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Fragile
States in Africa and the
Struggle for Survival
By Muuse Yuusuf. April 10, 2007
Almost ten years ago I travelled to
Eritrea. The purpose of my travel was officially holiday
but there were some other reasons for example the desire
to conduct research on how theories of nation-state
building were being put in practice by the birth of the
newest state in Africa. At the time of the trip I was
sad and heart broken because I was grieving for the
death of the Somali state in 1991, a state which was
created in the same year that I was born in, a state
that I grew up with and lived in its heydays and sad
days from liberal to military regimes and to anarchy. I
can’t say very much about the liberal state and its
civil governments (1960-69) as I was child.
However, I can still remember the day when, as a boy of
nine, I was taken to the polling station to vote in
municipal elections. I voted and I had my hand marked
like they were doing to adults as a confirmation of
their vote and obviously to deter them from returning to
vote again in the same day. Perhaps this innocent
childhood experience in an election time would explain a
lot about the corruption, fraud, and vote rigging that
existed in the electoral system. But looking back and if
now one compares the liberal state with the military and
current anarchy most Somalis would agree with me that
the infant liberal state was working very hard to live
up to the ideals of new concepts such as democracy and
liberalism that were alien to peoples’ culture. In fact
some sources mention that in the heydays of the Somali
state there were about 60 political parties! However,
the military regime which I lived in its glorious as an
adult was a brutal dictatorship that brought terror to
peoples’ lives. Therefore I was happy to see the back of
the military regime but I never thought that the
collapse of a central government (dowlad) would lead to
the total collapse of the state (qaran) and to the
current anarchy, and this was what was causing me the
pain, agony and sorrow.
Anyway, the first few weeks of my trip were lovely and
went smoothly. I was welcomed by an Eritrean friend, an
American citizen who lived in the states for a very long
time as a political refugee. Disillusioned with life in
exile, my friend had relocated to Eritrea where he was
running his business. Time was on his side and business
was booming for him. He was enjoying the tantalising
freedom and economic opportunities which were denied
under the Ethiopian rule. He was proud to be able to
raise his family in his country which he fled 20 years
ago when the country was under Ethiopian reign. His
feeling was “No place is like home.” I must say I was
jealous of him because my friend had a commodity that
was missing from me, that is a functioning state that
guaranteed the safety and security of its citizens at
least. There was law and order in his country, but none
in my country.
As a friend of mine had jokingly remarked after
returning to my adopted country in Europe, I don’t know
whether I brought a war bug from Somalia which I then
implanted in Eritrea on my arrival. But on the fourth
week of my trip a major war had broke out between
Ethiopia and Eritrea. Not a war again, war had destroyed
Somalia, I cried silently again heartbroken. I was not
expecting war and I could not comprehend this happening
to because I knew the two regimes in Addis and Asmara
were both allies who fought together during their
struggle against the Mengistu regime. Furthermore, at
the time Afwerki and Zenawi were seen as two progressive
leaders, the embodiment of new African renaissance who
had been emancipated from the use of force to achieve
political ends. It therefore never occurred to my mind
that they would restore force in settling their
political differences. In this case a dispute over a
barren area at the border.
Suddenly, Asmara was on fire and burning. Ethiopian
fighter jets were roaming all over the city, bombarding
the airport. Eritrean jets retailed, and bombarded the
Tigre region in Ethiopia. War was declared in May,
ironically the same date and month in which Eritreans
were celebrating their independence from Ethiopia. Panic
and confusion spread all over the city. The
international community – aid workers from the west felt
threatened by the bombardment. Urgent request for
evacuation were demanded by this privileged community.
American aircrafts evacuated westerners. Within three
days the international community was gone. At once, all
foreign and UN missions closed their doors. It was said
to see this community, which was supposed to help this
poor nation to build it self as new nation-state,
turning its back on their Eritrean friends when they
needed them most, abandoning much needed developmental
and humanitarian projects. Eritrea was left to cope on
its own. What a betrayal! I thought friends were for
life and would be there when you need them. But
obviously some friends are unreliable and are not for
life.
Immediately all international flights from and to
Eritrea were suspended because of Ethiopia’s threat to
shoot down all airplanes which dared to enter Eritrea’s
air space. The proud seven year old state of Eritrea was
reduced and declared by the Ethiopians to be no more
than a secessionist region occupied by rebels!
I was bewildered by the new development. I questioned
the concept of nation-state in Africa. Was this the
destiny of the newest African state, I wondered. What is
the concept of nation-state in Africa’s politics? Is it
a fixed structure or is it a malleable socially
constructed molecule which melts away as the Somali
state did in 1991? Is it a concept imposed by Europeans
on Africans and because of this it will never work? I
asked myself. The two leaders were personal friends and
close allies. Out of the blue they were sworn enemies.
What are they fighting for? Don’t they know the futility
of war as we Somalis have proven? Perhaps, war is an
evil experience that new states must go through as part
of their political survival, I reminded my self.
