On the Somalia Dilemma: Adding Layers of Complexity to an Already Complex Emergency

If there were any doubt that the current humanitarian crisis in southern Somalia is more the result of fierce political struggles than the reoccurrence of drought, the events of the past eight months would clearly confirm this. The justification and wisdom of Kenya’s recent invasion of Somalia (October 2011) to protect its northeastern border with Somalia and its important coastal tourist industry can be widely debated. What is less arguable is that the military incursion is not an isolated issue, but rather is connected to a process in southern Somalia that began in the 1990s and took a turn for the worse in 2006. It was in early 2006 that the U.S. government put its support behind a weak and very unpopular alliance of warlords, called the Alliance Against Terrorism and the Restoration of Peace (AATRP), to capture or eliminate individuals in Somalia responsible for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and to stem the influence of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). At the time the radical Islamic element of the UIC was relatively minor, and in fact one of its keys leaders, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is the current president of the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia.

Not surprisingly, the AATRP was badly routed within a few months by an increasingly popular UIC, and its radical elements and their political control were strengthened greatly, both numerically and geographically, by this victory. As one Somali colleague noted to me during a conversation in Nairobi around that time, “it is as if the U.S. scored a goal for the opposing team” (interview, June 16, 2006). In short, the outside support provided to a group of very unpopular “thugs” and their armed followers under the rubric of an alliance to fight terrorism only insured the victory of the UIC’s radical elements and their increased popularity and power in southern Somalia. The youthful al-Shabaab Islamic group, with its ties to global jihadist groups and the al Qaeda network, grew in power due to its successes in defeating the “foreign-backed” AATRP. As Roland Marchal indicates, “Al-Shabaab’s new strength was demonstrated by the number of seats it held in institutions created by the victorious ICU in June and July 2006” (2009:390). With the invasion of Ethiopian forces later that year and their occupation of Mogadishu until January 2009, the radicalization of Islamic politics and the strength of al-Shabaab, which by then had captured the strategic port of Kismayo, grew to the point that it occupied and administered most of southern Somalia right up to the border of Kenya.

The invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia, a neighboring state with a long history of strained relations with Somalia and Somalis, served to further fuel local resentment against outsiders and support for a well-armed group like al-Shabaab, which had the capacity and external connections to stand up to outside (foreign) forces. Ethiopia’s departure from Somalia, and the handing over of security responsibility for Mogadishu and the fledgling TFG to a small contingent of African Union (A.U.) forces made up of Ugandans and Burundians, only multiplied local perceptions that foreign occupiers were the main allies of the TFG.¹ A religious layer added to the complexity of the situation, since the occupying forces, now including Kenya, could be portrayed by al-Shabaab as Christian crusaders and “infidels” who wanted to defame Islam and its followers.

Fast forward now to the failure of the short rainy season (deyr) of October–November 2010 and the disappointing long rains (gu) of March–May 2011, coupled with increased conflict between the al-Shabaab and TFG and A.U. forces, and the conditions for a humanitarian crisis were manifest. However, the current humanitarian crisis really began with the prolonged fighting (2007–8) in Mogadishu during the Ethiopian occupation and the displacement of more than six hundred thousand Somalis from the area. Settled farmers and agropastoralists in the Jubba and Shebelle Valleys and Bay region of southern Somalia also...