How Not to Engage With Ethiopia

By Heikal Kenneded

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

The new Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s recent visit in Mogadishu marked unlikely shift in the two countries’ relations. In a joint communique statement issued by both President Farmajo and Prime Minister Ahmed have agreed to "strengthen their brotherly bilateral relations" and abolish trade barriers between the two countries, including investment of four major Somali ports. This unprecedented bilateral negotiations between the two neighboring countries has received mixed reviews that most Somalis could only sense the sinister side of Ethiopia investing in Somali ports, which it doesn’t have the financial capital to do so and could only be interpreted as a maritime  encroachment rather than economic investment. More fundamentally, it’s hard to see Ethiopia entering fair bilateral trade agreement with Somalia on equal grounds due to its historical aggressions and political meddling within Somalia. Given the fragility of the federal government Somali and the prevaili.ng political fragmentation within its regional states, it should not rush into entering bilateral agreements with any predatory nations and companies. No matter how friendly Ethiopia suddenly appears to be, any bilateral trade negotiation talks should be held off, scrutinized and publicly debated for due process.

Unfortunately, President Farmajo conveniently forgets (or he is ignorant of the new prime minister’s background) that Mr. Abiy Ahmed, as a former intelligence officer, is none but a protégé of the late cunning Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi who sent up to 10,000 troops into Somalia to commit unprecedented genocide that has driven close to a million of Somalis from their homes, not to mention laying the grounds of the current political undermining in the federal regional states. If President Farmajo seems to believe the century-old Ethiopian animosity towards Somalia would be overturned by a few hours’ visit of PM Abiy Ahmed in Mogadishu and chooses to fall for his gambit, he’s politically naïve, dangerously naïve.

The harsh truth is that the United Arab Emirates is behind Ethiopia’s current push to invest in these unnamed four major Somali ports by promising them to loan the funds to invest in these ports. This only comes after the UAE’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed recently visited Ethiopia, where he pledged to give Ethiopia $3 billion in aid and investments, which follows on the heels of the recent resolution banning the UAE state-owned DP World from working in Somalia by both the Upper and Lower Houses of the Parliament. Since DP World openly violated the independence and unity of Somalia, but this has done little to deter its destructiveness in the Horn of Africa and is bent up now to use Ethiopia as its Trojan horse to “take hostage” all major Somali ports for the next thirty years so that they do not compete with its ports. In other words, it is most Somalis’ firm belief there is a tacit Arab Gulf States policy to keep Somalia destabilized and penurious and they have found in Ethiopia a reliable proxy to achieve their subverting objectives.

Despite Mr. Abiy Ahmed appears to be a political reformist, he is caught up in a trap of his predecessors’ making whose policies towards Somalia were merely based on divide and conquer that has damaged Somalia’s stability for the last quarter of century. Since the majority in the ruling Ethio­pian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which has ruled the country despotically for the past 27 years are bent on keeping Somalia as a divided and weak nation state that takes its marching orders from Addis Ababa. No wonder, Abiy Ahmed's Speech soon after his return from Somalia created so much controversy by declaring the impending unity of the two nations. For the moment, it would be wise for the new Prime Minister of Ethiopia to move cautiously with his dealings of Somalia because there’s a huge confidence building measures that are needed to be established before the two nations could move towards economic bilateral relations. While perhaps it is strategically satisfying to normalize relations with a country that has undermined Somalia’s integrity and political stability for the past 25 years, and thus rushing to economic investment approach is unlikely to work. In reality, Ethiopia has greater leverage over Somalia than many imagine that could have irreprehensible consequences for the long future by allowing them to take over major strategic ports in the country.

