[Senate Hearing 107-416]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-416
SOMALIA: U.S. POLICY OPTIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 6, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland JESSE HELMS, North Carolina
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia
BILL NELSON, Florida SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
Virginia
Edwin K. Hall, Staff Director
Patricia A. McNerney, Republican Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
Virginia
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Feingold, Senator Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin,
prepared statement............................................. 2
Kansteiner, Hon. Walter H., Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs, Department of State, Washington, DC........... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Macpherson, Robert, Director, Protection and Security Unit, CARE
USA, Atlanta, GA............................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Menkhaus, Dr. Ken, associate professor of Political Science,
Davidson College, Davidson, NC................................. 15
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Shinn, Dr. David H., former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia and
Special Coordinator for Somalia, Washington DC................. 24
Prepared statement........................................... 28
(iii)
SOMALIA: U.S. POLICY OPTIONS
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on African Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Russell D.
Feingold (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.
Present: Senators Feingold, Bill Nelson, and Frist.
Senator Feingold. I will call the hearing to order. I want
to thank all the witnesses for being here today and, of course,
extend my thanks to Senator Frist, the former chairman and
current ranking member of this subcommittee. In both roles he
has been just an excellent partner and has shown genuine
leadership on African issues, and I am very grateful we could
continue to work together.
Today's hearing is the first in what I hope will be a
series of hearings conducted over the course of the year,
prompted by the current campaign against terrorism. In the wake
of the attacks on September 11, the President was right to make
plain that the United States will not distinguish between the
terrorists behind the attacks and those who harbor them, but
state sponsors are only part of the problem. The absence of a
functioning state is another.
All the characteristics of some of Africa's weakest states,
manifestations of lawlessness such as piracy, illicit air
transport networks, and traffic in arms and gemstones and
people, can make the region attractive to terrorists and
international criminals.
Second, the subcommittee seeks to identify long-term policy
options for changing the context in these states, such that
they are no longer as appealing to criminal opportunists.
Somalia is the first case the subcommittee will take up this
year. This hearing asks the question, what are the prospects
and options for a coherent, long-term Somalia policy that aims
to strengthen state capacity and curtail opportunities for
terrorists and other international criminals within Somalia's
borders, and throughout the year I would also like to raise a
followup, how do we strengthen the state responsibly when all
too often state capacity is used not to track the behavior of
criminals but rather the behavior of political opponents.
In other words, how can we strengthen the law enforcement
capacity of weak states, and then also avoid the mistakes of
the cold war, when in the name of resisting and containing
communism this country sometimes assisted some truly appalling
regimes in Africa, governments that pursued policies
antithetical to our national values, leading to disastrous
results that ultimately did not serve our national interest.
Let me also be very clear about what the hearing is not.
This hearing is not intended to be a discussion of any
immediate, specific U.S. policy plans relating to concerns
about a terrorist presence in Somalia. Not only is such a
discussion clearly inappropriate in this open hearing, but in
addition, such a discussion would not be able to answer
fundamental questions about how to craft a sound policy, how to
ensure that 10 years from now we are not as concerned about the
very same types of threats in Somalia perhaps coming from
different sources or different individuals that are of great
concern today.
This hearing, on the other hand, is focused on the big
picture and the long term.
[The prepared statement of Senator Feingold follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Russell D. Feingold
I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today, and to
extend my thanks to Senator Frist, the former Chairman and current
ranking member of this subcommittee. In both roles, he has been an
excellent partner and has shown genuine leadership on African issues,
and I am grateful that we continue to work together.
Today's hearing is the first in what I hope will be a series of
hearings conducted over the course of the year prompted by the current
campaign against terrorism. In the wake of the attacks of September 11,
the President was right to make plain that the United States will not
distinguish between the terrorists behind the attacks and those who
harbor them. But state sponsors are only part of the problem. The
absence of a functioning state is another.
All of the hearings in the series will share two primary aims.
