Hiiraan Online

By definition a client state is a country that is dependent on a larger and more powerful country for its political, economic or military welfare.

If there are, who are such entities?  How could a sovereign state be reduced to a sub-servant status? What is the process that made achieving such aim possible? How long does it take? Is there any benefit for becoming a client state?

Somalia has been in socio-economic and political turmoil since gaining independence; mainly due to a two decade long history of being under a brutal military regime and subsequent vicious civil war that lead to total anarchy.

Although the international community claims to have tentatively contained the Somali tragedy and that it is no more a ‘failed’ state, the road to recovery  has proven a very hard, slow and extremely controversial.

With the introduction of  a ‘Provisional Federal Constitution,’ in August 12, 2012,  275 MPs were selected through the unconventional 4.5 clan-based power sharing formula, followed by the election of a President, an executive and quasi non-existent judiciary system. With these key elements and institutional support columns, Somalia was set to step onto the path of stabilization and recovery, and in due course, reclaim its sovereignty.

This was further enhanced by the selfless and tangible help of various UN Agencies, IGAD, AU, EU, USA, and AMISOM including our neighbouring countries, not to mention the support of Turkey and some Arab countries has had positive effects. In fact the financial and human resources that were made available to the Somali government and in the case of AMISOM the sacrifice of their solders’ lives were all meant for the protecting Somalis from ‘Al-Shabab’ and from themselves.

Under such appropriate environment, the question that begs answer is: Why has Somalia not yet recovered just like the countries that have suffered different levels of civil strife’ e.g., Ethiopia (1974-1991), Liberia (1999- 2003) Sierra Leone (1991-2002) Congo (1998-2003) and Mali (2013)? Especially, when they had fewer interventions of ‘well wishing’ countries and International institutions compared with the Somali case?

Is this because Somalis are by nature untameable people even before their own suffering and socio-political and economic demise? Have they got no sense of nationhood, governance, unity or understanding of the meaning of coexistence and living in peace? Are they so selfish and caring of their own individual and clan’s interests at the expenses of the national ones? Are they aware and as such are consenting parties of the process to disintegrate and balkanize their own country into clan enclaves under the banner of federalism?

All these questions leave head-spinning feelings to the majority of Somalis who care about their beloved country but are not brave enough to search for answers.

A concerned and a brave Somali nationalist would ask himself/herself questions such as these probing and introspective ones:

1)      What is left of the Somali sovereignty and independence? How much more humiliating instances does the Somali Republic has yet to endure?

2)      How and when the term federal ended up in our primary law? Why the Provisional Federal Constitution that was presented to the six signatures ‘entities’ on 28 May 2012 (in accordance with the UN Road Map) was changed twice by an unknown Technical Committee in Addis Ababa and in Nairobi before being presented to the Provisional Constituent Assembly in August 2012? Particularly why the model of regional autonomy and devolution of powers was changed into the current model of con-federate system of states within the Somali State? Who might be gaining from the balkanization of Somalia into tribal enclaves camouflaged into federal states?

3)      How did Al-Shabab come to be? Who created it, who is financing it, and whose agenda is it fulfilling? Can anyone dispute that Al-Shabab’s is not a home grown Somali ideology?

4)      Is the International donors’ community genuinely concerned about the welfare of Somali people? What happened to the 2013 pledges of the New Deal aimed to reconstruct Somalia?

5)      Why with AMISOM’s huge number of military arms and personnel the pace to eradicate Al-Shabab is extremely slow and frustrating? Is the tactics of military ‘temporizing’ fulfilling a grand design that does not have the welfare of Somalia at heart? Why there is no an agreed upon deadline for their exit?

6)      What are the ‘real ‘roles of UN Agencies and the whole plethora of INGOs? Why with more than 17,000 AMISOM military personnel the UN Envoy needs 400 soldiers more at Mogadishu airport for its own protection?

7)      Are our neighbour countries genuinely supporting the emerging of a stable and functioning Somalia or they got vested interests in keeping the status quo until they achieve their goals? When will their naked meddling into the Somali affairs achieve their aim of establishing the client-state relationship?

As usual it is easy to beat the drum of blaming ‘others’ for one’s failure and inability to face one’s mistakes. The role of the Somali people is practically non-existent because it has embraced an ideology which at its core states that governance is about maximising clan interest at the expenses of national interest and citizenship.    

Meanwhile, the role of so-called intellectuals who opted to wait and see situation is not helpful.

According to Julien Benda in his ‘Treason of intellectuals’ there are two options for the learned section of any society: Either to serve the privilege and power principles or the justice and the truth ones. In the Somali situation it is a rarity to evidence that those who tried to bring changes as insiders have not been corrupted by the power and the privilege.

On the other hand, the so-called business sector is hell bent to further only their own interests. Profiting from war-like situations and not paying due taxes clearly will not promote any national development and peace. The sad part is that they are very conscious of their actions or inactions and they feel very comfortable with their current de facto arrangement and profiteering advantage.

The current political leadership is unable of reconfigure appropriate responses to the dangerous situation facing our state and nationhood. They neither try to seriously reclaim the full meaning of the Somali people’s sovereignty and independency nor are they diligently executing all executive, legislative and judicial priorities as half of their respective mandate in terms of time has ticked away.

That said, the tragedy is that we, as usual, will continue to underestimate the magnitude and the implications of our self-defeating political conditions at this juncture our history.

The bitter reality is that after almost two years the fanfare of being ‘internationally’ recognized as a ‘sovereign’ is replaced by the emerging signs that the aspirations of the Somali people for peace, security, unity and progress are by far unattainable.

Granted, Somalia cannot operate or exist in vacuum. It needs to interact with different states that are there to promote their own interests, but not at the expense of our statehood or nationhood. Clearly there are state stakeholders who have vested interests to keep Somalia’s status quo of ‘instability’ by furthering more divisions to push Somalia into civil war relapse.

Under such dilemma, I question the benefit of reclaiming symbolic sovereignty for Somalia if that only means we would ultimately surrender and trade our sovereignty for being a client state to one or both of our immediate neighbouring countries of Ethiopia and Kenya.

Human Rights Lawyer

London - UK
Email: [email protected]