Who cares about Somalia ?

In the last weeks, Somalia came back to the headlines. 85 people were killed in fightings in Mogadishu in a couple of days. Unrest have driven 750,000 others out of their home in the capital city during the last 15 months.

But who cares ?

The media concentrated their attention to two European ships that were taken by pirates off the shores of Somalia.

France and the US presented to the UN security council two resolutions drafts to fight piracy inside the Somali sea borders.

For Daniela Kroslak and Andrew Stroehlein, International crisis group experts, it’s like ‘watching flames engulf your neighbor’s house and calling in the fire brigade to help you wash your car.’

Moreover, the US counterterrorism policy prevent the Somali interim governement to engage the islamists in a real national conciliation talk, by considering them ‘terrorists’.

By the way, during their short reign in Mogadishu, these ‘terrorists’ succeeded eradicating piracy off Somali coasts. But no one will give them credit for that.

I post here the original column, published in the International Herald Tribune.

“Oh My Gosh, Pirates!”,
Daniela Kroslak and Andrew Stroehlein in the International Herald Tribune
29 April 2008

Strange how an African country can be moving from prolonged chaos to violent collapse and no one in the world notices until a couple of European boats get seized by armed gunmen.
War-ravaged Somalia is in the worst shape it has been in for years - which, for this devastated country that has not had a proper government for nearly a generation, is really saying something.
Yet, neither of the two resolutions currently in preparation at the UN Security Council mention the 85 dead in Mogadishu last weekend, or the exodus of newly displaced persons from that city, or Ethiopian shelling of civilian areas or the dwindling international humanitarian response.
Instead, one of the resolutions proposed by France, the United States and Britain is a reaction to the hijacking of a French yacht and a Spanish fishing vessel, and would authorize countries to fight piracy off Somalia’s coast.
It is like watching flames engulf your neighbor’s house and calling in the fire brigade to help you wash your car.
The death and displacement in Somalia is caused by the violent confrontation between the evaporating transitional government troops and its Ethiopian allies on the one hand, and insurgents on the other.
Officials in African and western capitals shrug their shoulders when confronted with the dire situation in Somalia. A lack of political will, investment and imagination has made Somalia a hopeless case in their eyes.
Realizing no one in power cares in the slightest, most international media have also been ignoring Somalia, barely mentioning the recent heavy fighting in Mogadishu for example.
Ethiopian troops have been accused of having targeted mosques and killing religious leaders and civilians in the north of the capital. Whole areas of Mogadishu were sealed off, leaving outsiders only to guess the gravity of the plight in those sectors. Did anyone hear about any of this?
But pirates taking a French luxury yacht? That story was hard to miss.
According to the United Nations, 2.5 million people are in urgent need of assistance in Somalia. 750,000 alone were displaced from Mogadishu over the last 15 months. Critical water shortages and a severe drought have befallen central and northern Somalia further aggravating the hardship for the civilian population.
The verdict seems to be clear: combined Ethiopian, African Union troops and transitional government forces have failed to establish security in the capital Mogadishu, or any other part of the country.
Islamist al-Shabaab militants in southern and central Somalia are combining their military operations with political outreach. Ultimately, the rise and consolidation of an Islamist movement pursuing a regional and international agenda will create a growing threat to the rest of the Horn of Africa.
A narrow window of opportunity has emerged in the form of Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein’s recent offer to negotiate with both the internal and external opposition, including al-Shabaab, many members of which belong to the clan controlling Mogadishu, the Hawiye. This bold political initiative led by a widely respected figure, if seized upon, could potentially usher in an inclusive Somali national political dialogue.
But it now faces a steep hurdle, if not a fatal blow, from the U.S. designation of al-Shabaab as a terrorist organization. Whether well founded or otherwise, the U.S. move - preceded by the latest American air strikes on Dobley in southern Somalia - could undercut the prime minister’s initiative, widen the rift between the president and the prime minister and undermine local and international efforts to facilitate a political resolution to the Somali crisis.
The lack of strategic engagement by the international community is a significant obstacle to progress. The efforts of the UN special representative, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, to build greater cohesion among members of the international community should be encouraged, and he should be supported to build a strategy for a meaningful peace process.
This new political process should work to achieve an end to the current insurgency. The first point on the agenda for negotiation should be a cease-fire. Involved parties need to be given security guarantees in order to agree to it and truly engage in political dialogue. For the opposition this might involve a clear plan and timeline for phased Ethiopian withdrawal supported and monitored by the international community. The Ethiopians would be given guarantees about greater Somalia claims and other security concerns.
The negotiations should include an agreement on the borders of the federal state, its internal divisions and the devolution of powers between states and central government. Also, a national reconciliation process should put an end to the cycle of revenge that has ruined the country for over two decades. The incentive for the parties to discuss this issue would be accountability mechanisms that would apply to perpetrators of crimes committed by all sides of the conflict. Finally, there must be an agreement on an electoral process leading to a democratic election of political leaders.
All this may seem quite a reach for a collapsed state like Somalia. But if world leaders and the international media gave this the kind of priority they have given the pirates, then progress would be far easier.

