Abstract
Chapter 5 analyses the reality of the Republic of Somalia, a country which is currently facing the worst humanitarian crisis in history. The first descriptive part of the article shows how the current human catastrophe devastating the Somali people is the result of the incomprehensible de-composition of one of the most homogenous peoples in Africa, not only ethnically speaking, but also from a linguistic, religious and cultural point of view. This de-composition, which has led to Somalia being known as the “State without State”, is undoubtedly rooted in the errors and horrors suffered, in the first place, during the successive processes of colonization and de-colonisation, but also during the short history of the State’s independence, which instead brought about the road towards the civil war which finally broke out more than 20 years ago. Taking the reality of Somalia as a limit situation, the second prospective part of the chapter reflects upon the demand for a change of paradigm concerning fundamental questions of International Law, such as the need to transform national security into human security, the step from humanitarian intervention to the responsibility to protect, and the urgent need to examine the bases in greater detail in order to reconstruct failed States.
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- 1.
See “The Failed States Index 2010” Foreign Policy, available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/2010_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings.
- 2.
FERNÁNDEZ, E., ¿Estados fallidos o Estados en crisis? (Granada: Comares, 2009).
- 3.
ROYO ASPA, J.M., “Las sucesivas crisis de Somalia”, Fride, Review, September 2007, p. 1.
- 4.
ROTBERG, R. I., “The Failure and Collapse of Nation Sates: Breakdown, Prevention, and Repair”, in When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, ed. Robert I. Rotberg (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004).
- 5.
GUGLIELMO, M., Somalia, le ragioni storiche del conflitto (Torrazza Coste: Altravista, 2008), p. 169.
- 6.
MENKHAUS, K., PRENDERGAST, J., Somalia: The Stateless State, Africa Report 40:3, (1995:May/June), p. 22.
- 7.
Re: the recent worsening of the humanitarian crisis, see Steve BLOOMFIELD’s article, published in the Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald, 31 January, 2009. See also, CORNWELL, R., “After peace comes the storm: Somalia’s relentless crisis”, Fride, Comment, August 2008.
- 8.
Re: the number of inhabitants in Somalia, there is no exact data and the figures vary depending on the source of information. The Child Soldiers Global Report 2008, published by Coalition to stop the use of child soldiers, p. 305, talks of 8.2 million inhabitants, of which 4.2 are under 18 years of age (the report is available at http://www.child-soldiers.org/library/global-reports). Amnesty International’s 2008 report talks of 8.8 million Somalis, see p. 347. This last report is available at http://thereport.amnesty.org/document/40.
- 9.
Re: geographical and orographic data on Somalia, see the Report on the Democratic Republic of Somali published by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Co-operation in February, 2008, available at http://www.maec.es/SiteCollectionDocuments/Monografias/Somalia.pdf. See also, GUGLIEMO, M., Somalia. Le ragioni storiche del conflitto (Torraza Coste: Edizioni Altavista, 2008), pp. 25 and 26.
- 10.
LEWIS, I. M., A modern History of the Somali, 4th ed. (Oxford: James Currey; Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002), p. 1.
- 11.
Vid ibid, p. 4 and following.
- 12.
Re: reasons for the dizzying spread of Islam among neighbouring peoples, see MERNISSI, F., El miedo a la modernidad, Islam y democracia, in Eastern and Mediterranean publication, 1992. One must remember that in the year 711, Islam arrived in southern Spain, at the opposite point of the Mediterranean.
- 13.
I refer to the first edition of the work by the cited author.
- 14.
LEWIS, I.M., op. cit., p. 7 and following.
- 15.
RUIZ-GIMÉNEZ ARRIETA, I., Las “buenas intenciones”, Intervención Humanitaria en África (Barcelona: Icaria, 2003), p. 62; GUGLIELMO, M., op. cit. p. 26.
- 16.
The Somali language was not transcribed until 1972, during the first years of General Barre’s dictatorship, as we will see later.
- 17.
Cfr. RUIZ-GIMÉNEZ ARRIETA, I., op. cit., p. 63.
- 18.
LEWIS, I.M., op.cit., p. 6.
- 19.
LEWIS, I.M., op. cit., p. 14.
- 20.
