Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is seen in his presidential office inside Villa Somalia. Credit: UN Photo/Stuart Price

By Nora Happel
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 1 2015 (IPS)

The impeachment motion Somali parliamentarians filed against President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Aug. 12 has created a political standoff that might further threaten the country’s stability shortly ahead of planned elections in 2016.

Last week, the envoys of the United Nations, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement, calling for a rapid resolution of the crisis and expressing their concern that the motion “will impede progress on Somalia’s peace and state building goals”.

"The chronic bane of Somali elite politics, particularly in the past two decades, has been a toxic cocktail of tribalism, malfeasance, and incompetence. President Hassan Sheikh is the embodiment of this syndrome." -- Ahmed Ismail Samatar, former member of the Somali Federal Parliament
“While we fully respect the right of the Federal Parliament to hold institutions to account and to fulfill its constitutional duties, the submission of any such motion requires a high standard of transparency and integrity in the process and will consume extremely valuable time, not least in the absence of essential legal bodies.”

“Emerging institutions are still fragile. They require a period of stability and continuity to allow Somalia to benefit from the New Deal Somali Compact and to prepare for a peaceful and legitimate transfer of public office in 2016,” the text added.

As a matter of fact, there are important procedural irregularities as well as legal obstacles arising from insufficiently developed institutions that stand in the way of a smooth running of the impeachment process and might indeed cause further political turmoil.

In accordance with article 92 of the Federal Government of Somalia’s (FGS) provisional constitution, the impeachment motion has been submitted by one-third of the members of parliament.

However, as reported by the Somali Current, at least 25 members of parliament out of a total of 93 deputies endorsing the motion claimed their names were used without their consent.

After the submission of the impeachment motion, the following step provided for under articles 92 and 135 of the provisional constitution will be a decision by the Constitutional Court, within 60 days, on the legal grounds of the motion, followed by a two-thirds majority vote in the Parliament.

However, at the time of writing, no Constitutional Court exists in the country – a major obvious hindrance, even though some analysts invoke the possibility of a decision by the Supreme Court acting on the matter instead, following the legal precedent of former article 99 of the 1960 Somali Constitution.

Another major question of debate concerns the charges against President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. As outlined in a press statement by the Somali Federal Parliament, the impeachment motion lists a total of 16 charges against President Hassan, including abuse of power, corruption, looting of public resources, failure to address insecurity, human rights abuses, detentions of political dissidents, interference with the independence of the judiciary and intentional failure to meet the requirements for elections in 2016.

Article 92 (1) states that a deposition of the Somali president can only occur if there are allegations of “treason or gross violations of the constitution”. There is ongoing discussion whether the charges put forth by the parliamentarians present enough legal grounds for the motion to pass.

In a press conference last week, President Mohamud dismissed the charges against him, adding it was not the right moment for an impeachment procedure and accusing individuals of having “special interests” – a possible allusion to deputies seeking term extensions.

This suspicion has also been brought up, in an indirect way, in the above-mentioned joint press statement by the international community:

“We also recall that Somalia and all member states are bound by United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2232, which sets out the expectations of the international community on the security and political progress needed in Somalia, and the need for an electoral process in 2016 without extension of either the legislative or executive branch,” the statement said.

In an interview with Voice of America, U.N. Envoy to Somalia Nicholas Kay repeated the international criticism of the impeachment motion.

He said, in the context of the upcoming election and ongoing attacks by al-Shabaab militants, Somalia shouldn’t “lose time [on] the political bickering that has brought down governments in the past.”

While some voices are more concerned about the impeachment motion itself as it will likely create further chaos and instability, others emphasise the validity of the charges and the need to hold the President and national institutions accountable.

Ahmed Ismail Samatar is former member of the Somali Federal Parliament. A candidate for the 2012 elections in Somalia, he is now working as professor and chair of International Studies at Macalester College.

Speaking to IPS, he said, “The chronic bane of Somali elite politics, particularly in the past two decades, has been a toxic cocktail of tribalism, malfeasance, and incompetence. President Hassan Sheikh is the embodiment of this syndrome.”

Unlike most international observers, Samatar does not necessarily see the elections in 2016 threatened by the motion: “If carried expeditiously and firmly, the proceedings need not thwart the mounting of the elections in September 2016.”

Last month, President Mohamud declared that he does not expect “one person, one vote” elections to be possible in 2016 due to persisting security challenges. However, he said in an interview with Voice of America, he is “aiming for the next best option” regarding transition of power in 2016.

