Somalia thread for the week ending November 8

On Tuesday, the BBC reported that Somali port shuts amid dispute

A dispute between the Somali government and the business community has halted trade at the main port in the war-torn capital, Mogadishu.

Businessmen are said to be angered by new rules that require all incoming items to go through security checks.

They say goods could be destroyed by Islamist insurgents if they have to wait in the port to be checked.

The port, which reopened in 2006 after 15 years of dereliction, is now guarded by African Union peacekeepers.

A long line of ships is currently waiting to dock outside the port.

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..Treasury Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman told the BBC's Somali service the goods would be put into warehouses for safekeeping.

"The businessmen have to pay the proper taxes and afterwards the goods will be be released," he said.

"All these steps are government procedures and the government had consulted with the business community."

Analysts say during 18 years without a central authority, businesses have not had to pay tax.

On Wednesday, Garowe Online reported that Port workers demostrate in Mogadishu

Hundreds of port workers in the Somalia’s restive capital have staged demonstrations against closure of the port activities over dispute between Somali government and the business community, workers and officials said.

The port’s closure came after businessmen refused to adhere to new government-imposed rules that require all incoming items to go through security checks..

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The furious workers said they were dependent on the work in the port and would impact on their lives.

“We are opposing the decision to close the port. It must be reopened because we are dependent,” these are some of the phrases used by the workers to express their resentment.

However, Somalia’s Treasury Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman maintained that trader should pay the proper taxes to allow their goods to be proceed, underscoring that these steps are government procedures which business community should comply.

On Thursday, Garowe Online reports that

Somali’s Hizbul Islam rebel leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has on Thursday held talks with businessmen in the capital Mogadishu to push for the support of the war against the Somali government and the foreign peacekeeping forces.

Aweys said his group is fighting to liberate the Somali people and impose Islamic Sharia law and engaging the business community is part of the push for the war agenda.

“We told the businessmen to join the war because we are fighting to liberate our people and rule them with the Sharia law,” he told reporters after the meeting.

He also said that they urged the business community to rebuild the totally destroyed roads in the capital which has suffered years of neglect due to the on-going conflict in the war-torn nation.

“We requested businessmen to contribute in rebuilding the destroyed roads in Mogadishu, which are very important to the movement of people and vehicles,” he said.

You may recall that it was Sh. Aweys who was largely credited with harnessing the business community's support that enabled the Islamic Courts Union to gain victory over the warlords controlling much of Somalia just a few year ago.

Interestingly, some of those very same warlords are now partnered with the TFG, which clings to life courtesy only of its external backers (and creators).

Obviously the business community is not being won over with these latest strongarm tactics to extract taxes from them any more than it was enamored with the chaotic climate during the rule of the warlords.

With no public benefits to show for nearly three years of the transitional government's control of the seaport and airport -- their only legitimate local source of cash inflow -- it is not difficult to see that it's considered a bad investment.

And, in fact, it's mostly from groups aligned w/ the TFG that businessmen need protection against.

Case in point:
Shabelle Media: Clash kills two, wounds three in Mogadishu

at least two people have been killed and three others have been wounded in Mogadishu after clash between police soldiers and gunmen dressing soldiers’ uniform started at Zobe intersection in the capital, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Thursday.

Locals said that the two people who died in the fighting between the police forces and the gunmen were the manager of Nasa-hablood hotel in Mogadishu and another man who was a driver and was with the manager.

Reports say that the fighting started as the gunmen robbed a lorry which carried food...

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It was few days ago when the military court of the TFG sentenced to death to at least 6 government soldiers who committed banditry actions in the districts controlled by the TFG in Mogadishu and it is not the first time that gunmen dressing the uniform of the government soldiers rob some thing in the areas of the government.

At any rate, Mareeg Online reported on Thursday that the

Mogadishu port resumes operations

Mogadishu port has resumed its daily operations after a dispute between traders and the administration of the port has been solved, officials said on Thursday.

Abdirahman Ibbi, the deputy prime minister of the Somali government and Abdirahman Gabeyre, the chairman of Mogadishu business community told reporters that the dispute which caused the halt of the port operations was sorted out.

