The crisis in Somalia: Tragedy in five acts

African Affairs

Volumn 106, Issue 424, 2007, Pages 357-390

  Menkhaus, Ken ^a  

^a DAVIDSON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CRISIS MANAGEMENT; HUMAN RIGHTS; ISLAMISM; POLITICAL VIOLENCE; TERRORISM; UNITED NATIONS;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; NORTH AMERICA; SOMALIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 34547867391     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adm040     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. 'Somalia: It just gets worse,' The Economist, 26 April 2007, http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9090247 [accessed 27 April 2007].
2. 'UN warns humanitarian catastrophe looms in Somalia,' The Reporter reprinted by AllAfrica, Inc., 21 April 2007 [accessed via LexisNexis 27 April 2007].
3. Ayman al-Zawahiri audio tape, 5 January 2007. Translation in 'What the terrorists are saying,' US Central Command website http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/shared% 20documents/ exposing%20the%20enemy. aspx [accessed 26 April 2007].
4. See for instance Ken Menkhaus, Somalia: State collapse and the threat of terrorism, Adelphi Paper 364 (Oxford University Press for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford, 2004).
5. According to the 4.5 formula, a residual category of 'minority groups' receives one-half of the seats accorded to each of the major clan-families - hence the '.5'. The 4.5 formula was first conceived in the 2000 Arta talks in Djibouti by the Somali delegates as a way to reduce conflict between clan-families over allocation of seats.
6. Matt Bryden, 'Starting over in Somalia: Breaking the cycle of failure,' Daily Nation (Kenya) (24 February 2006) reprinted in The Somaliland Times Issue 214, http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2005/ 214/28.shtml [accessed 27 April 2007].
7. Interviews by uthor, Nairobi, Kenya, October 2004.
8. International Crisis Group, 'Somalia: Continuation of war by other means?' African Report no. 88 (ICG, Brussels/Nairobi, 21 December 2004), i. The ICG report went so far as to conclude that Yusuf is 'an archetypal warlord!
9. Thi s was not the only instance in which the government and parliament willfully ignored its own transitional charter. The stipulation that at least 12 percent of MPs be female was simply disregarded in the selection by clans of their representatives.
10. Interviews by author, Nairobi, Kenya, September 2005.
11. International Crisis Group, 'Counter-terrorism in Somalia: Losing hearts and minds?' Africa Report no. 95 (11 July 2005), p. 3, http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2005/ 0711somalia.pdf.
12. Ibid., p. 5-7.
13. International Crisis Group, 'Can the Somalia crisis be contained?' Africa Report no. 116 (10 August 2006), pp. 5-6, www.crisisgroup.org/ home/index.cfm?id=4333.
14. Ibid.
15. Interview by author, Nairobi, Kenya, July 2005.
16. Interview by author, Nairobi, Kenya, July 2005.
17. International Crisis Group, 'Can the Somalia crisis be contained?' p. 7.
18. Ibid., p. 11.
19. The alliance expanded to eleven members shortly after its announcement, drawing in Mohamed Dhere and Abdi Hassan Awale 'Qaybdiid.'
20. Cedric Barnes and Harum Hassan, 'The Rise and Fall of Mogadishu's Islamic Courts,' Chatham House Africa Program, Briefing Paper 07/02 (April 2007), p. 4;
21. and International Crisis Group, 'Can the Somalia Crisis Be Contained?' p. 12.
22. Chris Tomlinson, 'Somalia's Islamic Extremists Set U.S. Back,' Associated Press (6 June 2006) [accessed via Lexis-Nexis, April 27 2007].
23. Interview by author, Washington DC, January 2007.
24. The extent to which the Somali Islamists in Al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (AIAI) - the group responsible for several bombings and assassination attempts in Ethiopia in 1994-1995 - were actually involved in those attacks is not clear. Though the governments of Ethiopia and the US have tended to treat AIAI as a monolithic Islamist group (the US has designated AIAI as a terrorist group) - recently declassified al Qa'ida documents provide evidence that AIAI was split in the early 1990s over the use of armed violence, with the Ethiopian Somali AIAI cell committed to jihadi tactics, while the Somali AIAI leader Hassan Dahir Aweys argued that 'the time is not right to start conducting jihad.' Quoted in 'Al Qaida's (mis) Adventures in the Horn of Africa,' Harmony Project (Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, NY, May 2007), http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aqll.asp.
