4.5 clan system ( to which Federal Member States and Federal Government belong)
Al-Shabab and other religious groups
International Community and Somalia’s foreign partners ( who bankroll AMISOM and other security firms).
Peace-making and stabilization of Somalia critically depend on these forces.
The difficulty lies in bringing these forces to talk for peace. Victory of one over others is inconceivable, if not impossible. To defeat Al-Shabab requires the other two forces to sincerely agree to work together as a team. So far there is a discount in that regard. Failing to secure such cooperation makes makes it difficult, if not impossible, to remove the obstacles along the way to re-build a viable nation-state in Somalia. Let us acknowledge and accept the realities on the ground. That would need national/international comprehensive plan of action to seriously meet the challenges of the time. The alternative is wishy-washy that goes nowhere and waste resources and energy for everybody. Forthcoming elections alone, though necessary, wouldn’t resolve the existing governance and security situation.
I am in Garowe, the Capital City of Puntland State of Somalia, staying in one of the decent hotes in town. In the hotel, I am annoyed by mosquito bites at night. I therfore opted for using mosquito net. This morning I woke up at 7 am. I had to come out of the hotel to renew my circulation permit for my 4-wheel drive vehicle. Soon I found myself in the hotel campound. The ground looked wet or strangely sweating. Visibility was almost zero. I asked someone whether it was raining overnight. He said, “not at all”.
I quickly got out of the hotel campound gate to get into the vehicle. The windshield was covered with fog and dew. I used wipers to clear my view. Most people walking around were school students going to classes. They seemed to be shivering with cold, but unproperly dressed for the foggy wheather, instinctively thinking that it would get very hot before mid-day – a correct guess as it turned out.
I drove straight to the Ministry of Transport to find out the gate at campound was closed. The watchman told me that there was no electric power at Ministry, but he could let me in to find out that myself. I agreed and drove into the campound to find out many dust-covered and obviously long time ago abandoned motor-vehicles filling up one-third of the Ministry’s campound space. A few old men, supposedly retired from Somalia’s civil service idly loiterred around. Three young men were sitting on plastic chairs in the middle of the campound , busy with their smartphones. The doors to the offices were open, but there was no movement of people. By this time it was 8 am, but the Ministry seemed lifeless. I approached to the young men and I asked them, “How could I renew road stamp? “There is no electric power to do that”, one of them said. “Are you expecting the power to be back”, I asked. “No” said one man. “What is my option?”, I asked. “You should go to a check-point outside the city to try to get your sticker”, advised one man.
I drove to an entry check-point at Westend of the city on the highway to Galkayo. Ministry Office of on-land Taxation is located in badly cramped and poor squater-like huts. There is one office with inscription: Xafiiska Canshuurraha Berriga. I went inside to find two guys sitting on chairs at opposite side of a wooden table, playing cards at 8:15 am and a teenager behind a dust-covered computer monitor.
“Do you issue sticker-stamps for vehicles?”, I asked. “Yes, we do”, said the older guy playing cards. “Show your papers to that boy”, he directed. I handed my older receipts to the boy. ‘Ow! You owe money! He exclaimed. “Yes, I know. That is why I came here in the first place”, happy that here they have at least electric power and access to a computer terminal. While the teenager was processing my papers I looked around in the room. There were mattresses, dirty and coloured bedsheets pushed towards back-wall of the room and behind the plastic chairs at two computer-terminals. There was a counter before the computers.
Finally, I happily paid off my dues and was off driving back to the City.
There is a lot to do in Puntland, and most importantly, to carry out deep administrative reforms and civil service capacity-building.
Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, shown in London in 2017. (Jack Hill/Reuters)By Max BearakFeb. 26, 2021 at 4:36 p.m. EST
NAIROBI — In a meeting late Thursday, Somalia’s prime minister persuaded opposition leaders to postpone mass anti-government protests and apologized for violence last week that targeted candidates in an election that was meant to take place this month but has been delayed indefinitely.Support our journalism. Subscribe today.
