Can the Somalia Government Facilitate Reconciliation?

US-backed military forces terrorize Somalians in the southern port city of Kismayo. Resistance to the occupation has continued since Kenyan Defense Forces entered the town., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Sunday, June 16th, 2013 at 03:36 am

SOMALIA: Can the Somali government facilitate reconciliation?

Commentary
Raxanreeb Research Desk

The Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee appointed by the Somali Federal Government has published its report. The Committee members visited Kismayo, met the stakeholders and launched the report in a press conference in Nairobi, still the nerve centre of the international community as far as Somalia is concerned.

Hussein Arrab Isse, a committee member, said the press conference was about the Somali government’s position and the conference to be held in Mogadishu and to share findings with the international community.” His colleague Abdirahman Hosh, said the ultimate aim is to form a regional administration in which clans have a role.”

The committee appointed by the government faces many hurdles ranging from its lack of Independence, the conflicting messages committee members have put across and above all, inaccuracies in the report the committee launched in Nairobi this week. Can the report be road map for the government?

The report relies on two contradictory articles — article 49(1) and article 111E:
•The number and boundaries of the federal member states will be determined by the parliament on the recommendation of the Boundaries and Federations Commission, which is an independent Constitutional body.
•Moreover, member state boundaries will be based on the boundaries of the administrative regions as they existed before 1991, and the act of federation shall be a voluntary decision between two or more regions that may merge to form a federal member state.

The report emphasises the government’s argument that the draft constitution “does not recognise clans and it has set down an elaborate process of federating the country through a proper and constitutional means, with the Federal Parliament having the final say.” This interpretation leaves one with the impression that the Somali government ignores or has forgotten that the draft constitution was ratified by clan elders and that it is not clans who drove wedge among people but politicians.

A reconciliation committee is expected to make use of impartial communication but the Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee’s unstated remit is to conduct a public relations campaign for the government as the the following statement shows:
“The government shall embark on a trust and confidence building measures aimed at assuring all stakeholder communities of the government’s bona fide intentions.” The committee has been less careful about using adjectives when it is making a case for the government or when it takes a dig at the Jubaland leaders to recommend the government to ” urgently re-open channels of communication with all relevant stakeholders of the Jubba.” Who is relevant and who is irrelevant in the Jubaland deadlock?

The Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee’s partiality is examplified by its decision to rely on unsubstantiated “reports to the effect that Somalia’s charcoal exports, which never came to a complete halt, continue to benefit Al-Shabab an estimated US$ 100,000 per day even after they were forced out of Kismayo in September 2012.”

Why are Al Shabab’s signature attacks– suicide bombing and targeted assassinations– rare in Kismayo. The committee expects the government to professionalise ‘militias’ but it is Mogadishu-based Somali National Army, notorious for clashes between soldiers, who are in need of professionalising, whatever the word means for the committee.

No where is the committee members’ misinformation evident than in the following statement:
” Additionally, the Federal government has made it clear repeatedly to Galmudug for over two years that it is not a Federal unit as it has not satisfied the criteria and procedure for membership. ” The criteria for federal states was formulated last year, not two years, and the government in charge was not the Somali Federal Government but Transitional Federal Government of Somalia.

There is a big question mark over the Somali government’s ability to take a lead in reconciliation efforts for Somalis.

Reconciliation does not mean micromanagement or using federal institutions to score political points.

Raxanreeb