In Whose Interests are the International Interventions in Somalia?

The conflict in Somalia between the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab and Africa Union and Kenyan forces continues to escalate, with analysts warning of impending humanitarian disaster as vital aid is blocked or destroyed by rebels.

On Jan 19, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for a landmine attack on a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) convoy. This incident closely followed the bombing of a police camp in the Kenya-Somalia border region, which saw six Kenyan police killed and four civilians kidnapped.

In the absence of reliable sources on the conflict, an information war has started on Twitter, with ‘Kenya’s Army Spokesman’ Emmanuel Chirchir (@MajorEChirchir) and the Press Office of al-Shabaab (@HSMPress) competing for control of the narrative. Taunts, dubious claims of great victories and refutations of such claims have flown across the twittersphere from both sides, and it has been difficult to substantiate most of the information.

Red Cross ban

On January 30, al-Shabaab announced that they had banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from the areas under its control, claiming that the organisation had “breached its trust” by supplying spoiled and expired food. The al-Shabaab Press Office Twitter account later posted a picture showing burning sacks of beans with the caption, “2,000 Metric tones [sic] of expired ICRC rations intended for distribution burnt by administration in Marka, Lower Shabeelle”. Before this, the ICRC was one of the only aid agencies allowed to work in rebel-controlled Somalia.

UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, warned that the ICRC ban risked tipping vulnerable Somalis back into famine, and reversing improvements made in recent months. "We appeal to all factions in Somalia to allow humanitarian actors to reach people most in need, wherever they are”, he said.

Though the food situation in Somalia has improved since famine was declared last September, the UN estimates that 2.3 million people are still need emergency humanitarian aid, with 250,000 of the most vulnerable living in rebel-controlled areas.

International interests

Current developments in Somalia, however, go far beyond a domestic humanitarian problem. The country sits at a tense intersection between various competing motives and objectives. Within the AU Mission in Somalia (Amisom) alone, there is substantial evidence of competing ulterior motives between participating states.

Aside from the official imperative to ‘secure’ Somalia and assure the stability of the TFG, Kenya – according to some sources – has the additional aim of creating a semi-autonomous buffer zone in Jubaland, to be controlled by a Kenyan puppet regime.

On the other hand, it has been speculated that part of Ethiopia’s motives in intervening in Western Somalia is to assert control over the contested Ogaden region and establish proxy regimes in the country, raising the spectre of further Balkanisation of the country.

The Amisom mission has also been supported and endorsed by Western powers. Both France and the US have been providing “technical and logistical assistance” to Kenyan forces since October 2011.

William Hague, in turn, became the first UK Foreign Secretary in 20 years to visit Somalia on Feb 2, a move signalling a renewal of British diplomacy in the state. A recent report by security think tank RUSI warns that Somalia has become a training ground for British ‘lone wolf’ terrorists and in the run up to the 2012 London Olympics, the UK has moved counter-terrorism up its list of priorities.

Somalis drowned out

Amidst this complex web of interweaving motives, high-level international debates and gung-ho Twitter battles, it seems that the voices and interests of ordinary Somalis have been drowned out.

Indeed, while Amisom’s stated objective is that of “stabilising the security situation”, few Somalis would define stability and security as being under the military occupation of Kenya and their historical enemy Ethiopia.

Furthermore, while Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki urged the international community to ‘seize the opportunity’ to stabilise Somalia following recent military gains against al-Shabaab, and secure the position of the Transitional Federal Government, many Somalis have rejected the undemocratic, externally-imposed and artificially centralised TFG. Somali society and politics have historically been organised around clans; the Islamic Courts Union was much more popular than the TFG, in part because it respected this devolutionary principle. While a strong, central government may be cause for optimism amongst the international community in terms of security, the notion of the TFG sits uneasily with ideas of genuine Somali self-determination.

Foreign intervention in Somalia has bloody and disastrous precedents. The US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006-9 against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) resulted in the displacement of millions of Somalis and precipitated the rise of al-Shabaab which splintered from the moderate ICU during the course of the war.

Today, international interventions have similar high-stakes for ordinary Somalis and, notwithstanding Western objectives of ‘stability’, it seems highly unlikely that stability and autonomy for Somalis will come about within historically disastrous schemes of liberal intervention.

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