International cooperation is paramount in curtailing or at least mitigating conflicts and other issues affecting man. The motivations for cooperation are varied and at best controversial. Why should a state cooperate with another state that is also trying to survive and grow?
This article explores the controversial side of international cooperation, one dogged with national interest, realism doctrines of international relations, irredentism as well as greed for resources. I explain the failures of international cooperation in the socio-political context of Somalia from its creation. The horrendous human rights violations by the peacekeeping and U.S marines in 1991 are explored.
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In the late 18th century, as European nations hurriedly divided Africa among themselves as imperial colonies, Great Britain, France and Italy all laid claims to various parts of the area now known as Somalia. For 40 years, the British controlled northern Somalia because of its access to the Red Sea, and the Italians ruled southern Somalia while the French had little impact on the region.[1]
"We should teach the foreigners and colonialists that Somalia cannot be led by other people and that the traitors who fled the country will never lead Somalia.” General Said Bare
The violent history of Somalia has its precedents in its colonial past. The Ethiopians too, had imperialist expeditions in Somalia. The often complex artificiality of nation states in Africa as a major underlying cause of this unending intifada[2].
The contemporary history of Siad Barres regime and its downfall having many strings attached to the United States in terms of political economy that culminated in the 1993 UN Humanitarian disaster of unseen proportion .The latter phenomenon of insurgencies in the high seas labelled piracy by western policy analysts. The untold truth of Western hegemonies dumping of Nuclear waste off the coast of Somalia making for the fishermen in the area to up in arms over ever decreasing scarce resources. The prolonged drought in the country. A UNISOM I and UNSOM II failed humanitarian missions and worse even the Peacekeeping atrocities as well. The fragmentation of clanism, power and allegiances to a number of warlords meant that after 1991 Somalia slowly went down the slippery slope of failed states or went into a state of interregnum.
The modern day Somalia is taunted by more than 20 years of protracted conflict, being listed as a harbour of terrorists by the U.S Government in the fight against terror and a pariah state that has modern day piracy. All these being one sided notions of Somali in terms of international affairs.
This article would like to descriptively explore the issue of the international community’s lip service and disservice to the Somali people who are also in the macro political system. It is with this disservice that i interestingly coin international non-cooperation among states in the resolution of conflict in internal matters of states. The U.S as well as UN interventions have all been a miserable failure in this part of the world and this is the issue that i would highlight in this paper as well as the military interventions and armaments proliferation. Limitations of time, space and quantity of material will all be adhered to.
Brief History
The historical antecedents of the region of Somali predate history with anthropologists discovering ancient historical sites and caves with a prehistoric civilisation and culture, way of life rooted on trade and agriculture as well as sophisticated architecture and beauracracies.
In the 19th century as part of the Scramble for Africa in 1884.Somalia is disputed mainly by Italy and Britain which thereafter decide to annex their areas of dominance. The British Somalia eventually became the current Somaliland region which is currently semi autonomous from the Southern Somali which has been plagued by war ever since. The annexing of territories by the colonisers and creation of Djibouti, Ogaden region in Ethiopia(which was historically part of Somalia) as well as North Eastern region of Kenya. This claim for unification of Greater Somalia with the annexed region is also important in analysing the Somali conflict.
Somalia has a long coast that stretches over 2,735 km.[3]The Somali coastline one of the longest in Africa is a strategic sea trade route through the Suez Canal as well as the Strait of Hamuz. It was therefore a strategic area of control by the colonisers who were to ship large quantities of agricultural produce.
All this while after the UN formation and the Universal Declaration of Human rights in 1948. In its preamble it talks of “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”[4] It seems that this UNDHR was merely refereeing to the free world. The same powers that were at play constructing lovely sounding clichés on freedom were the same ones responsible for slave trade, pillaging, killings, maiming and rapping’s in the colonial era. If these noble rights of man were to be upheld and sincere the opposite wouldn’t be happening in African colonies.
The Somali Republic gained independence on July 1, 1960. Somalia was formed by the union of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, while French Somaliland became Djibouti. A socialist state was established following a coup led by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre. Rebel forces ousted the Barre regime in 1991, but turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy ensued. The Somali National Movement (SNM) gained control of the north, while in the capital of Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia the United Somali Congress achieved control. Somalia has been without a stable central government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre fled the country in 1991.[5]
General Siad Barre Initiated a nationalist policy in the industrial sector as well as a policy of scientific socialism. He enhanced drastically the education system and built numerous fisheries, meat production plants and major industries. At the time of his rule there was fragmentation and hostilities between the clan systems. He therefore tried to promote the idea of nationalism as opposed to clanism. At the near end of his leadership numerous rebel groups were formed some with aid of Ethiopia and others Eritrea. The war with Ethiopia in the 70s at the height of the Cold war; as Somalia was a socialist state as promoted by the Marxist leaning said bare. The Soviets armed Somalia in their excursion to free the Greater Somalia in the Ogaden region of Somalia. The Soviets changed allegiances and later armed Ethiopia which withstood the initial conquest by the Somali Army. The Somali government thereafter expelled their Soviet advisors and started to play ball with the U.S.
