A Strategy to Save Somaliland
The Disease & the Cure
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
Introduction
The quotation above from a discussion between Brutus and Cassius in
Julius Caesar (Act 4, Scene 3) concerning how to conduct their war
with mark Anthony and Octavius is a particularly apt metaphor for
the current political situation in Somaliland (SL). The total and
abject failure of the Silanyo government in both domestic and
foreign policy has devastated the country to the point that SL’s
most valuable res ource, which has been and continues to remain the
key driver underlying the country’s existence and pe aceful progress,
is in danger for the first time in its short history. This core and
irreplaceable resource is the boundless hope and optimism of its
people and their determination to carve out an independent,
peaceful, and dignified existence for themselves and their progeny.
It is an undeniable fact that the open, indeed flagrant, looting of
the public exchequer and national ass et s, the rampant cronyism and
nepotism in public appointments as well as in the grant of
government contracts have inevitably jaundiced public opinion and
resulted in widespread cynicism regarding the co nduct of public
officials and politics generally. The savage and extra-judicial
suppression of dissent and of the independent press coupled with the
overt and shameless interference in parliamentary deliberat ions
through vote-buying, deliberate disruptions of legislative sessions
(sometimes violently) and repe ated failed attempts to unseat the
Speaker clearly demonstrate the determination of the government to
consolidate all political institutions under its aegis. The
carefully crafted policy of the tribalisation of politics during the
last five years has not only coarsened political debate and
competition, but fragment ed opposition and so rendered it amenable
to classic ‘divide and rule’ strategies.
Further evidence of the inexorable trend towards dictatorship is the
concentration of political power in the hands of a chosen few, most
of which do not hold formal office but are members of the
President’s immediate family or close kinship group. This group of
insiders are congregated around the Presidency and are coalesced
around the First Lady and the Minister of the Presidency. Finally,
initiation of negotiati ons with the latest, foreign-sponsored and
externally funded ‘government’ in Somalia has degenerated into a
relationship of subservience whereby the sale of national assets to
foreign buyers by chosen bro kers of the Silanyo government is
ratified by Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud and his cohorts in Mogadishu,
pre sumably in return for a share in the brokerage fees.
During the past five years, the Silanyo government has been engaged
in a sustained campaign of self-enrichment and aggrandizement as it
has suppressed dissent and criticism and debased and coarsened
political debate through the overt promotion of tribalism and tribal
politics. The opposition parties of WA DANI and UCID have been unable
to mount a serious challenge to the government because they have not
voiced and championed a compelling alternative and truly national,
vision for the country. There are many reasons for this failure of
the two opposition parties, but the key factor is undoubtedly the
failure of leadership. UCID is plagued by confusion and disarray
with respect to leadership since the mercurial Faisal Ali Warabe,
the Party Chairman, continues to conduct policy ‘on the fly’ as he
sees fit with little or no coordination with his colleagues; while
Jamal Ali Hussein, the Party’s Presidential candidate, is forced to
oppose a government that his Party Chairman occasionally supports
and makes deals with. For its pa rt, WADANI suffers from the fact
that its leader and Presidential candidate, Abdirahman Mohamed
Abd ullahi (Cirro), is focused upon beating off government efforts to
unseat him as Speaker of Parliament ra ther than mounting a
compelling, alternative political and economic program and, thus, an
effective elect oral challenge to the ruling party.
The central mission of government in SL, namely the quest for
recognition, has been effectively shelved by the Silanyo government.
Indeed, its foreign policy has been characterised by the deliberate
abandon ment of this mission, for example by downgrading the
relationship with our key ally and principal support er, Ethiopia,
while, conversely, actively courting our principal detractor,
Djibouti. The commendable succ esses of the previous SL governments
in securing support for SL’s cause among African countries, e.g.
Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal and Kenya among others, has
been ignored and allowed to wither on the vine. Meanwhile, the much
trumpeted policy of engagement with the government in Mogadishu has
yielded nothing but humiliation for the Silanyo government and
frustration and disillusionment for t he public. At this juncture,
when the term of the government has been extended for 18 or 22
months (the length of the extension remains unclear as yet), it is
fair to say that public antipathy to it has nev er been higher and
there is a widespread groundswell for change. This is the “tide”
which is referenced in the quotation above and the fact that the
opposition parties are unable to give voice to and channel this
widespread disaffection is testament to their failure thus far.
The Threat Posed by the Current Government
In 1991, after evicting the military of the Afweyne dictatorship
from their country, the people of Soma liland convened a meeting of
all the clans and groups living in the country (whether pro or anti
the Mog adishu government) in Burao to determine their future. At
this meeting two fundamental and guiding principles were established
and agreed upon by all the clans and groups which underpin the
country’s recovery of its sovereignty and its development as an
oasis of peace, reconciliation and representative governance in the
Horn of Africa. Firstly, it was agreed that SL belongs to all the
people which reside within its borders equally and without fear or
favour. In order to give effect to this core principle and since
some communities were aligned with the dictatorship while others
fought said dictatorship, not to mention that some communities
suffered historical and ingrained social and political
discrimination, it wa s agreed that all past wrongs, disputes and
animosities were thereby irrevocably forgiven and consign ed to the
past. Thus, the people of SL closed the chapter on past wrongs and
disputes and commenced the re-birth of their nation with a blank
sheet on which to write their future history.