Somalia is in a protracted constitutional crisis, with opposition leaders claiming that President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed — commonly known by his nickname “Farmajo” — has overstayed his mandate. Tensions spiked on Friday last week, leading to exchanges of gunfire on the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, and heightening fears that the election dispute could spiral into civil conflict.
Thursday’s meeting did not yield a new date for the election, and Farmajo, who has become an increasingly controversial figure, was not directly involved in the agreement.
While Somalia’s Western backers heralded the deal negotiated by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble as a step in the right direction, security officials said the potential for conflict remains high. Security forces are under increasing pressure to take sides amid deepening political divisions.
“As long as there’s no political agreement, we’re in a phase where we have no idea what will happen regarding how the different armed forces will react if there is sudden violence,” said Jihan Abdullahi Hassan, a former senior adviser to Somalia’s defense minister.
Somalia has an array of military units, some of which are professionalized, federally controlled and trained by foreign advisers, while others are more closely aligned with regional governments that have been at odds with the administration in Mogadishu over how elections should be held.
Efforts to bring all armed forces under federal control have succeeded in streamlining payrolls, instituting codes of conduct and restructuring military leadership, but they have not erased underlying divisions, Hassan said.
“It’s a predicament,” she said. “The forces are not nationally integrated yet — they are close, but they are not there yet. We cannot allow them to slide back into political or clan rivalries.”
In Mogadishu, the mood Thursday was tense. The city was choked with traffic as roads were closed ahead of the protests planned for Friday and residents stocked up on essentials, fearing the demonstrations would be met with bullets. Under Thursday night’s deal, the opposition agreed to delay the protests for 10 days.
Somalis protest the government and the delay of the country’s election in Mogadishu on Feb. 19. (AP)
Earlier this week, the president of one of Somalia’s regions, Puntland, recounted in a widely viewed speech how Farmajo had boasted to him about having enough armed forces behind him to stay in power as long as he wanted.
While a constitution introduced in 2012 sets out guidelines for the creation of a constitutional court that would adjudicate disputes between Somalia’s member states, as well as potential presidential impeachment proceedings, neither Farmajo nor his predecessor took the necessary steps to create the court.
Some within the security establishment have started to speak out about what they perceive as Farmajo’s inclination to use various branches of the security forces to quell any opposition to him.
“No opposition has said, you have to shoot the president. But on the president’s side, we have been asked to act strongly against the opposition,” said an aide to Somalia’s police commissioner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
A former top army commander, Mohamed Ali Barise, was more blunt in his assessment.
“Farmajo sees the armed forces and intelligence services, and even police, as a personal instrument to achieve his own ends,” he said. “Since he came to power, he has been trying to install like-minded officers, even his extended family and clan members, in higher-ranking positions. Our hopes are with wise officers who will refuse — but no doubt they will be chased away, fired, isolated, may even risk their life to do that.”
An official in the special forces unit that is widely considered Somalia’s most effective, known as Danab, which is trained by U.S. Special Operations forces, said its top commander had been asked by Farmajo to relocate some of its troops to Mogadishu ahead of last week’s protests, but the request was turned down. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to frankly discuss a politically sensitive issue.
Other special forces units, known as Gorgor and Haramaad, both trained by the Turkish military, were deployed last week in Mogadishu, he said.
Last month, the U.S. military completed the withdrawal of about 700 personnel who were based in Somalia largely as part of a training mission but who occasionally participated in ground raids on targets suspected to belong to al-Shabab. The al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group controls much of rural southern Somalia and has contributed to the country’s persistent instability.
The political crisis will distract the country’s security apparatus from its efforts against al-Shabab, analysts said, potentially creating an environment in which the group could operate more freely and regain territory it lost to the government over the past decade.
If a political agreement remains elusive, “the unity of effort in the war on terror will be lost, and we will continue to witness the strengthening of al-Shabab,” said Mohamed Mubarak, executive director at the Hiraal Institute, a Somali think tank.
Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN) 