Somaliland
In January 1991, after a concentrated two-month assault on Mogadishu
by insurgents, Somalia's President Mohammed Siad Barre and the remnants
of his regime were forced to seek refuge in their traditional clan
area in the southwestern corner of the country. With the end of Siad
Barre's twenty-year-old dictatorship, it was widely hoped that peace
and rule through consensus would come to Somalia after years of intensifying
civil war. As the world well knows, this was not to be.
During the relatively peaceful interregnum before armed conflict
again erupted in southern Somalia, a portion of the country decided
to go its own way. In May 1991 the Somali National Movement (SNM),
an armed rebel group composed largely of the Isaaq clan-family that
had taken over administration of northwestern Somalia after the defeat
of Siad Barre, unilaterally declared the independence of a break-away
Somaliland. Since then, copious press attention has focused on famine
and violence in the remainder of once-unified Somalia, the portion
facing the Indian Ocean to the south and east.
Meanwhile, conditions in the now-largely pacific Somaliland, which
faces north toward the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Peninsula, have
attracted little notice. The name 'Somaliland' itself comes
from that period dating from the end of the nineteenth century until
Somalian independence in 1960, when this region of the Horn of Africa
inhabited by Somalis was first a British protectorate and then a colony.
Somalia to the east had been colonized by Italy, French Somaliland
(now Djibouti) was on the west, and the vast inland Ogaden region
to the south, also inhabited by ethnic Somalis, had been conquered
by the Ethiopian Empire at roughly the same time that the Europeans
were carving up the rest of the Horn. The Italian and British colonies
were united into one independent country, with its capital of Mogadishu
in the south, but many Somalis long cherished the hope of someday
uniting the five fragments of their traditional homeland (including
northeastern Kenya) into a "Greater Somalia."
Siad Barre, a southern Somali, had come to power on October
21, 1969 at the head of a military junta that overthrew a largely
ineffectual civilian regime. In an atmosphere of hope and renewal,
the new regime rallied Somalians to participate in volunteer reconstruction
and re-vegetation projects. Mass organizations were launched to mobilize
young people, women, and other social sectors in support of the new
nationalism and government. Later, literacy campaigns taught a new
Latin script to a people for whom Somali had been strictly an oral
medium, and the regime began to institute the long-neglected education
of girls.
A family law promulgated in the mid seventies recognized women as
fully competent legal persons. The unfortunate flip side of these
developmental measures was the suppression of civil society. Association
and expression deemed to exacerbate clan divisions were banned,
and this included the suspension of free political activity. Striking,
viewed by the state as a form of economic sabotage, was legally punishable
by death. The judiciary was an arm of executive policy, and as such
readily meted out long prison sentences even to non-violent anti-government
demonstrators. The media was totally state-run, and criticism of the
regime not tolerated. Agents of the National Security Service habitually
tortured political detainees, who were often held indefinitely without
charge or trial. The paramilitary 'Victory Pioneers,' created to protect
the gains of the Revolution, were repeatedly implicated in the rape
of women from clans such as the Isaaq that resisted the regime. And
in a harsh move reminiscent of the methods, if not the goals, of Sudan's
current NIF regime, ten Somalian clerics were executed for insisting
on publicly criticizing the Siad Barre government's policies favoring
female emancipation.
The full cost to Somalians of the squelching of civil society
was only appreciated as time passed. A single ruling party had been
created in 1976 and a constitution went into effect three years later
to give a civilian and de jure veneer to what was a military-dominated
regime, but they only served to formalize the president's already
absolute power. By the beginning of the eighties, the regime had lost
any credit that it might have amassed as a government committed to
broad national interests when Siad Barre began openly showing favoritism
to a narrow grouping of clans to which he was linked by blood or marriage.
Chief among the favorites was his own Marehan clan. Once the regime
began openly discriminating against the majority of the country's
clans and "privatizing" the state for the benefit of its own members,
it had removed any possibility of independent forces holding it accountable
without resort to violence.
The first clan-family to become openly rebellious was the Isaaq.
The Somali National Movement (SNM), founded in London in 1981 and
largely an Isaaq organization, did not mount a full-scale offensive
from its base of operations in nearby Ethiopia until 1988. Surprisingly,
within only a few months it was able to seize control of the major
towns in the Isaaq heartland before being forced out into the countryside
in a counteroffensive by Somalian troops. The action by the army was
not only directed against SNM combatants, but also against civilians.
Employing all-too-familiar tactics practiced against noncombatant
populations throughout the Horn, the army and security forces destroyed
water wells, burned off critical grazing areas, detained and tortured
men, and gang-raped women. Military police rounded up people at random
and publicly executed them both in reprisal for guerrilla attacks
and to intimidate would-be rebel recruits and sympathizers. A campaign
of destruction sent bombers and artillery batteries against civilian
targets, devastating Hargeisa and other major cities in the region.
As many as half a million northern Somalis fled, becoming refugees
in neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti. Many of them have not yet returned
to a country now independent but still largely unrecovered.
