The civil wars in Somalia have had devastating consequences. With no internationally recognised polity, formal legal system, telephone and postal system, public service, educational and reliable health system, or police and public security service, the Somali state is in total collapse. Yet, what are the prospects for Somalia and how can its state(s) be restored?
This paper, published in the book ‘Civil Wars in Africa’, gives an historical insight into the internal conflict configurations in Somalia and provides an understanding of the current condition of the state. Since the military dictatorship of president Siyad came to an end in 1991, power struggles and inter-clan clashes affected many parts of Somalia. If Siyad’s regime of state terror was the basis for civil wars, personal political ambition and differences between clan leaders were responsible for a delayed restoration of order. Despite the political chaos and economic instability, there are positive developments, such as the growth of civil society, which may help the emergence of state structures in Somalia.
Although the conditions for maturity and readiness for conflict resolution have not yet emerged in Somalia, attempts have been made to strengthen the country since 1991. Foreign intervention and consociational and democratic mechanisms have been experimented with in achieving this goal.
Other findings of the paper are:
- Military, technical and financial foreign assistance, such as from the United Nations system and the World Bank, helped to prolong Siyad’s dictatorship: International actors worsened state-society relations
- Food was used as an instrument of war, as thousands died because of inability to contain epidemics. Since 1992, about one million people have died of famine or disease, or have been killed in the war
- At present, clan divisions and crude military balances rule out resolution through a single armed strongman
- Following a US and United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) intervention in 1993, the numbers of starving people and of deaths have dramatically decreased. Progress has been made towards restoring local and regional administration
- Operation Restore Hope and UNOSOM have failed to end civil wars, promote reconciliation or facilitate restoration of the Somali state
- While Somaliland is engaged in a consociational or power-sharing process, southern Somalia is still struggling to achieve reconciliation among competing clans to ensure peaceful political co-operation.
Somalis can at least partly determine the future of their state beyond the civil wars through careful political choices. Violent clan conflicts may be discouraged by consociational practices. In addition:
- To create a government in south Somalia, political factition leaders need to create a coalition of strongmen drawn from different clans
- The non-profit sector needs to evolve social democratic policies and co-ordinate its actions in order for there to be social development
- To complement and attenuate the diverse politics of clans, a political space should be created for the addressing of issues relevant to class, gender, profession and, to some extent, religion
- The Somali civil wars need to be resolved internally, but subregional actors could act as facilitators
- To avoid costly and difficult-to-manage preferential policies, the new authorities may adopt a proportional power-sharing model in multi-clan regions
- International voluntary development organisations (VDOs) need to assist Somali VDOs in order to enhance the non-profit private sector.