First, the subcommittee hopes to examine the characteristics of some of
Africa's weakest states--manifestations of lawlessness such as piracy,
illicit air transport networks, and trafficking in arms, drugs,
gemstones, and people--that can make the region attractive to
terrorists and other international criminals. Second, the subcommittee
seeks to identify long-term policy options for changing the context in
these states such that they are no longer as appealing to criminal
opportunists. Somalia is the first case the subcommittee will take up
this year. This hearing asks the question--what are the prospects and
options for a coherent, long-term Somalia policy that aims to
strengthen state capacity and curtail opportunities for terrorists and
other international criminals within Somalia's borders?
And throughout the year, I want to raise a follow-up--how do we
strengthen the state responsibly, when all too often state capacity is
used not to track the behavior of criminals, but rather the behavior of
political opponents? In other words, how can we strengthen the law
enforcement capacity of weak states and avoid the mistakes of the Cold
War, when, in the name of resisting and containing Communism, this
country assisted some truly appalling regimes in Africa--governments
that pursued policies antithetical to our national values, leading to
disastrous results that ultimately did not serve our national interest.
Let me be very clear about what this hearing is not. This hearing
is not intended to be a discussion of any immediate, specific U.S.
policy plans relating to concerns about a terrorist presence in
Somalia. Not only is such a discussion clearly inappropriate in this
open hearing, but in addition, such a discussion would not be able to
answer fundamental questions about how to craft sound policy; how to
ensure that ten years from now, we are not as concerned about the very
same types of threats in Somalia, perhaps coming from different sources
or different individuals, that are of great concern today. This hearing
is focused on the big picture and the long term.
Senator Feingold. With that, Senator Frist, do you have any
opening remarks?
Senator Frist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very,
very brief, but I would like to thank you for holding this
important hearing, and thank you for your strong, bipartisan
leadership on this important subcommittee of our Foreign
Relations Committee. It is truly a pleasure to be able to work
on a daily basis with my good friend Senator Feingold.
I would also like to welcome our witnesses on both panels
today to the Foreign Relations Committee, to an important
hearing, ``Somalia: U.S. Policy Options.'' I know we will hear
very thoughtful policy analyses and options from each of our
witnesses, again looking, as the chairman just said,
predominantly at the big picture.
I am interested in the particular role of Somalia in U.S.-
Africa relations. I had the opportunity over the last several
weeks to travel to the Sudan, to Kenya, to Tanzania, and to
Uganda, and as I traveled to these countries, knowing this
hearing would come forward, I had very specific questions to
both the leaders and the citizens of those various countries.
Somalia has not had a national government since January
1991. In many ways, it remains a fractured society governed by
armed clans that seem to be ever-shifting. Of course, we cannot
forget that 18 American Rangers lost their lives in what began
as a mission to save Somalis from starvation. I think we are
all concerned that Somalia's chaos has the potential to
destabilize other parts of Africa and continues to cause
suffering among the Somali people themselves, so I am very
interested in hearing each of your views on how the United
States can address this big picture situation in Somalia, and
in particular your thoughts on how Somalia could potentially
serve as a haven or a base of operations for terrorists.
I also look forward to hearing your thoughts on how we, as
legislators, can assist the administration in identifying and
engaging with and supporting any legitimate authorities in
Somalia, both political and economic. I am also interested in
how we might be able to assist the administration in developing
our capabilities to gather information intelligence in Somalia
to further our ability in our global war against terrorism.
Finally, I am interested in hearing your views on how the chaos
in Somalia affects other countries, the countries I have
traveled to, to Kenya, to Ethiopia, to other nations of the
Horn of Africa and how we can cooperate with those nations to
bring a measure of peace to Somalia.
The point of this hearing, as the chairman said, to get a
better understanding of how we can address the chaos in Somalia
and some understanding of Somalia's problems, as well as the
United States' own interest there, and so I thank all of our
witnesses. It is a pleasure to be able to participate in this
hearing today.