It is this spirit of national unity, the creation of the SL tribe
which transcends clan divisions, if you will, which the overt
tribalism of the politics of the Silanyo government has betrayed,
and with it the underly ing ethos of nation itself. All nations are
composed of different, and often competing, communities; however no
nation can endure without a unifying ethos underlying its creation
and very existence. In its doomed efforts to secure its power
through a cynical policy of ‘divide and rule’ which plays clans and
su b-clans against each other, the Silanyo government betrayed SL’s
founding ethos and reverted to the discredited and bankrupt politics
of the Afweyne dictatorship. It is worth remembering that Silanyo
him self was the longest serving minister of that defunct
dictatorship, so perhaps it should not be a surprise that he has
employed its political tactics. However, he and his cohorts would be
wise to remember the ignominious end to that exercise of
Machiavellian political skulduggery.
The second principle agreed and established at the Burao Conference
in 1991 was that of representati ve government through the
development of a home-grown democratic system of governance which
inc orporated local tradition and culture. In this context, it is
important to point out that traditional Somali social and political
society is very egalitarian and practises a form of direct
participatory democracy that has been characterised by the
pre-eminent Western scholar of Somali culture and history (the late Ioan Lewis of SOAS) as “democratic to the point of anarchy”. Thus,
SL developed a government composed of three branches – a bicameral
legislature with an elected parliament (lower chamber) and a Guurti
(upper chamber) composed of traditional elders drawn from all the
clans and other social groups; an exe cutive composed of an elected
President who then forms a government of ministers and other
officials; and a judiciary which interprets and gives effect to the
laws passed by the legislature. This structure was promulgated in
the constitution which was ratified by a massive affirmative vote of
97% in 2001.
It is true that the judiciary has always been the weakest branch of
government in SL, principally due to limited funding and a lack of
professionalism among the judicial cadre and, for this reason, the
judiciary has historically been largely subservient to the
executive. However, the legislature has been a very different story
and the parliament, particularly, has always demonstrated its
independence from the executive, even when the ruling party has held
a majority of the seats. This independence, and willingn ess to
oppose government policies when it deems fit, has been the one of
the strongest features of SL’s thriving, hybrid democracy. It is
this independence that the Silanyo government has repeatedly sought
to suborn through vote-buying and, most egregiously, through blatant
attempts to unseat the sitting Speaker through unconstitutional
means. The latest attempt in September 2015 resulted in violent
alte rcations in the parliament which included the Speaker and Deputy
Speaker coming to blows.
The result of this sorry state of affairs has been the
demoralisation of the public and its disillusionment with politics
and the political class. On the economic and social front, the
entrepreneurial spirit of the people coupled with the sustained
growth of remittances from the large diaspora community in Europe,
North America and Arabia has resulted in the expansion of
educational, communications, health and com mercial services. The
government has contributed little to the expansion of this social
infrastructure, but has benefited considerably through greatly
increased tax revenues which it uses to stifle dissent and criticism
(through a much enhanced security apparatus funded largely by the
Western Powers in the name of combating ‘terrorism’) and to buy
political support. However, the lack of effective economic and
social planning has resulted in ever increasing numbers of secondary
school and university graduat es with no opportunities for gainful
employment that seek a better life abroad at the merciless hands of
human traffickers. Thus, along with their contemporaries in Eritrea,
many of the ‘cream’ of Somaliland’s younger generation are joining
the exodus from the Horn of Africa to Europe and Arabia with
countless numbers perishing on the journey as they fall victim to
modern day slave merchants, now euphemistically dubbed ‘human
traffickers’.
Towards Forging a New Political Order
In view of the failure of the two opposition parties to mobilise and
channel the widespread disaffection of the people to the creeping
dictatorship of the Silanyo government, it is necessary to develop
alternative avenues of political dissent and resistance to its
debasement of politics. It is clear that the only effective way to
mobilise and channel the widespread public antipathy is through a
mass movement along the lines of the anti-regime alliances that
sprouted in North Africa during the ‘Arab Spring’ some 4/5 years ago
and the colour-coded, peaceful ‘revolutions’ in Eastern Europe a
little earlier. Such a mass movement must be driven and lead by the
educated youth, genuine clan elders (as opposed to the plethora of
bought madax daqameed which have been contemptuously, and aptly,
named ‘pre-paid’ by the ordinary public), business and social
leaders. The opposition parties will have the choice of joining in
this people-driven, mass movement or be consigned to irrelevance.
