From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Oct 29 2008 - 07:59:42 EST
A Symbolic Agreement for Somalia: Djibouti III
Oct 29, 2008 - 6:55:17 AM
Report Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
On October 26, Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) and its political opposition, the conciliatory faction of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia based in Djibouti (A.R.S.-D), signed documents on "Modalities for the Implementation of the Cessation of Armed Confrontation" and a "Joint Declaration" on common political aims.
The talks in Djibouti on October 25 and 26 that led to the signing were the third and presumptively final round of negotiations that had begun in June with agreements on the intention to cease fire and to set out a plan for the withdrawal from Somalia of Ethiopian forces supporting the T.F.G., and had faltered in mid-September in a second round, when the A.R.S.-D refused to sign a formal agreement because the T.F.G. rejected a timetable for Ethiopia's pull out. The October 26 agreement contains a timetable, marking a victory for A.R.S.-D that is more symbolic than significant, and a defeat for the T.F.G., which is quickly unraveling.
The Djibouti process resulted from a shift in strategy by Washington in early 2008 in the face of the growing successes on the ground of the armed opposition to the T.F.G. and paralyzing conflicts within the T.F.G. Having discouraged negotiations between the T.F.G. and the broad and diverse Islamic Courts movement, which dominates the militant and conciliatory oppositions, Washington changed course and pressured the T.F.G. to reach out to conciliatory elements of the opposition in an attempt to isolate the militant factions.
Washington achieved apparent success when the chair of the A.R.S., Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, headed a delegation to the first round of the Djibouti process, provoking a rupture in the A.R.S. between his faction and the militant faction based in Asmara (A.R.S.-A), which includes some of the armed opposition and is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.
Washington's victory proved to be pyrrhic as the various factions of the armed resistance ignored the cease-fire and, indeed, redoubled their efforts and consolidated their control of most of Somalia south of the sub-state of Puntland. At the same time, Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces showed no disposition to halt hostilities and punitive search operations.
The gains of the armed resistance and the deadly and destructive response of the Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces to the insurgents threw Sheikh Ahmed into a credibility crisis; if he did not stand firm on a timetable for Ethiopian withdrawal, he would lose his last shred of legitimacy. After Sheikh Ahmed made that clear at the second round, the Washington-led Western and regional powers, working through the United Nations, moved to pressure both sides to renew the "peace process."
The Meetings
Aware that a failure to produce a signed agreement in a third round of talks would deal a death blow to their initiative, the U.N. and Western-led "international community" attempted to prepare the ground for a compromise between the T.F.G. and A.R.S.-D. In mid-October, the U.N. Political Office for Somalia (U.N.P.O.S.) sponsored a "seminar" in the South African Republic on "political and security affairs" for members of the joint security and political committees that were formed by the T.F.G. and A.R.S.-D at the first round of the Djibouti process. Shortly thereafter, delegations from the two sides were in Sweden, which had taken on the role of organizing Western assistance to Somalia after a successful accord, where they agreed to cooperate in facilitating access to humanitarian aid for the millions of Somalis in need.
With the two sides having been prepared by their mentors, the U.N.'s special representative to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, who would chair the third round and act as principal mediator, remarked on the eve of round three that everyone would be happy if there was a "government of national unity" in Somalia, but that even the "limited progress" of the Djibouti process was a "miracle." Ould Abdallah predicted that even after an agreement was signed, violence would continue for a while, but that signatories and Somalis outside the process who joined them could count on the support of the "international community." Defending the decision to go ahead with round three in the absence of the militant re-liberation factions, Ould Abdallah said: "Everyone would like to load the boat, bring in more people. No, we are going at our own pace."
According to reports pieced together by local and regional media, the third round did not begin auspiciously. When, on October 25, the A.R.S.-D delegation spotted Ethiopian officials in the meeting hall, they reportedly walked out and the session was adjourned, after which the donors funding the talks - the U.N., European Union and Western powers - intervened and brought the A.R.S.-D back (it is not clear whether the Ethiopians left the chamber). The two sides then met separately with Ould Abdallah, who pressured them to negotiate directly.
The talks hit a further snag when T.F.G. members of the joint security committee reportedly insisted that Ethiopia would not withdraw from Somalia until a proposed U.N. stabilization force was in place and the T.F.G. was strong enough to defend itself against the insurgency. The A.R.S.-D delegation reportedly responded that since the re-liberation movement controls "95 percent of Somalia," the T.F.G.'s demands were pointless.