A dispute between the Somali government and the business community has stopped trade at the main port in the Somali capital Mogadishu for about a week and hundreds of the port workers demonstrated in Mogadishu on Tuesday.

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Businessman Gabeyre added that the administration of the port and the traders agreed their differences and the port will operate normally.

The port workers welcomed the decision which reopens the port and described as good step forward.

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Some extracts from the Bruton's article, In the Quicksands of Somalia: Where Doing Less Helps More, in the latest Foreign Affairs.

The U.S. government needs to change its Somalia policy—and fast.

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The brutal occupation of Somalia by its historical rival Ethiopia from late 2006 to early 2009, which Washington openly supported, only fueled the insurgency and infuriated Somalis across the globe. One of Washington`s concerns today is that al Qaeda may be trying to develop a base somewhere in Somalia from which to launch attacks outside the country. Another is that more and more alienated members of the Somali diaspora might embrace terrorism, too. Somali nationals were arrested in Minnesota in early 2009 after returning from fighting alongside al Shabab, and in August 2009, two Somalis were arrested in Melbourne for planning a major suicide attack on an Australian army installation. The first American ever to carry out a suicide bombing did so in Somalia in October 2008. These isolated incidents have generated more hype than they deserve, but they have nonetheless put the Obama administration in a tough position. If only to avoid seeming weak in combating terrorism, it must prevent these threats from escalating, but it is entering the fray at a time when almost any international action in Somalia is likely to reinforce the Somalis` anti-Western posture.

Alarmingly, the State Department seems not to realize this or the failures of past policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is clinging to the bankrupt strategy of supporting the Transitional Federal Government, Somalia`s notional government but really a dysfunctional institution that has failed to garner much support from the population.

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If anything, the TFG`s presence in Somalia hurts U.S. goals.

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This error stems from Washington`s mistaken belief that state building is the best response to terrorism.

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Somalis may have grown weary of war, but they remain highly suspicious of centralized government. And they disagree about questions as fundamental as whether a Somali state should be unitary, federal, or confederal; whether the judicial system should be wholly Islamic or a hybrid of sharia and secular law; and whether the northern territory of Somaliland should be granted its long-sought independence. Efforts to create a central government under such conditions are a recipe for prolonging conflict. Another major problem with Washington`s Somalia policy is that it has not kept pace with important shifts in U.S. thinking about how to confront terrorism. In Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, General David Petraeus, former U.S. commander in Iraq; General David McKiernan, former U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert, among others, have successfully steered U.S. counterterrorism strategies away from militarized tactics focused on killing the enemy. They have promoted more integrated, population-centric approaches that engage traditional local political authorities, civil society, and a wide range of religious actors— strategies that stand a better chance of reducing the tensions between the United States` counterterrorism, humanitarian, and stabilization goals. John Brennan, the president`s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, has said that efforts are under way to develop a new Somalia policy along these lines, but they seem to have been hampered by the lack of an intelligence infrastructure and reliable partners on the ground.

Both to protect its interests in Somalia and to help the country, Washington must abandon its hope of building a viable state there and explore new counterterrorism strategies.

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The emergence of yet another indigenous jihadist movement in a faraway corner of the world does not merit a militarized response from the United States or its allies, especially when the absence of reliable intelligence on the ground means that even discrete attacks on terrorist suspects could do more harm than good.

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It is time for the United States to adopt a policy of constructive disengagement toward Somalia. Giving up on a bad strategy is not admitting defeat. It is simply the wise, if counterintuitive, response to the realization that sometimes, as in Somalia, doing less is better.

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After the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and then 9/11, what had once seemed like a humanitarian imperative to intervene in Somalia receded. The growing concern that the country`s lawless territories could become a safe haven for al Qaeda quickly drove the Bush administration`s Somalia policy, producing a series of failed political interventions designed to create a central government in Somalia.

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Had it not been for the United States` counterterrorism efforts, the sharia courts and al Shabab might have remained marginal.

