{"id":10025,"date":"2013-10-14T12:15:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T01:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=10025"},"modified":"2013-10-15T13:46:38","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T02:46:38","slug":"kenya-partitioning-somalia-and-al-shabaabs-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/kenya-partitioning-somalia-and-al-shabaabs-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya, partitioning Somalia, and al-Shabaab\u2019s response"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/8072105386_92b87eb091_z.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10026\" title=\"Soldiers of the Somali National Army (SNA) walk at dusk under a rising crescent moon near the outskirts of Afgooye, a town to the west of Somali capital Mogadishu. On the third day of the SNA\u2019s joint offensive with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), dubbed \u201cOperation Free Shabelle\u201d, troops have advanced to almost two kilometres outside the strategically important town, having captured along the way swathes of territory previously under the control of the Al Shabaab insurgent group. Photo ID 515019. 24\/05\/2012. Somalia. UN Photo\/Stuart Price\" alt=\"Soldiers of the Somali National Army (SNA) walk at dusk under a rising crescent moon near the outskirts of Afgooye, a town to the west of Somali capital Mogadishu. On the third day of the SNA\u2019s joint offensive with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), dubbed \u201cOperation Free Shabelle\u201d, troops have advanced to almost two kilometres outside the strategically important town, having captured along the way swathes of territory previously under the control of the Al Shabaab insurgent group. Photo ID 515019. 24\/05\/2012. Somalia. UN Photo\/Stuart Price\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/8072105386_92b87eb091_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/8072105386_92b87eb091_z.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/8072105386_92b87eb091_z-205x144.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The result of al-Shabaab\u2019s gruesome strike in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi has been international condemnation. It will be followed by a beef up in security around Kenya (this is already happening), and more resources will be pumped in the Global War on Terror\u2019s East Africa\/Somalia theatre (this might already be happening). Not much is being said about the reasons that al-Shabaab decided to strike in Kenya, save for that it is in retaliation of Kenya\u2019s support for the Federal Government of Somalia in its fight against al-Shabaab. But Kenya was a target of al-Shabaab activity for a range of reasons beyond that.<\/p>\n<p>Somalia is often painted as the failed state par excellence, and currently ranks as the most <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignpolicy.com\/failed_states_index_2012_interactive\" target=\"_blank\">failed state<\/a>\u00a0on this planet\u2014more \u2018failed\u2019 than other warring hotspots such as the Congo, Sudan, Chad, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet this ranking doesn\u2019t tell us much about Somalia. In particular, it doesn\u2019t tell us why and how Somalia got to where it is, and it doesn\u2019t tell us anything about existing governance structures in the country. And contrary to news reports, there <i>are<\/i> existing governance structures in Somalia. Al-Shabaab is one of them and the Federal Government of Somalia claims to be one of them.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabaab\u2019s legitimacy comes from its relative pacifying and stabilising role in Somalia\u2026 yes I did say pacifying and stabilising. While this hasn\u2019t been a popular topic with media outlets, there\u2019s considerable academic writing on the topic of local governance in Somalia and the role Islamic organisations have played in providing for local order, peace, and security. Scholars such as Ken Menkhaus and Ioan Lewis have noted in their writings that local systems of governance such as Islamic Courts (of which al-Shabaab was one member) had effectively brought a significant degree of stability and local governance to southern Somalia.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabaab and its predecessor, the Union of Islamic Courts, managed to provide for a great degree of peace and security in Mogadishu and around south Somalia, allowing business activity to thrive, and putting a stop to the predatory looting and rape and murder which Mogadishu\u2019s warlords had \u2018blessed\u2019 the citizenry with since 1991. In an environment of great misery and disorder for such a long time, any establishment of order was welcome and al-Shabaab proved highly competent in fostering a relatively well ordered society. However, this doesn\u2019t imply al-Shabaab\u2019s universal or eternal popularity; I merely note that, when faced with years of political anarchy, insecurity, arbitrary extortion and rape, Somalis decided to support a faction which promised a greater degree of peace, security, and order, and to a large extent delivered on that promise (even if under sometimes brutal conditions).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;During their lifetime, the Federal Institutions of Somalia were marred by allegations of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hiiraan.com\/news4\/2012\/July\/24984\/leaked_monitoring_group_s_report_sheds_light_on_widespread_corruptionon_by_senior_tfg_officials.