| From Clan Conference to Multiparty State |
Somaliland Seeks Modernity Anton Christen Somaliland wants to be different from the other parts of the former Somali Democratic Republic, in which warlords and clans pursue their deadly rivalries. It is preparing for elections designed to enhance the legitimacy of its leadership and serve as a springboard for international recognition. The best roads in many African capitals are those leading to and from the nearby international airport. Not only does each country's president want to be able to make a quick exit if his throne begins to topple, he also wants to put on a worthy show when receiving foreign dignitaries. This admittedly crude rule of thumb about the best roads applies to the first few kilometers of the traffic artery which runs from the airport to Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa. But soon the potholes begin to multiply, forcing every vehicle to do the slalom, and once you reach the city itself all signs of asphalt paving disappear, except for a few small stretches. Apparently no president of Somaliland has been willing to invest any of this breakaway nation's scarce resources in cultivating the capital city's image. This may be partly because no official visitors arrive here from other capitals. Somaliland does not enjoy international recognition as an independent state. Rapid Growth Every Somali you ask will provide a different figure for Hargeisa's population. One says 300,000, another half a million, and a third, writing in a newspaper, cites what is probably the more realistic figure of 600,000 – for a city which had a mere 70,000 inhabitants in 1981. Despite this explosive growth, very few residents live in makeshift wooden shacks or tent-like structures. Hargeisa is a city of single-family homes and, especially in its western quarter, of villas the curried prosperity of which contrasts blatantly with the poverty of public buildings here. The city's structural development has been amazing. In 1988 it was virtually razed to the ground by the thugs of dictator Siad Barre, a genocidal leader along the lines of Saddam Hussein. The private wealth here derives more from remittances sent by Somalis in the diaspora than from revenues earned on Somaliland's chief export products: cattle, sheep, goats and camels. That was true even in those years when its exports were at their heights. The imbalance has shifted more to the disadvantage of the livestock merchants since Saudi Arabia, the largest importer of Somali livestock, imposed an import ban (along with other Gulf states). Outwardly, the Saudis link this ban to their desire to keep Rift Valley fever, a viral infection endemic in East Africa and dangerous to humans too, away from the Arabian Peninsula. But there is a widespread conviction in Somaliland that the freeze is either based on commercial considerations, aimed at eliminating Somali competition from the Saudi meat market, or else it is prompted by a Saudi desire to hamper Somaliland's economic development, since Riyadh supports the interim regime in Mogadishu, whose religious and political ideas are closer to its own. The Saudi import ban is depriving Somaliland's government of sizable revenues in the form of export duties and port fees. But even when the export situation is considerably better, Somaliland is heavily dependent on the initiative and the funds (often earned abroad) of private individuals. In any case, Somaliland now boasts two universities, and several private telephone companies are competing with one another for customers. Even postal service on letters with the outside world is handled by a privately owned company. "Mr. Foreign Aid" At the same time, there is no shortage of well-intentioned development aid groups operating in Somaliland, including those of the UN. But if a measurable increase in economic output is the criterion by which the value (or lack thereof) of development assistance is measured, then it has not amounted to much so far. John Drysdale, a former British officer and diplomat who lives in Hargeisa and himself heads a successful development project in Somaliland, warns foreign organizations against undermining the Somalis' determination to help themselves by offering poorly thought-out projects. In his latest book, "Stoics without Pillows," he mocks what he calls "Mr. Foreign Aid," the aid worker who roams around in an airconditioned, all-wheel-drive vehicle and tries to persuade the nomadic Somali herdsmen that the world owes them something. Because of the lack of diplomatic recognition, Somaliland cannot fall back on either international loans or development credits from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. The positive side of this situation is that Somaliland is virtually the only state in Africa to have no foreign debt. And where there are no loans, loan money cannot be misused or misappropriated. Despite all its official weaknesses and the lack of public services it can provide to its people, the government of President Dahir Rayale Kahin is striving to gain international recognition for Somaliland. Its officials become very angry when confronted with the argument that Western countries fear a fragmentation of African nations and therefore are reluctant to recognize Somaliland's secession from Somalia. Officials in Hargeisa point out that Somaliland, a former British protectorate, was independent once before - in the five days prior to its merger with the former Italian colony of Somalia - and that now all that is necessary is to rescind the voluntary merger entered into back then. There would thus be, they maintain, no violation of colonial borders, and thus no violation of the charter of the Organization for African Unity. Opposition to Reunification No one in Somaliland is interested in continuing the union with Somalia to the south. Mustafa Ismail, head of the think tank Academy for Peace and Development, explains that the people of Somaliland feel themselves superior to the "southerners." On the basis of the peace in their country, and the stability achieved in recent years, they feel that they are "better" than the other Somalis, who remain mired deep in the swamp of clan rivalries and the deadly doings of warlords. John Drysdale, a benevolent but not uncritical observer, sees things pretty much the same way. In his view, reunification of the country would be like merging a profitable company with one that exists in name only. Somaliland would refuse, he says, to give up its foreign currency revenues in favor of the rest of Somalia, so that the reunited nation would inevitably find itself in balance-of-payments difficulties. Drysdale also believes that the diversity of Somali society cannot be adequately taken into account from a single capital, as was clearly demonstrated during the era of Siad Barre's Somali Democratic Republic. But how stable are political conditions in Somaliland? Is it really unlikely, as people in Hargeisa insist, that armed clan militias might resume the fighting they engaged in during the early years of the republic? What militates most strongly against a resumption of the old rivalries is the fact that President Kahin's predecessor, Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, and representatives of the various clans and subclans, succeeded in persuading the populace of Somaliland to approve a constitution which makes allowance for the Somalis' traditional clan orientation. One way it does this is by giving the clan elders a legislative chamber of their own, and thus a voice in formulating legislation. The unifying impact of this constitution was put to the test not long ago, when President Egal died following surgery in a South African military hospital. But, in keeping with the provisions of the constitution and without any friction or grumbling, Vice President Kahin moved up to assume the highest office in the land. He belongs to a different clan than Egal did, which only lent additional luster to the smooth transition. Moving Away from Clan Loyalties Somaliland's constitution also prescribes that the president and parliament must be directly elected by the people, and not indirectly via clan conferences and electoral colleges as was previously the case. In this way, the representativeness and legitimacy of the organs of government are to be strengthened. At least for the future House of Representatives, candidates will have to belong to an officially recognized party. In what might be seen as a certain violation of the principle of freedom of assembly, the constitution stipulates that only three political parties may be registered. By means of this device, the authors of the constitution intended to prevent a proliferation of parties on the basis of clan loyalty. The registered parties entitled to put up candidates in national elections are those three political groups that draw the most votes in local elections in the country's six regions. This provision also serves to encourage the creation of parties which are not tied to the individual clans. However, there is no guarantee that this new party system will really succeed in breaking down traditional ties and loyalties. Instead of having parties based on individual subclans, it may be advantageous to create coalitions of clan interests, but such parties are hardly a recipe for an efficient government administration operating outside of all traditional loyalties. It is a long road from an assemblage of clans to a unified nation, and Somalis' experiences with political parties have been anything but satisfactory so far. Still, this is the needle's eye of modernity through which any nation must pass in order to gain international recognition. First published in German |
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