My Eritrean friends tried hard to come up with some
geopolitical and economic explanation for the war. But I
was not terribly impressed by this. I therefore
struggled to come up with my own explanation, and here
are the most plausible ones. Ethiopia is a massive
land-locked country, which has no access to the sea.
Eritrea is a small country with a long cost. Eritrean
seaports had been serving Ethiopia for centuries.
Therefore the feeling between the neighbours must be: “I
envy my neighbour because it has some tantalising
commodity or facility, which I cannot have it” and
because of this there will always be conflict between
them. But my preferred explanation was what I called
“the need for reforms cycle.” This is a political cycle
in which some developing nation-states seem to go
through – they either go to war with their neighbours,
end up in a coup d’etat or in a bloody civil war unless
bold domestic political reforms are introduced. I
noticed this scenario during the military regime in
Somalia. After 6 years in power, the military regime was
at the peak of its power. It had accumulated a large
military hardware which was supplied by the former USSR.
Meanwhile, domestically there was a need for political
reforms, i.e. to hold general election and allow
political opposition parties as the regime had promised.
And because of the lack of courageous political vision,
the regime indulged itself in a self-destructive war
with its neighbours, which was the beginning of its end.
After the Ogaden war, the regime reluctant to accept
defeat and to introduce much needed political reforms
waged a war against its political opponents. This led to
the current civil war and anarchy. These political
cycles do seem to happen in a lot of African countries –
basically it goes like this: a leader in power for 5
years, he can see there is need for political reforms
but ignores or refuses it for the sake of power and then
the country ends up in one of the above three scenarios.
The two regimes in Addis and Asmara might have been
going through similar cycle and the border conflict was
and is still a manifestation of a need for political
reforms but the two regimes that had been in power since
1990 were not willing to entertain such an adventure
that might have caused their fall from the grace.
During the conflict, both leaders were under pressure
from their supporters. Meles’s supporters wanted him to
bleed Eritrea to death, after all Eritrea was once an
Ethiopian region, so why not restore the status quo. On
the other hand, Eritreans, who gained their independence
after a long and bloody war, wanted to maintain the
newly found status quo: independent Eritrean state.
As it was my plan to visit Assab, a very remote city and
a modern seaport by the Red Sea, I boarded on a ferry
called the Aucan II from Massawa to Assab. On the board
I made new Eritrean friends. One of them was an academic
and a government officer. We indulged ourselves in
discussing politics in the Horn of Africa, particularly
the Ethio-Eritrea war. My friend was very angry with
Eritrea’s neighbours from both sides of the Red Seas. He
called them expansionist regimes, violating his
country’s territorial integrity. He said Yemen had
attempted to capture some Eritrean islands in the Red
Sea, Ethiopians had invaded his country. He added Egypt
(once a former colonial master) had been trying to have
some influence over Eritrea. He explained some Egyptian
fishing boats were caught fishing illegally in Eritrea
waters. I understood from him that even the very ferry
that we were travelling on was a converted fishing boat
owned by an Egyptian private company and was confiscated
by Eritrea when it was caught conducting illegal
fishing. I was shocked when I discovered the ferry was
the only means of public transport from and to Assab by
sea as Daallo, a Somali airline private company, was the
only means of transport from Eritrea to the outside
world after the declaration of war. Daallo pilots and
airplanes were the only one which dared to venture into
Eritrean airspace. At the time, the seven old Eritrean
state did not have a national airline carrier, it
depended heavily on other airlines companies, including
the Ethiopian airline which was suspended after the war
had erupted.
Private companies appeared to have played an important
role in servicing the State of Eritrea in one of its
most crucial political moment: the confiscated Egyptian
fishing boat and the Somali private company Daallo. I
then questioned whether the peoples of Africa do need
nation-states because the public sphere, in this case
the State of Eritrea, seemed powerless to provide air
and sea transport in one of the most difficult times of
her life. I asked myself why not privatise every thing
that is public so that economy, politics, security,
defence and even morality could be handled by private
companies, motivated by the pursuit of profit
maximisation? Would not this be the perfect way of
governing the peoples of Africa since the concept of
nation-state seems to have created more problems, (e.g.
border dispute) than solutions? Somalia is a classic
example of the private sector dominating and
monopolising the public sphere; in the past 16 years,
non-state actors: NGOs, private companies, UN agencies,
arm dealers, and wealthy individuals had taken over the
role of the state, providing much needed economic and
security and sometime dictating morality over their
constituencies. As I argued in another article that I
published on Wardheernews “Some Positive Stories amidst
Ruins” these non state actor seem to provide services
that are more efficient and effective than during the
state. However, then the fear of anarchy and the
horrible impact it has on Somalia had persuaded me that
after all there is a need for a state so that political
communities can be managed better.
Now almost 10 years have passed since my last trip to
Eritrea and again the picture seems to be similar.