Senator Feingold. Thank you very much, Senator Frist. We
can now proceed with our first panel. We are fortunate to have
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Walter
Kansteiner back before this committee. Mr. Secretary, I
appreciated your time. We have already worked together quite a
few times since you started in this position, and I appreciate
your time and your willingness to be here, and I look forward
to your testimony. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER H. KANSTEINER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR AFRICAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Kansteiner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Feingold,
Senator Frist, I appreciate your invitation to come to testify
on weak states. It is a topic that we would normally want to
focus on in the African Bureau, but post September 11 it is
absolutely imperative that we do so. Some of these weak states
in fact are hospitable to terrorist organizations, and so I
think it is both timely and very appropriate that we all look
at these issues and discuss them.
Leo Tolstoy wrote in his great book, ``Anna Karenina,''
that ``all happy families resemble one another; every unhappy
family is unhappy in its own way.'' Successful states, of
course, follow the same rule, as do unsuccessful states. The
successful ones resemble each other because they have all found
ways to function as polities. They all have cohesive national
interests. They have things that bind them together.
Unsuccessful states, however, fail as polities for a wide
variety of reasons. Some so-called failed states have been torn
asunder by civil war, others by external aggression. Some have
foundered on unresolved conflicts based on clan or ethnicity
and, of course, in Africa we particularly see that. All have
potential for destabilizing their neighbors, as Senator Frist
just alluded to.
I think we would all agree that it is far easier to prevent
failure than to cope with its consequences. Hence the Bush
administration has set out five priorities in its policy toward
Africa. You all have heardthese, but I will quickly go over
them briefly. Democracy-building and a respect for the rule of
law are imperative. A second area is increasing trade and
investment, giving the economies of Africa a chance. A third
area is attacking HIV/AIDS; a fourth is protecting the
environment; and fifth is stopping the wars by conflict
resolution.
Unfortunately, some African States have suffered so much
that these five priorities really do not fit, and we are here
today to look at one such country, Somalia. Quite frankly,
Somalia has not been on the U.S. Goverment's radar screen since
really about 1994 or 1995. In the meantime, there has been
civil war, clan conflict, and poverty of unbelievable levels.
All have turned Somalia into a failed state.
There are three principal factions today, none of which are
recognized by the U.S. Government, that hold sway in separate
parts of the country. In addition, numerous warlords continue
to vie for dominance at the local level. Hundreds of thousands
of Somalis live as refugees in neighboring countries, and many
others are internally displaced. The economy is underdeveloped,
and severe drought affects the pastoral and agricultural base.
Unfortunately, one of the key exports--that is, livestock--
is banned from both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the two biggest
export markets for Somalia's on-the-hoof goats, sheep, and
cattle.
There is little infrastructure left in Somalia, and even
less in the way of civil services such as schools. Where there
should be a nation-state, there is a vacuum often filled by
warlords.
Another actor that is entering this vacuum is al-Ittihad
al-Islami, or, as we all call it, AIAI, a Somali organization
which is dedicated to creating a radical Islamic State. It has
been very clever in its ways of winning over or trying to win
over the civil population, principally by providing educational
and other services normally associated with government. AIAI
clearly has connections to other terrorist organizations, and
it is very disturbing to see AIAI gain a foothold in Somalia.
In September, President Bush's Executive order blocked the
property of and prohibited transactions with terrorist groups,
and AIAI was on that list.
The United States has three basic goals right now toward
Somalia, and which one could define that as short, mid, and
long-term. The short-term goal of course is to remove the
terrorist threat that might or might not exist in Somalia.
Terrorist cells, we think, do have an ability to operate there,
and it is extremely worrisome.
A mid-range goal, but one we are starting to work on now,
is looking at how Somalia threatens the region and the
neighborhood, and actions that might or might not be taken in
Somalia would have impact on the region, so we have to keep
that in mind as well.