RUIZ-GIMÉNEZ ARRIETA, I., op. cit., p. 63.
- 21.
Re: pre-colonial Somali political system, see: MAKINDA, S., “Somalia”, Adelphi Papers no. 32, 1992, p. 25 and following; and RUIZ-GIMÉNEZ ARRIETA, I., op. cit., p. 62 and p. 63.
- 22.
See ROYO ASPA, J. M., “Las sucesivas crisis de Somalia”, Fride, review, September 2007, p. 3. Available at: http://www.fride.org/publicacion/255/las-sucesivas-crisis-de-somalia.
- 23.
WESSELING, pp. 147–152.
- 24.
WESSELING, p. 151 in the Spanish edition.
- 25.
WESSELING, op. cit., p. 151 in the Spanish edition.
- 26.
WESSELING, op. cit., p. 159 in the Spanish edition.
- 27.
The Mahdist revolt in Sudan required a rapid retreat by the Egyptian troops from the Horn of Africa, threatening an ensuing power void. The British had to supply their troops through the Red Sea and Aden. On the other hand, they were worried by the imperialist ambitions of the other powers in the area (France, Italy and Ethiopia), so the British government established several protectorate treaties with local leaders of Somali clans in the North. Cfr. Somaliland: Democratisation and its discontents, International Crisis Group, Africa Report no. 66, 28 July 2003.
- 28.
“It comprised Canada and a number of important West Indian possessions; trading posts in West and East Africa and the great white colony in the Cape; British India, the pearl in the British crown, in Asia, together with Malaysia; in Oceania, the white colonies of Australia and New Zealand and, finally, a great number of naval sea bases along the different sea routes. In the further course of the nineteenth century British expansion continued apace, if possible by informal means, that is, commercially and economically, but if necessary formally as well, that is, politically.” WESSELING, op., cit., p. 52.
- 29.
Vide ibid, p. 55.
- 30.
Quoted by Wesseling on p. 56.
- 31.
Somaliland: Democratisation and its discontents, cit, The crazy Mullah has gone down in history as the first national Somali leader; however, his acts produced the first division amongst the Somalis: on one side, the “Dervishes”, those who took sides with the clan-family that “Mad Mullah” belonged to, the Darod, who had no treaty with the British and, on the other side, the Isaaq clan, the majority clan in the North, who sided with the British with whom they had signed a protectorate treaty.
- 32.
Somaliland: Democratisation and its discontents, cit.
- 33.
Re: French colonialism, see WESSELING, op., cit., p. 29 and following.
- 34.
Vid. Ibid., p. 30.
- 35.
Vid. Ibid., p. 31. The occupation of Algeria was curious. France owed the Dey of Algiers a large loan which they had borrowed during the Napoleonic wars. In the opinion of the Dey, they were taking a long time to repay the debt. During a conversation on the subject with the French consulate, the Dey hit the latter on the nose with a flyswatter, thus giving the French a reason to avenge the offence and so began the occupation of Algeria in 1930, which continued in spite of the vicissitudes of different French governments.
- 36.
WESSELING, Op. cit., p. 35.
- 37.
(“To reason without acting, without involvement in the affairs of the world…means descending from first rank to the third or fourth”. A quote by Brunschwig to which Wesseling adds: “The reader will note that the second rank was omitted”).
- 38.
This is the extremely harsh opening sentence of Wesseling’s study of Italian imperialism. WESSELING, op. cit. p. 289.
- 39.
We must remember that Tunisia is the cradle of the Carthaginian Empire. The city of Carthage, its nerve centre, was founded in C. VIII B.C. and, from there, its influence spread around the Mediterranean but it was conquered and annihilated by the Romans in C. II B.C. after its defeat in the Punic wars – a fact that precisely marks the beginning of the hegemony of the Roman Empire.
- 40.
WESSELING, H. L., op. cit., p. 291.
- 41.
Up until then, the territory of this colony had formed part of various empires and kingdoms of the Horn of Africa region. It was the kingdom of Italy that created the colony of Eritrea and kept it, with its current borders, until the Second World War.
- 42.
BELLUCCI, S., Storia delle guerre africane: Dalla fine del colonialismo al neoliberalismo globale (Roma: Carocci, 2006).
