The Persistence of State Disintegration in Somalia
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UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO GRADUATE SCHOOL IN SOCIAL & POLITICAL SCIENCES Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche CORSO DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN STUDI POLITICI, CICLO XXIV THE PERSISTENCE OF STATE DISINTEGRATION IN SOMALIA BETWEEN REGIONAL AND GLOBAL INTERVENTION Settore Scientifico-Disciplinare: SPS/04 SCIENZA POLITICA Debora Valentina MALITO TUTOR: Prof. Alessandro Colombo COORDINATORE DEL DOTTORATO: Prof. MARCO GIULIANI ANNO ACCADEMICO 2010-2011 II Table of Contents List of abbreviations and acronyms Introduction - Research design 1 1. Research objectives and theoretical framework 4 2. The significance of protracted disintegration 7 3. Research Methods 8 4. Structure of dissertation 10 Chapter 1 - Theoretical framework: the state of disintegration 13 1. Patterns of statehood crisis: a neo-colonial epistemology 15 2. State disintegration: definition and indicators 20 3. The historical framework of state disintegration 22 4. The academic debate on state disintegration 25 4.1 The drivers of state disintegration 25 4.1.1 Capacity-oriented analysis 26 4.1.2 International-oriented analysis 27 4.2 The outcomes of state disintegration 32 5. Omitted answers to omitted questions 35 Chapter 2 - The persistence of state disintegration 39 1. Definition and indicators of enduring disintegration 42 2. Approaches to permanent disintegration 46 2.1 Political capacity 47 2.2 Technical capacity 48 2.3 Third party intervention 50 2.4 Regional hierarchies of power 52 3. International Intervention 55 4. When does International Intervention prolong disintegration? 58 4.1 Structural factors 59 4.1.1 Global distribution of power 59 4.1.2 Regional distribution of power 62 4.2 Types of intervention 65 4.2.1 Risolutive or dissolutive aims of the intervener 65 4.2.2 Multilateral or Unilateral action 66 4.3 The conditions for success (or failure) 67 4.3.1 Economic sustainability 68 4.3.2 Homogeneity: unitary or competitive orientation 69 4.3.3 Third party credibility 70 4.3.4 Resoluteness 71 4.3.5 Legitimacy 72 5. Hypotheses 73 I Chapter 3 - The case of Somalia: caught between 75 the African state system and theHorn of Africa 1. The African state system and disintegration 77 2. The Horn of Africa, an exceptional region 85 3. Somalia: the enduring disintegration 88 3.1 State breakdown: 1979-1991 88 3.2 Renewed civil war (1991-1999) 91 3.3 The extension of disintegration: 2000-2010 93 4. Timing disintegration 96 4.1 Implosion of central authority 98 4.2 Violent armed conflict 101 4.3 Territorial Fragmentation 103 4.3.1 Quasi-State: Republic of Somaliland 104 4.3.2 State governments: Puntland, Galmudug 105 4.3.3 Limbo State governments 106 5. Evidence for an alternative path to reconciliation: the case of Somaliland 110 5.1 Peace building (1991-1993) 110 5.2 Institution building (1993-1997) 116 6. Conclusions 118 Chapter 4 - Long-term International Intervention 121 1. UN/US intervention (1992-1995) 122 1.1 Structure of intervention 122 1.1.1 Reasons and interests 123 1.1.2 Objectives and strategies 126 1.2 Historical overview: Intervention under UN mandate 127 1.2.1 UNOSOM 127 1.2.2 UNITAF 130 1.2.3 UNOSOM II 133 1.3 Intervening variables: factionalism and war economy 136 2. Regional Intervention (1996-1999) 138 2.1 Structure of intervention 139 2.2 Historical overview: proxy war in Somalia during the Ethiopian-Eritrean war 140 2.3 Intervening variables: factional conflict and competing state-building 147 3. Regional and Global Counter-Terrorism Intervention (2001-2010) 149 3.1 Structure of intervention 149 3.1.1 Interests and reasons 149 3.1.2 Strategies and resources 151 3.2 Historical overview: Intervention under Glocal counter-terrorism 159 3.2.1 Building infrastructures and supporting stable governments (2001-2005) 159 3.2.2 Global Containment by regional incursion (2005-2007) 161 3.2.3 Regional legitimacy for combatting Global Terrorism 165 II 3.2.4 Reconciliation process: fighting new terrorists, reconciling with the old ones 168 3.2.5 The never ending military solution (2007-2010) 172 3.3 Intervening variables: polarization and radicalization of the insurgency 177 Chapter 5 - The impact of international intervention 183 1. Evidence from the international route to reconciliation 184 2. Intervention, continuity and discontinuity: lessons never learned 191 2.1 Homogeneity of results in testing heterogeneous typologies 191 2.2 Homogeneity of contextual factors in testing the conditions for success 193 3. Conclusion Visions of sovereignity in Hargeisa 203 References 204 III IV List of abbreviations and acronyms AFRICOM United States African Command AMISOM African Union Mission in Somalia ARPCT Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter Terrorism