In its efforts of Somalia trying to rise from years of violence and political instability, it’s very susceptible of being taken on a ride by various predatory nations and companies and the current leadership needs to be very cautious the true intentions of getting into any economic negotiations. The fact that Ethiopian troops have currently an immense presence in most regional states of Somalia that fact itself renders them in conflict of interest to such investments. As such, before Ethiopia considers cultivating any sort of economic bilateral relations with Somalia, there must be preceded other trust-building negotiations that erase fear and apprehension between the two societies, which have occupied their political minds for the longest time.  In other words, Somalia is currently is too unstable and fragmented to enter an equal bilateral negotiations with its neighboring hegemony - Ethiopia. 

To most Ethiopians, Somalis’ existential fears are exaggerated, blown up by the media to scare the people point out that Ethiopia has never been the aggressor. Even when Ethiopia invaded in southern Somalia, in 1996, it only did so to avert the danger that Islamic jihadist taking over Somalia represented to them. Instead, Ethiopians claim Somalis’ own divisive tribalism is the root of their instability, which is partly true. Nevertheless, most Somalis cannot shake off the reality of how Ethiopia represented to them an arch enemy of an existential threat for over a century. In any event, Ethiopia’s population and its economy are now both ten times bigger than Somalia’s and growing faster than most of African nations. Whereas Somalia relies on aid and begs foreigners to rebuild its army and economy, Ethiopia, by contrast, races on and it is now ready to flex its muscles throughout the Horn of Africa, not to mention that it has finally the UAE eager to be its friend in collusion to destabilize the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia. Further, Somalia’s major insecurities have been intensified over the years by natural disasters of drought, flooding, and starvation, which are all the more deeply felt because the government lacks the necessary financial capital to lift its people from these multifaceted natural and man-made catastrophes. Ethiopia therefore desires influence in Somalia for the sake of “strategic depth,” which means having control over its territory and coastline in order to legitimately flex its economic muscles in the Horn. Either way, Ethiopia wants Somalia to remain in the status quo of being weak and divided, but find a way to exploit its natural resources and coastlines.

Despite the many competing foreign policy demands for the Farmajo administration notwithstanding must not make a normalized Ethiopia-Somalia relationship as a top foreign policy priority. No other issue risks causing as much damage to the country’s credibility as its effective leader, as the prospect of Ethiopia-Somalia trade negotiations without any concrete . In the end, perhaps good economic relationships with Ethiopia might come one day, however, at the moment the best approach would be to wait and see how Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s approach and dealings with Somalia on equal ground might be quite different from his predecessors, at the highest levels and without equivocation that the only way to preserve any relationship with Ethiopia is to amend all past territorial and political transgressions before entering into any consequential economic negotiations. President Farmajo with his flexible policy and willingness to accept all Ethiopian false offerings could plausibly deliver his downfall.

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Heikal Kenneded
heikalk@yahoo.com
Washington D.C. 