- 43.
BELLUCCI, S., Storia delle guerre africane: Dalla fine del colonialismo al neoliberalismo globale (Roma: Carocci, 2006).
- 44.
BELLUCCI, op, cit.
- 45.
WESSELING, p. 293.
- 46.
So WESSELING describes it in the book we have been citing. See p. 294.
- 47.
BELLUCCI, S., op. cit., p.
- 48.
International Crisis Group, “Somaliland: Democratisation and its discontents” Africa Report no. 66, 28 July 2003.
- 49.
At the end of the Second World War and beginning of the Cold War, United Nations considered Italy to be one of the colonial powers, alongside England, France and United States; for this reason, Somalia was put under its rule from 1950 until their independence in 1960. BELLUCCI, S., Storia delle guerre africane. Dalla fine del colonialismo al neoliberalismo globale (Roma: Carocci, 2006), p. 86 and following.
- 50.
GUGLIELMO, M., Le ragione storiche del conflitto (Edizionei Altravista, 2008). See Chapter II.
- 51.
Haud is the region situated to the South of modern-day Somaliland and to the North of Ogaden. This territory currently belongs to Ethiopia.
- 52.
LULING, V., “Come back Somalia? Questioning a collapse state”, Third World Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1997): 288 and ff.
- 53.
GUGLIELMO, M., Somalia, le ragioni storiche del conflitto, second chapter.
- 54.
GUGLIELMO, M., Somalia, le ragioni storiche del conflitto (Edizioni Altravista, 2008).
- 55.
RUIZ-GIMÉNEZ, I., Las buenas intenciones, cit., p. 64.
- 56.
International Crisis Group, “Somaliland: Democratisation and its discontents” Africa Report no. 66, 28 July 2003.
- 57.
The political leaders I am referring to came from diverse associations originating from the clans and rapidly converting themselves into political parties due to the imminent arrival of independence and a new constitutional and democratic political regime just like the European ones, above all the Italian one, which had little or nothing to do with the historical political tradition of the Somali people. The most important formations at that time were: La Lega dei Giovni Somali, the first party created in 1947, coming from the first Somali political organisation, formed in 1943, under the British administration during the Second World War; El Hizbia Digil Merifle Somali, also known as Partito Costituzionale Independiente Somalo; La Lega della Grande Somalia, formed from a split at the heart of La Lega di Giovni Somali; La Lega Nazionale Somala, the majority party of Somaliland; and, finally, El Partito Liberale dei Giovani Somali. Of all the political line-ups mentioned, only the Lega dei Giovani Somali and the Lega della Grande Somalia seemed able to accumulate a national consensus base. Both parties had the support of the most numerous clan-families, the Darod and the Hawiye. What determined the success of the Lega dei Giovni Somali was their capacity to transversally lead diverse clan-families, not making blood a political limitation, and their capacity to also obtain support from amongst the Saab clan-families (that is, the Digil and the Rahaweyn, the farmers) See GUGLIELMO, M., op. cit, p. 38.
- 58.
DEL BOCA, A., Una sconfitta dell’Intelligenza (Roma: Laterza, 1993), chap. 1. The text of the Somali Constitution of 1960 is available at http://www.somalilaw.org/Documents/Constitution1960.pdf.
- 59.
Aden Absullah Osman, senior member of the Lega dei Giovani Somali, was the first President of the Republic. His term lasted until 1 August, 1967. He was succeeded by Shermarke, from the same political group and who would be assassinated during his term, on 15 October, 1969. From 1960 to 1964, Shermarke had also assumed the role of prime minister. He was succeeded by Haggi Hussein until 1967 and, from 1967 to 1969, by Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, the only prime minister from Somaliland.
- 60.
Re: this first Somali constitution, along with the country’s other constitutional experiences, see AXMED ASHKIR BOOTAAN, “La Costituzione somala dal 1990” in Transplants Innovation and legal tradition in the Horn of Africa: Modelli autoctoni e modelli d’importazione nei sistemi giuridici del Corno d’Africa, ed. Elisabetta Grande (Torino: L’Harmattan Italiana, 1995), pp. 131–165.
- 61.
GUGLIELMO, M., op. cit. Chap. II.