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Under the Bush administration, Somalia became a front in the war on terrorism. A messy decades-long conflict was recast as an ideological battle between secular democracy and Islam, between “moderates” and “extremists”—blunt categories that blurred important differences in ideologies and tactics. This oversimplification has both severely undermined the capacity of U.S. and other international representatives to relate to the Somali public and allowed al Shabab to unify an otherwise diverse array of actors into a motivated armed opposition.

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The ad hoc addition of Sheik Sharif `s Islamist faction to the TFG`s clan-based structure, and the parliament`s promise to implement some still unspecified form of sharia law, has turned the TFG into a muddle of Islamist and democratic ideologies. The government`s only real value is to provide a legitimating façade for the international community`s opposition to al Shabab.

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..bolstering the AMISOM contingent is a fool`s errand. At the height of its occupation of Mogadishu in 2008, the 15,000 forces led by the Ethiopian army made no headway against the al Shabab–led insurgency. A decisive military response against today`s more powerful and better-organized radical camp would require far more troops than AMISOM or the TFG could ever muster.

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As al Shabab has gained ground, it has attracted opportunists and consequently has fractured along both ideological and clan lines. ... Al Shabab may be a brutal local political movement ... but it is not a transnational terrorist organization that might one day pose a serious threat to U.S. national security.

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There has been little reporting in the West of the fact that a wide majority of al Shabab factions have actively cooperated with international humanitarian relief efforts—if only for a fee— and that many of them have publicly condemned terrorist activities and banditry.

The presence of al Qaeda operatives in al Shabab`s ranks is indeed alarming, but it is as much a tactical arrangement as an ideological alignment. And the utility for al Shabab of having foreign jihadists fighting by its side will decrease as doing so begins to impede the group`s hopes of governing Somalia: many Somalis condemn the presence of foreign fighters in the country on the grounds that they are bound to promote non-Somali values or act like brutal colonizers. Unless the outsiders learn to adopt nonviolent Sufi Islamic practices, their involvement will not last. Sheik Muktar Robow, the former spokesperson of al Shabab and once a backer of al Qaeda, has publicly argued this point.

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..the weakness of all the parties is also something of a blessing: it means that al Shabab is less powerful than is often feared. The implications of this are clear. With no side capable of keeping the peace if it wins the war, the U.S. government, as well as the rest of the international community, should not focus its efforts on backing any one group. It should also forget about grand political projects to create a central government authority, which are likely to be futile.

Backing off this way entails risks, including the possibility that al Shabab will cement, if only temporarily, its hold on southern Somalia. But this is the only way to ensure that the growing tensions within al Shabab and the latent tensions between al Shabab and al Qaeda will play out. Exploiting these tensions is the most reliable and cost-effective means of fighting terrorism in Somalia.

It will be impossible to isolate the truly dangerous elements from the nationalist, the pragmatic, and the merely thuggish factions of al Shabab until the United States stops supporting one group over another and disconnects local conflicts in Somalia from broader counterterrorism efforts. Washington`s first step, after abandoning what has been its policy for years now, should be to learn to coexist with al Shabab: since the movement is a coalition of fortune, it is susceptible to realignment under the right conditions, and the quickest method of creating those conditions is to open the door to coexistence with the West. Removing al Shabab from the U.S. government`s list of terrorist organizations may be too controversial politically in the United States, but it might be possible to delist specific individuals. For example, Sheik Aweys, whose ambitions of becoming a mainstream national leader have been undermined by his status as a terrorist, has reportedly expressed a keen desire to be taken oª the list. Granting his wish could induce him to condemn the imposition of a foreign Salafi agenda on Somalia and to delink the Hizbul Islam movement from al Shabab. The same may be true of the many other opportunistic actors who have aligned with the al Shabab leadership in order to resist Western influence in Somalia or simply to survive. It is in the United States` interest to learn to distinguish these actors from its real enemies. But that would mean not taking all pro–al Shabab rhetoric at face value and tolerating uncertainty while the local struggle for influence plays out, town by town. Being patient now would not foreclose the possibility of a military intervention later, but it would reduce the likelihood that such an effort would be needed.