Another poor and week country which has been plagued by
a civil war had been invaded by another militarily
powerful country. It had illegally occupied the country
under the pretext of removing an immediate threat to its
national security posed by Islamic extremists. Ethiopian
jets bombarded the Mogadishu airport exactly as they did
to the Asmara airport in 1998. Its firepower has been
causing mayhem to Mogadishu’s residents and many
thousands of civilians fled the city. There is even a
talk of massacre and war crimes committed against
civilians. Even after the invasion, it is still
questionable whether Ethiopia has achieved its goal if
any. It might have even created more extremism in that
part of Africa. Religious fundamentalism and extremism
have not gone away from the political spectrum, and
although Ethiopians have dismantled some of the ICU’s
structures Islamist movements remain a political force
in Somalia.
Since the invasion, the Somali tragedy seems to have
worsened – more political divisions and disagreements
have resurfaced. Those who support the Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) see the Ethiopian invasion as a
blessing in disguise, hoping some form of a Somali
government will come out of the tragedy. In their logic,
Somalia needs a government. In other words ends justify
the means. Some of the extreme clannish elements who the
support the TFG may even entertain the thought that
Mogadishu residents ought to be punished for what they
believe to be the crimes they committed in early 1990s
during the height of the civil war. Those who are
against the Ethiopian invasion perceive the current TFG
as an Ethiopian puppet which has conspired with the
enemy and therefore see them as traitors. As far as they
are concerned the TFG is a dead donkey, and the glimmer
of hope that the reconciliation in Kenya has brought has
died away with the carnage in Mogadishu, and the only
way forward is to eject the clannish and secular
dictatorship of TFG/Ethiopia from Somalia, see Abdi
Ismail Samatar’s "Mogadishu’s carnage and the death of
TFG and its Fraudulent Reconciliation” posted at
Markacadeey.com.
As I argued in another article “World Politics prolong
the Somali conflict” published on Hiiraan.com the war on
terror seems to have re-inflamed the divisive clan
politics and it might have even increased animosity
between clans. For example, although I don’t like the
idea of dividing up Somalis along clan lines, before the
invasion there was less talk of Hawiye or Darood family
clans holding meetings to rally support to their
respective clans but since the invasion some
chauvinistic clan politics are again being played openly
– some communities see themselves being massacred. In
their eyes, the new conflict in Mogadishu has made the
previous reconciliations a mockery because some
communities have now been made to feel victimised,
marginalised and besieged by the TFG-Ethiopians. This
has probably further weakened the TFG’s position, which
came about based on the 4.5 clan power-sharing formula
because the TFG is using Ethiopia’s fire power – an
archaic historical enemy to most Somalis – to bring law
and order and to assert its political legitimacy and as
a consequence of this many innocent civilian lives are
being lost as many are fleeing the death trap in
Mogadishu.
Although I am unionist and believe in the unity of
Somalis (the union in 1960) the issue of Somali unity
seems elusive than ever. The secessionist enclave in the
north did not waste time to take advantage of the new
realities on the ground. They orchestrated public
rallies in Hargeysa and around the world to garner
support for their elusive project. Border tension
between “Somaliland” and “Puntland” seem to have
increased and fighting in Dhahar in the Sanaag region
over a disputed strip of desert on 9th April makes the
prospect for reconciliation between Somalis remote and
hard to achieve. Arguably the Ethiopian invasion has
sanctioned the dismemberment of Republic of Somalia
because it has increased the animosity between
communities and has polarised political opinions.
History tells us that when the territories occupied by
ethnic Somalis were being divided by the colonial
powers, most Somalis were against that action. However,
recently it is the Somalis who now want to secede from
rest of Somalia and adding this to the Ethiopian
invasion which undermined the territorial integrity and
sovereignty, secessions and more disintegration seems to
be the probable outcome of the Somali tragedy. Some
diehard secessionist ideologue even painted a gloomier
picture of what has to come yet: mini states where
“Puntland” and other regions may well secede from the
rest of Somalia... Read this rather hate-monger
editorial posted at Awdalnews by Bashir Goth:
“....This latest episode, however, will give the Hawiye
what they deserve. Mogadishu will no longer be the
capital of Somalia because after this gruesome crime
there will be Somalia at all. It does not only justify
Somaliland’s cause for independence beyond doubt, but it
also dashes the last hope of resuscitating former
Italian Somalia as a unified country. Who can stop the
Darood clans in the state of Puntland and the Digil and
Mirifle in the fertile central regions to declare their
secession as well? There is no reason why anyone should
risk the dead bodies of their sons being desecrated in
the streets of Mogadishu....”
Even if the international community recognises
“Somaliland” as an independent state, the new state
might inherit a conflict over a disputed desert border
areas with its neighbours, thus more conflict and
destruction in the region just like the Eritreans and
Ethiopians did when they fought over a barren piece of
land.
The border conflict and the need for political reforms
in Ethiopia and Eritrea, which were the thrust of this
article, have yet to be resolved. The only thing that
has changed now is that the two regimes have found
another venue to wage their wars: the Somali tragedy
with Ethiopia acting s a proxy executing America’s
global war on terror.
Muuse Yuusuf
London
Email:myuusuf3@hotmail.com
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