- 62.
GUGLIELMO, M. pp. 58–63.
- 63.
GUGLIELMO, M., op. cit., chapter 2.3.
- 64.
BELLUCCI, S., op. cit, p. 96.
- 65.
BELLUCCI, S., p. 96.
- 66.
Until 1972, Somali was a language of oral tradition. The Barre regime decided it should be transcribed, using the Latin alphabet for the purpose instead of the Arabic, which would have been much closer to Somali religious and cultural tradition. Therefore, the contrariness shown by the religious class in relation to this secularising, lay manoeuvre is not surprising. The adoption of a new Family Code, in 1974, entrusted to a westernised jurisdiction in the cities and to the Xeer and the Sharia in the peripheries, heightened the displeasure of the religious class. In relation to this, see GUGLIELMO, M., op. cit.
- 67.
Re: the Ogaden war, see GUGLIELMO, M., op. cit., third chapter, third, fourth and fifth sub-epigraphs.
- 68.
See: AUGELLI, E., and MURPHY, C., Lessons of Somalia for Future Humanitarian Assistance Operations, Global Governance 1 (1995), p. 345 and following. As the authors point out, 40–80% of the food supplies that entered Somalia at this time is calculated to have been stolen by the various armed groups at war. To this we must add the high rents, taxes and, often, even bribes that the workers and agencies had to pay just to be able to operate in the land.
- 69.
WAAL, Alex de, “Doing Harm by Doing Good? The International Relief Effort in Somalia”, Current History 92:574 (1993:May), p. 202.
- 70.
RUIZ – GIMÉNEZ ARIETA, I., La historia de la intervención humanitaria.
- 71.
Resolution 751 of the Security Council on 24 April 1992, creator of UNOSOM (United Nations Operation Somalia), says: “Deeply disturbed by the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the conflict and concerned that the continuation of the situation in Somalia constitutes a threat to international peace and security”. The resolution is available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/013/32/IMG/NR001332.pdf?OpenElement. Later, the Security Council, in Resolution 794 of 3 December the same year, in which the green light is given to operation “Restore Hope”, repeats: “determining that the magnitude of the human tragedy caused by the conflict in Somalia, exacerbated still more by the obstacles being created to the distribution of humanitarian assistance, constitutes a threat for international peace and security”. Resolution 794 is available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N92/772/14/IMG/N9277214.pdf?OpenElement. Lastly, in the same vein, Resolution 814 of the Security Council which extended the mission of UN in Somalia, giving rise to UNOSOM II, pointed out: “determining that the situation in Somalia continues to threaten peace and security in the region”. This last Resolution of 26 March 1992, can be found at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N93/226/20/IMG/N9322620.pdf?OpenElement.
- 72.
As Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst have pointed out, “not to admit that the alternative to stronger and better-suited international institutions is the starvation and suffering of millions of people is dishonest. Such future tolerance of disorder was previewed in Rwanda in April 1994 when the world, paralyzed by the Somalia debacle, did nothing as the Hutu government slaughtered upward of half a million Tutsis”. In CLARKE, W., and HERBST, J., “Somalia and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention”, Foreign Affairs, March/April 1996, p. 82. In the same vein, Cherter A. Crocker qualifies Ruanda as “the first victim of the post Somalia backlash”, in CROCKER, CH. A., “The Lessons of Somalia. Not Everything Went Wrong”, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995, p. 7.
- 73.
Resolution 733 of United Nations Security Council, 23 January 1992, no. 2 and 5, available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/013/14/IMG/NR001314.pdf?OpenElement.
- 74.
An analysis of the successive resolutions of the Security Council on the Somali case, which gradually increased the intensity of the military intervention citing chapter VII of the San Francisco Charter, without request from the country’s government, in HUTCHINSON, M. R., “Restoring hope: U.N. Security Council Resolutions for Somalia and an expanded doctrine of humanitarian intervention”, Harvard International Law Journal, 34 (1993).
- 75.
Resolution 751 of UN Security Council, 24 April 1992, available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/013/32/IMG/NR001332.pdf?OpenElement.
- 76.