Isolating the truly dangerous factions of al Shabab would also require addressing legitimate local grievances. A plurality of important Somali actors—al Shabab, Hizbul Islam, Mogadishu`s local clerics council, and the Hawiye leadership—want the foreign troops to leave and foreign governments to interfere less in Somalia`s political affairs. This may be too much for the United States and its allies to concede: they want to keep AMISOM Mogadishu to monitor the situation there, prevent the TFG`s collapse, and support international humanitarian relief efforts. But a compromise may be possible. Washington could urge the au and the un to either disband the TFG or—perhaps a more palatable option—relocate it outside Somalia. The au could then negotiate for AMISOM to remain on the condition that it only deliver humanitarian relief. If AMISOM`s mandate is so redefined, its presence should no longer be as controversial. And as long as the force stays in Mogadishu—and retains its control over the airport and the port—the TFG`s removal would not seem like an admission of defeat: the international community could still defend itself against the charge that al Shabab overtook the capital. Such a decisive shift from Washington`s current interventionist strategy could help undo the harm caused by past U.S. policy and set the stage for more constructive engagement down the line.

Given the shortage of viable national leaders, bottom-up governance strategies might appear to be a solution to Somalia`s messy, perpetually shifting decentralized politics. For instance, the experience of the ICU, which brought unparalleled stability to an unruly Mogadishu almost overnight in 2006, is instructive. Its ideology may have been distasteful, but its tenure did amount to a kind of inclusive and homegrown rule-of-law project: administered by religious leaders, supervised by the clans, underwritten by Mogadishu`s business community, and ardently embraced by the public. The ICU`s rise was the result of an exceptional confluence of trends that would be difficult to replicate: the growing influence of local sharia courts as a source of law and order, the business community`s willingness to invest in promoting public security, a clan-based backlash against international efforts to back the TFG and then the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, and the population`s readiness for peace. And its tenure was short; proving too inclusive for its own good, the ICU was quickly co-opted by al Shabab. Nonetheless, the ICU`s stint in power is proof that effective governance can emerge rapidly in Somalia when the conditions are right.

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Somali actors are generally responsive to economic incentives. Most combatants are freelancers who have been forced to join militias out of economic need; in fact, they are often stigmatized as bandits for making such a move. In order to give them options other than employment with militias, the United States should promote targeted local development initiatives, such as a decentralized microcredit scheme that would engage both the Somali diaspora worldwide and existing local authorities. So long as these projects steer clear of governance reform, they might encourage the public to pressure local Islamists into distancing themselves from radical anti-Western actors.

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Washington should engage its international partners to create a microcredit and community development fund that would raise contributions from the Somali diaspora and match them one to one. For example, a member of the diaspora could be convinced to contribute $5 of every $200 he would normally send to his family back home to a community-development fund instead, and that amount would then be matched, dollar for dollar, by the international community.

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Communities in Somalia could set up local development councils to solicit contributions and oversee their distribution.

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These local development councils might eventually be linked and federalized to promote trade across Somalia and thus promote the development of infrastructure and a regulatory framework. This, in turn, could make a viable basis for the creation of formal national governance mechanisms in Somalia.

But first things first. For now, the United States should commit itself to a strategy that promotes development without regard to governance. At the same time, it will have to continue its counterterrorism efforts, although preferably in the form of monitoring and de-radicalization strategies pursued in cooperation with the local population rather than air strikes. And it must learn to understand the value of relationships that local rivals build in pursuit of common economic goals.

Related: Audio of Bruton's November 5th CFR Academic Conference Call: The Challenge of Somalia (54:48)
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SMC: A ship laden with military equipments anchored at Mogadishu seaport

The activities of Mogadishu International Seaport have frozen after a ship carrying military consignment has docked at seaport in the injury hours (sic) of Friday night.

“When we arrived at the habour as usual to carryout our daily routine work we were denied access to enter in the seaport, and later we were informed that there is disembarking of African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troop military consignment, we were told that we should remain behind the barbed wire until the unloading of the consignment is through” said Yussuf Ahmed a manual worker in the seaport speaking to Somaliweyn radio.