Opposition parties have reacted angrily to the president’s statement, claiming that he uses the insecurity argument as a pretence to extend his mandate.

President Mohamud was elected in 2012 by a parliament made up of 135 clan elders in what the BBC described as a “U.N.-backed bid to restore normality to the country”.

However, instability, severe economic problems and continuing al-Shabaab attacks as well as the current political crisis seem to suggest that the country still has a long way to go to achieve normality.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Kisenyi slum, in Uganda’s capital, Kampala is believed to be home to a large portion of the country’s almost 12,000 Somali immigrants. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS

By Amy Fallon
KAMPALA, Mar 31 2014 (IPS)

On a Friday afternoon men wearing kamis — long white traditional robes — climb the steps to Somcity Travel, a small family business and travel agency in Kisenyi slum, in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. The agency boasts that they “fly all over the world” but to one destination in particular — Somalia.

“In a day we may have up to five customers – four of them will usually be Somali,” says Mohamed Abdullahi, 25, the manager of Somcity Travel. The travel agency is situated opposite the the Al-Baraka cosmetic store and the Cadaysay shop, which provides mobile money transfer services and sells mobile phones and phone accessories.

“Some of them go [back] for holidays to Somalia. But they always come back. The business is kind of booming. We are booking a lot of tickets,” he tells IPS.

Kisenyi, informally known as Little Mogadishu, has been the heartbeat of the Somalia community in this East African country since the 1990s, according to Abdullahi.

But it was only in 2002 that businesses here started to take off. Today, Kisenyi’s streets are dotted with travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, petrol stations, supermarkets and other businesses — all of which are Somali-owned. And there is also a mosque.

“We are very tough when it comes to business, sometimes we can even challenge Indians,” Abdul Kadir Farah Guled, Charge De Affairs at the Somali embassy in Kampala, who came to Uganda around 1974, tells IPS.

“But our problem is our hot tempers. Sometimes we don’t like each other because of tribal conflicts. But at the end of the day, we support each other.”

Official statistics are hard to come by, but he estimates there could be up to 12,000 Somalis scattered throughout Uganda and that about 85 percent of Kisenyi’s population is Somali, with a large number of them being refugees and Ugandans of Somali-origin. It is believed that the slum could be home to over 4,000 Somali refugees.

The area is a place of transition for many — a stepping stone to a better life for many residents and workers.

“Somalis get respect from Ugandans and the government also supports Somalis,” says Abdullahi. Above his desk, a framed portrait of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni stares down at him. On the wall alongside it is a Brussels Airlines poster declaring “Africa, all wrapped up for you.”

Abdullahi used to live in Towfiq in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. In 2007, he left the Horn of Africa nation, along with relatives and friends, aged just 17.

“I came here to get an education and live a life [that is] different from [the one I lived] in that place where there is civil war,” he says.

Militants belonging to terrorist network Al-Shabaab were flushed out of Mogadishu in 2011 but still control many rural areas of the country today.

When Abdullahi came to Uganda, where his uncle, Ahmed, had resettled in 2003, he couldn’t speak English. In Somalia the official tongue is Arabic. But today Abdullahi converses impeccably in English and has completed both his O and A levels. Now he works six days a week at Somcity Travel, earning about 200 dollars a month.

“It’s getting better in Somalia but there are still some problems, like homes are bombed. There’s a problem walking at night.”

For most Somali’s coming to Uganda for the first time, the language barrier is a big problem says Shukri Islow, 28, the founder of NGO Somali Youth Action For Change. She founded the organisation to help empower Somalis here and bridge the gap between the two communities.

“When you know the language you feel a sense of belonging,” says Islow, who was born in Somalia and left the country when she was eight. She has lived in Sweden, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, before settling in Uganda in 2009.

“We give them that inspiration, motivation and empower them that they can do it it’s never too late, even if you’re 20.”

Today Islow, who graduated in November from Uganda’s Cavendish University with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and diplomacy, is the face of the Somali youth community in Uganda.

She also counsels  Ugandan African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) soldiers who are deployed to her homeland on how different Somalia is and what to expect when they get there.

Uganda was the first country to deploy troops under AMISOM to Somalia in 2007. A 22,000-strong AU force operates there under a United Nations mandate. Uganda leads the force, with 6,223 troops, but in early March said they would send up to 410 extra to guard U.N. facilities.

The last time Islow was in Somalia was in 2002 when the situation was “much, much better”.

“Right now you don’t know who’s going to kill you tomorrow, and you don’t know the reason. You’re being attacked for your lifestyle or ideology,” she tells IPS.