On October 26, the deadlock was broken through pressure exerted by the external actors, the details of which have not been reported, and the "modalities" and "joint statement" were produced, with Ethiopian withdrawal written into the former.
On October 27, the Ethiopian foreign ministry announced that Addis Ababa would comply with the Djibouti accord and carry out an "orderly troop withdrawal." Major figures in the militant opposition - Sheikh Aweys and Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, spokesman for the internationalist-Salafist al-Shabaab militia, which is not part of the A.R.S. - rejected the Djibouti agreement and insisted that armed struggle would continue. Aweys added that "no new developments" had come out of round three.
The Agreement
A close and critical reading of the signed documents evokes a sense of unreality and reveals that their silences are more significant than their texts.
The modalities document, which runs for two pages and contains eleven points, declares that "ceasefire observance" will become effective on November 5, and that initial troops composing a joint T.F.G.-A.R.S.-D security force will be ready to deploy to enforce the cease-fire by November 10, and joint security operations will be directed from Somalia's official capital Mogadishu. Eventually, a ten-thousand strong force will be trained and deployed with the financial backing of the U.N.
Simultaneous with the projected security build-up, the Ethiopians, beginning on November 21, will relocate outside Mogadishu and Beledweyne, the capital of Somalia's Hiraan region (from which they have already withdrawn and left in the hands of the Courts movement). To "avoid a security vacuum," the areas vacated by the Ethiopians will be policed by the small, three-thousand troop AfricanUnion peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) and "TFG and ARS security forces, until the deployment of UN forces."
A second stage of Ethiopia's phased withdrawal will take place over a 120-day period, the starting date for which has been left ambiguous in the text.
The sense of unreality about the modalities document comes primarily from the fact that the most important players - the armed re-liberation groups - are not "on the boat," which is what Sheikh Aweys meant when he said that the third round had not produced any new developments. The cease-fire announced after the first round of the Djibouti process failed to halt the fighting, and the renewal of it is unlikely to fare any better.
How will the T.F.G., A.R.S.-D and AMISOM dislodge the militants from their territorial control? Will they fight the entrenched Courts movement? Will they leave it alone with its gains, conceding power to the re-liberation forces? The T.F.G. has depended on Ethiopian military support for its very existence and the A.R.S.-D has traded on the successes of a resistance that has repudiated it in order to command a bargaining position. Can the T.F.G. survive the agreement, if it is actually implemented? Will the resistance dissolve when Ethiopian withdrawal is underway as Sheikh Ahmed has claimed? Will the T.F.G. and A.R.S.-D be able to work out the details of security cooperation? The record of external powers in providing sufficient support to the T.F.G. has been poor. Will Donors adequately finance a joint security force? Will the U.N., which has been reluctant to sponsor a stabilization mission to replace AMISOM and the Ethiopians, actually approve one?
The foregoing list of questions gives some indication that implementation of the modalities document is, at best, doubtful. It appears that an over-taxed Addis Ababa will eventually withdraw, save face and move back to its policy of playing off Somali factions against one another - a prediction made by Aweys, who insists that the occupiers be driven out of Somalia by force. The agreement leaves everything else up for grabs and radically uncertain.
The joint political declaration runs less than one page and contains rhetorical flourishes and appeals, the only noteworthy one of which "welcome[s] the assistance of the international community and the leadership of the United Nations for the early establishment of a Somali Unity Government" - Ould Abdallah's dream.
Here the sense of unreality is stifling and the silences are deafening. What would such a unity government be? Would it replace the T.F.G. or simply change its personnel? What system of representation would it have and what role would Shari'a law play in it? How would it be formed? Who would write its constitution?
Perhaps it is unfair to ask those questions. In the absence of an operative ncease-fire, which is a distant possibility, the goal of a unity government has no practical import within the confines of the Djibouti process - it is merely aspirational.
Conclusion
The donor powers got their signed agreement and A.R.S.-D got its timetable, albeit an ambiguous one. The T.F.G. took a loss and now faces a round of meetings in Nairobi sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (I.G.A.D.), the regional organization for the Horn of Africa that birthed the T.F.G. in 2004. Billed as a "audit" of the transitional institutions to be attended by the government and all members of parliament, the I.G.A.D. conference could be a death knell for the T.F.G. or another symbolic display meant to keep it going as a cosmetic facade (both possibilities have been rumored in Somali and regional media).
Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, Professor of Political Science, Purdue University
weinstem@purdue.edu
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