Al-Shabab: A Legacy of Eternal Shame

By Heikal I. Kenneded August 31, 2001 August 2011 should be hailed as a turning point in the turbulent history of Somalia - a month laden with both momentous triumph and an eternal shame.  August 6, 2011 should be commemorated as the day that the defeated Al Shabab insurgents withdrew from the Somali capital Mogadishu, which signaled the beginning of the end of their tyranny.  In fact, the downfall of this terrorist group was a long time coming, but their painful legacy is something that won’t go away for a long time.  Whereas, August 14, 2011 should be remembered as a day of ignominy, after the United Nations formally proclaimed southern Somalia as a state of famine, where starvation and food crisis have devastated the lives of close to 3.2 million people. This latter date has a lasting impact. The gut-wrenching famine currently ravaging in southern Somalia is partly due to the worst draught in 60 years to hit Horn of Africa, but it was largely exacerbated by the despotic rule of the Al Shabab extremist insurgents.  Since the worst drought and food crisis have especially affected hard in the southern Somalia, which is the heart of Al-Shabab occupied territory, the famine distress is at its worst point.  The ensuing famine has forced many families to attempt to flee on foot to either for neighboring countries, or in the capital, where they believe they can get food aid. However, the famine in southern Somalia was in the making for as long as Al Shabab colonized in the southern provinces of the country. It’s no coincidence that the country’s breadbasket is now synonymous with abject poverty and famine.  Because the draconian reign of Al Shabab mainly depends and thrives on the recruitment of young men from the southern provinces, as young as nine years old.  This has largely contributed to the famine because these young men had been forcefully recruited in droves into the Al Shabab radical cadres, instead of tilling and cultivating their sustainable crops.  With the fading seasonal rains in the southern regions, compounded with the enforced recruitment of youngsters into Al Shabab militia has resulted in unprecedented famine that decimated the population in that part of the country.  In addition, Al Shabab to carry out their terrorization against the very people that they exploit with impunity, they first expelled all aid organizations from the territories that they colonized.  Once the devastation of famine hit the southern provinces, the answer of Al Shabab was one of denial, scapegoat and further radicalization by preventing the drought victims from fleeing to the capital and neighboring countries, while banning the aid agencies to come back and feed these drought victims.  Furthermore, it was alleged that Al Shabab burned whatever little food and medicine that trickled down to that part of the country, while they killed charity workers as part of their long-running campaign against international aid groups. Nevertheless, timing is everything and this is the most opportune time to expose the slow genocidal tactics of Al Shabab in southern Somalia, where they have caused irreparable havoc on many innocent lives.  In effect, their terror network is currently in great turmoil mired of internal disputes, dwindling resources, and most importantly loss of support from the populace in the southern regions that they control.  Al Shabab has to be put on the defensive and entirely driven out from every nook and cranny of their hideouts in southern Somalia.  Much will depend on taking advantage of this rare opportunity to drive the Al Shabab militia out of the southern provinces and on the run.  In other words, the success of the transitional government will depend on how effectively they make the most of this tragedy by simply recognizing its silver lining.  The timing is also right for the humanitarian relief to flow in because further delays could literally mean the difference between life and death.  Once the impact of the famine is abated, the Somali government needs to address the famine problem at its roots and urge the international community to tune back in order to end the perpetual failed state of Somalia. The bottom line is Al Shabab is a callous proxy for the Al Qaeda terrorist group, rife with Taliban wannabes who are at war with their own people.  They govern by maiming, killing, kidnapping, and now starving of their hostage masses in southern Somalia.  Anyone who has the slightest doubt about what Al Shabab stands for should watch this video that vividly documents how Al Shabab physically handicapped an innocent teenager, named Ismail Khalif Abdulle who became a victim of Al Shabab, after they barbarically double amputated his limbs and later hung them in the town’s square as a lesson to others.  His alleged crime: stealing cell phones -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgYsa3sGXbc&feature=player_embedded# In the end, if Somalia ever finds peace, the legacy of Al Shabab will be nothing but an eternal shame of repression and starvation that Somali people will remember as one of the darkest days during the Somali civil strife quagmire. Heikal Kenneded Washington D.C. heikalk@yahoo.com

The Trepidation of Mogadishu Becoming another Regional State

By Heikal I. Kenneded

Monday January 29, 2018

Former mayor of Mogadishu Thabit Abdi

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With the latest revelations on last week that the young and dynamic mayor of Mogadishu, Thabit Abdi lost his job because he became an ardent advocate of the capital, Mogadishu becoming another regional state, hoping to achieve for the capital city an equal status to other regional states and eventually become its president in order to enjoy a greater degree of autonomy. In this light, most people are asking themselves the good question: “Whether Mogadishu should become one of the Federal Member States?” But to understand the core problem of rushing to such new state formation, here it’s instructive to remember how problematic it could be of creating a parallel government. There are obvious reasons for not allowing Mogadishu to become part of the Federated States, especially its important location as the seat of the Central Federal Government. If the capital city were to become another regional state, the members of the central government would be unduly beholden to it. In other words, creating a parallel regional state in the capital would reign in the proceedings of the central government to get their way, simply by virtue of physical proximity to Villa Somalia.