Daniela Kroslak is the deputy director of the Africa Program, and Andrew Stroehlein is media and information director, of the International Crisis Group.

Could the Sons of Iraq backfire ?

I should publish latter on this blog my last story printed this week in Le Point newsmagazine on the SOI (Sons of Iraq) sunni militia.
But I dont want to lose the opportunity to post a tribune, published today in the New York Times, on the same subject.

The findings of this article are quite the same to what I wrote in my own report : the SOI have been a powerful mean to decrease sharply the violences on a short term, but they embody a great danger on a longer term as many issues (national reconciliation, long term funding, sustainable loyalty of the local leaders to the Iraqi governement…) are still pending.

You can watch also my TV report on the SOI’s here.

* * * *
April 3, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor

Iraq’s Sunni Time Bomb

By MATT SHERMAN

Washington

WHILE the recent fighting in Basra and Baghdad has alerted many Americans to the danger that Shiite-on-Shiite violence poses to our goals in Iraq, it should not divert our focus from another looming threat: that the Sunni tribesmen who have sided with the American-led coalition may turn against us.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the drop in violence during the second half of 2007 was the coalition’s hiring of some 90,000 men, mostly Sunnis, to protect critical government properties like pipelines and to take part in neighborhood-watch systems. The decision to support these so-called Sons of Iraq — armed, many times, with the same AK-47’s that had been pointed at our troops just months earlier — was always viewed as risky, but few options were available to us at the time to reduce violence. So far, the gamble has paid off.
The Sons of Iraq program was at the heart of what the United States military called its “bottom-up reconciliation movement,” intended to get Iraqis to stop fighting the government and one another at the local neighborhood and village level. But use of the term “reconciliation” may be misleading. The word conjures images of forgiveness and repentance. That’s not what the Sons of Iraq idea was about — the coalition set out simply to neutralize a large swath of rogue fighters, often with money, with the hope of finding ways to reconcile in the future.
This is not to say that reconciliation is not possible; I believe it is. And by this I don’t mean reconciling Sunni and Shiite Islam — 1,300 years of history are unlikely to be resolved in a relative instant. What we can do is help shift the debate inside Iraq so that it doesn’t rest on how one sect relates to another but how individual Iraqis relate to their government.
While the Sons of Iraq movement has been a leading contributor toward the reduction of violence against American troops, it remains highly fragile. Some of its groupings are nationalist, some are Islamist, many are tribally rooted and some may, unfortunately, be composed of hard-line Sunnis intent on restoring their sect’s domination over Shiites. Thus, unsurprisingly, the group is viewed with great skepticism by many Shiites in the Baghdad government.
With each passing day, the amount of influence American officials have with the Iraqi government dwindles, while the list of objectives we wish to achieve grows. We need to pick our priorities now — and at the top of that list must be finding a productive future role for the Sons of Iraq.
First, we must take a look at who the Sons of Iraq are and what motivates them. They are not a monolith; members come from more than 125 political and tribal groups holding differing aspirations and influenced by numerous entities, some of which have goals contrary to those of the Americans and the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Thus there is no single solution to all 90,000 potential problems.
The leading idea so far is to fold a fraction of them, about 20,000, into the Iraqi security forces. The remainder would be accommodated in civilian job-placement and training programs. But this will be far harder than it looks.
For political and sectarian reasons, the (mostly Shiite) ministers and officials who oversee the security forces are unenthusiastic about bringing in Sunnis. In addition, the government doesn’t have the bureaucratic efficiency to handle such a large influx of people easily. Aside from those problems, we’d need to come up with a way of deciding which men are qualified for security duty — a screening method to marginalize hard-liners and co-opt less ideologically driven members.
But the American leadership must press the Iraqis to overcome those obstacles. As we look to transform the Sons of Iraq, we are talking about more than just a venue to redirect insurgents from violence. This is also an opportunity to encourage engagement by Sunnis, many hailing from oft-ignored western Iraq and who have no real voice in the political system, in the new nation.
As for the American stake in this, the future drawing down of forces will be largely determined by the commitment of Iraqi factions to reach local political and security compromises. If we can’t help find a way to integrate the Sunnis into the state, many Sons of Iraq could revert to the insurgency. (This is another reason that it’s prudent to put a pause on further American troop reductions.)
By better understanding the objectives of this diverse group we can more efficiently create postwar employment, promote acceptance within the government, foster local security solutions and improve the chances of sustained success against the insurgents. Failure to find a new role for the Sons of Iraq, however, will result in the deterioration of government authority, an inability to draw down our own forces, and a return to militia rule for much of Iraq.

