Is civil war coming to Somalia

2015

After the downfall of the military government of General Siyad Bare in 1991 by rebellion clan based factions led by warlords and politicians, Somali has been in a failed situation. The groups that overthrew the military government started fighting between them for resources and power. Consequently, the country and the people of Somali entered decades of protracted conflict civil war (Elmi and Barise, 2006: 33-35). Three major factors have been explained by most scholars as the root causes of Somali’s conflict and the followed breakdown and statelessness of the country. These are the A) colonial legacy, B) economic factors and C) politicized clan system. Similar to many other conflicts in Africa. Somali’s conflict is related to the colonial eras. The colonial powers of Somali (Britain, France and Italy) divided the Somali inhabited territories into five segments. Britain took two regions,(NW+NE)

For over two decades, the Somalia Republic has received massive amounts institutional building assistance from the UN, US and several other states. Nonetheless, the country remains one of the world's poorest. In fact it is often cited as a " failed state " by many scholars and political analysts even after the announcement of a post-transitional federal government in 2012 (Menkhaus, 2014). At present Somalia is wracked by famine and drought and has for several decades been epitomized by civil war ever since the collapse of its central government in 1991. The country has faced profound challenges in instituting meaningful structures of governance over the last couple of years even after having received huge amounts of external institution-building aid. Furthermore, faced with extreme poverty and famine, the country has experienced severe clan conflicts over limited resources, especially those over land and water resources. The instabilities partly emerged from conflicts between the state structures imposed during the colonial era and the clan structures which traditionally played a crucial role in the pastoral lives of Somalis. However, the main causes of the conflict in Somalia are competition for resources and/or power, the colonial legacy, and repressions by the military regime. Clan identity, availability of weapons, and the presence of large numbers of unemployed youth are usually cited as contributing factors to the conflict.

2005

Somalia's history of conflict reveals an intriguing paradox--namely, many of the factors that drive armed conflict have also played a role in managing, ending, or preventing war. For instance, clannism and clan cleavages are a source of conflict--used to divide Somalis, fuel endemic clashes over resources and power, used to mobilize militia, and make broad-based reconciliation very difficult to achieve. Most of Somalia's armed clashes since 1991 have been fought in the name of clan, often as a result of political leaders manipulating clannism for their own purposes. Yet traditional clan elders are a primary source of conflict mediation, clan-based customary law serves as the basis for negotiated settlements, and clan-based blood-payment groups serve as a deterrent to armed violence. Likewise, the central state is conventionally viewed as a potential source of rule of law and peaceful allocation of resources, but, at times in Somalia's past, it was a source of violence an...

2021

After the downfall of the military government of General Siyad Bare in 1991 by rebellion clan based factions led by warlords and politicians, Somali has been in a failed situation. The groups that overthrew the military government started fighting between them for resources and power. Consequently, the country and the people of Somali entered decades of protracted conflict civil war (Elmi and Barise, 2006: 33-35). Three major factors have been explained by most scholars as the root causes of Somali’s conflict and the followed breakdown and statelessness of the country. These are the A) colonial legacy, B) economic factors and C) politicized clan system. Similar to many other conflicts in Africa. Somali’s conflict is related to the colonial eras

Somalia, like many other African countries, has experienced a state of clan warfare which has brought to a total state collapse and a deep-rooted conflict that fragmented the country, deteriorated the physical security, and institutional deformity. The consequence of this anarchic condition, the basic social services such as education, healthcare and public security were not offered. It was also led to a catastrophic condition such as famine and drought. As a result, Somalia became synonymous with failed state, terrorists, warlords, famine, tribal wars and even pirates. This paper is based on qualitative analysis with a document review technique and critically evaluating of the Somali civil war literature. Additional sources of information on online media like websites and newspapers focusing on topics like civil wars in Africa and in Somalia are used. It aims to investigate the role played by the politicized clan identity factor together with communal content, and deterioration of basic needs, bad governance and state's repressive role and international linkages. The investigation revealed that these variables are the necessary underlying and contributing causes, proven to be a sufficient condition for the Somali civil war. Moreover, these variables shown have strong explanatory power and performed well in the outbreak of the Somali civil war.

International Journal of Peace and Development Studies, 2017

http://www.aarancenter.org, 2021