She’s aware that even if she returns home for a holiday she will be a target.

“I’m more at risk [from Al-Shabaab] if I go there because I’m all over social media and my pictures with Ugandan soldiers are [online],” says Islow.

She has relatives still living in Somalia and, eventually, she would like to return home permanently.

“Of course I’d like to go back because you go east and west, home is the best,” she says.

For the time being she will continue to live elsewhere and hopes to further her studies in Melbourne, Australia.

Abdullahi also hopes to do the same. He has an uncle in Australia and has enrolled in a management course that starts in July at a Sydney college.

“I want to continue with my education and at the same time work and have a new life, a better life, get married and have kids,” he says.

In January, the Somali Embassy in Uganda held its first-ever engagement with the Somali diaspora here to discuss the ongoing stabilisation and peace process in the Horn of Africa nation. Officials hope that educated youth, like Abdullahi and Islow, will return to help rebuild the country.

Already the diaspora has contributed much to Somalia. A 2011 report by the U.N. Development Programme estimates that the Somali diaspora is between one to 1.5 million people. The report stated that Somalis abroad provided much-needed humanitarian assistance back home through remittances – estimated between 1.3 to two billion dollars a year.

Last July, Air Uganda started direct flights from the country’s Entebbe International Airport to Mogadishu.

Abdullahi hasn’t returned to Somalia since he left. And if he does, like many of his clients, it may not be on a one-way ticket.

“Now I’ve adapted to this life of living abroad and some things are not favourable in Somalia so I can’t live there for good,” says Abdullahi.

Wreckage of one of the suicide car bombs used to attack the presidential palace in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital on Friday Feb. 21, 2014. Nine militants were killed in the attack. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Ahmed Osman
MOGADISHU, Feb 24 2014 (IPS)

As the Somali government plans to launch a new military campaign to wipe out the Islamic extremist group, Al-Shabaab, from its strongholds in this Horn of Africa nation, experts say that its Somalia’s innocent who live in areas controlled by the group who will suffer the most.

On Friday, Feb. 21, the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab launched an unprecedented and brazen attack on the presidential palace in the capital Mogadishu in which 12 people, including nine militants from the extremist group, died. “We expect insurgent activities in the short term even if the group is defeated militarily ... But I think Al-Shabaab can be eradicated from the region." -- Mohamed Muse, military analyst

Shortly after, the government and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) announced that plans were under way to launch a military campaign against the extremist fighters.

Senior Somali government military commander Ise Guled told IPS in Mogadishu on Monday, Feb. 24 that preparations for “the final onslaught” against the radical fighters’ strongholds in south and central Somalia were “in their final stages”.

“We will launch the offensive in conjunction with our allies against this group and get rid of [this] menace once and for all,” he said. He declined to say when it would commence.

However, Yusuf Alay, an academic in Mogadishu, told IPS that the group’s “oppression” on locals would increase as military pressure on Al-Shabaab mounts.

Al-Shabaab has been ousted from much of southern and central Somalia but the group still controls parts of the country where it imposes strict Islamic Sharia law, and recruits and trains fighters.

Alay expects the group to start imposing stricter curfews and a blanket ban on the use of smartphones in areas under its control. Already Al-Shabaab has forced the biggest telecoms company here to switch off its mobile internet service.

Alay also expects more youths to be indoctrinated into the group’s extremist ideology and forcibly recruited to join.

“The radical group enforces a stricter form of Sharia law, where people are still subjugated to the worst forms of punishments. [It also] levies huge taxes on the people who are already poor, to finance their activities following the loss of key ports in the south,” Alay said.

He added that while people would be negatively affected if the militants resisted and fought against advancing troops, in the long run those who live in “Shabaabistan” (Al-Shabaab territory) would be better off not being under Al-Shabaab rule.

Mohamed Muse, a military analyst in Mogadishu, said the campaign against the extremist group has been in the making for months now but gained new impetus after Al-Shabaab’s deadly attack on the Westgate Mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, last September. At least 72 people were killed when Al-Shabaab militants stormed the mall.

“We know that there has been a clear understanding of the need to finish off Al-Shabaab on the part of the Somali government and AMISOM so that the task of rebuilding the nation can proceed unhindered. So it is just a matter of when such a move [will] materialise,” Muse told IPS in Mogadishu.

Last month, following the United Nations Security Council authorisation of an increase in AMISOM peacekeepers, nearly 4,300 Ethiopian troops were added to the existing force of 17,500.

