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Reflections on the National Somali Reconciliation Conference

Ahmed Isse Awad*

Abstract

Somalia is Back!

After fourteen years of civil war and the absence of an internationally recognized central government, Somalia is back again. The Somali National Reconciliation Conference that has been going on in Kenya since 15th October 2002 under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Agency for Development of the Horn of Africa (IGAD). It culminated on 10th October 2004, in the election of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as the President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of the Somali Republic to serve a five years term. This was preceded by the inauguration on 29th August 2004 of a Transitional Federal Parliament, which comprises of 275 members, and the election of Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden as the Speaker on 15th September 2004. This success is no less than a miracle considering that thirteen previous conferences had failed with the exception of Arta, which produced a weak and ineffective Transitional National Government (TNG) whose mandate expired on 12th August 2003.

The Genesis of the Conference

Following the formation of the TNG of Somalia in July 2000 in Arta, Djibouti, the euphoria that accompanied its birth had turned into bitter disappointments; and the hopes that had been vested in it had soon dissipated into a fleeting mirage. The TNG had been faced with insurmountable obstacles such as, the legacy of ten years of devastating civil war, the internal challenges posed by armed opposition groups that were generally unwilling to negotiate, and an outside world that was largely hostile under various pretexts. Still, the TNG was mandated at Arta to provide visionary leadership that can formulate and implement wise policies that would help cure the wounds of the civil war and gather together the fragmented population under the banner of reconciliation, forgiveness, tolerance and good governance. It was hoped that this would lead the country away from past political practices and into a new political culture based on freedom of expression, rule of law, respect and advancement of individual rights, creation of genuine and robust civil societies. Moreover, the TNG was expected to usher in a real democracy where popular participation in the political decision-making is the norm, rather than the whimsical rule by a capricious single individual. Unfortunately, the TNG has failed in this mandate.

With the creation of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC) in March 2001 in Awassa, Ethiopia, to counterbalance the newly formed TNG, the conflict in Somalia entered another phase. The support that Djibouti and Ethiopia had each given to their chosen proxy not only had caused a fissure in their relationship but also had further complicated the Somali problem - which had remained hitherto in the confines of fraternal annihilation - by introducing an additional burden of direct outside interference to an already complex and intractable situation.

In spite of the well-intended efforts and the goodwill of many in the international community, Somalia has remained a troubled place deemed dangerous to herself as well as to the rest of the world. Therefore, it became necessary to do something about this simmering volcano before it erupted and engulfed anything and everything in its path. Accordingly, the 9th Summit of IGAD in Khartoum, Sudan, mandated the three frontline states of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti to organize an all-inclusive national reconciliation conference for Somali in Kenya.

From Conception to Commencement

The frontline states, with financial and technical support from the European Commission and the IGAD Partners Forum (IPF), embarked on the bold and ambitious task of organizing the Somali National Reconciliation Conference in Eldoret, Kenya. It was aimed at finding a lasting solution to the Somali problem and to establishing a broad-based and all-inclusive government of national unity. Thus, the best conceived reconciliation process yet for Somalia was set in motion.

The Conference had to bring together all the political, military, traditional, and civil forces in the country to deliberate together and forge a way out of the misery in which the Somali people have lived in the last decade. More importantly, it was announced that the reconciliation would be a process rather than a one-time event, and would address all the important sticking issues taking place inside and outside Somalia over several phases. Several missions comprised of representatives from the frontline states and IPF visited all the regions of Somalia and the neighbouring countries to canvass the support and to gauge the views of the key actors and potential participants of the reconciliation process.

The technical committee drew an impressive list of 300 participants representing all the significant actors and stakeholders in the political, social and economic interests of the country. The Committee comprised the three frontline states with the assistance of the IPF, and the European Commission who has been funding the Conference. The list had taken into account the political reality as well as the normative imperative in Somalia and had apparently sought to strike a balance between the clans, regions, factions and other forces in the country.

Arriving in Eldoret with High Hopes

After several delays and postponements of the Conference from its initial date of February 2002, the Somali National Reconciliation Conference was finally opened on 15th October 2002 by the former President of Kenya, Daniel T. Arap Moi in his hometown of Eldoret, Kenya. It was opened officially in the presence of the Presidents of Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, and other high level representations from Djibouti, Eritrea, Egypt, Italy, Sweden, the Arab League, and the AU. To the sceptics, the seriousness of the international community would have been evident from this unprecedented large gathering of high-level dignitaries in the opening ceremony of the Conference. This was an emphatic indication of the importance that the international community attached to the outcome of the Conference and their commitment to peace and stability in Somalia.

All the invited Somali parties, except the Administration of Somaliland, which had insisted on its unrecognised separation from Somalia, had come to the conference. When pressed upon the need for Somaliland to participate in the Conference for it to be all inclusive, the organisers pointed out that they had appealed to the administration in Somaliland to take part in the reconciliation process but that there was no way they could have forced them to come. From the start of the Conference and several times since, Somali leaders had been given ample opportunities to take over the running of the Conference, which they failed to accept due to lack of trust among themselves. This was indeed a mistaken move which was to haunt them later on, and which they very much regretted making.

