Warlordism and terrorism: How to obscure an already confusing crisis? The case of Somalia

International Affairs

Volumn 83, Issue 6, 2007, Pages 1091-1106

  Marchal, Roland ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 35548988029     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00675.x     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. Examples of such western perceptions might include an emphasis on the bureaucratic dimension of the state, a profound disgust for primary violence (a laser bomb looks less violent than a machete), a set of moral values that make war a crime, an apolitical vision of most conflicts as disconnected from ideological vision, and so on.
2. Mary Kaldor, Old and new wars: organized violence in a global era (Cambridge: Polity, 1999).
3. For a critique, see Roland Marchal and Christine Messiant, 'Les guerres civiles à l'heure de la globalisation', Critique internationale 18, janvier 2003, http://www.ceri-sciences-po.org/cerifr/publica/critique/ critique.php#i, accessed 28 August 2007.
4. Richard Jackson, Writing the war on terrorism: language, politics and counterterrorism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).
5. Among others written at this time, a masterpiece of Somali studies is Lee Cassanelli, The shaping of the Somali society: reconstructing the history of a pastoral people 1600-1800 (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982).
6. A good example is Daniel Compagnon, 'Ressources politiques, régulation autoritaire et domination personnelle en Somalie, le régime Siyaad Barre: 1969-1991', PhD thesis, University of Bordeaux, 1996. 6 The author, of course, does not claim to be an exception. He has been part of this group.
7. Peter Schraeder, 'La présence américaine dans la Corne de l'Afrique: ruptures et permanences', Politique africaine 50, June 1993, pp. 59-73.
8. A recent example is George Peake, Cathy Gormley-Heeman and Mari Fitzduff, From warlords to peacelords: local leadership capacity in peace processes (Londonderry: International Centre of Excellence for Conflicts and Peace Studies, Dec. 2004), http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/research/projects/wlpl/ WlplFull.pdf, accessed 28 August 2007.
9. A good bibliography can be found in the following articles: J. A. G. Roberts, 'Warlordism in China', Review of African Political Economy 16: 45/6, Summer 1989, pp. 26-34;
10. Antonio Giustozzi, 'The debate on warlordism: the importance of military legitimacy', Crisis States Development Research Centre discussion paper 13, LSE, Oct. 2005.
11. Christopher Clapham, 'I signori della guerra in Africa', in Maria Cristina Ercolessi, ed., I signori della guerra (Naples: L'Ancora del Mediterraneo, 2002).
12. See also William Reno, Warlord politics and African states (Boulder, CO : Lynne Rienner, 1998). This latter book was by far the most widely quoted.
13. Ken Menkhaus, Somalia: state collapse and the threat of terrorism, Adelphi Paper 364 (Oxford: Oxford University Press/International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2004).
14. Reno, Warlord politics and African states.
15. Robert Buijtenhuij, 'Guerre de guérilla et révolution en Afrique: les leçons du Tchad', Politique africaine 1,1981, pp.23-33.
16. Anthony Giddens, A contemporary crtique of historical materialism, vol. 2 : The nation-state and violence (Cambridge : Polity, 1985).
17. For concrete analyses in an African context, see Bruce Bermaun and John Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley in Kenya, vols 1 and 2 (London : James Currey, 1992),
18. and Jean-François Bayart, The state in Africa: the politics of the belly (London: Longman, 1993). The reduction of the state to an administrative apparatus is a good example of the impact aid agencies and liberal economic ideology had on academic categorizing in the 1980s and 1990s. The major failures in post-conflict state-building experiences that we are currently witnessing might suggest that some updating is due on this crucial issue.
19. For an attempt at analysis by the present author, see the chapter on Somalia in Roland Marchai and Christine Messiant, Les chemins de la guerre et de la paix (Paris : Karthala, 1997),
20. and 'Mogadiscio dans la guerre civile : rêves d'Etat', Les Etudes du CERI 69, 2000.
21. This is one of the many flaws in William Reno's theory of warlord politics.
22. Roger Charlton and Roy May, 'Warlords and militarism in Chad', Review of African Political Economy 16: 45/6, summer 1989.
23. As is very well explained by Diego Gambetta in his masterpiece, The Sicilian Mafia: the business of private protection (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
24. Martin Doornbos, 'La révolution dérapée: la violence dans l'Est du Tchad (1978-1981)', Politique africaine 7, Sept. 1982, pp. 7-8.
25. Robert Buijtenhuij, Le Frolinat et les guerres civiles du Tchad (1977-1984) (Paris : Karthala, 1987), p. 320.
26. For instance, traditional elders would have their role acknowledged and paid for by the international community as good middlemen and brokers. Businesspeople would be in a position to claim discounts on their protection costs in territories controlled by others because of the risk of fighting.
27. Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: la difficile reconstruction de l'Etat, Chaillot Papers 73, Dec. 2004, p. 51. Distinctions became blurred when the warlords rallied to the new state. As Roy explains, 'From the time warlords and field commanders lost their political power and rallied round the State, the only opportunity left to competition was the drug trade' (p. 54).