It is usual to halt the activities of the seaport whenever there is military consignment which is disembarked from a ship which is carrying military equipment for the African Union troops in Somalia.

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Shabelle Media: Somali MP denounce former PM

Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, a Somali MP has Sunday denounced the former prime minister of the transitional government Nor Hassan Hussein (Nor Adde) for signing secret agreements with EU ... to allow the foreign warships enter in the coast line of Somalia to fight against the pirates.

Not enough in that article to know if the MP is referring to the alleged letter that was used by the United States to push through UN Resolution 1851 on 16 December last year. So far, it has been attributed to President Yusuf, though, as I've stated before, I have serious doubts about that. Inner City Press has posted on that too,

The UN Security Council resolution under which pirates are being hunted, Resolution 1851, is based on the purportedly still valid consent of Somalia, on a December 9, 2008 letter to the Council from then-President Abdullahi Yusuf, who was out of power soon after signing the letter. People and even parliamentarians in Somalia have told Inner City Press they have not found it easy to get and see a copy of this letter, which is referred to in Paragraph 10 of Resolution 1851.

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On September 9, Inner City Press asked U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas Countryman about the letter. He said he was not aware of it. Also on September 9, Inner City Press asked UN Security Council Affairs staff how to get a copy of the letter. You'd have to ask the Somali mission, was the answer.

And so on September 10, while Ambassador Ishii spoke, Inner City Press asked an omnipresent Somali deputy ambassador for a copy of the letter. No, he said. You have to ask the Council. This is called the run around.

You may recall that Nur Adde was reportedly picked by the US to replace Gedi. Perhaps the letter came from the PM, rather than the President, who, by all accounts, was being quite uncooperative w/ the Washington-led community in late 2008.

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SMC: Government due to wage war in the southern regions

Undisclosed reliable report confirm that there is an agreement signed between Somali legislator Barre Hirale and Sheikh Ahmed Madobe, which the government of Addis Ababa has played a crucial role in bringing together the two Somali officials who were greatly having different political ambitions.

In the compromise the two sides have wholeheartedly agreed some points which the first one is to fight against the Islamists factions who are in control of all most all the regions in the southern Somalia, in particular those ones in the two Jubbah regions.

There is also dialogue which is likely to take between the Somali government in the regions of Bay and Bakool, and Sheikh Ahmed Madobe.

Sheikh Ahmed is lobbing to form a joint force between the Somali government troops in who are scattered in some of the southern regions in order to take a sweeping fight against the Islamists factions in the southern regions.

Ibrahim Shukri an officer who is among the Somali national Security Council Committee has verified that the militants who were defeated in a battle in Kismayo town have regrouped themselves in Afmadow district, and there are some others who recruited in Dobley town.

Shukri said that these two battalions are linked to the Somali government.

On the other hand Darood tribe has established a committee consisting of 27 members, who are having series of meetings in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in order to retake all the regions in southern Somali which are occupied by the Islamists.

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An article Sunday at Mareeg Online claims that

Islamist governor surrenders to Moderate Islamists

Abdirahman Ma’ow, the governor of Hiraan region in central Somalia who was a member of Hizbul Islam militants have surrendered to Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a Moderate religious group on Sunday, officials said.

Abdirahman Ma’ow with some battle wagons and fighters left Beledweyne, the regional capital of Hiraan region, and reached Guriel town in Galgadud region early on Sunday.

Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abdirahman Abu Yusuf, a spokesman for Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a, said, Sheikh Ma’ow surrendered to their administration in central Somalia.

Abu Yusuf declined to say more about how the former Hiraan governor joined to their administration. There is no word from Sheikh Ma’ow about his arrival in Guriel town.

There has been dispute between Hizbul Islam officials in Beledweyne and Sheikh Ma’ow recently.

Haven't come across any other articles yet to support that story.

At the same time, Shabelle Media report has some photos of Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a forces showing off brand spankin' new army green camo uniforms during military manuevers on Sunday in the Abudwaq district of the Galgudud region. Wondering who provided those?