After the SNM finally took charge of Somaliland in 1991, there
was initial uncertainty as to whether the territory should
ultimately dissolve its union with Somalia; opinion within the
movement, as well as the population, was split. But sentiment for
independence immediately increased in the North after the quick accession
of Ali Mahdi, a member of the Hawiye clan-family of central Somalia,
as interim successor to the overthrown Siad Barre. The SNM felt it
had not been consulted in the choice of president, foresaw the creation
of another regime in which northerners would be marginalized, and
felt mounting popular pressure to cut ties after years of genocidal
policies emanating from far-off Mogadishu. With independence, Abdurahman
Ahmed Ali "Tur," chairman of the SNM, was named the first president
of Somaliland by an all-national Guurti, or council of elders. By
separating from the South, however, Somaliland had not ensured that
it would avoid being drawn into the type of inter-clan conflict that
was soon to rage in what remained of Somalia.
In fact, armed conflict sporadically erupted for the first year
and a half after the SNM came to power. Almost immediately after victory
over the Siad Barre regime was achieved at the beginning of 1991,
there was fighting in and around the town of Borama, in the middle
of traditionally Gadabursi territory to the west of Hargeisa. Elements
of the Isaaq-dominated SNM, said to resent what was alleged to have
been collaboration by the leadership of the Gadabursi with the Siad
Barre regime, reportedly struck out in retribution at the smaller
clan after the fall of that regime. The following month, an all-clan
conference was held in the port of Berbera in an attempt to avoid
such conflicts in the future.
But a year later fighting moved to Berbera itself and to Burao. Isaaq
militiamen from different subclans sporadically battled each other
during much of 1992 as their factions jockeyed for local control.
When not directly involved in the maneuvering for advantage itself,
the national government had been unable to impose order. The executive
seemed incapable of persuading Somali clans to delegate it authority,
and Hargeisa has been in no condition to impose either order or its
own will by force. That it has come to recognize that fact is clear
by its recent advocacy of a polity it terms "modified clan rule."
The North's hard experience with Siad Barre's regime and army ensures
that the likelihood of any more centralization than that is slight.
A conference finally convened in October to promote peace
between the rivals, selecting a group of elders to resolve future
disputes before they erupted into violence. This proved to be a turning
point both in the search for national peace and in the organization
of the country at the center.
Women, alarmed that the clan conflict might fling the region back
into the level of armed conflict experienced before liberation from
the Mogadishu regime, reportedly picketed the seat of government in
Hargeisa, holding signs that read, "We Don't Want to Flee Again" and
"We Don't Want a Civil War." At the start of 1993, representatives
from both the Isaaq and minority clans, and members of the government
met in Borama at a gathering of the national Guurti. At the conference,
the man whom as prime minister had been deposed by Siad Barre's coup
in 1969, Mohammed Ibrahim Egal, was chosen as the new president to
replace the incumbent Abdurahman Ahmed Ali "Tur." "Tur" had been criticized
for his inability to: attract international recognition and development
aid; increase the non-Isaaq presence in the transitional government
and SNM; and make progress on the demobilization of the various armed
militias at large in Somaliland. Though clearly unhappy with his defeat,
the now ex-president gracefully turned over his office.
In proceedings that went on for some three months, the Guurti also
confirmed that it would formally transform itself into an upper legislative
body in 1996 when the transitional regime was due to expire. It also
drafted a transitional national charter, and appointed an interim
parliament and supreme court. In seizing the initiative by taking
such bold and sweeping decisions, the Guurti has shown itself to be
a match for the chief-of-state and the ruling party's central committee,
a balance of power rare in the Horn of Africa.
In fact, that the SNM leadership would acquiesce to Guurti direction
is in accord with the party's long-time reputation of being "one of
the most democratic movements in the Horn of Africa." Its party congresses,
rather than being programmed celebrations of solidarity, have frequently
been contentious, as various men vied for the position of chairman.
This acceptance of pluralism and dissent has influenced the still-developing
polity: the parliamentary vote in October 1993 to approve a 'clannishly-diverse'
government and its program of action for the projected two-year transitional
period was far from unanimous. Despite the relatively democratic,
tolerant, and representative nature of the transitional government,
the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity continue
to refuse to recognize it as a sovereign state---a seal of approval
that would facilitate access to desperately needed development assistance.
To bolster its case for recognition, Somaliland is now considering
the utility of a national referendum to convince the international
community that the vast majority of northern Somalis support independence.
Despite the transitional government's unusual and expanding penchant
for inclusive politics, Somaliland's minority clans remain largely
unconvinced that they will have a significant voice in governing the
new country. Sensing that they needed political organizations to champion
their own interests, members of the Gadabursi, Dolbahante, and Issa
clans proceeded after Somaliland's unilateral declaration of independence
to form them. The Somali Democratic Association, which largely represents
the interests of the Gadabursi, has put itself on record as opposing
the split-up of Somalia, and the United Somali Party representing
the Dolbahante and Warsangali leans in the same direction. The attitude
of non-Isaaq clan leaders unaffiliated with any party continues to
be ambiguous. Though the transitional government announced in July
1993 that political parties other than the SNM would not be allowed
to operate until regulations governing their operation had been instituted,
it is unlikely that it will hazard the breakout of interclan violence
of the kind witnessed in Somalia by challenging the existence of these
organizations.