28. Jacques Chirac being the most recent case in French politics.
29. Jackie Cilliers and Christian Dietrich, eds, Angola's war economy (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2000).
30. Antonio Giustozzi, 'Respectable warlords? The politics of state-building in post-Taleban Afghanistan', working paper 33 (London : Crisis States Programme, LSE, Sept. 2003),
31. and Giustozzi, 'The debate on warlordism' ; 'A qui est l'Afghanistan?', Outre Terre 16, 2006, pp. 197-213.
32. Frederico Battera, 'La nascita del "Puntland State of Somalia'", Relazioni internazionale 50, June-July 1999, pp. 53-58.
33. Ousmane Dembele, 'Côte d'Ivoire: la fracture communautaire', Politique africaine 89, March 2003, pp. 34-48.
34. For a description, see Roland Marchal, A survey of Mogadishu's economy (Nairobi: European Commission, 2002), ch. 2, http://www.delken.ec. europa.eu/en/publications/Mogadishu%20Economic%20Survey-Final%20 Report.pdf, accessed 8 August 2007.
35. Quoted in Samantha Power, 'Our war on terror', New York Times, 29 July 2007.
36. Charles Tilly, 'Terror, terrorism, terrorists', Sociological Theory 22: 1, March 2004, pp. 5-13.
37. See e.g. Mia Bloom, Dying to kill (New York : Columbia University Press, 2005) ;
38. Marc Sageman, Understanding terror networks (Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press, 2004).
39. A good example of this intellectual/political confusion is provided by Matthew Levitt, Hamas: politics, charity and terrorism in the service of jihad (New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 2006).
40. See Roland Marchal, 'Evento: la Somalia', Affiche e Orienti 1, 2007, pp. 4-19.
41. See Clare Dyer, 'There is no "war on terror" : outspoken DPP takes on Blair and Reid over fear-driven legal response to threat', Guardian, 24 Jan. 2007.
42. Richard Jackson, 'An analysis of the EU counterterrorism discourse post-September 11', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 20: 2, June 2007, p. 239.
43. See also the paradoxical comment by David Wessel, 'Is fighting poverty the best way to root out terrorism?', Wall Street Journal, 5 July 2007, p. 9.
44. See the newly released US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf, accessed 7 Aug. 2007. The quotes are on pp. 37 and 38.
45. For an analysis of this period, see Cedric Barnes and Hassan Harun, The rise and fall of Mogadishu's Islamic Courts (London : Chatham House Africa Programme, April 2007);
46. Roland Marchal, 'Somalie : un nouveau front dans la guerre contre le terrorisme', Les Etudes du CERI 135, June 2007 (a draft version in English is available at http://hornofafrica.ssrc.org/marchal/, accessed 8 Aug. 2007).
47. See e.g. the nuanced article published a few days before the intervention by a journalist who was in Mogadishu : Martin Fletcher, 'Battle-scarred nation is at peace with itself. . . but still facing war', The Times, 16 Dec. 2007, available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article755685. ece?token=null&offset=o, accessed 28 Sept. 2007.
48. Human Rights Watch, 'Shell-shocked: civilians under siege in Mogadishu', Aug. 2007, http://hrw.org/reports/2007/somalia0807/, accessed 21 Aug. 2007, p. 19; C. Timberg, 'Mistaken entry into clan dispute led US black eyes on Somalia', Washington Post, 2 July 2006.
49. The same status was accorded to Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Fahid Mohammed Ally, whom the United States has hunted for their roles in the attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
50. Many forget that any listing is a process that should be questioned. See Karen De Young, 'Terror database has quadrupled in four years', Washington Post, 25 March 2007.
51. Contrary to the current perception that Salafi people are inclined to terrorism, among the most vocal opponents of the Shabaab in the Islamic Courts were Wahhabi intellectuals.
52. Roland Marchai, 'Islamic political dynamics in the Somali civil war', in Alex de Waal, ed., Islamism and its enemies in the Horn of Africa (London : Hurst, 2004).
53. This reminder is not in any way a justification, but it underlines that this underground war between 2001 and 2006 had social and political implications that reached well beyond those who were targeted. Popular sympathy for targeted Islamic militants (up to a certain point) was rooted in this situation.
54. For the 2006 reports of the Monitoring Group see http://www.un.org/sc/ committees/751/mougroup.shtml, accessed 28 August 2007. An attempt at assessment is made by Roland Marchai, Between gossips and hard facts: the UN narratives on Somalia (London: Chatham House, Aug. 2006).
55. Harmony Project/Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 'Al-Qaida's (mis)adventures in the Horn of Africa', http://ctc.usma.edu/aqll.asp, accessed 8 Aug. 2007.
56. A statement also made by the International Crisis Group, Counter-terrorism in Somalia: losing hearts and minds (Brussels: ICG, 2005), p. 6.
57. Harmony Project, 'Al-Qaida's (mis)adventures', p. 6.
58. Harmony Project, 'Al-Q_ida's (mis)adventures', pp. 40-1.
59. '8 foreigners held by Ethiopia in terrorism hunt', Associated Press, 12 April 2007.
60. The very fact that the wife of Fazul was arrested in northern Kenya with cadres of the Courts constitutes circumstantial evidence.