The third area, of course, is really what the chairman was
looking for, I think, in this hearing today, and that is long-
term challenges and long-term governance issues. Where is
Somalia going to be in 4, 5, 6, 10 years from now?
So I would like to spend a little bit of time outlining
both bilaterally and multilaterally that last goal, the longer-
term goal of how do we take this non-state this failed or
collapsed country, and make it a member of the international
community?
At the bilateral level, we are providing some assistance to
the Somali people to mitigate the impact of and prevent future
disasters through infrastructure development. USAID's Office of
Foreign Disaster Assistance, the OFDA, is working to
rehabilitate Somalia's war-ravaged potable water system,
rebuild its health care facilities, and improve cargo ports and
airports.
In addition, we are working with Somalis through CARE to
create civil society organizations and encourage the further
development of those already in existence. I think the second
panel's participants will probably outline some of those
projects in better detail than can I. USAID's budget for
Somalia in fiscal year 2001 was about $18 million, to which we
could add another $4 million for refugees' resettlement in
Somaliland.
While these efforts are very important, there are
multilateral initiatives in a way that I think also bode well
for the future of the country. The Government of Djibouti, a
neighbor under the auspices of IGAD, has shepherded the so-
called Arta process. In July of 2000, conference leaders
announced the formation of a 3-year TNG, Transitional National
Government, with a 245-seat parliament. This TNG was intended
to govern all of Somalia but, in the tradition of a truly
failed state, that sovereignty is confined primarily to
Mogadishu itself.
Opposition from local warlords continues to hamper the
TNG's ability to control areas outside of Mogadishu and small
parts of the Somali coast land. The TNG is working together
with some Somali factions attempting to feel their way through
what this country might eventually look like, but so far they
have crafted no real working arrangements with either those in
Puntland or Somaliland.
Finally, the TNG has not yet purged itself of ties to AIAI.
This is obviously extremely problematic for us, and is a
central component to our counterterrorism concerns.
Also, late last year, in another regional bid to help
Somalia find its feet, President Moi began a new initiative to
bring various Somali factions together. Some of the main
warlords were invited, Somalia's neighbors came together, and
under the name of national reconciliation, tried to pursue some
kind of agreement.
This initiative is now officially part of the IGAD process,
and all the countries in the region are supportive, including
Ethiopia and others. The U.S. Government has begun a process of
our own, too, marshalling ideas and resources to confront
Somalia's long-term governance channels.
I might back up for just a second and say that we fully
support both the Djibouti effort and the Kenyan effort through
IGAD. In fact, there is going to be a meeting shortly under the
auspices of the Kenya chair that will hopefully pick a date and
try to convene an all-parties Congress to bring the Somali
factions together, and we in fact are quite supportive of that
effort, but internally we have created a subgroup of the Policy
Coordinating Committee, the PCC structure.
In fact, it met for the first time this week, and it is to
discuss topics such as working with Gulf States to lift the ban
on livestock, developing alternatives to schools financed by
AIAI, creating new financial institutions to replace those such
as Al-Barakaat, which was the bank closed down, and generally
improve and support the Somali civil society.
Mr. Chairman, Somalia did not become a failed state in a
day, and solving the governance problems that make Somalia a
potential home for terrorists will not happen overnight. We
have made a start. I am cautiously optimistic that the United
States, Somalia's neighbors and the international community can
make a significant contribution to help Somalia toward a better
future for itself and for the neighborhood.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kansteiner follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Walter H. Kansteiner, Assistant Secretary of
State for African Affairs
``weak states and terrorism in africa: u.s. policy options in somalia''
Chairman Feingold, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me to testify today on an issue that the tragic events of September 11,
2001 thrust into bold relief: the characteristics of weak states that
make them attractive to terrorists and international criminals.
Leo Tolstoy did not have successful and unsuccessful states in mind
when he wrote, in Anna Karenina, that ``all happy families resemble one
another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.''
