Paradoxes of democracy on Africa
“I solemnly hands power to new President Ahmed Silanyo, who beat me in the recent elections,” said the outgoing Head of State Riyale Kahin, on 27 July. Somaliland, which declared itself independent in 1991, but not to date recognized by the ‘international community’, are pluralistic elections are held peacefully. A rarity in the Horn of Africa. By Gerard Prunier
The contrast is striking: the border of Somalia – if any symbol of the failed state – Somaliland held on 26 June one of the most democratic elections ever known in Africa continent of many years. This paradox is explained largely by history.
When he occupied the northern region of Somalia in the late nineteenth century, the United Kingdom – sure of himself and pragmatic – only had two objectives in mind: to prevent the French access to the strategic outlet to the sea Red and supply – cheap – its neighboring colony of Aden, situated in a desert area. The British, not wishing to return the territory, contented themselves with minimal support, interfering little in the native administration and effective mechanisms for conflict resolution pastoral (nomadic essential medium).
To the south, the Italian colonization of Somalia took a radically different form. Italy, already consolidated at the Berlin conference in 1884, then showed an appetite for recognition commensurate with its economic and political backwardness compared to the rest of Western Europe. Neither strategic nor economic, colonial ambition amounted to access a compensatory glory – while allowing it to establish settlements could stop the hemorrhaging she was experiencing population (to the United States and Argentina, especially ). Fascism does not tempera such a claim, transforming the Italian colonial phenomenon in a compensatory psychodrama that culminated in the 1920 to real massacres and the destruction of all indigenous mechanisms of social regulation.
One million refugees
Divided by colonization, the Somali people was nevertheless culturally welded. In his view, independence would pave the way for reunification.This idea of “Greater Somalia” even became a national center, resulting in a fusion of two colonies under the first government free of Somalia in 1960. The operation did not fail to generate significant tensions with the Organization of African Unity (AU) at its founding in 1963. It did not require that Somaliland will not respect borders from the colonial?
It then sees the paradox of departure: two territories whose history had sealed divorce found themselves in a project irredentist ambiguous which gave them an artificial feeling of unity.
Trial by fire came in 1977 when Somalia – united under the rule of Mohamed Siad Barre- embarked on the conquest of the Ethiopian Ogaden, the first stone of the “Greater Somalia” dream. The war ended in defeat, which had the triple effect of destroying the great national project to lay the Somali clans against each other in the search for scapegoats and bring Siad Barre to try to pay the cost the debacle at Northern clans (those of the former British Somaliland).
One million refugees from the Ogaden Ethiopia arrived in Somalia on the heels of the retreating army. Siad Barre decided to settle in the North, and arm them. Not content to give them administrative powers extended, he willingly tolerated the newcomers plundered pure and simple.
The fragmentation of clans – including the Somalis had always wanted to ignore the danger – indeed occurred, with the blessing of the dictatorship. The project of “Greater Somalia” that fizzled, the power encouraged to submit some other clans, redesigning a front north-south inherited colonial culture.
In 1981, the North rebelled, inaugurating a period of ten years of civil war in which all excluded from power rose up one after the other against the dictatorship. It fell in 1991, resulting in the Somali state in his head: no clan confederation not proved capable of creating constructive alliances.
The North took the opportunity to declare independence and leave the fratricidal conflict that sank the former Somalia Italiana. Its early years were chaotic, in 1993 the shir (clan council) Borama managed to provide the country with serious representative institutions which ensured its democratic foundations.
While Somaliland was quickly resurrected its internal balance, the South sank into chaos. From 1992 to 1995, led by the United States, the “international community” decided the massive occupation of Southern Somalia: it was the military operation “Restore Hope”. Yet far from “bringing hope,” thirty-five thousand soldiers deployed by more than thirty armed (at a cost of $ 5 billion) were unsuccessful … nothing, and were discharged after two and a half years. Weakened by external interference, Somalia, also suffered from internal tensions. From 1992 to today, the country will know fourteen attempts to reconstitute the government. and all ended in failure.
In this context, the colonial legacy played a decisive role: in the north, Somaliland incorporated his former clan mechanisms of conflict management in the common law to reach a British form of democracy original. In the South, where the Italian colonization had wiped itself Somali heritage and where fascism had made no political contributions or legal function, the phenomenon clan uncontrolled hindered the emergence of any form of government, albeit authoritarian.