25. A term connoting identification with the Wahhabi branch of Islam.
26. A more detailed account of the small but dangerous jihadi wing of the Islamist movement in Somalia is provided in International Crisis Group, 'Counter-terrorism in Somalia: Losing hearts and minds?' pp. 5-7.
27. Matt Bryden, 'Profile of the Council of Somali Islamic Courts,' paper presented at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC (24 October 2006), p. 8.
28. These calculations are derived from Andre Le Sage, 'Somali Council of Islamic Courts Update' (3 August 2006) (unpublished paper).
29. Bryden, 'Profile,' p. 6.
30. Niall Ferguson, 'Promoting disorder in Somalia,' Los Angeles Times 8 January 2007);
31. Jonathan Landey and Shashank Bengali, 'US Policy in the Horn may aid al-Qaida, experts warn,' McClatchy Newspapers (22 December 2006) [accessed via Lexis-Nexis, 27 April 2007]. In January, Frazer backed away from this position, returning to her earlier position that moderate Islamists - those renouncing armed violence, terrorism and support to al Qa'ida - should be part of the political process.
32. 'Lifting of Arms Embargo Dangerous, UIC Says,' Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) (7 December 2006), http://www.irinnews.org/Africa-Country.aspx?Country=SO [accessed 27 April 2007].
33. Michael Gordon and Mark Mazzeti, 'US used base in Ethiopia to hunt al Qaeda,' New York Times (22 February 2007).
34. Personal communications, November - December 2006.
35. The figures of eight killed, and the acknowledgement that no al Qa'ida figures were among the dead, was confirmed by US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies conference 'Somalia's Future: Options for Diplomacy, Assistance and Peace Operations,' Washington DC, 17 January 2007.
36. Human Rights Watch, 'People fleeing Somalia war secretly detained,' (New York, 30 March 2007), http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/03/30/ kenya15624.htm [accessed 27 April 2007];
37. Amnesty International, Kenya: Denied refuge, AI AFR 32.002.2007 (Amnesty International, London, 2 May 2007).
38. Interviews by author, by phone, Mogadishu, January 2007.
39. Edmund Sanders and Abukar Abadri, 'Somalian troops take their capital,' Los Angeles Times (29 December 2006).
40. Niall Ferguson, 'Promoting disorder in Somalia,' Los Angeles Times (8 January 2007).
41. 'EU Nations, Norway call on Somali government, Islamic militants to start peace talks,' Associated Press (3 January 2007).
42. David Shinn, 'Remarks by Dr. David Shinn to the Somali Conference in Columbus Ohio,' (21 April 2007). Reprinted in AllAfrica.com, http://allafrica.com/stories/200704280093.html [accessed 27 April 2007].
43. United Nations Security Council, 'Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Somalia pursuant to paragraphs 3 and 9 of Security Council Resolution 1744 (2007)' S/2007/204 (13 April 2007) para 53-65.
44. Jeffrey Gettlemen, 'In Somalia, those who feed off anarchy fuel it,' New York Times (25 April 2007).
45. United Nations, Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 'Somalia situation Report no. 36,' Nairobi (19 April 2007).
46. These broad estimates of total displacement between January and late April are derived from UNHCR field reports, which were themselves somewhat inconsistent with one another from week to week. See United Nations, Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 'Somalia situation Report no. 36,' Nairobi (19 April 2007).
47. Personal communication, April 2007.
48. Salim Lone, 'Africa's Guantanamo,' The Guardian (London) (28 April 2007).
49. Xan Rice, 'EU given war crime warning over Somalia aid,' The Guardian (London) (7 April 2007).
50. The harsh response of the Ethiopian Defense Forces in the wake of a series of ONLF attacks in Somali region of Ethiopia has created an entirely new political and humanitarian crisis in eastern Ethiopia.
51. The external dimensions of the current Somali crisis, including the Ethiopian-Eritrean proxy war there, are considered in detail in Ken Menkhaus, 'The Somali catastrophe: Bigger than the horn - and not over yet,' Current History, 106, 700 (2007), pp. 195-201.
52. Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, 'To the army of difficulty in Somalia,' As-Sahab Media (February 2006), translated at http://www.centcom.mil/ sites/uscentcom2/Misc/GMP20070328031003001.pdf [accessed 27 April 2007].