UN PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS
The United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I) was set up to facilitate humanitarian aid to people trapped by civil war and famine. The mission developed into a broad attempt to help stop the conflict and reconstitute the basic institutions of a viable State. Somalia occupies a strategically important geopolitical position at the Horn of Africa. The political culture is influenced by competition among a number of clans and clan-based factions.
From November 1991, there was heavy fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu between armed elements allied to General Mohamed Farah Aidid, or to Mr. Ali Mohamed Mahdi, the appointed "interim President", and yet other factions. The fighting that followed, with clans and sub-clans constituted in loose alliances without central control, took place at a time of serious drought. That combination proved disastrous for the population at large. By 1992, almost 4.5 million people, more than half the total number in the country, were threatened with starvation, severe malnutrition and related diseases. The magnitude of suffering was immense. Overall, an estimated 300,000 people, including many children, died. Some 2 million people, violently displaced from their home areas, fled either to neighboring countries or elsewhere within Somalia. All institutions of governance and at least 60 per cent of the country's basic infrastructure disintegrated.[6]Against this background, in January 1992, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 733(1992) under Chapter VII of the Charter, imposing a general and complete arms embargo on Somalia.[7]
UNISOM I was thus created first as military observers while political solutions were being looked for. It was then strengthened by subsequent resolutions to send military units of all ranks. The implementation of the Peacekeeping and humanitarian forces proved quite difficult.
Cultural issues were hard at play too; peacekeepers and U.S marines discipline was low and rape cases and child molest and torture hit the airwaves, as well as the U.S soldiers had motives of surveillance and the capture of Siad Barre.
CONCLUSION
There were numerous UN Security Council resolution son Somalis after its civil war. The international community had an input but there was not much political will. The IMFs structural adjustment programmes opened the nationalized projects into monopolies of liberal trade which had a negative impact on the economy. The U.S had its agenda in taking over the command of the UN mandated military unit UNISOM to UNIFIL. The arms trade by the western powers selling arms to the government as well as the rebel movements made the situation very callous.
The political will vis-a-viz the national interest of foreign governments to forge cooperation to end the protracted war is blurred. Neighboring African states like Kenya and Ethiopia which have provinces that are regarded as the Greater Somalia are at play with Game theory in the security dilemma brought about by fictional creation of nation states by western powers. The sale of heavy weaponry to the Somali state as well as non-state actors like militia groups complicate the equation. Proxy wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea as well as Cold war machinations all breed for a lasting conflict.
The International community may not fully apprehend the magnitude and scale of the Somali problem much less other protracted conflicts in Africa like Darfur or the Congo. These conflict zones make for a larger budget for the United Nations as well as the propping up of new UN agencies all dealing with Somali issues which ultimately lead to job creation and wealth creation. Notwithstanding some of the clan leaders, warlords are also fuelling the war so as to get external financial and military assistance.
The failure of the international cooperation is evident in the one off the most talked of issue in International affairs that of Somali piracy. A handful of scholars or editors understand the real phenomenon behind it as they describe the pirates as rag tag militias who kill and capture ships for money .The contrary is true .European and western governments have long used the coast of Somalia in the Indian oceans a dumping ground for their depleted uranium and plutonium and nuclear waste material. Additionally, they conduct high level fishing in the higher seas which deprives Somalis of their own natural resources and food. Clearly, the western powers are cooperating internationally to enrich themselves off other poor person’s natural wealth. There is no cooperation per say to mitigate the problem with any lasting solutions.
This is just one case in Africa which is replicated all over the continent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
UN Department of Public Information.www.undpi.org
Country information on Somalia retrieved from http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/Where-we-help/Africa/Somalia/Pages/Country-information.aspx
[2] I use intifada in this context to refer to uprising.
[3] Country information on Somalia retrieved from http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/Where-we-help/Africa/Somalia/Pages/Country-information.aspx
[6] UN Department of Public Information
[7] UN Department of Public Information
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