Matt Bryden, director of Sahan Research, a think tank based in Kenya, said in a new report for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ African Programme that Al-Shabaab would likely lose all of the territory under its control in the event of a military offensive.

“As a reinforced AMISOM prepares to resume offensive operations, Al-Shabaab is likely to suffer military reverses – including the loss of its remaining strongholds,” Bryden said in the report.

As Ethiopian troops pour into Somalia’s central and southern regions, Al-Shabaab fighters have fled key strongholds in El Bur, Hudur and Barawe.

Already two towns, Hagar, in southern Somalia and Gandershe, just south of Mogadishu, were recently recaptured in surprise attacks by Somali government forces and AMISOM troops.

Bryden said that the militant group has, for some time, been preparing for an “asymmetrical struggle”, as they anticipate defeat in the face of the offensive. He contends the strategy “would permit Al-Shabaab to survive as a potent force in Somalia and the region.”

“For the near term, Al-Shabaab is not playing to win but to survive, subvert and surprise,” he said.

Muse agreed but said the challenges would be manageable if the political wrangling among Somalis were solved before it became a problem.

“We expect insurgent activities in the short term even if the group is defeated militarily, and that is always the nature of counter-insurgency operations. But I think Al-Shabaab can be eradicated from the region,” said Muse.

Police tape marks the compound where a bomb explosion killed two men on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Credit: Jacey Fortin/IPS

By Jacey Fortin
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 21 2013 (IPS)

The explosion went off at 2:40 on a Sunday afternoon, on a tree-lined side street in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa. The area was a quiet one – home to foreign diplomats, domestic civil servants and several embassies – and the blast was strong enough to kill two men, startle the neighbours, and demolish a small home.

But if the government’s current theory is correct, the carnage could have been much worse.

Sunday, Oct. 13, was the day of a big football match – a rare shot at the World Cup playoffs for Ethiopia, which ultimately lost against Nigeria in Addis Ababa. Given the debris found at the site of the explosion, including suicide belts and an Ethiopian team jersey, investigators think the men may have been planning to detonate near the football stadium in central Addis, where thousands of fans and security workers had gathered.

But something went wrong, and the two suspects – Somali nationals, according to the government – never made it out of the house before their explosives went off.

Al-Shabaab, a militant group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack on its Twitter account, but its details were off. “We Claim Responsibility for Today’s Bomb Blast in #AddisAbaba, #Ethiopia, that Left Nearly 10 Kuffar [disbelievers] Dead,” said the Monday tweet, which greatly exaggerated the number of casualties and was not posted until the day after the actual explosion.

“It is a plausible assumption that Al-Shabaab may be connected to the crime,” Kjetil Tronvoll, an Ethiopia expert and senior partner at the International Law and Policy Institute, told IPS, noting that Al-Shabaab has repeatedly denounced Ethiopia and threatened to carry out attacks.

“Ethiopia has a standing high-alert security vis-a-vis Somalia,” he added. “[The recent explosion] gives justification to such alertness.”

The Ethiopian government is adamant about clamping down on extremism in all its forms, said Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at a press conference this month. “Extremism often degenerates into terrorism, so we have to fight extremism as much as we can, and that has no compromise at all.” This approach has garnered criticism from some Ethiopian Muslims – including ethnic Somalis – who claim their communities are unfairly targeted.

“The terrorist incident, if connected to Al-Shabaab, may sadly contribute to a possible stigmatisation of the Somali population at large in Ethiopia,” said Tronvoll.

The Ethiopian government said it would not change its approach to national security on its own soil, and would focus instead on its borders, since the two suspects in the Sunday explosion arrived illegally.

“We will not make any changes to domestic security – that situation is already intact,” government spokesman Redwan Hussein told IPS. “We will only make sure we are more secure when it comes to people getting into the country in the first place.”

In Somalia, Al-Shabaab has positioned itself as a bulwark against Ethiopian and Western influence ever since its inception as the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist governing body that rose to power in Somalia in early 2006. In its early days, it garnered some public support as a counterweight to the Ethiopian troops that effectively ousted the ICU from Mogadishu in late 2006 with backing from the United States.

Over the next few years, Al-Shabaab set up a governing system based on Shariah, or Islamic law. Its territory expanded across most of southern Somalia and the group forged closer bonds with Al-Qaeda, formally linking with it in 2012. But that process wrought some discord between those Al-Shabaab leaders who envisioned a global Islamist movement and those who sought to focus on domestic issues first and foremost.