Matt Sherman has spent more than three years as a civilian official in postwar Iraq, most recently in 2007 as the political adviser to the First Cavalry Division in Baghdad. He is a principal with SCI Consulting, a senior adviser with the Scowcroft Group and an adjunct with the RAND Corporation.

Iraq, Saddam and the history books

I post below the English translation of a column published by International Crisis group analyst Peter Harling in Al Quds al-Arabi for the “commemoration” of the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Iraq: what the history books haven’t told us

Peter Harling*

28-3-2008

Al-Quds al-Arabi

Five years after the fall of his regime, Saddam Hussein is not quite history: That the dictator’s legacy profoundly affects Iraq today is common sense. However, what we know about Saddam’s era remains patchy and fragile, and the practical difficulties of conducting any serious investigation make it tempting to ignore the era altogether. Moreover, a convenient “intellectual construct” has emerged which simplifies complexities and ambiguities – arguing that the former regime erased both society and politics, and they must now reemerge from a vacuum. Today’s discourse either completely overlooks the previous era or builds on generalities that are just as sweeping as they are questionable. Rather than continue to write a flawed history, a creative and honest look at this era will allow Iraqis – and the rest of the world – to see an accurate picture of their country.

Taken together, the abrupt breakdown of the country’s institutions in 2003 (including the army and the Ba‘th), the looting of the national infrastructure, the population’s inability to organize itself in the face of deeply distrusting returning exiles, and everyone’s initial expectation that the US would just run the country, exposed a “process of national deconstruction”. The occupation only prolonged and completed this process. Saddam’s personal power was built at the expense of all institutions, including the President’s tribe and family, the security apparatus, the Party and the State, as well as those upholding society. But the regime transitioned in 1990 from quasi-totalitarian to one focused on mere survival, and created space for social dynamics which have yet to be identified and understood.

That the insurgency rapidly took on salafist overtones points to what Iraqis qualified as a “Wahhabi” undercurrent which percolated into Iraq throughout the 90s. Although quite visible in Iraq , this trend never hit the global radar screens – in contrast to the much publicized “National Faith Movement”, a relatively innocuous form of propaganda. By the time the regime was toppled, a number of religious figures had tapped into the vast resources of the Internet and were already active members of a globalized “Umma”. And despite the authoritarian nature of the regime, it was not completely insulated from the “Afghan Arab” phenomenon, as illustrated later by the itineraries of some Iraqi insurgent leaders in Falluja.