The Algerian Mohamed Sahnoun, who already had a long diplomatic history with the United Nations as well as with the Organisation for African Unity, proved from the outset to be deeply knowledgeable about the situation and about Somali idiosyncrasies, but his preference for a “bottom-up” action plan hit head-on with the “top-down” plans of Secretary General Kofi Annan. Shortly afterwards he was no longer required, in the month of November. Since 1997, he has been Special Representative of the Organisation for a United Africa (now African Union) for the Great Lakes Region. He was co-president (with Gareth Evans) of the International Commission on Intervention and the Sovereignty of States, which wrote the Report on “The Responsibility to Protect” in 2001.
- 77.
SAHNOUN, M. M., “Prevention in Conflict Resolution: the case of Somalia”, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 5 (1994). In this paper, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for the resolution of the Somali conflict, recounts the difficulties of coordination and the differences of opinion between the heads of the United Nations. All of this led to an early relief of his position and the loss of many possibilities for peace.
- 78.
On 8 November 1992, Ismal Kittami, an Iraqi diplomat, substituted Mohamed Sahnoun as Special Representative of the Secretary General in Somalia. Kittami remained in the position until 9 March 1993, on which date he was substituted by the American admiral, Jonathan T. Howe.
- 79.
RUIZ-GIMENEZ, op. cit., p. 180.
- 80.
vid ibid, p. 183.
- 81.
As Kenneth D. Bush pointed out, “The Security Council circumvented the implied requirement to enter a country only with the consent of the government by recognizing the destabilizing potential of widespread famine and continued civil war in Somalia as a threat to international peace. The reticence by some members of the Security Council to intervene in the domestic politics of a state (even a “failed state”) without a formal request from political representatives was conveniently overcome through the ‘creation’ and use of what James Jonah calls a ‘legal fiction’, a Somali request for UN intervention arrived ‘in the form of a letter from the Somali charge d’affaires in New York who, in reality, represented no one’”. In BUSH, D.K., “When Two Anarchies Meet: International Intervention in Somalia”, The Journal of Conflict Studies, XVII, no. 1 (Spring, 1997): 8.
- 82.
BUSH, D.K., “When Two Anarchies Meet: International Intervention in Somalia”, The Journal of Conflict Studies, XVII, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 9. See also MAKINDA.
- 83.
To give an idea of the failure of the operation, mainly from a humanitarian point of view, it should be taken into account that the humanitarian costs were much lower than the military costs incurred: 2 billion dollars where the military costs of the USA, with a further 2 billion spent by the UN. Humanitarian costs came to 500 and 800 million respectively. Most of these resources went to paying salaries, home rentals, travel expenses and allowances of international staff. The Restore Hope budget exceeded the total sum corresponding to humanitarian aid received by Somalia since its Independence in 1960.
- 84.
LULING, V., “Come back Somalia? Questioning a collapsed state”, Third Word Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1997): 287–302.
- 85.
RUIZ-GIMÉNEZ, Op. Cit, p. 191.
- 86.
RAMÓN CHORNET, C., ¿Violencia necesaria? La Intervención Humanitaria en Derecho Internacional, (Madrid: Ediciones Trotta, 1995), p. 98.
- 87.
See Christopher BICKERTON “State-building exporting state failure”, in Politics without sovereignty a critic of contemporary international relations, ed. Chistopher J. BICKERTON, Philip CUNLIFFE, Alexander GOUREVITCH (London/New York: University College London Press, 2007).
- 88.
Regarding the concept of human security, see J. BALLESTEROS, Repensar la Paz, Ediciones Universitarias Internacionales, Madrid, 2006. A brief synthesis of the origin and evolution of this term can be found in MORILLAS BASSEDAS, J., “Génesis y evolución de la expresión de la seguridad humana”, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, no. 76: 47–58.
- 89.
See The Responsibility to Protect, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, at http://www.iciss.ca/report-en.asp.
- 90.
This is precisely the title of the article published in Foreign Policy by Jeffrey GETTLEMAN, Spanish edition, no. 32, April/May 2009.
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Garibo-Peyró, AP. (2012). Somalia: From the Errors of Colonialism to the Horrors of War. In: Ballesteros, J., Fernández Ruiz-Gálvez, E., Talavera, P. (eds) Globalization and Human Rights. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4020-4_5
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