The atmosphere at Eldoret was conducive to reconciliation, and the optimism in the Conference for ending the conflict in Somalia was contagious. The majority of the delegates had been accommodated in close premises. Former foes and friends, long separated by the civil war, now found each other again in friendly settings and intermingled in the lush lawns of the Sirikwa Hotel. Indeed, there had been a number of successful attempts at reconciling personalities and neighbouring communities. The chance for a lasting peace and reconciliation in Somalia had never looked better and brighter. The first major breakthrough came in the Eldoret Agreement for the Declaration of Cessation of Hostilities and Principles and Procedures of the Conference. Twenty-four leaders signed it on 27th October 2002, only twelve days after the opening of the Conference. The signing of the Eldoret Declaration (as the agreement was called) concluded the first phase of the conference. The second phase started with formation of six reconciliation committees: 1) federalism and provisional federal charter; 2) demobilization, disarmament and reintegration; 3) land and property rights; 4) economic institution building and resource mobilization; 5) conflict resolution and reconciliation, and 6) regional and international relations.

First Signs of Trouble

It soon became apparent that all was not well at the Conference and that the declared intentions of the organizers contravened with their operative actions. And the actual implementation of the plan of the Conference fell short of the conceptual presentation on paper. Mismanagement, inefficiency, corruption and competition among the organizers sneaked into the Conference and exposed it to the lurking danger of failure.

A great deal of manipulation and tampering had been done with the list of participants that disfigured it and rendered the initial plan unrecognisable. For instance, well known and highly respected personalities like Abdirazak H. Hussein, Abdullahi Hirad, Nuruddin Farah, Said S. Samatar, Zainab H. Aden, Ali Jimale Ahmed, Mohamed H. Mukhtar, Abdulkadir Aden Abdulle, Istarlin Arush, Abdi I. Samatar, and many others of the same stature who were originally invited as members of an advisory council or civil society had either been deceptively and furtively replaced or unabashedly and blatantly vetoed by one or the other of the frontline states. Their positions were taken over by former factional leaders, members of the TNG parliament, members of the regional administrations, former ministers and generals of the military dictatorship who had all been well known for their factional politics, but deemed loyal to whatever agenda that the countries managing the Conference, namely Ethiopia and Djibouti had been pursuing. This gave the name “civil society” in Somalia a new meaning by bending its definition to the straining limit.

As they arrived in Eldoret some of the invited factional leaders found out that their status had changed with the change of their political fortunes on the ground, and some of them were actually treated as persona non grata by the organizers of the Conference.

The corruption and mismanagement in the Conference had become so endemic and rampant that the number of participants, according to the technical committee’s own admission, had swollen from 300 to over 800. Every member of the organizers had his own people included in the list. In the end, participation in the Conference had become available for sale.

It was at this point that the Conference reached its lowest point. It became obvious that the only way to salvage the Conference was to change the Chairman of the Technical Committee, Mr. Elijah Mwangale, who was blamed for much of the problems in the Conference. This had been made easy by the change of government in Kenya in December 2002. The new government appointed a new chairman, Mr. Bethuel Kiplagat, one with an impeccable character.

A New Venue

One of the first things that Mr. Kiplagat did after his appointment as Chairman of the IGAD Technical Committee was to move the site of the Conference from Eldoret to Mbagathi in Nairobi, and reduce the number of the delegates to 366. The delegates moved to Nairobi (Mbagathi) on 16th February 2003. However, the change of the site did not solve the problems of the Conference. The financial difficulties, on which the move to Mbagathi was predicated, continued to plague the Conference. The differences and wrangling between the representatives of Djibouti and Ethiopia also reached a crisis point, exacerbating the differences of the already divided Somali political leaders and encouraging some of them to leave. This was something that brought the Conference to the brink of collapse.

The Row over the Charter

By June 2003, the six reports of the reconciliation committees were completed and ready. All the committees but one had reached consensus on their works. However, the committee that had been working on the Charter split into two camps along factional lines and produced two versions of the Charter.

To bridge the gap between the two camps, the Chairman of the Technical Committee appointed a harmonisation committee. The committee included respectable and prominent Somalis such as, Abdulkadir Aden Abdulle, and Mohamed Abshir Waldo. With their intimate knowledge of the history of constitutional making processes in Somalia and also with their appreciable understanding of the current factional politics in the country, they were valuable contributors. The committee then produced a reasonably good work. However, the chairman of the harmonisation committee, Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar, happened to be a controversial figure disapproved by a large number of the delegates. As a result, the work of the committee, in spite of its merit, became a victim of the reputation of the chairman of the drafting committee.