The cracks began to show after 2011, when Ethiopian and Kenyan troops moved in to bolster troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). At the same time, Al-Shabaab’s refusal of humanitarian aid during a devastating famine was already eroding its public support. In the two years since, Al-Shabaab has been pushed out of its former strongholds in the capital city of Mogadishu and the port city of Kismayo, and vicious leadership scuffles have become a threat to cohesion. More and more, the organisation has struggled to conscript voluntary fighters, relying instead on forced recruitment.

Some analysts see the attacks Al-Shabaab has taken credit for – including the Addis Ababa bomb this week and the massacre that killed 67 at a Nairobi mall last month – as last gasps rather than shows of power. The organisation remains a very real threat, but it no longer enjoys the level of support it once did.

“There might be some fringe elements here and there on both sides, who could use [the Addis Ababa attack] to air some grievances,” Alula Alex Iyasu, an Ethiopia-based analyst at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, told IPS.

“But Muslims and Christians have been living side-by-side in Ethiopia, and in Somalia the vast majority despise Al-Shabaab and affiliated groups. So I’d imagine they’d condemn the Addis bomb wholeheartedly just as if it had happened on their own soil.”

Somalia has lately been making strides in its effort to end two decades of failed statehood. A new constitution and federal government were established last year, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the helm.

The international community has pledged billions of dollars to rebuild the war-torn country, and the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called this week for AMISOM to bolster its troops in Somalia, already numbering about 18,000, with another 4,400.

As Somalia struggles toward order, peace reigns around the explosion site on Rwanda Street in Addis Ababa’s Bole neighbourhood, where a high concentration of ethnic Somalis live side-by-side with Ethiopians, and where children of both ethnicities used to play together in the very compound where the perpetrators of Sunday’s bomb lived and died.

In the days following the blast, police tape was stretched across the gate and a few federal policemen guarded the site. But other than that, life along the leafy street was progressing largely as normal, with ethnic Somali and Ethiopian residents mingling at small shops and stopping to chat on street corners.

If the perpetrators hoped to stir up divisions between Somalis and Ethiopians, as Al-Shabaab once did to rally support for its cause, it would appear they missed the mark — and lost their lives into the process. The Ethiopian national security apparatus, meanwhile, has gained one more reason to keep up its controversial tactics.

“Ethiopia takes these kinds of threats seriously,” said Iyasu. “Somalia has been in this precarious situation for the past 20 years, so in a way this is nothing new for the Ethiopian government.”

Senior militia commander Ahmed Mohamed Islam, better known as Sheikh Madobe, declared himself president of a self-declared autonomous state known as Jubaland. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh /IPS

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, May 31 2013 (IPS)

Attempts by clan elders and militia commanders in southern Somalia to form an autonomous state, without the consent of the central government but with the apparent backing of foreign countries, remains a dangerous, destabilising element in the region, say analysts.

“Jubaland has all the dangerous elements necessary to kick the stabilisation plan of the liberated territories down like a sand castle,” Abukar Arman, a former diplomat and widely-published political analyst, told IPS. He was speaking of towns and regions in this Horn of African nation that were recently liberated from Al-Shabaab control by regional troops.

On May 15, the senior militia commander Ahmed Mohamed Islam, better known as Sheikh Madobe, declared himself president of a self-declared autonomous state known as Jubaland, which comprises the Lower and Middle Juba provinces as well as the Gedo region. The latter borders Kenya.

Islam is said to have close ties with Kenyan forces stationed in the key port city of Kismayo, which is the commercial capital of Jubaland.

Two more local warlords – Barre Hiiraale and Omar Burale Ahmed – were also named as presidents of Jubaland by their respective clan-based supporters.

The Somali government refused to recognise any of the “presidents”.

Somalia is still recovering from almost two decades of war, and large parts of the country were once under siege by the Islamist rebel group Al-Shabaab. However, with the help of regional forces, the Somali government was able to recapture some key points in the country in 2012.

On May 24, in an effort to defuse the brewing tension between the Somali federal government and authorities in Jubaland, the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) urged the Somali government to convene a reconciliation conference in Mogadishu. IGAD recommended that the Somali government form an interim administration for the region.

The move comes after a mission sent by IGAD – which comprises eight Horn of Africa countries – reported its findings to a meeting of the bloc’s heads of states and governments in Addis Ababa. The regional grouping has been overseeing the situation in southern Somalia since Kenyan troops, who are part of the African Union Mission in Somalia, ousted Al-Shabaab from the region in 2012.

Since then, efforts by militia leaders allied with Kenya have been underway to form the autonomous administration of Jubaland.

