Beleaguered Somalia, an arid war-torn state on the Indian Ocean, has finally held a long-delayed election, and President Biden promises to restore U. S. troops. But an Islamist insurgency still rages within the Texas-sized territory, causing constant losses of life. Potentially even more devastating and destabilizing, Somalia and its neighbors are experiencing one of their worst droughts in at least fifty years.
In 1991, Somali protesters compelled President Siad Barre, an autocratic general who had gained control of the young nation and former UN Trust Territory in 1969, to resign. But anarchy and chaos followed, with an Islamist movement called the Organization of Islamic Courts ruling the country in the first years of this century and its successor, the al-Shabaab (“the youth”) fundamentalist movement, gaining control over much of the territory from 2006 to 2011, when a combination of Kenyan-led African Union soldiers, Ethiopian battalions, and American airpower permitted a secular government of Somalis finally to take the reins in Mogadishu.
Unfortunately, successive secular Somali governments in Mogadishu have never been able to overcome the al-Shabaab menace. Instead, these governments have managed to provide education and justice, and infrastructural improvements, in but a part of Somalia. Al-Shabaab exercises authority on a daily basis in possibly 50 percent of Somalia, taxing inhabitants in its area, extorting protection monies even from businesses operating in the officially administered areas, and illicitly exporting charcoal to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Al-Shabaab also trafficks in narcotics from Pakistan en route to the rest of Africa and Europe.
This week’s election anointed a new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is in fact a former president, having served in that position from 2012 to 2017. Voters chose Hassan Mohamud over outgoing President Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed, known as Farmajo. The latter, American educated and a former civil servant in Buffalo, had tried to avoid holding this year’s poll, and had earlier illegally extended his term of office by two years when the coronavirus pandemic and instability made holding the scheduled election of 2020 either difficult or politically inconvenient.
But, although an election was indeed held on Sunday in a converted aircraft hangar at the country’s heavily protected international airport near Mogadishu, it was not a popular poll of the country’s 16 million people. In fact, Somalia has not held a meaningful electoral contest since Siad Barre’s day. Hassan Mohamud was chosen not by the Somali people, but by an especially convened assembly of 328 lawmakers. They, in turn, had been selected by the elders of Somalia’s dominant clans -- four major ones and tens of subclans. Muhamud, an educator, obtained 214 votes, Mohamed 110, many if not all of them on both sides purchased for cash.
President Muhamud’s daily preoccupation must be with al-Shabaab. Now allied to al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab is a guerilla movement that once sought to impose strict sharia law on all inhabitants of Somalia. Nowadays it is more concerned with profiting through taxation, ransoms, and the transfer of narcotics. Governance is something it does conscientiously, however, in central Somalia, where al-Shabaab runs many towns. Its provision of justice is widely regarded as more efficient and less-corrupted than Somalia’s official court system. “It’s sad,” said a businessman, “but no one goes to the government to get justice. Even government judges will secretly advise you to go to al-Shabab.” (New York Times, Monday)
After sixteen years in partial power in Somalia, al-Shabaab is a formidable movement that kills civilians on raids into Mogadishu and uses roadside bombs and suicide attackers to create havoc in hotels and even within Parliament in the capital city. Last month, al-Shabaab even managed to penetrate a camp of UN-sponsored peacekeepers, killing ten Burundian soldiers.
Containing, or at least attempting to contain, al-Shabaab is a force of 19,000 military personnel from of the African Union’s newly named African Transition Mission in Somalia. Another 20,000 soldiers belong to the army of the Federation of Somalia (as President Muhamud’s regime is officially known). But all of this firepower, with occasional drone attacks from an American base in Djibouti and Turkish assistance to the Somali army, has so far managed at best to slow the assaults of the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab. Truly reducing the al-Shabaab threat, and the ability of an experienced force of no more than 7,000 combatants to operate may demand the kinds of expertise, training, and firepower than the anti-Shabaab armies so far have been unable to muster.
That is why President Biden’s decision yesterday to send about 450 Special Operations Force officers and soldiers back into Somalia to train and help to motive the Federal army is so necessary and welcome. He also permitted the targeting of a dozen top al-Shabaab leaders, presumably by drone flights. Nearly 700 Special Force members had been forced by Trump to exit Somalia in 2020, much reducing American assistance to Somalia and benefiting al-Shabaab,
If constant combat were not enough, Somalia is drying up rapidly. Eighty percent of a normal year’s water supplies are vanishing. That leaves 5 million Somali vulnerable to total losses of life-saving supplies of water. More than 700,000 Somali have already been displaced from their homes in search of water, pasture for their goats and sheep, and food for themselves. A locust infestation makes prospects for life even more grim.
It has not rained substantially in Somalia for four years, and this year’s rain failure is reminiscent of very punishing droughts in previous decades. Even the Shebelle and Juba Rivers are flowing sluggishly. Now, as before, Somalia is ill-prepared on its own to provide relief (water and food) for the millions of Somali who are at risk succumbing. Nor can the al-Shabaab supply much assistance that much of Somalia will soon need.
Ending the civil war that engulfs and hinders the development of a modern Somalia is not near at hand. Nor does such an indirect selection of a new president help much. Only restricting the flow of trafficking funding to al-Shabaab will curtail its havoc-producing methods. Or, if there were a strong, non-corrupt, government in Mogadishu ably assisted by foreign powers, it could disrupt al-Shabaab in central Somalia and greatly reduce the internal coherence of al-Qaeda’s partner. But none of those positive advances are likely given the limited legitimacy of the official government. Enlightened and honest leadership in Mogadishu would enhance the new government credibility, and not before time. Without such legitimacy and good governance practice from Mogadishu, Somalia and its people can expect to suffer anew.
My knowledge of Africa is very, very limited. But the situation in Somalia sounds complex. Yes, I believe quite passionately in democracy; but is having the president selected by tribal leaders really so undemocratic in a society like theirs? Isn't that their Electoral College? And paying for votes is grimy, but is our more sophisticated system really all that different? And if al-Shabaab is dispensing generally fair and corruption-free justice to over half the country, should we be fighting them or supporting them? Again, it is quite grimy for them to be maintaining their extremism by drug trafficking and protection racketeering -- but has our powerful nation and military left them with many other viable options?