Sunday January 24, 2016
By XN Iraki
In 1991 Siad Barre, the then president of Somalia, was overthrown and fled to Kenya where he was smoked out by journalists while staying in one of the top hotels in Nairobi.
It is an open question how he came here. Soon after, he left for Nigeria where he died in 1995. Barre had overthrown an elected government of Somalia in 1969. Since 1991 Somalia has never known peace. Several attempts have been made to pacify this nation that was once an Italian colony.Interestingly, unlike other colonial powers that kept strong ties with their former colonies, Italy seems to have cut links with Somalia. The Americans were the first to try and pacify Somalia. Their attempt ended in 1993 when Somali fighters killed 18 American soldiers and dragged them along the streets. The American troops were withdrawn and a movie, Black Hawk Down, was made based on that incidence. I have not watched it.
In 2011, Kenya decided it could succeed where a superpower failed. President Kibaki sent Kenyan troops into Somalia after insurgents threatened tourism along the Kenyan coast. My hunch tells me that might have been long planned and all that was needed was a trigger.
The Kenyan soldiers with stealth took over the strategically located Kismayu port in 2012. It was a much celebrated feat which led to drastic reduction in piracy. But Al-Shabab did not end their activity. They are still active attacking a KDF camp recently. That was the first major setback to KDF since their incursion into Somalia. KDF joined an African led force AMISOM mandated to pacify Somalia.
The attack on KDF camp was followed by calls for KDF to withdraw from Somalia. It was the not the first time such calls have been made. The President was quick to add that KDF will be in Somalia till they finish their mission. The former Chief of General Staff and the current one have made the same observation. We should never play politics with war, where our young men are sacrificing their lives for our freedom.The withdrawal of American pacifiers left the country under the mercy of outlaws which later sucked in Al Qaeda and more lately ISIS. Kenya was trying to put an end to this lawlessness. Those calling for KDF (and not AMISOM) to withdraw should give us an alternative strategy.
Can we try an economic solution or strategy? Military solutions have been tried in the past. Americans tried pacifying Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. They withdrew, after finding that fighting in far away land is not a soap opera. They failed to build nations, which is the harder but most important part.
The experiences in those countries still reverberate in the American foreign policy including towards Syria. That is likely to feature in the presidential campaigns this year. The departure of Americans from Iraq, without a strong government created a fertile ground for ISIS. In Europe, the Balkan war was a military solution to a political problem resulting from the death of Yugoslav leader Joseph Broz Tito. There was no one strong enough to hold the country together and old rivalries, some dating to 1689, were revived.
An economic solution then followed with two former members of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Slovenia joining the European Union. Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, are now candidates. Such membership will provide the former antagonists with economic activities that would make fighting very hard.
The Yugoslavia case is antithesis of Somalia, which speaks one language and one religion. Tito, like Stalin and his successors, used force to forge nations that never melted. Both Yugoslavia and Soviet were made of many nationalities. In Africa they would be called tribes. The nationalities bid their time until cold war ended or strongmen died and they went their separate ways. That is how country names like Croatia, Slovenia, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Belarus etc came into existence.
Closer home South Africans one time invaded Namibia, while Nyerere sent 40,000 troops to chase away Idi Amin. Do not ask me why Kenya did not join. But are you aware Amin left some genetic imprints in Kenya, I’m told he fathered some kids in Muranga.
We can go on with the list. But without the hindsight of a military strategist, it seems to me military solutions work best when followed up with other solutions. My suggestion is an economic solution. Namibia did well because of its mineral wealth which was well managed. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni pacified the once antagonistic communities by reviving kingdoms, which gave Ugandans a sense of belonging and identity. That was a cultural solution- dare I say ingenious.
The chaos in Somalia has an economic origin. Siad Barre’s regime disfranchised lots of Somali people and made them angry, leading to his overthrow. The current insurgency in Somalia drawing in Al-Shabaab has economic undertones too. Remember piracy? Would giving these fighters an alternative economic lifeline make a difference?
Think of the thriving business in charcoal through Kismayu. Where did these traders go? Have there been concerted efforts to rebuild institutions that will help create jobs and give the young Somalis a means to likelihood. Is that not what was done in South Korea after the Korean War? Was that not what Marshall Plan was about, with USA rebuilding Europe after the World War II? Can we have a well-coordinated Marshal Plan for Somalia?
Let us get closer home. Do you recall the Shifta war? It ended in a whimper and not surprisingly after Somalis got positions in the government and in the mainstream economy. Such integration shows that we can solve a political problem economically. The same thinking informed devolution. With each county, read community, having a government of their own and even a His Excellency, the governor (A term I find in Kenya Gazette of colonial period) the national tensions were dispersed. I have heard it joked that even if the county governments become corrupt, it is ‘our people’ eating.
How would an economic solution to Somalia look like? We could start by making Somalia part of the East African Community which will lead to more trade. Such trade and interdependence will lead to more peace, just as European Union gave Europe the longest period of peace in history. Kenya is very unlikely to go to war with Uganda or Tanzania, just check the trade data.
It is also noticeable that in the period before colonialism, communities that traded with each never fought. I’m told there is no recorded fight in history between Kikuyus and Kambas. Digression. How come lots of Kikuyus from deep in Muranga look like Ethiopians?If you look at the map of Kenya, you notice there is no tarmacked road between any major Kenyan town and a major Somalia town. Why can’t we include Somalia in the LAPSSET project? Imagine all the cross-border trade between Kenya and Somalia being formalised? The jobs created, the taxes collected and the interdependence would greatly reduce insurgency. The jobs would also greatly reduce the allure of radicalisation.
The Somalia problem was left unresolved for too long. If a Somali boy or girl was born in 1991, he or she is now a young adult of 25 years. Having grown up in such a chaotic place, one might see the chaos as normal. That makes it very hard for anyone to change things on the ground with or without force. War is not about the bombs but changing mindset too.
We have been there before. Even developed countries like Spain had a civil war, it ended and the country is now pacified. US, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Angola, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, once had civil wars. The wars ended; the countries that sought an economic solution are way ahead.
We should not give up on Somalia, it is our neighbour and peace there is peace here in Kenya. Integrating Somalia into the community of nations through trade and other economic engagement might be the best strategy to combine with military strategy. The military strategy should be a means to an end.
A pacified Somalia, a proud member of the East African community, would be the best legacy of Kenya’s bold attempt to pacify our eastern neighbour. The blood of fallen soldiers shall not be vain. During the Second Gulf war, it was joked to the American soldiers that the shortest way home was through Baghdad. For the Kenyan soldiers in Somalia, the shortest way home is through economic empowerment of the Somalia people. That is one way to give radicalisation competition and give new meaning to Somali youth.
Finally Mwalimu Mathew Kanyi suggests that we should not be demanding to know the number of dead KDF soldiers. He says, “Would Winston Churchill have given the number of Britons killed by Germans during the WWII?”