Arman said that Somalia was faced with “armed militias, clan lords and foreign (intruders with) competing interests,” as well as an ambiguous constitution that did not clearly specify how federal states would be formed and that deferred some of the key issues.

The Somali government has voiced its discontent about the formation of any administration in the area from the outset, and described the process as “unconstitutional”, stating that it would create tribal divisions.

Abdirashid Hashi, deputy director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, an independent think-tank, disagrees with Arman about the position of the constitution. He said that the constitution is “very clear” on the formation of federal Somali states.

“It’s the politicking, obfuscation and doubletalk of politicians that creates and fuels the ongoing drama,” Hashi told IPS in Mogadishu.

With regard to how federal states will be formed, Article 49 of the Provisional National Constitution (PNC) stipulates that “the number and boundaries of the regional states shall be determined by parliament.”

However, before determining the number and boundaries of the federal member states, parliament is required to nominate a national commission tasked with studying the issue. According to the PNC, the commission has to submit a report of its findings and recommendations.

But since the constitution was endorsed almost a year ago, no such national commission has been formed.

Article 49 (6) of the PNC seems to further complicate matters, as it states that “based on a voluntary decision, two or more regions may merge to form a federal member state.”  This is where the bone of contention lies.

It appears that, on one hand, the constitution gives the authority to form autonomous states to the 18 regions. But on the other hand, it calls on parliament to determine the number and boundaries of autonomous states the country will have.

Mohamod Hubey, a constitutional lawyer in Mogadishu, said the constitution is ambiguous regarding the sensitive issue of federalism in Somalia, but adds that the differences can be overcome if parties are willing to cooperate.

“The issue of federalism is a sensitive one as it is not clear-cut in the constitution which region will form a state with which, and clan balance in each region is not uniform, but all these can be resolved if there is will on the part of those concerned,” Hubey told IPS.

The perception that foreign involvement is complicating the Jubaland issue is widespread.

“Kenya for a while wanted to establish in southern Somalia a buffer zone administrated by friendly locals. Hence its support for the creation of Jubaland,” Hubey said.

Kenya has repeatedly dismissed these claims as “baseless and unfounded” and says that its troops are in Somalia to enhance stability in the region.

Nonetheless, many Somalis see Kenyan involvement in their country as being beyond security concerns.

The southern part of Somalia is strategic, rich in resources – particularly marine resources – and agriculture. It is also where the port city of Kismayo, the third-largest city in Somalia, and a potential commercial hub, is located, said Hashi

He added that many interpret “Kenya’s bellicose posturing on the Jubaland issue” as having to do with the oil deposits around the Somali coast. In 2012 there was controversy and some tension between the two nations when Kenya allegedly awarded exploration contracts in contested waters.

“Some even go as far as to claiming that there are concerted international schemes aimed at swindling Somalia out of its territorial waters and the oil under it,” Hashi told IPS.

Somali government forces march during an army day parade in Mogadishu, Somalia. The country’s armed forces are not strong enough to control the threat of the Islamism extremist group Al-Shabaab and are propped up by Ethiopian troops and African Union peace-keepers. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By William Lloyd-George
ADDIS ABABA , May 17 2013 (IPS)

Despite comments by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn suggesting the pending withdrawal of his country’s troops from Somalia, many experts have voiced doubts that Ethiopia will pull out of Somalia before it is capable of handling its security without assistance.

“Ethiopia has a big interest in Somalia and will remain, keeping its eyes wide open there for some time,” Abel Abate, from the state-funded think tank the Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development, told IPS.

“One purpose is to avoid the threat posed by the Islamist Al-Shabaab group, which sees Ethiopia as an enemy. And secondly, to show the world that it has made a significant contribution to peace and stability in the region.”

Somalia is still recovering from nearly two decades of war, and large parts of the Horn of Africa nation have been under siege by the extremist Al-Shabaab. The Somali transitional federal government, which is propped up by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and regional troops, barely has control over the country’s capital Mogadishu.“Ethiopia wanted ... to show the world that it is the maker or breaker of Somalia.” -- Abel Abate

While African countries have sent troops to Somalia under AMISOM, Ethiopia’s troops, which have been in the country since 2011, do not operate under the AU mission.

Last year, with the help of regional forces, the Somali government was able to recapture some key points in the country, including the port of Merca and the city of Jowhar, the biggest town under Al-Shabaab control, situated 70 km and 90 km from Mogadishu respectively.

However, in mid-March, Ethiopia pulled its troops from the southern town of Hudur without warning AMISOM. Following the withdrawal, Al-Shabaab immediately took control of the town in its first major military success since it retreated from Mogadishu in August 2011.