The “Sadrist” movement which quickly developed after the regime’s downfall reveals a longstanding and class-based divide among Iraq ’s Shiites. Under Saddam, the latter had been driven into submission and invisibility, but a cleavage nevertheless deepened silently between a conservative coalition bringing together “quietist” scholars, commercial interests linked to the pilgrimage industry and the country’s Shiite middle-class on one side, and an urban underclass born out of the rural exodus from decades earlier on the other.

When the regime collapsed, the tribes’ disarray shed light on the true nature of their relationship with the central power. The outgoing elite’s rural background, the prevalence and manipulation of traditional loyalties, the breakdown of any nation-building process, and the State’s collapse all fed into the widespread notion of a “tribal revival”, whereby chieftains could reassert their authority and autonomy in the face of a retreating center. As it appeared in 2003, the Shuyukh al-Tis‘inat (tribal chiefs of the 90s, also derogatively dubbed “made in Taiwan ”), devoid of any traditional sources of power, had built their lives on the perks and privileges the regime provided, and had become an utterly dependant clientele. When the resources ran dry, many a “powerful” tribal leader who stayed in Iraq saw his power stripped away, until a recent shift in US tactics brought a new generation of Shuyukh al-Alfinat (tribal chiefs of the 2000s).

More generally, Iraq ’s multilayered violence is a powerful revelator of previously latent fault lines and geographic specificities and disparities. Tragically, civil dynamics in Baghdad have made it possible to map in great sociological detail the topography of the capital’s neighborhoods. Understanding their trajectories requires discarding any crude Sunni versus Shiite explanation, and combining a number of factors: the cohesiveness and inflammability of the Mahdi Army controlled former Sarayif (suburbs which grew out of the rural exodus which hit the South under the Monarchy), the penetrability of sprawling residential suburbs, the resilience of indispensable commercial zones and historical quarters, the importance of ties to the surrounding rural hinterland, and the existence of a potent representative for the Shiite middle-class – in contrast to the Sunni middle-class. All these dimensions factored into the complex campaign plans designed and executed by the civil war’s key players and provide a much clearer picture of the country’s political geography.

The regime neither homogenized society nor did it atomize it completely. Rather, it monopolized the public space and made Iraq ’s society invisible to itself and to others. In 2003, when the myth of unity finally caved in along with the institutions meant to uphold it, the country’s makeup and discord was left bare for all to see. Writing the history of Iraq, and in particular countering today’s conventional wisdom, is part of a wider reconciliation process, by helping Iraqi society project an image of itself it can ultimately live with.

*Peter Harling is the Iraq-Syria-Lebanon Project Director at the International Crisis Group.

* * * * *

And for the first time, I publish on this blog a content in Arabic. Here is the original version of this text.

العراق: ما لم تقله لنا كتب التاريخ

بيتر هارلينغ

28/03/2008

القدس العربي

بعد خمس سنوات من سقوط نظامه، فإن صدام حسين لم يصبح جزءاً من الماضي بعد. من الواضح أن إرث الدكتاتور لا يزال يؤثر بعمق في العراق اليوم. غير أن ما نعرفه عن عهد صدام لا يزال مبعثراً وهشاً، كما أن الصعوبات العملية لإجراء أي دراسة جادة تجعل من المغري تجاهل تلك الحقبة بشكل كامل. علاوة علي ذلك، فقد ظهرت بنية فكرية تقوم علي تبسيط التعقيدات وحالات الغموض وتجادل بأن النظام السابق قام بمحو المجتمع والسياسة، وأن عليهما الآن أن ينشآ مرة أخري من الفراغ. إن خطاب اليوم إما يتجاهل تماماً الحقبة السابقة أو يبني علي تعميمات غير دقيقة بقدر ما هو مشكوك بصحتها. بدلاً من الاستمرار في كتابة تاريخ ناقص، فإن نظرة إبداعية ونزيهة إلي تلك الحقبة ستمكن العراقيين ـ والعالم بأسره ـ من رؤية صورة أكثر دقة لبلدهم.