Emboldened by his relative popularity, the mayor is allegedly suspected of stirring up the city’s residents to form Benadir regional state of equal status of other regional states in the country.  It’s a real political tragedy that the unrivaled ambition of the mayor who presented himself as a progressive reformist came to such an abrupt end, simply because he couldn’t be in step with the same administration that nominated to the post, in the first place. Despite the grave security challenges facing the capital city, not to mention the necessity to provide access to public education for the hundreds of thousands of children, instead the mayor to choose the formation of a regional state shows lack of political maturity and innovation.  In political science, political immaturity is defined as the inability of politicians to differentiate between the season for politicking and when to concentrate on governance, which is none but basically improving the welfare of the average masses.

Some may say, mayor Thabit might have been used by other political disruptors whose main intentions were to create another distraction for the fledging government led President Farmajo, likewise on how proponents of the Jubaland state created unnecessary diversion for President Hassan Sheikh’s first year in office. Perhaps it is, but I also see it as a sign that as Somalis, we are unable to come up with political ideals and are lacking in political maturity as a society. It also appears that quite a lot of those sponsoring the formation of a Benadir regional state are splinter groups of opposition groups; mainly formed by disgruntled members of the parliament — more often than not – lost in becoming ministers. In the end, mayor Thabit should have been focused in securing the capital’s security apparatus and rebuilding the city’s debilitating infrastructure, instead of waging a political war.  In a political war that could have set back the country's future.

In a country like Somalia where there are deep divisions among its different clans, the seat of the central government should be located in a neutral state, where no single clan has superior sway over other residents in the capital city. Mogadishu is home to at least 3 million residents of every clan and background and thus negates the proprietorship of a single clan or people over others. In other words, I would foresee Mogadishu’s political status as like Washington DC, where residents of the capital have no voting representation in Congress and the federal government maintains jurisdiction over the city, as well as a say in Constitutional Amendments and the right to home rule. Thus, the lack of statehood for the capital should be clearly enshrined in the country’s Constitution. The most urgent task now falls on the country’s central parliament to amend the laws governing the capital city’s legal entity. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the Somali provisional constitution that was adopted on August 1, 2012 by a National Constitutional Assembly in Mogadishu, stipulates that two or more regions may voluntarily merge to form a federal member state.

The alternative, which means the creation of a dual sovereignty and parallel government made up of local and federal government that will only increase the political chaos that hampered the country’s evolution into a stable federal government. Unfortunately, much of the political disrupters are reluctant to accept such neutrality of the political status of the capital city and advocating the capital city to have a regional state stature.  Nevertheless, due to the current political dispensation in Mogadishu towards regional state is not the result of a natural process, but rather the predominant clans in the capital and its surroundings’ competition for political power.

Similar dynamics were recently evident in the challenges from other heads of federal regional states with the central government in regards of foreign affairs and other relevant bilateral negotiations. While a federal government is a system that divides up power between a strong national government and smaller local governments, it seems strange nowadays when we’re thoroughly accustomed the opposite. There should therefore be legal sanctions against such usurpation of power. For instance, the federal government should have jurisdiction over regional states in all matters concerning national interest.  In other words, unlike centralized forms of governments, federalism is a hierarchical system of government in which two levels of government administer a variety of control over the same geographic area and that’s where the trepidations of federalism lie.

Some warnings are in order, federalism is a very messy form of government and Somalia did not choose this path on its own accord but rather imposed upon by unhelpful key international players, which neither had in mind the political stability nor the promotion of democracy and peace in the country. Unfortunately, it’s too late to turn the clock back, but the current leadership is on the right track of reaching comprise with the Federal Member States in regards of resource-sharing, power-sharing and political representation, until a strong central government is being established. What’s striking is how many crooked politicians and greedy clan elders are trying to take advantage of this fragile state of the country to promote disunity and fragmentation in the federal political system, however, the Central Government should not tolerate it for the sake of the country not perishing from the face of the earth. 

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Heikal I. Kenneded
Washington D.C.
heikalk@yahoo.com