferential access to social services (provided by UNHCR and its Somali government counterpart, the National Refugee Commission), business licenses and government posts, further fuelled Isaaq grievances.
In 1981, a group of mainly Isaaq exiles meeting in London declared the formation of the Somali National Movement (SNM), an armed movement dedicated to the overthrow of the Barre regime. The SNM initially tried to cast itself as an alliance of opposition figures from different clans, but its core membership and constituency was principally Isaaq. The SNM established its first bases in Ethiopia in 1982, and by 1983 it had established itself as an effective guerrilla force in the northwest. In response, government pressure on the Isaaq population, whom it deemed sympathetic to the SNM, took the form of “extreme and systematic repression”. Summary arrests, extrajudicial executions, rape, confiscation of private property and ‘disappearances’ all became commonplace as the government sought to deprive the SNM of the support of the Isaaq public. The government also enlisted the support of the non-Isaaq clans of the northwest, attempting – with only partial success – to exploit traditional kinship affiliations.
In 1988, following a meeting in Djibouti between Siyaad Barre and his Ethiopian counterpart, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the Ethiopian government instructed the SNM to cease operations in Somalia and withdraw its forces from the border areas. The SNM, fearing the collapse of its long insurgency, instead attacked the major northern towns of Hargeysa and Burco, triggering the onset of full-scale civil war in the northwest. The government response was fierce: artillery and aircraft bombed the major towns into rubble and forced the displacement of roughly half a million refugees across the border into Ethiopia. Isaaq dwellings were systematically destroyed, while their settlements and water points were extensively mined.
The formation in 1989 (with SNM support) of the southern Somali factions, the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) and the United Somali Congress (USC), provided the SNM with allies and helped to relieve some of the pressure on its fighters. In January 1991, as USC advances in and around Mogadishu forced Barre to abandon the capital, the SNM staged its final offensive in the northwest.
The remaining government forces disintegrated and fled, and the vestiges of civil administration collapsed.
D. THE REPUBLIC OF SOMALILAND
Within months of the SNM victory, Somaliland appeared in its third incarnation. On 18 May 1991, a self-proclaimed independent Republic of Somaliland was announced. Since then, it has followed a very different trajectory from southern Somalia. While the collapse of the Siyaad Barre regime plunged the south into civil war and the kind of institutional vacuum that has since come to epitomize the notion of “state failure”, Somaliland embarked on a period of increasing political stabilization and economic growth. Since 1991, roughly half a million people have returned to their homes, and tens of thousands of dwellings and businesses have been rebuilt from rubble. The majority of militia have been demobilized or incorporated into national armed forces and tens of thousands of mines and unexploded munitions have been removed from the ground.
Somaliland’s social services are in less admirable shape, being heavily dependent on external support. With the help of Western donors, the United Nations and international NGOs, the government has been able to restore rudimentary education and health care services throughout much of Somaliland. All such funding, however, is channeled through international aid agencies since donors are unable to provide assistance directly to a government they do not recognize. Arab and Islamic donors have also played a part in Somaliland’s reconstruction, though their funds are by-and-large directed towards the development of a parallel social service system, outside of the government. Most people, however, still depend on private service providers, such as medical clinics, pharmacies and private schools, which have mushroomed without standardization or regulation.
Overall, foreign aid has played a minor part in Somaliland’s reconstruction. The figures of the Somalia Aid Co-ordinating Body (the Nairobibased body that co-ordinates assistance to Somalia in the absence of a recognized government) are imprecise, but suggest that less than 20 per cent of that donor aid is directed towards Somaliland, or roughly U.S.$30 million in 2002. Moreover, this figure does not show the high proportion of donor funding that is spent on overhead, Nairobi offices or international personnel. Probably less than half the total volume of aid is actually spent on the ground.
The real engine of Somaliland’s recovery has been neither the government, nor international assistance, but rather the private sector. Livestock, much of it raised in southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia, is the backbone of the Somaliland economy, accounting for roughly 90 per cent of export earnings or U.S.$175 million per year. Since 1998, however, a Saudi ban on Somali livestock has severely depressed the livestock trade. The proceeds of the livestock trade are generally used to purchase foodstuffs and luxury items for import, an unknown proportion of which is destined for Ethiopia as both legitimate trade and contraband.
The Somaliland economy is also fuelled by the estimated U.S.$200 million that arrives each year from Somalilanders abroad via hawaala money transfer agents. These remittances are almost entirely destined for private households and have played a vital role in the physical reconstruction of family homes and businesses – a critical function given the scale of devastation visited upon major towns like Hargeysa and Burco during the civil war. Since no international banks are present in Somaliland, the hawaala have come to offer a growing range of financial services, including interest-free accounts, cheque-cashing facilities and business loans. The government’s own accomplishments (basic civil administration across roughly 80 per cent of the territory, reasonably disciplined army and police forces and a relatively stable currency), although impressive achievements on a budget of roughly U.S.$20 million per year are, in absolute terms, quite modest. Since 2001, Somaliland has introduced a new and potentially decisive dimension to its quest for statehood: democratization. In May 2001, a new constitution establishing a multi-party electoral system was approved by plebiscite. Local (municipal) elections followed in December 2002 and a fiercely contested presidential election was held in April 2003. With only parliamentary elections remaining until Somaliland’s transition to multiparty democracy is formally complete, international interest in this would-be state has grown perceptibly.
III. GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRATISATION
After more than a century of colonial administration, civilian misrule and military dictatorship, the people of Somaliland are yearning for freedom, justice and representative government. The problem is that Somaliland – like the rest of Somalia – has little experience of democratic rule. Political leaders have instead seemed intent on resuscitating centralized, patrimonial systems of political authority. The behavior of the political elite often smacks of arrogance and paternalism; the rule of law is weak, corruption is endemic and nepotism still pervades political and administrative appointments.
Civil society remains underdeveloped, and the Somaliland public remains by-and-large a passive “taker of government policy – not its maker”.
Such constraints have conspired to make Somaliland’s pursuit of democracy a long, uphill struggle – a struggle all the more remarkable for its domestic, as opposed to donor driven, origins. Donors have been reluctant to provide even token support for Somaliland’s democratic project on the grounds that it might be construed as support for the territory’s independence. Ironically, Somaliland’s international isolation – past and present - has made a positive contribution to its political evolution. Benign neglect under British rule, and the decidedly less benign neglect of the Barre regime, left the territory’s traditions of “pastoral democracy” intact, conferring a vital degree of legitimacy and accountability upon the SNM and subsequent Somaliland administrations. The SNM’s failure to obtain significant international sponsorship during the 1980s obliged the movement to develop a popular support base. Present day Somaliland’s administrative arrangements are consciously modeled on the small, cost-efficient exemplar of the British colonial administration, reflecting the government’s minute revenue stream and its extremely limited opportunities to incur debt.
It is unclear whether Somaliland’s unique political system has evolved towards democracy because of the territory’s poverty, historical neglect and international isolation, or in spite of them. Yet there is no denying that over the past decade, Somaliland has made significant progress towards a pluralistic political system, a free and critical press, rule of law, and an environment conducive to the respect and promotion of human rights.
Historically, Somaliland’s democratization process has unfolded in three phases: the first, which began with the cessation of hostilities, witnessed the establishment of an administration led by a clanbased military faction (the SNM); the second phase involved the transfer of power from the factional government to a more inclusive civil administration; and the third began with a constitutional referendum, which paved the way for multiparty elections.
To Be Continued.
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