إن نظرة شاملة إلي انهيارمؤسسات البلاد في عام 2003 (بما في ذلك انهيار الجيش وحزب البعث)، وتدمير البنية التحتية الوطنية، وعدم قدرة السكان علي تنظيم أنفسهم في وجه مجموعة من العائدين من المنفي الذين لا يثق أحد بهم، وتوقُع الجميع في البداية بأن الولايات المتحدة ستقوم بإدارة البلاد، إن نظرة كهذه تكشف عن عملية تفكك وطني . وكل ما فعله الاحتلال هو أنه أطال وأكمل هذه العملية. بني صدام حسين سلطته الشخصية علي حساب كل المؤسسات، بما في ذلك عشيرة الرئيس وعائلته، والأجهزة الأمنية، والحزب والدولة، إضافة إلي تلك المؤسسات المُدعَمة للمجتمع. غير أن النظام مر بمرحلة انتقالية في عام 1990 من نظام شمولي إلي نظام يركّز علي مجرد البقاء، وأوجد فضاء للديناميات الاجتماعية التي لم يتم تحديدها وفهمها حتي الآن.

ُيوصَف العراقيون ذلك الانغماس المتسارع لحركة التمرد علي أنه حالة وهابية تسللت إلي العراق طوال تسعينيات القرن العشرين. رغم أن هذا التيار كان واضحاً في العراق، إلاّ أن شاشات الرادار العالمية لم تلتقطه ـ علي عكس الحملة الوطنية الإيمانية ، التي كانت حركة دعائية حميدة. مع سقوط النظام، كان عدد من الشخصيات الدينية قد لجأ إلي الموارد الواسعة للإنترنت وكانوا قد أصبحوا أعضاء في الإطار العالمي للأمة الإسلامية . ورغم الطبيعة السلطوية للنظام، فإنه لم يكن في مأمن عن ظاهرة الأفغان العرب ، كما اتضح لاحقاً من سجل تحركات بعض قادة المتمردين العراقيين في الفلوجة.

يكشف التيار الصدري، الذي نما وتطور بسرعة بعد سقوط النظام، عن انقسام طبقي قديم في صفوف شيعة العراق. في عهد صدام، كان هذا التيار قد دُفع إلي وضع من الخضوع وعدم الظهور، لكن ورغم ذلك فقد تعمق هذا الشرخ بصمت بين ائتلاف محافظ جمع بين علماء الدين الشيعة أنصار التهدئة، والمصالح التجارية المرتبطة بزيارة العتبات المقدسة والطبقة الوسطي الشيعية من جهة، والطبقة الفقيرة من سكان المدن التي نشأت من الهجرة الريفية إلي المدن طوال عقود من جهة أخري.

عندما انهار النظام، تكشفت الطبيعة الحقيقية لعلاقة العشائر بالسلطة المركزية ولا سيما بعد حالة التشتت التي شهدتها تلك العشائر. التقت الخلفية الريفية للنخبة المنهارة، وانتشار واستغلال الولاءات التقليدية، وانهيار أي عملية بناء للأمة، وسقوط الدولة، التقت كلها في تغذية الفكرة الواسعة الانتشار المتمثلة في إعادة انبعاث عشائرية ، حيث بإمكان زعماء العشائر إعادة بسط سلطتهم واستقلالهم في وجه السلطة المتراجعة للمركز. كما تبين عام 2003، كان شيوخ التسعينيات ، الذين كانوا يوصفون باستهزاء أيضاً بالمشايخ الذين صنعوا في تايوان ، الذين لم يكن لديهم أية مصادر تقليدية للسلطة، كانوا قد بنوا حياتهم علي الامتيازات والحوافز التي كان يقدمها النظام، وكانوا قد أصبحوا زبائن يعتمدون بشكل مطلق عليه. عندما جفت الموارد، رأي العديد من شيوخ العشائر ـ الذين ظلوا في العراق ـ سلطتهم تتلاشي، إلي أن أدي تغيير أجرته الولايات المتحدة أخيراً علي تكتيكاتها إلي ظهور جيل جديد من شيوخ الألفينات ـ بمعني شيوخ أعوام الـ 2000 ـ وهو تعبير استهزائي يستخدم في العراق .

