Strategic Dialogue: Somalia

Francis Njubi Nesbitt and Hussein Yusuf

Francis Njubi Nesbitt

Hussein Yusuf's essay on the Obama administration's challenges in Somalia argues that Somalia poses a grave danger to the United States. He argues that piracy threatens "the supply of oil and commercial trade to the West." I disagree. Piracy does not pose a grave threat. It's a distraction that takes attention away from the tragic humanitarian crisis unfolding on land.

The anti-piracy campaign was perfect for the Bush administration's "shock and awe" tactics. Flexing military muscle is always popular with voters and television networks. This is why the armada of aircraft carriers, destroyers, and helicopter gunships has gathered to fight a few Somali fishermen in fiberglass boats.

The anti-piracy campaign epitomizes the misguided militarism and profiteering of the Bush era. The campaign has already attracted private security contractors — mercenaries — that seemed to follow the Bush war machine like vultures. Blackwater and other mercenary forces quickly formed anti-piracy wings that are available to shipping companies. It seems logical to conclude that the death toll, which has been minimal to this point, is likely to escalate sharply with the involvement of Blackwater's bloodthirsty employees.

Efforts to find a link between piracy and terrorism also threaten to escalate the conflict. In a New York Times op-ed, for instance, Douglas Burgess, Jr. claimed last month that piracy is terrorism because both involve non-state actors and gangs of disaffected youth. But there's no evidence of collaboration between Islamists and the pirates, let alone evidence of ties to global terrorism networks.

It's important not to hype the threat pirates pose to the United States and international security. Vice Admiral Gortney, commander of the naval forces in the Middle East, estimated that only one-tenth of 1% of the thousands of ships that use the Gulf of Aden are in danger of being hijacked. Analysts estimate that piracy costs $1 billion a year in a global maritime industry worth trillions of dollars.

In a deal with Britain and the United States, Kenya has agreed to prosecute pirates caught off its coast. It isn't clear whether pirates captured in open waters or off the Somalia coast will be tried. Meanwhile, 22 African and Middle Eastern countries are meeting in Djibouti to craft anti-piracy laws. This is a step in the right direction, as it seeks legal and political rather than military solutions. In the final analysis, however, only a stable state in Somalia can effectively deter piracy.

The Obama administration should adopt a multipronged strategy that includes both traditional conflict management techniques such as peacekeeping and other strategies, such as incentives and sanctions. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden can only be effectively controlled on land. Thus, the most important step is to jumpstart the peace process by removing obstacles placed by the Bush doctrine.

The Bush administration's call for a UN peacekeeping force for Somalia at the eleventh hour seemed more like a publicity stunt than serious policy. This cynical strategy is designed to fail, but it creates the impression that something is being done. The Obama team will have to engage the parties in the messy and protracted negotiations. This may not be as sexy and media-friendly as mobilizing a peacekeeping force and launching an anti-piracy campaign, but it's the smart option.

The administration could offer incentives like political and economic support for governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Investment in strengthening women's, youth, and public health-related groups could reach people at the grassroots, where they're more amenable to change. Such engagement at the local level can build relationships and reduce support for radical Islamists.

These sanctions and incentives can be effective against regional players such as Ethiopia and Eritrea, which support rival groups in the conflict. The United States can no longer be held hostage to Ethiopia's ambitions in the region. The team must stop the knee-jerk support for Ethiopia's machinations. The breakaway regions of Puntland and Somaliland would also have to be included in the conversation, but strengthening the borders of these breakaway regions may be counterproductive.

Obama and his team have an opportunity to reverse the cynical policies of the last eight years and demonstrate the effectiveness of "smart power" in the Horn of Africa region.

Hussein Yusuf

Francis Njubi Nesbitt does a fine job cataloging the mishaps of the Bush administration in Somalia. This is well documented, and he's very accurate in his description. However, he misses the current political realities on the ground in Somalia.

The way forward for Somalia, in terms of building a representative and stable government, lies in the proper engagement with the Transitional Federal Government (TRG), the country's tribal system, and moderate Islamists in the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). The Djibouti agreement between the leadership of the UIC and the TFG that Nesbitt wrongly brands as lacking credibility is a peace process with potential to succeed and save the country from more violence and, ultimately, disintegration. Hassan Aweys, the militia leader, never said he was ready to talk with the TFG. Aweys' vision of Somalia's future governance is deeply flawed and driven by Islamic law.

Nesbitt quotes Daniela Kroslak of the International Crisis Group saying that "an Islamic republic is inevitable" in Somalia. He goes on to suggest that the United States and Ethiopia should come to terms with this reality. This is the most troubling aspect of Nesbitt's proposal. Somalis aren't ready for an Islamic republic. Our culture, history, and governance are deeply tribal and traditional, with strong Muslim roots that encourage diverse expressions of faith and freedom. In the Gedo region, Puntland, and Somaliland, Islam and governance have merged and are thriving. This is the essence of Somalia's tradition of moderation and tolerance.

In addition, the International Crisis Group is an unreliable source. It actively advocated for the independence of the Somaliland region and thus has little credibility in the eyes of Somalis. It's unable to send researchers into many parts of the country because of its ill-informed recommendations.

In Somalia, Islamists divide along tribal lines. The management of the tribal nature of the conflict is a key to peacebuilding and good governance in Somalia. Nesbitt doesn't seem to understand the importance of Somali tribal ties and how they affect religion, politics, and ultimately peacebuilding in Somalia.

President Obama should directly engage the moderate Islamists while carefully considering the tribal nature and bases of the people at the regional level. Every tribe in Somalia has to feel included in the process. Only when President Obama is able to engage both the moderate Islamists and the traditional leadership of the tribes will peace be possible in Somalia. Excluding the tribal system Somalis have used to govern themselves for centuries is a recipe for disaster.