“Ethiopia pulled out from certain places in Somalia in order to send a signal to the international community that unless you support us, we will not shoulder all of Somalia’s problems,” Abate said.

“Ethiopia wanted to put pressure on the agencies and countries which have been supporting AMISOM but not Ethiopia, and to show the world that it is the maker or breaker of Somalia.”

Meanwhile, an Ethiopian government representative told IPS that the lack of international support for Somalia has made it difficult for this country to withdraw troops.

“Ever since we intervened in Somalia our initial plan was to hand it over to AMISOM and Somali forces,” Ethiopian government spokesperson Dina Mufti told IPS.

“However, we feel that international support has been lagging, not only for AMISOM, but for the whole Somali project, which has made it difficult for us to withdraw while these forces are too weak to take over.”

Dina hoped that a recent conference in London on May 7, where over 50 countries and organisations met to discuss how best to aid Somalia, might change this. However, he stopped short of saying it would be a game changer.

“One thing is for sure, we remain fully committed to supporting Somalia,” Dina said. But he could not say if Ethiopia would wait until AMISOM and the Somali army took over key strongholds before pulling out. “That I can’t say.”

Unlike AMISOM forces in Somalia, which are funded by the AU, Ethiopia pays for their operations themselves. This is believed to be one of the biggest contributing factors to Ethiopia’s frustration.

“Hailemariam has … tried to put pressure on the international community to put more resources into the issue, so Ethiopia can pull out gradually,” Kjetil Tronvoll from the Oslo-based International Law and Policy Institute told IPS.

“I do not think they will pull out prematurely, I think they might regroup some of their forces, but I don’t think they will just leave it open for Al-Shabaab to regroup and resurface and stay in that area currently controlled by Ethiopia.”

Tronvoll said he believed that Ethiopia would use its presence in Somalia as a bargaining chip for its agenda.

“If they feel as though they are losing influence in Mogadishu … or if they feel as though they are being pushed out, or not being consulted enough, they can use a withdrawal as a threat,” said Tronvoll. “They could say, we back you up on the ground, and if our concerns are not listened to in your policy development, then these are the repercussions you can expect.”

While it is seemingly unlikely that Ethiopia will immediately withdraw its troops, contradictory statements made last month by members of the Ethiopian government did result in confusion.

On Apr. 23, Hailemariam told parliament that AMISOM was taking too long to replace Ethiopian troops and that the main focus should be to accelerate their withdrawal.

However, the next day the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Ethiopia would not withdraw troops until AMISOM and the Somali army were ready to take over.

But it is uncertain how much longer this will take.

According to Hassan Rafiki, an expert consultant at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies working with the government of Somalia, AMISOM is not as aggressive as it was in the initial stages.

“The troops have now found room to breathe from Al-Shabaab and the mission is, therefore, not encouraged or enthusiastic to replace the Ethiopian troops,” Rafiki told IPS.

“Somalia is now becoming a money machine for troop-contributing countries in the region, who wish to train new recruits for their armed forces, instead of their initial intention to help the Somali government and people.”

Another concern is the lack of AMISOM resources. “In its current capacity of little over 17,000 (troops), AMISOM is over-stretched. It won’t be able to fill the vacuum left by Ethiopia unless its troop levels are increased,” Abdi Aynte, director of Mogadishu’s first think-tank the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, told IPS.

“Ethiopia must understand that it’s in its best interest to shift course and work with the Somali people and their government to reestablish strong state institutions,” said Aynte. “A stable, democratic Somalia is the best possible neighbour that Ethiopia could ask for in the world’s toughest region.”

Former Al-Shabaab combatants who handed themselves over to the Somali government. Defections by Al-Shabaab members were rising dramatically, with many more expected in the coming months. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble and Yusuf Ahmed
MOGADISHU/NAIROBI, May 8 2013 (IPS)

At 18, Farah Osman should not be a battle-hardened soldier. He should not have spent the last seven years fighting for the Somali Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab, or have been trained by foreign jihadists in handling and repairing weapons and improving his shooting skills.

But he has. And now he is also a deserter. The tall, slim teenager is one of about 800 former Al-Shabaab fighters staying at Mogadishu’s Sarendi Rehabilitation Centre. He hopes he will soon be integrated back into society and into the Somali Armed Forces.

Osman cannot recall the exact month he was recruited as a fighter by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab, but it was near the end of 2006, the year when United States-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia to prop up the Somali Transitional Federal Government.