ARS Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia ARS-D Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia-Djibouti ARS-A Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia-Asmara ASWJ Ahlul Sunnah wal Jamaa’h AU African Union CJTF-HOA Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa EPLF Eritrean People Liberation Front GWoT Global War on Terror HoA Horn of Africa ICU Islamic Courts Union IGAD Inter-Governmental Authority on Development NFD Northern Frontier District NRC National Reconciliation Conference NSC National Salvation Council OAU Organization of African Unity OIC Organization of the Islamic Conference OLF Oromo Liberation Front ONLF Ogaden National Liberation Front OPLF Oromo People Liberation Front PFDJ People’s Front for Democracy and Justice RRA Rahanwein Resistance Army SDM Somali Democratic Movement SNA Somali National Alliance SNF Somali National Front SNM Somali National Movement SNRC Somalia National Reconciliation Conference SPM Somali Patriotic Movement SPM-O Somali Patriotic Movement-Ogaden SPM-H Somali Patriotic Movement-HARTI SRRC Somalia Reconciliation and Restoration Council SSA Somali Salvation Alliance SSC Somali Salvation Council SSDF Somali Salvation Democratic Front SSNM Southern Somali National Movement TFG Transitional Federal Government TFI Transitional Federal Institutions TFP Transitional Federal Parliament TNG Transitional National Government TPLF Tigray People’s Liberation Front UNITAF Unified Task Force UNOSOM United Nations Operation in Somalia UNPOS United Nations Political Office for Somalia USC United Somali Congress USC/SSA United Somali Congress Salvation Army USC/SNA United Somali Congress Somali National Alliance WSLF West Somali Liberation Front V VI Introduction Research design Twenty-one years ago, when the state collapsed in Somalia, competitive centrifugal and centripetal forces radically diverted the statehood trajectory of one of the most promising African countries, a country with all the adequate preconditions of state- building. In 1991, few analysts would have imagined that the conflict would be unending, and that a space where an organized political community lived, under a unique political system, could be replaced by a plethora of fragmented sovereignties. Since the state collapsed in Somalia, the enduring nature of the state crisis has been expressed through various paradigms: during the early 1990’s, Somalia came to represent the great hope of the humanitarian intervention, ‘the ideal test case’ for the United Nations in building a new world order (Bush 1990). After the failure of the international intervention Somalia was considered the epitome of the mantra assigning African solutions to African problems. However, following the events of 2001, the Darwish’s land in the Gulf of Aden has been portrayed as a prototype of the collapsed state that facilitates, sponsors, and nurtures international terrorism (Menkhaus 2003, Lewis 1994, Rotberg 2004). All these paradigms have gradually contributed to build a picturesque framework of analysis where Somalia has been defined a nation without the state (Sorens 2000), a state of anarchy (Lorenz 1993, ‘Anarchy in Somalia’ 2008, Bahadur 2011) a shattered state (Harper 2012), a state of new barbaries (Murphy 2011), a nation driven to despair (Omar 1996), an invented state (Ali Jimale Ahmed 1995), etc. Against this metaphysical backdrop, this research emphasizes one empirical attribute, the enduring character of the state disintegration denoted by a permanent civil war in which Somalia has been embroiled for twenty years. Whilst the war rages, the central sovereignty hibernates in a protracted state of implosion, and the integrity of political authority has been shattered by the bottom- up process of territorial fragmentation. My empirical data is surprising and particularly remarkable, for at least three reasons. Firstly, considering that the state collapsed in 1991, Somalia has been paralyzed 1 by the longest-running instance of complete state dissolution, which has now continued for almost 20 years. Between 1991 and 2010 the state achieved very few results in terms of de facto sovereignty: even if during this lapse of time the Republic of Somalia never disappeared from the map of recognized states, efforts pursued to revitalize the central authority have failed. Since 2000, governments of national or federal unity have emerged in Somalia and have preserved de jure attributes of statehood rather than rebuilding de facto conditions of statehood. As a result, these governments have been perceived of as operating at different levels of illegitimacy that stems from a lack of ability to exert territorial power, which is often clearly emphasized by the incapacity to claim a monopoly of force within the territory under jurisdiction. This data is also significant because the responses to sovereignty dissolution have emerged