Although a supreme court has been named, a comprehensive national
judicial and legal system is not yet in place. Instead, local clan
elders usually meet throughout the country to decide disputes and
mete out punishments with resort to a traditional mix of Somali customary
law and Islamic Shari'a. Often they must deal with the breakdown in
security resulting from clan militiamen and shiftas (bandits) patrolling
the highways in search of booty. With the hope that the rule of law
can be made uniform and predictable in Somaliland, a group called
Lawyers for Civil Rights in Hargeisa aims to supplement the use of
customary law and Shari'a by presenting to the government proposed
legal codes that are also based on useful precedents from Somalian
and British law.
Even though the aim of the transitional government in Hargeisa is
the modernization of Somaliland, it does not envision the total remaking
of civil society. This acceptance of most forms of traditional social
organization is a mixed blessing, however. On the one hand, clan autonomy
seems to be largely recognized, as is the authority of local elders,
making the imposition of the regime's will by force unlikely. On the
other hand, the state's respect for tradition may well mean a lesser
commitment to confront gender inequality than was the case even in
the early years of the Siad Barre regime. The traditional practice
of infibulation and female circumcision on young girls continues everywhere.
Reports continue to filter out of the country of attacks by armed
men on women, demanding either protection money or their property.
Displaced women without the protection of near male kinsmen are especially
subject to rape and abuse. Somali women's groups continue to respond
to such lawlessness by denouncing those incidents of violence in public
protests, and by demanding their inclusion in power-sharing arrangements
at
every level to assure government action against perpetrators.The condition
and status of women is further shadowed by the recent expansion of
Islamic fundamentalism in Somaliland. The presence and influence of
radical Islamists is felt everywhere. The government in Hargeisa has
considered adopting Shari'a as the law of the land; feeding centers
for the displaced are eagerly funded by wealthy Saudi fundamentalists;
Koranic academies run by Somali fundamentalists are sprouting throughout
the country to educate a significant percentage of the school-aged
population; and clandestine centers training 'Islamic warriors' are
reputedly scattered in various locations.
In storming against society's immorality and adoption of so-called
Western habits, a significant portion of the condemnation of zealous
imams and roadside preachers is directed against women. In a notorious
incident of January 1993, a gang of young men and boys were incited
by a local demagogue in Hargeisa to stone five women to death for
prostitution. Others, who have appointed themselves to police community
morals, rail against the increased commercial involvement of women,
previously the province of men. That there are few avenues open to
women---particularly war widows---who must sustain themselves and
their families, is dismissed as of little account.
While clan affiliations divide, religion in Muslim Somaliland
unites. On this basis, Islamists have made their pitch to the population
that fundamentalism provides the only hope for preventing in the North
the chaos that reigns in the South. In response to this, as well as
to the lack of development everywhere in the country, non-Islamist
Somalis of various clans have come together to represent the multitude
of interests within the country that cut across clan affiliations.
Muslims in a society where Islam has been traditionally moderate,
they are alarmed by the slow but steady growth of fundamentalism,
and so seek other vehicles for fostering national unity.
Such individuals have independently begun a number of relief
and rehabilitation associations that provide income opportunities
to the displaced and destitute, teach children, deliver health care,
and promote community development. Various voluntary youth organizations
run programs that divert energy from the direction of banditry, and
aforementioned new civil rights group also evidences the resurgence
of civil society. If the spread of fundamentalism is to be stemmed,
groups composed of Muslims who reject the appeal of the Islamists
while working for social change should be supported. In this way outsiders
can reinforce a vital manifestation of the gradual but positive trend
within Somaliland toward power-sharing, decision-making through consensus,
respect for autonomy, and acceptance of differences.
Unlike in the other four countries examined in this article, there
are powerful checks on the power of the executive in Somaliland.
The power of the clans, demonstrated in their reluctance to turn control
of the national airport in Hargeisa and seaport in Berbera over to
the national government, indicates that these are independent and
diffused loci of potential resistance to the state. But clans and
their leaders are not civil society; in Somaliland they are merely
autonomous reproductions of the state on a smaller scale. And since
each clan guards its sovereignty and separateness jealously, cross-clan
interest coalitions have seldom formed for reasons other than to confront
the menace of powerful alliances of other clans.
national Guurti, however, is also a powerful check on the power of
the executive, and here we can see the hand of civil society creating
representative institutions. An interclan organization encompassing
the variety of clans in the country, it collectively stands for interests
that transcend the narrow preferences of any one. Those who serve,
are both traditional agents and leaders of their people, though their
selection is almost invariably on a basis that westerners would not
identify as strictly democratic. A still fuller resurgence of civil
society, of course, is seen in the creation of directly representative
civic organizations over the past two years.
Whatever its future relationship with Somalia may be, if Somaliland
keeps to its present path of cautious consensus-building and respect
for local and regional autonomy, preparing for free and fair elections
at the end of the transitional period in 1996, and extending the rule
of law to prevent the type of criminal behavior that most notably
victimizes women, then the future for civil society and human rights
there may be the most hopeful in the Horn of Africa.
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