Comments on the 2010 Failed State Index, Part 1 - People Still Wonder Why Somalia is a Failed State

    This week, Foreign Policy magazine released the 2010 rankings for its Failed States Index , and there are several interesting changes to note. Of course, it should not come as a surprise to many that Somalia topped the list as most failed state, considering the country has no central government and is actually fragmented into three main pieces:

    Somaliland (self-declared Republic)

    Following years of war against President Barre's dictatorial and brutal regime, Somaliland (once British Somaliland) rescinded its act of union with Italian Somaliland (now Puntland and Southern Somalia) and declared itself independent. Though several relatively credible elections have been held, and peace largely achieved without foreign assistance through traditional institutions, the country remains totally unrecognized.

    Puntland (autonomous)

    Puntland's regional government can barely be called a government at all. Officially, it seeks a federation with other regions of Somalia. Unofficially, it is host to most of the Somalian pirates that threaten ships within a wide radius of the Somalian coastline. There are several theories why some people in this autonomous region have turned to piracy, including the unemployment in fishing industries resulting from illegal over-fishing of Somalia by foreign ships, but clearly the Puntland regional government could care less about the only real economic activity in its domain.

    Southern Somalia

   The area of the country most fought over, and for good reason (at least for a warlord): Barre invested almost all of the country's wealth in Mogadishu and other cities in Southern Somalia, making it the "best" place to plunder. 

(#1) Somalia

    Though Al-Shabaab and Hizbul-Islam are probably the most powerful actors in Southern Somalia, they have not consolidated power enough to provide stability. Moreover, the kind of stability they want to implement – as demonstrated through their “justice” system - is probably about as far as possible from what we would consider just. But I digress...

The Political Situation in Somalia, December 2006

 

The Political Situation in Somalia, June 2010

(Source: Wikipedia)

One of the points I have made to others when discussing Somalia is the sheer stupidity of Western policy. After the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) - an amalgamation of a wide array of Sharia courts whose ideologies ranged from moderate to extreme- attempted to extend law and order throughout Southern Somalia, it faced visceral opposition from Western states. Their favoured Transitional Federal Government (TFG), an immensely corrupt and incompetent organization, had been unable to provide any semblance of stability on its own. Not even the child soldiers the TFG has employed have helped bolster their military prowess. To prevent the “radical”* ICU from taking over and creating a feared Islamic state, the United States encouraged Ethiopia to intervene in an attempt to overthrow the ICU and finally install a functioning TFG government.

    And so, over a year or so, Ethiopian and TFG forces took over Mogadishu, and most of Southern Somalia, north up to Puntland and south nearly to Kenya. (The US provided some assistance through targeted bombings). Having defeated the ICU, Ethiopia and the TFG hunkered down and did almost nothing to create a functioning government.

    Indeed, the whole episode merely resulted in a change of scenery (and a whole lot of innocent deaths) as the ICU disintegrated. Ethiopian forces retreated in January 2009 to avoid more casualties in the guerrilla war launched by the tattered leftover pieces of the ICU.

    The extremist “youth league” Al-Shabaab (English: the youth) broke away and began a terrorist campaign against TFG and Ethiopian forces. Once these forces were defeated, Al-Shabaab re-consolidated its control over Southern Somalia in a fashion at least as brutal than the ICU – if not more so. Other hardliners formed Hizbul Islam (Party of Islam), which vied with Al-Shabaab for control over the insurgency but eventually split into several factions that no longer fundamentally threaten Al-Shabaab’s control.

    So what happened to the moderate ICU contingent I mentioned?

    After withdrawing from Somalia, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the leader of the ICU, broke away with a smaller group of fellow moderates and joined the TFG, becoming the official (but powerless) “President of Somalia” in 2009.

So let’s recap this epic policy failure:

1. The ICU emerges from a range of Sharia courts, some extremist, some moderate. Ethiopia, with US encouragement, invades to prevent them from firmly establishing a government.

2. After the collapse of the ICU, its most extremist elements re-form as Hizbul Islam and Al-Shabaab.

3. They take over the territory won by Ethiopia and the TFG almost immediately after the former withdraws from Somalia, and install radical, brutal Sharia law interpretations devoid of moderate influence.

4. The TFG welcomes its new and powerless President, the man who once actually had some control over Somalia, former ICU head Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

So rather than have the ICU in power, the US and its allies decided it would be better to remove them from power. Years later, the TFG remains utterly powerless while the extremist groups once contained by the ICU now control Southern Somalia. And the moderate in the ICU that once actually had control now have none as members of the TFG.

    And people wonder why Somalia remains a failed state?

 

* It goes without saying we in the West will strongly disagree with the type of “law and order” imposed by the ICU. That said, the group probably gained support because it actually provided basic justice, which was preferable to the lack thereof that had been the previous status quo.