He was walking home from school on a steaming hot day when his former teacher from a local dugsi or religious school stopped him and took him to an Al-Shabaab base.

Osman sat panicked and alone under a tree in the base for a while, then the teacher returned with a group of men and bottles of mineral water and dates which they distributed to the young boys. Preachers then spoke for hours about the holy war, animosity with Ethiopia, and the importance of defending the country.

It was the year he turned 11.

“Heaven, money and prestige were convincing incentives. Their promises were irresistible,” says Osman.

He says everyone seemed ready to sacrifice their lives to defend their religion and their country.

His trainers were all Somalis, including Adan Hashi Farah “Eyrow”, a war veteran who founded Al-Shabaab, the armed wing of the Union of Islamic Courts. Farah was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his house in the town of Dhuusomareeb in central Somalia in May 2008.

“They offer a mobile phone and a monthly salary of 50 dollars,” Osman says. But he adds that this was not the only thing that pushed him to join the organisation. “I wanted to seem powerful and to be a respected man, and people (at that time) respected a man with a gun.”

For five years, Osman moved through the war-scarred buildings in Mogadishu, around the forests near the Kenya-Somalia borders and in southern Somalia on his mission to kill Somali and Ethiopian forces and African peacekeepers in the hope of going to heaven after death.

Then in October 2011, Al-Shabaab carried out a suicide attack on the education ministry in Mogadishu. More than 70 people were killed, most of them students checking their scholarship status.

“This is when I realised that Al-Shabaab was no longer fighting for religious or jihad reasons,” Osman tells IPS in a restaurant close to Villa Somalia, the country’s White House. “That is not what jihad is meant to represent.”

Osman is not the first or last Al-Shabaab fighter to desert the organisation. Hundreds of fighters across southern Somalia have turned in their guns and surrendered since 2010, when the government offered them amnesty, protection and a better future.

With Al-Shabaab under financial strain because of multiple frontlines and the loss of strategic towns in the country, many more fighters are expected to turn themselves in to the government, which has offered former fighters accommodation and job opportunities.

On one single day in September 2012, in the town of Jowhar, some 80 km from Mogadishu, 250 Al-Shabaab fighters became the largest number to surrender in a single day to Somali forces and the African Union Mission in Somalia.

Mogadishu intelligence chief Khalif Ahmed Ereg told reporters at a press conference in February that defections by Al-Shabaab members were rising dramatically, with many more expected in the coming months. However, the country’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) first investigates defectors before allowing them to join rehabilitation programmes.

Critics have raised concerns about the vetting process for defectors, claiming that many of them still have close ties to the extremist organisation.

Ibrahim Sheikh Hassan, an analyst and former professor of political science at Mogadishu’s pre-war Strategy College, tells IPS that NISA’s screening process is weak and insufficient and that Al-Shabaab are taking advantage to carry out a “planned infiltration” of the government’s security forces.

“They offer some accurate information to make their ‘sham’ defections appear genuine while planning destruction operations within the government,” Hassan adds.

It is a claim that NISA denies, but many of the recent killings, including a bomb blast and suicide attacks in the capital, have been blamed on sham defectors.

In January, an Al-Shabaab member who claimed to have defected from the group tried to kill the prime minister in a suicide bombing at the presidential palace. One government soldier was killed and several others were wounded.

“The agency should come up with another strategy of using the defectors as an asset without officially incorporating them into the agency. Their long-term effect should be a matter of concern.”

The Sarendi Rehabilitation Centre in Mogadishu, where Osman resides, is currently the only one of its kind in the country. But speaking to the national assembly in March, Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdoon said his government planned to open 10 centres to accommodate and rehabilitate Al-Shabaab deserters and soldiers captured in the war.

An official from the government’s rehabilitation programme, who asked to be referred to only as Ahmed, told IPS that there were currently another 800 Al-Shabaab defectors in southern and central regions of Somalia.

Ahmed told IPS the interior ministry was planning to open other rehabilitation centres in south and central Somalia – in Kismayo, Balad Weyne, Baido, Garbaharey, Jowhar, Marka and Guriceel – to accommodate the defectors.

The Sarendi Centre, which opened in March 2012, is run by Somalia’s interior and national security ministry and financially supported by Norway’s foreign ministry. It provides skills training, including football, driving and fishing lessons, and also teaches technical skills.

“Everyone is taught what he has an interest in,” says Osman.

But his interests remain centred on war. He wants to finish his mission of killing the “bad guys” – but as a soldier wearing a government uniform.