The central plank of this opposition movement will be a demand to
return to the founding tenets and principles of the re-establishment
of SL in 1991, namely:
•
The centrality of the national ethos as opposed to the tribal one
promulgated and practised by the Silanyo regime. SL belongs to all
of its people and the clan affiliation (or lack thereof) of any
individual or group is irrelevant to their rights and obligations to
and from the state.
•
Open and transparent government with all public officials
accountable to the people as set out in the constitution. All three
branches of government, especially the executive, must understand
that they are public servants, i.e. they work for the people and
serve at their pleasure.
•
Establishment and institution of an independent and effective
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) that has powers of subpoena,
prosecution and censure.
•
Complete restructuring of the Independent Election Commission
insulating it from political interference and empowering it to hold
elections on their due dates unless overruled by a two-thirds vote
in both houses of the legislature.
•
Restoration of the quest for international recognition as they key
foreign policy objective and the est ablishment of a Council of Wise
Men & Experts to develop a clear and coherent strategy to achieve
same.
In order to join this movement, the two opposition parties will have
to agree to the formation of a natio nal unity government (NUG) in
which they will share power in order to present a unified front to
contest the elections on behalf of the people. This will mean,
perforce, that they will have to agree upon a progr am to put the
above principles into effect and return the government of SL to its
people. This program must be developed in an open and transparent
manner and articulated clearly and widely to provide the people with
an explicit checklist of actions with which to hold the NUG to
account. A second plank of this program for the NUG will be the
establishment of an independent committee of experts to review the
mu rky deals the Silanyo government has entered into with foreign
interests and the Mogadishu ‘governm ent’ with respect to the
national assets of SL, e.g. oil concessions, Berbera Port and the
Berbera Fuel Storage Depot. Any such agreements that are found to be
against the national interest, or structured for the personal
benefit of any special interests shall be either abrogated or
cancelled or re-negotiated by the NUG. Another key plank of the
program shall be the promulgation of a Code of Ethics that shall
bind all public officials and against which they may be prosecuted.
The fourth plank of the program nee ds to be the complete overhaul of
the judicial branch of government and the allocation of sufficient
reso urces to ensure its independence, impartiality and professional
standards.
Conclusion
The central thesis of this paper is that the Silanyo government
presents a clear and present danger to the continued existence of SL
as an independent, democratic country and, therefore, that its
defeat at the upcoming presidential elections is the principal and
overriding national duty of all SL patriots and th ose sympathetic to
its cause. Some extreme conspiracy theorists assert that since Mr. Silanyo had pub licly admitted his prior allegiance to the Somaliweyn
cause (i.e. the re-establishment of the erstwhile Re public of
Somalia) during the election campaign in 2010, that the dismantling
of SL from within had alwa ys been the central mission of his
presidency. While this interpretation of Silanyo’s presidency is too
fan ciful to contemplate seriously, it is nevertheless an undeniable
fact that another five years of the creep ing dictatorship
characterised by rampant corruption and nepotism and buttressed by
savage and seve re repression and intolerance of dissent and
criticism of this deeply unpopular government will destroy the dream
of SL and compromise its democracy and its institutions beyond
repair.
In view of this existential threat to the continued progress of the
country, and indeed to its very exist ence, and bearing in mind the
clear inability of the two opposition parties to mobilise and
channel the widespread public disaffection with this regime, we have
sought to propose a practical strategy to mount an effective
campaign to defeat the government emphatically at the next
presidential elections and so deliver the government of SL back to
its people. Since the threat to the nation posed by the Silanyo
regime is mortal, and its political modus operandi is the politics
of clan-driven ‘divide and rule’, it is necessary to base the
opposition campaign firmly on the unifying national ethos. Where the
regime seeks support on the basis of rewarding loyal so-called clan
leaders while punishing (or excluding from government largesse and
patronage) disloyal ones, the national opposition campaign will seek
support through appeal to SL’s founding national ethos and the
vision of clean government, national developm ent and social justice.
The national opposition campaign will embrace peaceful protest,
civil disobedience and mass mobilisation. The opposition parties,
and particularly their leaders, will have to subsume their personal
ambitions to the national imperative to save SL and deliver it from
the evident peril presented by the Silanyo clique. Should these
parties and leaders not rise to this challenge, they will suffer the
same ignominious fate as the government and lose their political
legitimacy. In the 1980s, Somaliland had to be liberated from the
oppressive rule of the Afweyne dictatorship through a ten year war
of liberation that included calculat ed genocide by the oppressors.
Now, nearly a quarter century after recovering its sovereignty, the
co untry must once again be liberated; this time from a creeping and
corrupt domestic dictatorship that will inevitably deliver it back
into the arms of Mogadishu and the bankrupt Somaliweyn ideology that
enslav ed it in the past. This is the mission before us.
Ahmed M.I. Egal
23 September 2015
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