Nevertheless, his words apply to our discussion today. For all their
differences, successful states resemble each other because they all
have found ways to function as polities; they have cohesive national
identities and social compacts that bind them together. Unsuccessful
states, however, fail as polities for a wide variety of reasons. Some
so-called ``failed states'' have been torn asunder by civil war, others
by external aggression. Some have foundered on unresolved conflicts
based on clan or ethnicity; drought and grinding poverty have claimed
still more. All have potential for destabilizing their neighbors.
Africa is far from being immune to the illness of nation-state
failure. Recognizing that fact, and being aware that it is far easier
to prevent failure than to cope with its consequences, the State
Department has adopted five goals that guide policy efforts to confront
the conditions leading to nation-state failure in Africa.
3 Increase democracy, good governance, and respect for the
rule of law.
Combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases
that threaten to cost Africa a generation of its most
productive citizens.
Expand United States trade and investment with Africa to
spur economic development and improve the well being of
Africans.
Conserve Africa's environment because people and the
institutions they create to govern themselves cannot prosper
when the air is not fit to breathe, water is unavailable, and
forests and farmlands have turned to dust.
End Africa's wars. Doing so is an absolute necessity, and
you really can't pursue the other four policy goals without it.
Regrettably, some African states have suffered so much for so long
that they cannot be helped by a prevention strategy of the type I've
outlined above. Like Tolstoy's unhappy families, these countries'
unique problems must be addressed individually.
Today, Mr. Chairman, you and your Subcommittee are focusing on one
such country, Somalia, a place to which, quite frankly, the United
States has not paid a great deal of policy-level attention since 1994.
Civil war, external intervention, clan conflict and poverty have
combined to turn Somalia into a ``failed state.'' Somalia has no
central government. Three principal factions (none of which is
recognized by the United States as Somalia's legitimate government)
hold sway in separate parts of the country. In addition, numerous
warlords continue to vie for dominance at the local level. Hundreds of
thousands of Somalis live as refugees in neighboring countries, and
many others are internally displaced. The economy is underdeveloped,
with drought seriously affecting the country's pastoral and
agricultural base. Somalia's primary sources of income are foreign
assistance and remittance income from overseas. One of its principal
exports--livestock--is banned from what should be Somalia's major
regional market. There is little infrastructure, and even less in the
way of civil services such as schools. Where there should be a nation'
state, there is a vacuum filled by warlords. What better place for the
seeds of international terrorism and lawlessness to take root?
Al-Ittihad al-Islami, a Somali organization dedicated to creating a
radical Islamist state in Somalia, has filled the vacuum in some parts
of Somalia by opening its own schools and providing other services
normally associated with government. We consider that development
profoundly disturbing because al-Ittihad has conducted terrorist
operations in neighboring Ethiopia and was named in the President's
September 23, 2001 executive order blocking property of and prohibiting
transactions with terrorist groups.
The United States has three policy goals related to Somalia:
removing the terrorist threat extant in Somalia and ensuring
against Somalia's use as a terrorist base;
preventing developments in Somalia from threatening regional
peace and stability; and
overcoming the long-term governance challenges that
terrorists exploit to make Somalia a base.
In accordance with your request that my testimony focus on long-
term issues, I would like to spend a moment outlining several steps
that already are in motion, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to
address the last goal, overcoming the governance challenges Somalia
faces. Then I will describe an effort that the USG has just begun to
identify and develop additional ways to overcome those challenges and
thereby prevent Somalia becoming a base for international terrorism.
At the bilateral level, we are providing some assistance to the
Somali people to mitigate the impact of and prevent future disasters
through infrastructure development. USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance (OFDA) is working to rehabilitate Somalia's war-ravaged
potable water system, rebuild its primary health care facilities, and
improve cargo ports and airports. In addition, we are working with
Somalis through CARE to create civil society organizations, and
encourage the further development of those already in existence. In
this way, we hope to strengthen the governance and management capacity
of Somali groups and communities, thereby creating a grass-roots demand
for good government.
