What is the most promising way forward for security and stabilisation processes in Somalia? This article points to the convergence of Somali-led experiences of security management and emerging international best practice as a fruitful approach. Peace processes must include negotiations on credible security mechanisms if they are to be effective. The development of credible security mechanisms requires careful sequencing of security transitions through negotiation, mediation and consensus building.
Negotiating jointly managed security structures that will de-escalate violence, restore public security and build confidence between belligerents is integral to indigenous Somali peace processes. Over the past two decades, however, international actors have ignored local approaches, applying instead external blueprints for rule of law programmes to strengthen the capacity of the state and establish a monopoly over violence. A starting point for security sector policy in Somalia should be to understand the ways in which Somalis themselves mediate conflict, negotiate ceasefires and manage security.
Security arrangements are critical elements of the overall political strategy and are fundamental to the effectiveness of a peace process. Experience from successful peace processes emphasises the importance of a negotiated, phased and sequential approach to building security.
- Phase One – Effective ceasefire: Cessation of hostilities is a prerequisite for establishing the political and public space for credible and representative negotiations.
- Phase Two – Transitional confidence-building measures: This crucial, often omitted stage, involves parties gradually compromising on their own security perspectives as they move towards joint responsibility for the management of the ceasefire and interim security forces.
- Phase Three – Negotiation of a final ‘status of forces’ agreement: This is the security component of a comprehensive peace settlement.
Somali-led peace processes are consensus-based, incremental, pragmatic, and incorporate the key elements of good security governance. Ending or de-escalating violence, establishing public security, and instituting a judicial system are usually clear goals. They focus on threat reduction, and they avoid final status ‘winner takes all’ agreements. Internationally-led approaches, however, have ignored the need for consensus, the transitional tasks of government, and the decentralised federated polity established by the Transitional Charter, and have been ineffective.
- In 2008, a ceasefire was negotiated by Bakaaro Market business and community leaders and the insurgents in Mogadishu. Recognising that the externally-funded Transitional Federal Government (TFG) police and the police commander himself lacked legitimacy, they created a new community-based police force, under joint control and including members of the TFG police.
- Effective local technical mechanisms used include cessation of hostilities (colaad joojin); disengagement of forces (kala rarid / kala fogeyn) and ceasefires (xabbad joojin); the creation of buffer zones and greenlines between warring parties (baadisooc); the exchange of prisoners; and the cantonment of militia.
- The internationally-influenced National Security and Stabilisation Plan established top-down national security structures. This set up a ‘winner takes all’ situation in which the opposition equated disarmament to surrender. When the opposition failed to disarm, the ‘winner’ (i.e. the internationally recognised president and government) could only respond through the use of force.
In 2008, international security sector experts recommended to the International Contract Group on Somalia: 1) integrating security arrangements into negotiations on developing a political consensus; 2) emphasising national rather than government ownership of the security sector and a decentralised approach; 3) situating stabilisation and the security sector within a transitional context and adopting a phased approach; and 4) building legitimacy based on the rule of law. The Joint Security Committee (JSC) then called for the creation of a range of transitional joint security structures and processes in which all armed groups and Somali communities could join structures to develop peace and reconciliation in Somalia. However, insurgency during 2009 was used by policymakers as a justification for the use of force to build and defend the state. Consequently, while valid, many JSC recommendations remain unimplemented.