The Transitional Federal Government (TFG), in place since 2004 and recognized internationally, controls only a few blocks from the downtown of the capital, Mogadishu. And yet, he does so with the support of six thousand soldiers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Riven by personal conflicts and corruption, the TFG is in addition to facing an Islamist insurgency, which in July, organized deadly attacks in Kampala (Uganda) to provoke an escalation in the international crisis. Indeed, far more influential in the country that Islamism, nationalism provides insurgents Harakat Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen (Movement of youth fighting) the opportunity to resurrect some form of national consensus around the idea “resistance.” And defuse the reservations raised by their extremism.
So far, Somaliland has managed to stay out of violence which, in twenty years, has left tens of thousands of victims, thrown a million people on the roads of exile and has processed more than two million “internal refugees”. Paradox: the “international community” refuses to recognize this island of peace and democracy while it continues to legitimize, in the name of the merger in July 1960, a “State” n’ad’Etat as name, unable to pleading no democratic criterion or restore peace.
Paris, London and Washington are beginning to question the merits of this policy. But inertia and conformism bar the way to the recognition of Somaliland. For the Arab world – that the Western powers do not want to offend – is Ethiopia, “foreign body” in a Christian-dominated Muslim region, which stands out as an enemy. Facing it, Egypt in particular has always wanted a united and strong Somalia that could serve as an ally against Addis Ababa. From this point of view, Somaliland bother.
Hence the importance for him to be perfect. “We asked more than others to give us less,” predicted a former vice-president of the country just before the presidential election last June. Much remains to be done.The Head of State, Mr. Hassan Dahir Riyale Kahin, in power since May 2002, does not justify a flawless journey to democracy. Former vice-president came to power following the death (natural) of the Head of State, Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, he then manipulated the Guurti (Senate clan) to postpone the elections and remain at his post. In September 2009, threatened both by riots and a parliamentary revolt, he had asked the Chief of Staff of the army to move on “capital” Hargeisa, most likely with the intention to suspend rooms. The supreme head of the army refused – after twenty-four hours to think – to take part in this “legal coup”, the President had been obliged to set a date for elections.
True freedom of speech
Constitutionally, Somaliland has narrowed to three the number of authorized political parties. Mr. Riyale Kahin Udub directs, the party founded by Egal, the “father of the Republic.” Seventeen years in power have encouraged the usual phenomena of cronyism and nepotism. But these are common in Africa, remained limited here, thanks to a free press, a true freedom of speech for which a strong “civil society” has fought and sometimes corrupt a legislature but never fully bought.Udub face, between the old Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo organized a strong opposition and structured within the Kulmiye party. The wild card in this game, the small new UCID party, led by Mr. Faisal Ali Warabe, combining the best – openness to women, minority clans and intellectuals – and worse – a dangerous complacency towards the radical Islamism. Result: UCID is often perceived as an opportunist, ready to fire on all cylinders to dislodge the two parties ‘historical’.
Significantly younger than the president or Mr. Kahin Silanyo, Mr. Warabe is not, like his rivals, the war generation. For him, Somaliland is not a miracle of will, but the ordinary course of politics. This vision has rallied some of the young voters.
The election went smoothly on June 26 and July 1, the national electoral commission said Silanyo winner with 49% of the vote, Mr. Kahin obtaining 33% and 17% Mr. Warabe. Turnout reached 88%, to 1.09 million enrolled. The seventy foreign observers have mostly played a symbolic role in legitimizing the process, which took place in an atmosphere noticeably quiet.
However, it is won for the small Somaliland? His good will and organization they earned him the recognition to which they aspire?Probably not, at least in the short term. His opponents are numerous nostalgic for the “Greater Somalia,” Islamist radicals, conservatives diplomats. Even some of his friends fear that full recognition from leading to further aggravate the already devastating antagonisms in the rest of Somalia. But could we not imagine an intermediate status for the territory that lives without international assistance for twenty years?This would give the most benefits and legal recognition of commercial, without agitating the red cloth.
By Gerard Prunier
Source: Le Monde Diplomatique,
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