بصورة أكثر عمومية، فإن العنف متعدد الأوجه في العراق كشف بقوة عن خطوط تماس وخصوصيات وتباينات جغرافية كانت كامنة وغير منظورة في الماضي. إن الديناميات الأهلية في بغداد جعلت من الممكن، وعلي نحو مأساوي، وضع خريطة أكثر تفصيلاً للتركيبة الاجتماعية لأحياء العاصمة. إن فهم نشوء وتطور هذه التركيبة يتطلب نبذ أي تفسير يستند إلي تقسيم فج بين سنة وشيعة، والاعتماد علي جملة مجتمعة من العوامل تتمثل في: انسجام وتلاحم وقابلية الاشتعال في الصرايف ، أو الضواحي التي نمت وكبرت نتيجة للهجرة الريفية التي اتجهت إلي الجنوب في ظل الحكم الملكي والتي يسيطر عليها جيش المهدي، وقابلية الضواحي السكنية الواسعة للاختراق، وقدرة المناطق التجارية والأحياء التاريخية التي لا غني عنها علي البقاء والمقاومة، وأهمية الروابط مع المحيط الريفي الداخلي، ووجود تمثيل كامن للطبقة الوسطي الشيعية ـ علي النقيض من الطبقة الوسطي السنية. كل هذه الأبعاد كانت عوامل رئيسية في الخطط المعقدة للحملات التي يصممها وينفذها اللاعبون الرئيسيون في الحرب الأهلية وتوفر صورة أكثر وضوحاً للجغرافيا السياسية للبلاد.

لم يقم النظام بتحقيق التجانس في المجتمع لكنه لم يفتٌته كلياً. بدلاً من ذلك، قام باحتكار الفضاء العام وجعل المجتمع العراقي غير مرئي لنفسه وللآخرين. في عام 2003، عندما انهارت أسطورة الوحدة الوطنية وكذلك المؤسسات التي يفترض أن تحميها، انكشفت تركيبة البلد وانشقاقاته وأصبحت مرئية للجميع. إن كتابة تاريخ العراق، وخصوصاً علي نحو يتناقض مع الرأي السائد اليوم، تشكل جزءاً من عملية مصالحة أوسع، وذلك عن طريق مساعدة المجتمع العراقي علي تكوين صورة عن نفسه يمكنه في النهاية التعايش معها.

ہ بيتر هارلنغ هو مدير مشروع العراق ـ سورية ـ لبنان في مجموعة الأزمات الدولي

Iraqi casualties up again in March

According to figures released by Iraqi ministries, violent deaths toll in Iraq peaked to its highest level since August 2007, to 1,082. Among them, 925 civilians, 103 policemen and 54 soldiers. Meanwhile, the coalition suffered 38 losses during that month, a stable figure since October 2007.

This month may mark a stop in the improvement of the security situation since last summer, when the surge began, simultaneously with a ceasefire declared by Moqtada as-Sadr and the increase in the use of ‘Sons of Iraq’ sunni militiamen.

The recent improvement is not likely to last if the tensions persists between Sadr’s followers and the Iraqi security forces.

The US strategy appears clearly : to reduce as much as possible the exposure of the troops (during my last trip to Iraq, I could see that they prefer sometimes not to hold the field rather than being exposed), and look always for the easy short term solutions. The use of militias is one of them.