Somalia Recalls the Old Ways for Peace

Somalia has been torn apart by civil war for nearly two decades. Several attempts at finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict have unravelled, leaving the country without a functioning central administration for well over a decade.

However, a new initiative with an innovative approach to peace-building is taking roots in the war-torn country in the Horn of Africa.

Its primary focus is to revive Somali traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution and to incorporate them into modern forms of peace dialogue. The new initiative has received funding support from Finnchurch Aid, a Christian humanitarian organisation, following two years of lobbying efforts by the Somali diaspora in Finland.

The first conference took place in Hargisa in Somaliland in November last year involving religious leaders from countries in the Horn of Africa region, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia. A second conference also in Hargisa was held in February this year involving only Somali religious leaders.

Linus Atarah from IPS talked to Mahdi Abdi Abdile, special advisor to Finnchurch Aid.

IPS: Somalia has been torn apart by civil war for the most part of the last 20 years. What are the main obstacles to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict?

Abdi Abdile: I think the general problem is mistrust among the Somali people themselves. Different clans and different groups are driving different initiatives. Apart from lack of trust there is also the power struggle between different clans and different political groups.

Mohamed Siad Barre, the former leader, has left a system of corruption, which was built on playing on mistrust among different clans; after he departed there has never been a genuine peace broker to bring these various conflicting groups and clans together to share power.

Somalia has always relied on traditional means of power sharing among various groups, but Siad Barre undermined those structures, and there was nothing new created in their place. People could neither go back to using traditional power structures, nor could they use the system created by Siad Barre, and so there is a power vacuum.

IPS: There is now an initiative to empower traditional and religious leaders to take a prominent role to try to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. How did this initiative begin, and how is it going to be conducted?

AA: What we are trying do to is empower religious and traditional leaders in terms of grassroots peace-building. We are trying to organise religious leaders and help them play a positive role from a grassroots level. It is not about organising large-scale conferences for peace. It is a grassroots initiative that is aimed at bringing the religious and traditional leaders to sit down and discuss how they can help.

IPS: Why haven't the religious and traditional leaders taken up this role until now?

AA: The religious and traditional leaders until now have been marginalised. There is a tendency from the western world in particular to see religion as part of the problem, and so they would do anything to prevent religious leaders from playing a part. There are also people within the Somali community who tend to think along similar lines.

Actually our initiative was the first time in 200 years to bring religious leaders from various parts of the country into such a large gathering. There were 28 religious leader from Mogadishu area, 40 from Puntland and 30 from Somaliland, and the idea was to get them to recognise that they are part of society, and why can't they come together and do something about what is going on.

In different peace conferences that have taken place so far, none has involved religious and traditional leaders. Those who have been involved to some extent have not been true representatives of the people.

IPS: What is the role of traditional and religious leaders in Somali society? Do they carry any weight and influence, so that mobilising them could also bring ordinary people to rally behind for a positive outcome?

AA: There is no power without the traditional and religious leaders. Somalia is a very traditional society. Sixty percent of the people live in the rural areas. They are nomads living by rearing cattle. Whatever happens they use traditional mechanisms to solve their problems, and even those who are born in the urban areas have connections to the rural areas.

However, their role has been marginalised by various warlords and clans whose aim is to keep the country divided. Without involving the traditional leaders there can never be a peaceful solution that would hold. It is like building a house with a roof but without supporting pillars.

IPS: What is the new element in the current initiative that would ensure that peace would hold?

AA: Our idea is to establish grassroots forums and networks and not to build new structures that would compete with whatever structures that exist. A network of forums that those people who would like to use would be able to call upon. Traditional leaders in different parts of Somalia sit together and in those sessions they would discuss ways of engaging with the masses. The traditional rulers are older forms of institutions, and as true indigenous representatives of the people they would work together to identify where the problems lie in order to enhance and promote peace.

The other part of the project seeks to unify the traditional and religious leaders so that they work together with the various governments that exist in Somalia in order to find a way forward.

IPS: There is a widespread perception that the conflict in Somalia stems from inter-clan warfare. What are the central elements of these inter-clan conflicts that keep the country torn apart?

AA: The fighting cannot be described as inter-clan as such. The only time such an inter-clan war took place was in the 1990s when Mohamed Aideed and Ali Mahdi fought over control of Mogadishu.

What is happening now is fighting between different opposing groups that rely on support from different clans. That does not add up to saying that there is huge inter-clan warfare taking place. There are no identifiable clans that are engaged in huge clashes.

In terms of political influence that's where the clan tension comes in. The biggest problem in Somali politics is that no clan wants to be ruled by another clan. Until there is a situation where the big tribes agree to share power, there will never be peace. The other problem is that there is no neutral mediator. The so-called frontline neighbouring countries of Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti have vested interests in Somalia and would like to influence Somali politics in one way or the other.

IPS: Do you think the Somali conflict can ever be resolved, given the protracted and prolonged nature of the conflict?

AA: It is possible to resolve the conflict if there is political will. What is needed is an internalisation of the conflict (resolution) because this is no longer a Somali problem but rather an international problem. It is not even a regional problem because so many players have been involved including Americans, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Kenyans and even Germans who have been patrolling the Red Sea.

The international community should now come to help because they have not been helping before. The Somali problem is not complex. It only needs the right people to sit together.

IPS: Do you think the international community has abandoned Somalia? Who in your opinion are the likely honest brokers in the international community whose intervention could win the trust of the Somali warring factions?

AA: If you use the word ”abandon” it means the international community has been helping before, but I don't think they ever helped at all. So I would rather say that the international community needs to go and help.

The Nordic counties are the countries that are neutral in the Somali conflict, and are capable of bringing about disinterested negotiations. They are far from the situation, they have no colonial history, they have large Somali populations living in these countries, and the future ties between these countries and Somalia is bound to increase because of that.

So far they have not shown much interest in getting involved but it becomes inevitable because as the situation continues to deteriorate these countries will continuously face a large influx of refugees from Somalia, and they will eventually have to do something.

IPS: Do you think Somalia would be able to rise from the ashes and become a normal functioning political entity once again?

AA: It is entirely possible. Perhaps Somalia is one of those countries in Africa that has gone through a prolonged civil war and chaos, but there are also cases like Liberia and Sierra Leone that have gone through similar processes and have been able to rise from the ashes simply because they have had enormous international help and proper international mediation. So if one devotes lots of money and time it would be possible to achieve the same situation.

IPS: What is the potential of this new initiative to produce a lasting peaceful solution to the conflict?

AA: It could have enormous potential if given the chance to work. The traditional and religious leaders are the ones who people would rally around when they say something. So once you have representatives who can actually talk on behalf of all of these different groups, then you actually have a process that you can use. But our aim has not been to empower a particular group as such. Our aim has been to bring these groups together so that they can be supportive of other processes.

Until now nobody has brought up the idea of going to the religious leaders in Mogadishu because nobody knew who they were, how many they were and what political affiliations or opinions they have. But in our meetings we brought together all the different clans across Somalia including those who are not even recognised and who nobody wants to talk to.

The processes that Somalia has to undergo in order to achieve peace are very complex. We are not saying that our initiative is the solution, but it is part of the complexities that would lead to a solution.