Somalia: Creating Space for Fresh Approaches to Peacebuilding

laura weis
4 Menkhaus (1997), pp. 128-131.
5 Cathrine Besteman,
“Representing Violence and
‘Othering’ Somalia”, Cultural
Anthropology (11:1) (1996), p. 126.
6 Besteman, pp. 127-129.
7 Menkhaus (1997), p. 133.
8 Menkhaus, (1997), p. 128.
9 Besteman, pp. 128-129.
10 Woodward, pp. 11-12.
11 Menkhaus (1997), p. 125.
44
From 1978 to 1988, an influx of US and international development aid
focused on agricultural and pastoral projects, refugee assistance and policy
reforms linking assistance to economic and fiscal policy reform. 4 According to
anthropologist Catherine Besteman, Somali President Siad Barre’s distribution
of this aid, along with state resources like water and land, was increasingly
perceived in clan terms, which encouraged “public awareness of and commentary
on the clan basis of his rule”. Increasing competition for resources and the
flood of development dollars fueled a “growing emphasis on new kinds of clan
alliances in the national arena”. 5 Urban based, elite competition for access to
and control of state resources channeled class struggles into clan terms, and
clan identity became a more visible and prominent form of identity. Most rural
Somalis did not participate in this competition, yet they were deeply affected by
Barre’s policies, such as land tenure laws that made state-controlled title registration
the only legal way to own land, alienating rural farmers and encouraging
land concentration by urban elites. 6
Missed opportunities
Some have posited that during this period, “success or failure measured in developmental
terms was ultimately irrelevant, since the primary purpose of Cold
War economic assistance was strategic”. 7 Yet, even within the Cold War framework,
might the US government have worked, for example, to ensure that aid
was distributed more evenly to avoid a regional imbalance in development? 8 In
addition, the struggle for resources during the development influx in the 1980s
and the introduction of clan identity at the national level deeply affected Somali
society.
During this time, and as Barre’s government began to collapse, many US and
international actors adopted clan as a mode of analysis for this competition and
as an explanation of subsequent violence. The significance of clan affiliations
cannot be denied. However, Besteman contends that the “clan basis” of “recent
warfare was the result, not the cause, of contemporary conflicts and competition”,
and the discourse of clan “obscure[d] the far more complex historical tensions
within Somali society”. 9 Further research could examine whether adopting the
language of clan led to an emphasis on clan based solutions at the expense of opportunities
to build unity across relational tensions.
Frames in flux
Late 1980s – 2001. At the end of the Cold War, President George H.W. Bush
called for a “new world order”. US choices in foreign policy would promote liberal
economic policies, focus on democratization and good governance and respect
the rule of law and human rights. 10 Indeed, in the late 1980s, Congress and the
media expressed concerns about human rights abuses in Somalia. At first, the US
avoided direct criticism of Barre (perhaps out of concern for basing rights) but
ultimately froze its foreign assistance to Somalia, “an ethical luxury that the logic
of the Cold War had prevented in the past”. 11