Hussein Yusuf is a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor and is a program officer at the Engaging Governments on Genocide Prevention Program (EGGP) at George Mason University. Francis Njubi Nesbitt is a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor and teaches African politics and conflict resolution at San Diego State University. He is the author of Race for Sanctions (Indiana University Press, 2004) and is completing a book on peacemaking in the Horn of Africa.

Holbrooke: Insensitive Choice for a Sensitive Region

Stephen Zunes |

Obama's choice for special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, arguably the most critical area of U.S. foreign policy, is a man with perhaps the most sordid history of any of the largely disappointing set of foreign policy and national security appointments.

Richard Holbrooke got his start in the Foreign Service during the 1960s, in the notorious pacification programs in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. This ambitious joint civilian-military effort not only included horrific human rights abuses but also proved to be a notorious failure in curbing the insurgency against the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. This was an inauspicious start in the career of someone Obama hopes to help curb the insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan.

In Asia

In the late 1970s, Holbrooke served as assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In this position, he played a major role in formulating the Carter administration's support for Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and the bloody counterinsurgency campaign responsible for up to a quarter-million civilian deaths. Having successfully pushed for a dramatic increase in U.S. military aid to the Suharto dictatorship, he then engaged in a cover-up of the Indonesian atrocities. He testified before Congress in 1979 that the mass starvation wasn't the fault of the scorched-earth campaign by Indonesian forces in the island nation's richest agricultural areas, but simply a legacy of Portuguese colonial neglect. Later, in reference to his friend Paul Wolfowitz, then the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Holbrooke described how "Paul and I have been in frequent touch to make sure that we keep [East Timor] out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests."

In a particularly notorious episode while heading the State Department's East Asia division, Holbrooke convinced Carter to release South Korean troops under U.S. command in order to suppress a pro-democracy uprising in the city of Kwangju. Holbrooke was among the Carter administration officials who reportedly gave the OK to General Chun Doo-hwan, who had recently seized control of the South Korean government in a military coup, to wipe out the pro-democracy rebels. Hundreds were killed.

He also convinced President Jimmy Carter to continue its military and economic support for the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines.

At the UN

Holbrooke, as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the late 1990s, criticized the UN for taking leadership in conflict resolution efforts involving U.S. allies, particularly in the area of human rights. For example, in October 2000 he insisted that a UN Security Council resolution criticizing the excessive use of force by Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian demonstrators revealed an unacceptable bias that put the UN "out of the running" in terms of any contributions to the peace process.

As special representative to Cyprus in 1997, Holbrooke unsuccessfully pushed the European Union to admit Turkey, despite its imprisonment of journalists, its ongoing use of the death penalty, its widespread killing of civilians in the course of its bloody counter-insurgency war in its Kurdish region, and other human rights abuses.

In the Former Yugoslavia

Holbrooke is perhaps best known for his leadership in putting together the 1995 Dayton Accords, which formally ended the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Though widely praised in some circles for his efforts, Holbrooke remains quite controversial for his role. For instance, the agreement allows Bosnian Serbs to hold on to virtually all of the land they had seized and ethnically cleansed in the course of that bloody conflict. Indeed, rather than accept the secular concept of national citizenship that has held sway in Europe for generations, Holbrooke helped impose sectarian divisions that have made the country — unlike most of its gradually liberalizing Balkan neighbors — unstable, fractious, and dominated by illiberal ultra-nationalists.

As with previous U.S. officials regarding their relations with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Panama's Manuel Noriega, Holbrooke epitomizes the failed U.S. policy toward autocratic rulers that swings between the extremes of appeasement and war. For example, during the 1996 pro-democracy uprising in Serbia Holbrooke successfully argued that the Clinton administration should back Milosevic, in recognition of his role in the successful peace deal over Bosnia, and not risk the instability that might result from a victory by Serb democrats. Milosevic initially crushed the movement. In response to increased Serbian oppression in Kosovo just a couple years later, however, Holbrooke became a vociferous advocate of the 1999 U.S.-led bombing campaign, creating a nationalist reaction that set back the reconstituted pro-democracy movement once again. The pro-democracy movement finally succeeded in the nonviolent overthrow of the regime, following Milosevic's attempt to steal the parliamentary elections in October 2000, but the young leaders of that movement remain bitterly angry at Holbrooke to this day.

Scott Ritter, the former chief UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspector who correctly assessed the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and predicted a disastrous outcome for the U.S. invasion, observes that "not only has he demonstrated a lack of comprehension when it comes to the complex reality of Afghanistan (not to mention Pakistan), Holbrooke has a history of choosing the military solution over the finesse of diplomacy." Noting how the Dayton Accords were built on the assumption of a major and indefinite NATO military presence, which would obviously be far more problematic in Afghanistan and Pakistan than in Europe, Ritter adds: "This does not bode well for the Obama administration."

Ironically, back in 2002-2003, when the United States had temporarily succeeded in marginalizing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, Holbrooke was a strong supporter of redirecting American military and intelligence assets away from the region in order to invade and occupy Iraq. Obama and others presciently criticized this reallocation of resources at that time as likely to lead to the deterioration of the security situation in the country and the resurgence of these extremist groups.

It's unclear, then, why Obama would choose someone like Holbrooke for such a sensitive post. Indeed, it's unclear as to why — having been elected on part for his anti-war credentials — Obama's foreign policy and national security appointments have consisted primarily of such unreconstructed hawks. Advocates of a more enlightened and rational foreign policy still have a long row to hoe.

Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy in Focus senior analyst, is a professor of politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco.