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RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE heritagE INSTITUTE FoR poLIcY STUdIES Land Matters in Mogadishu Settlement, ownership and displacement in a contested city RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE hERITAgE INSTITUTE FoR poLIcY STUdIES Land Matters in Mogadishu Settlement, ownership and displacement in a contested city Published in 2017 by the Rift Valley Institute and the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies Rift Valley Institute 26 St Luke’s Mews, London W11 1dF, United Kingdom PO Box 52771 GPO, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya Heritage Institute of Policy Studies KM-5, Hodan District, Mogadishu, Somalia ThE RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE (RVI) The Rift Valley Institute (www.riftvalley.net) works in eastern and central Africa to bring local knowledge to bear on social, political and economic development. ThE hERITAgE INSTITUTE FoR poLIcY STUdIES (hIpS) The Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (www.heritageinstitute.org) is an independent, nonpartisan, non-profit policy research and analysis institute based in Mogadishu, Somalia. ThE RIFT VALLEY FoRUM The RVI Rift Valley Forum is a venue for critical discussion of political, economic and social issues in the Horn of Africa, eastern and central Africa, Sudan and South Sudan. cREdITS EdIToRS: Mahad Wasuge, Cedric Barnes and Tymon Kiepe dESIgN: Lindsay Nash MApS: Abdishakur Hassan and Jillian Luff, MAPgrafix ISBN 978-1-907431-35-7 coVER: General view of Mogadishu skyline looking towards the city centre and central business district of the Somali capital. RIghTS Copyright © Rift Valley Institute 2017 Cover image © AU/UN IST Stuart Price 2013 Text and maps published under Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 Available for free download at www.riftvalley.net Printed copies available from Amazon and other online retailers. Contents Acknowledgments 5 Summary 7 1. Introduction: Post-conflict urban land 11 2. A brief history of land in Mogadishu 24 3. City in conflict 42 4. Private property, power brokers and a weak legal framework 53 5. Informal settlements, internal displacement and the urban poor 75 6. Conclusion and policy considerations 89 Glossary of acronyms, words and phrases 96 Bibliography 99 Map 1. Southern and central Somalia 4 Map 2. Mogadishu 109 TOGDHEER Laascaanood Garoowe N Buuhoodle SOOL Aware NUGAAL Degehabur Gashamo Burtinle Fiq Jariiban Danot Bokh Sheygosh Garacad n Galaadi Garbo Wardheer e Gaalkacayo Qabridehar d MUDUG a Caabudwaaq A Imi g u Cadaado d ETHIOPIA O o R Godey a Dhuusamarreeb n K’elafo Hobyo g Ga e na W GALGUDUUD le e b Ferfer i G e si Hargele ro Beledweyne Ceel Buur Xarardheere W Ceel Barde e b HIRAAN i S h a BAKOOL b e e Dolo Adow Xuddur le SOMALIA Mandheera Buula Xaawa Buulobarde Waajid Luuq Jalalaqsi SHABEELE DHEXE Baydhabo Jawhar (MIDDLE SHABEELE) Garbahaarrey Cadalle GEDO Buurxakaba Wanlaweyn Ceel Waaq Balcad BAY Baardheere Diinsor Afgooye Warshiikh BANADIR INDIAN Qoryooley Mogadishu (Muqdisho) OCEAN Marka JUBBA DHEXE SHABEELE HOOSEHOOSE (MIDDLE JUBBA) (LOWER SHABEELE)SHABEELE) 0km 100 Bu’aale W e b i Baraawe Ju b b International a boundary Jilib Afmadow Disputed boundary BAY Somali administrative Jamaame region JUBBA HOOSE National capital (LOWER JUBBA) Kismaayo Capital Chief town Other town or village Road/track Buur Gaabo River/seasonal river Boundaries are approximate KENYA Ras Kamboni © Rift Valley Institute 2017 Boundaries and names shown do not imply www.riftvalley.net endorsement by the RVI or any other body MAPgrax 2017 Map 1. Southern and central Somalia Acknowledgments Competition over the control and ownership of land has long been acknowledged as a driving force behind violent conflict in Somalia. As Besteman and Cassanelli argue in their groundbreaking book on the subject—The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia—political reconcilia- tion has little chance of long-term success, if it is ‘not accompanied by mechanisms for resolving competing claims to land and other productive assets.’1 Their analysis was largely concerned with rural land. This report is concerned with what is arguably Somalia’s most contested piece of real-estate—its capital, Mogadishu. Research for this report was undertaken in 2014, but with refugee returns continuing to increase in 2016, a large population of long-term internally displaced people in the city, and a new government and national development plan, its publication remains timely. Without an effective system of land governance in place, competition over land will continue to be a source of violent conflict, threatening to undermine stability and affecting all walks of life. While the land question has been acknowledged in successive peace agreements in Somalia, the political sensitivity and complexity of the subject means there has been limited progress in developing concrete policies to address the issue. The issue of land in Mogadishu is multifaceted and deserves more atten- tion than this report can give it, as do the dynamics of land in Somalia’s other urban centres, such as Kismaayo, Baydhabo or Gaalkacyo. This report aims to inform the development agendas of the Somali Federal Government (SFG) and Federal Member States, and international policy makers, on the subject of land in Somalia. Researching land in Mogadishu is a difficult undertaking. The sensi- tivity of the subject means that the researchers and authors of this report prefer to remain unnamed. We acknowledge the quality of their research 1 Catherine Besteman and Lee Cassanelli, The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The War Behind the War, London: HAAN Associates, 2000, ix. 5 6 LANd matters IN MoghAdIShU in very difficult circumstances. We also thank Catherine Bond and Fergus Nicoll for editing an earlier version of this report, and those who have comprehensively reviewed and commented on the report, including Ken Menkhaus, Lee Cassanelli, Mahad Wasuge, Mohamed Ahmed ‘Shaan’ and Rick Davies. Mark Bradbury Abdirashid Hashi Rift Valley Institute Heritage Institute for Policy Studies Nairobi Mogadishu Summary Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, has for more than two decades been one of the most highly contested cities in the world. Since the collapse of President Siyad Barre’s government in early 1991, it has been the object of both military and political struggles almost without interruption. The nature of conflict in the city has evolved since 1991, when warlords waged fierce street battles for control of neighbourhoods, damaging or destroying much of the city centre and prompting massive popula- tion displacement and occupation of land by newcomers. In the years following the failed UN peace operation from 1993–1995, the city enjoyed an economic recovery fuelled by trade and remittances, but was fractured into a complex mosaic of warlord-controlled fiefdoms and was prone to chronic low-level insecurity. In early 2006, warlord militias were chased out by an alliance of Islamic courts and their affiliated militias—including those who later emerged as al-Shabaab2—which were, in turn, ousted by an Ethiopian military invasion in late 2006. An explosion of warfare pitting the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab against Ethiopian and transitional government forces inflicted still more displacement and damage on the city from 2007–2008. By 2008, al-Shabaab gained control over much of what became a divided city until, under pressure from African Union peacekeeping forces (African Union Mission in Somalia, AMISOM), it withdrew from most districts of Mogadishu. The city’s fortunes have improved somewhat since 2012, with the establishment of the Somali Federal Government (SFG). There are still major challenges. Al-Shabaab has infiltrated back into many districts and continues to launch devastating attacks in the city with relative ease and frequency. Security remains largely contingent on the presence of AMISOM troops, and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and other vulnerable groups are still dependent on humanitarian 2 Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin (Mujahidin Youth Movement) is a militant group in Somalia which is active across East Africa, commonly referred to as al-Shabaab. 7 8 LANd matters IN MoghAdIShU assistance. There is cautious optimism, however, that Mogadishu’s darkest days are over and that the city will gradually return to greater levels of peace and stability for its estimated 1.5 million residents.3 One of the most difficult and sensitive issues of the capital’s long process of recovery and normalization is competing claims to land. The control and ownership of land and property have been underlying themes in Somalia’s civil conflict since before the collapse of the state, arguably nowhere more so than in Mogadishu. From the first national reconcili- ation conference in 1993, addressing issues of land ownership has been seen as core to any reconciliation process. As a degree of stability returns to Mogadishu, members of the Somali diaspora have been returning in greater numbers and real estate investment has spiked, prompting the rise in value of land and bringing with it a surge of land-related disputes. During 2014, an estimated 80 per cent of court cases heard in Mogadi- shu’s Supreme Court were related to land.4 This report considers the current state of land governance and the nature of continuing land disputes in Mogadishu. It does so in the context of the city’s history, both before and during the prolonged period of conflict that began in the early 1990s. The report aims to build on the small but growing body of literature on urban land in post-conflict environments. It concludes by providing some preliminary policy considerations for both the federal government and the Benadir Regional Administration (BRA) relating to land governance reform, and to organizations within the international humanitarian and development communities with an interest in supporting them.5 3 Latest estimates put the number at 1,650,227; UN Population Fund, Population Estimation Survey 2014 for the 18 pre-war regions of Somalia, UNFPA, Somalia Country Office/Federal Republic of Somalia, October 2014.

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