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">corruption<\/a>, mismanagement, and inaptitude. They were an internationally installed governance structure, not one popularly developed and supported by the people. Because of their international imposition and character, they were distrusted by ordinary Somalis, who didn\u2019t benefit from the graft and massive <a href=\"http:\/\/www.somaliawatch.org\/archivemar03\/archivemay01\/010630101.htm\">stealing<\/a> of international funds destined to support the running of these institutions.<\/p>\n<p>And such governance structures, with all of their international backing and hundreds of millions of dollars in support, were unable to provide for the people what al-Shabaab did; namely greater security and peace, which in turn fostered an environment conducive of greater business activity (the Mogadishu business community bankrolled the Union of Islamic Courts and later al-Shabaab). The current Federal Government of Somalia, the successor of the Transitional Federal Institutions has only recently, and with the help of Kenyan, Ethiopian, and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops, managed to replicate some of al-Shabaab\u2019s successes in security governance.<\/p>\n<p>Kenyan troops were invited in by the Federal Government of Somalia in late 2011 to help in the fight against al-Shabaab. They have since been re-hatted under the AMISOM banner and while in theory they should be working for the benefit of the Federal Government, the reality is somewhat different. Kenya\u2019s strategy for a while now has been to carve up a semi-autonomous state to act as a buffer zone in the far south of Somalia, which would be controlled by a friendly Somali faction. The buffer zone region, also known as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalpost.com\/dispatch\/news\/regions\/africa\/111115\/kenya-jubaland\" target=\"_blank\">Jubaland<\/a>, would be used to keep Somalia\u2019s Islamists out of Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>US Embassy <a href=\"http:\/\/cables.mrkva.eu\/cable.php?id=217439\">cables<\/a> from 2009 confirm that Somali elders, Transitional Federal Government officials, and Kenyan government officials had actually <a href=\"http:\/\/cables.mrkva.eu\/cable.php?id=218643\" target=\"_blank\">debated<\/a> and planned the Jubaland project in Nairobi, and even Ethiopia\u2019s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi <a href=\"http:\/\/cables.mrkva.eu\/cable.php?id=237190\" target=\"_blank\">expressed principle support<\/a> for the project. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/africanarguments.org\/2013\/07\/03\/kenya%E2%80%99s-misbehavior-in-kismayo-and-consequences-of-disrespecting-the-amisom-mandate-by-jibril-mohamed\/\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> from July this year, such a course of events has already taken place, with a semi-autonomous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/Africa\/News\/Tensions-simmer-in-south-Somali-region-20130516-3\" target=\"_blank\">Jubaland<\/a> state already declared by local militias. The Federal Government in Mogadishu isn\u2019t happy with Kenya over its very active support for local militia leaders over Mogadishu\u2019s authority, but since it\u2019s helpless to do much about it, the situation continues.<\/p>\n<p>Moving past the rhetoric of helping Somalia become more stable, what this represents, at least for many Somalis and certainly for al-Shabaab, is another foreign \u2018carve up\u2019 of the country. Somalia and its people have suffered for years from local leadership battles underpinned by foreign support for the warring factions and actual direct foreign intervention in local political affairs. Kenya\u2019s involvement in the southern port town of Kismayo and \u2018Jubaland\u2019 is only the most recent such episode, and the attack on Westgate Mall can be seen as al-Shabaab\u2019s delayed response to this \u2018carve up\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><em>Nikola Pijovic is a PhD candidate in the National Security College at the Australian National University. Image courtesy of Flickr user <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/un_photo\/8072105386\/\" target=\"_blank\">United Nations Photo<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The result of al-Shabaab\u2019s gruesome strike in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi has been international condemnation. It will be followed by a beef up in security around Kenya (this is already happening), and more resources &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":10026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[588,587,596],"class_list":["post-10025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-al-shabaab","tag-kenya","tag-somalia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kenya, partitioning Somalia, and al-Shabaab\u2019s response | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/kenya-partitioning-somalia-and-al-shabaabs-response\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kenya, partitioning Somalia, and al-Shabaab\u2019s response | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The result of al-Shabaab\u2019s gruesome strike in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi has been international condemnation. 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