Unfortunately, a culture of suspicion and mistrust has taken root in the collective psyche of the Somali people, which, as a result, has spoilt too many good proposals for the Somali nation. In this, the elite, including the good Professor himself, are much to blame for their preparing of the ground for malaise with their condescending and uncompromising ideology-laden statements and actions. Many Somalis, including the elite, forget that any charter or constitution is primarily a political document before it becomes legal. And politics by definition deals with negotiating conflicting interests and working out acceptable compromises, rather than throwing a judgement as in a court of law. Therefore, a charter is as good as it succeeds in achieving consensus and compromise among parties of contradicting claims. A well-written charter or constitution may not be worth the paper on which it is written if it fails to get the approval of the people for whom it was written. On the other hand, a badly-written charter could turn out to be the best constitutional document if it manages to gain the acceptance and the trust of the people for which it was intended, which, essentially, is the only guarantee of its success and workability.

A good illustration for this could be found in the constitution of the military regime led by Siad Barre and the charters of Puntland and the TNG which appeared good on paper, but all failed to spare destruction from any of these entities. Our national pain and misery did not result from bad constitutions; but rather from political ambitions that went beyond reason, and the resultant political culture of impunity that had been imbued into our thinking.

It is important to remember in this regard that those leaders who made the biggest noise about the charter were those who had shown the least respect for the same charter from which they had drawn their authorities! The excuses they gave were only red herring for their personal political ambitions, albeit presented as the defence of national, religious or regional interest for which many of us had fallen.

Conclusion: The Rekindled Hopes and the Challenges Ahead

The Conference was started with high hopes, and the planning had been well conceived. It was obvious that the international community, mainly the European Commission and IGAD member states, wanted peace and broad-based government for Somalia. This was very encouraging for the civil war-fatigued Somali population. The political and faction leaders also detected a warning to them from the serious intentions of the world community. They went by their usual motto of “if it is balloon, I will punch the air out of it, but if it turns out to be an iron, I shall oblige by it”.

However, structural problems within the IGAD system and lack of a serious commitment on the part of the international community have immediately betrayed whatever good intentions had been there in the first place. The political differences and the diplomatic squabbling of its members made IGAD, as an organization, incapable of undertaking a mammoth task such as the one required to resolve the conflict in Somalia. It also lacked both the financial and technical capacity to deal with these kinds of problems. These weaknesses were exposed at the very beginning when the process was postponed several times from its initial date in February to the final date of 15th October 2002. But the deficiencies became starkly clear as soon as the Conference started in Eldoret and as things began to fall apart.

Likewise, the international community’s less than full commitment to the process was evident from the level of representation at the Conference. With the exception of Italy, Egypt, the UN, AU and the Arab League that sent special envoys to the Somali peace process, the other members of the European union and the USA had, in contrast to all the other peace processes currently going on in the world, sent to the Somali National Reconciliation Conference very low ranking officers who were mostly second or third secretaries at the political offices of their embassies in Nairobi. This implies that these major players in world politics are less interested in the well-being of the Somali people, not withstanding the sustained contribution of the European Commission to the peace process.

These drawbacks dampened the high hopes and the enthusiastic expectations of the Somali people from this Conference. These also emboldened the political and faction leaders who were dragged in the first place to the Conference fearing unfavourable repercussions and punitive sanctions by the international community.

Many Somalis were convinced that the success of the Conference had always hinged upon the international community’s firm and united stance in pressuring the political factions to come to an agreement. It should be obvious by now that after fourteen years of debilitating civil war, the Somali political leaders are unwilling or unable to compromise for the sake of their people and their nation, while the Somali people are too weak and too fragmented to pose any real challenge to their hegemony and grip over them.

Now that the conference is concluded and the rebirth of the Somali state is finally realized, there is an urgent need for a concerted effort by everybody including the new leadership, the Somali people every where, and the international community at large, to overcome the immense challenges that are awaiting the new government. The challenges facing the new government of Somalia are too many to be listed in this short piece, but three issues, at least, standout as the most serious: reconciliation, security, and sustained international support.

Put simply, there is a need for a comprehensive reconciliation in Somalia. There are political leaders and their supporters who feel that they lost out in the new arrangement mainly due to the pervasive suspicions among the Somali clans, as a result of the protracted civil war and the destructive practices of past political leaders. Therefore, it is important that the new leadership creates a new environment and a new political culture that imbues confidence and trust to every Somali.

Security is paramount for the new government to function properly. Therefore, there is a need for an immediate disarmament at the capital or the government taking a temporary seat at a secure environment.

After fourteen years of statelessness, the coffers of the Somali State are empty and virtually all national institutions need to be recreated. Therefore, there is a need for an urgent and sustained financial, technical and diplomatic support by the international community to the new institutions of the Somali Government.

In their last several meetings, the Foreign Ministers of IGAD demonstrated the serious determination and commitment of the international community to the successful completion of the Somali National Reconciliation Conference in Kenya; and with it, the hopes and expectations of the Somali people to see the rebirth of their statehood have been elevated. The angst, the agony and the sacrifices of the last two years may have been worth the long wait, after all. Let us all pray to God that this time around our aspirations for a good, democratic, broad-based and all inclusive government that serves the Somali people, rather than becoming a predator upon them, and that cements their unity and cohesion, rather than dividing them, have been realized in this Conference.

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