These initiatives are modest; USAID's entire budget for Somalia
(including a substantial sum for food-aid) was $17.9 million in FY
2001, to which we could add $4 million allocated for refugee
resettlement to Somaliland. These are, however, vital; if al-Ittihad is
the only source of services people need for their survival, it--and not
a legitimate, terrorist-free government--will gain their allegiance.
But while these small, vital United States' funded programs provide a
foundation upon which to build, they do not tackle directly the core
problem facing Somalia: developing a polity that can command the
respect and voluntary allegiance of all the Somali people.
Tackling that problem, of course, is something that the Somali
people themselves must want to do if it is to be accomplished
successfully. If the United States and the international community want
good governance for Somalia more than the Somalis do themselves, the
effort is doomed to fail. We saw this situation in 1993 to 1994, when
peace agreements among the principal warlords that the United States
had brokered along with Ethiopia and Kenya soon fell apart. Only then
did we close our mission and decide to wait until the Somalis were
ready for another effort. Assuming that the Somali people themselves
want peace and reconciliation, however, there are multilateral
initiatives underway that can help. They also come at a good time,
since the Somali people in general have so far refused to support the
political program of al-Ittihad, despite the services and funding it
provides.
The government of Djibouti, for example, has shepherded, under the
auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), the
so-called Arta process. This process began in May 2000, when Djibouti
convened a Somalia reconciliation conference attended by over 2000
delegates. On July 16, 2000, conference leaders announced the formation
of a three-year Transitional National Government (TNG) with a 245-seat
Transitional National Assembly intended to govern all of Somalia. Thus
far, however, the TNG has not succeeded in overcoming opposition from
local warlords to expanding its scope of control significantly beyond
several parts of Mogadishu and a small portion of the Somali coastline.
Nor has the TNG crafted working arrangements with other principal
Somali factions, including Puntland State and the self-styled
``Republic of Somaliland.'' Finally, the TNG has not yet purged itself
of ties to al-Ittihad that are problematic from a counterterrorism
perspective. Nevertheless, the United States stands ready to work with
Djibouti in the Arta process should all the principal Somali factions
choose to use that vehicle to accomplish national reconciliation.
Late last year, Kenyan President Moi began a new initiative to
bring the Somali factions, some of the main warlords, and Somalia's
neighbors together to pursue Somali national reconciliation. That
effort was brought under IGAD auspices at the January, 2002 IGAD summit
in Khartoum. There, Ethiopia agreed to participate in the Kenya-led
initiative. This is a particularly hopeful development because one of
the main warlord groups resisting the reconciliation process, the
Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), has close ties to
Ethiopia. The United States attended the IGAD summit as an observer. We
have pledged our cooperation to the governments of Kenya and Ethiopia
in this new effort to help bring peace to Somalia.
Our own government has begun the process of marshalling ideas and
resources to confront Somalia's long-term governance challenges. A sub-
group of the Policy Coordinating Committee for Africa created
specifically to examine this question met for the first time yesterday
(February 5). It discussed topics such as working with Gulf states to
lift the ban on importing livestock from Somalia, developing
alternatives to schools financed by al-Ittihad, creating new financial
institutions to replace those, such as Al-Barakaat, that are tainted
with connections to terrorism, and increasing support for Somali civil
society.
I also wish to take this opportunity to support a position often
made by Secretary Powell in his discussions with Congress. Precisely
because the factors that cause states to become weak or fail vary from
state to state, it is crucial to know which factors are in play in
order to address them. Knowing such nuances from afar is difficult, and
that means we have to have the right people in the right places--which
means having the resources to put those people in place and sustain
them. We appreciate the steps being made to meet this need, and I look
forward to working with you to ensure that as our activities in
relation to Somalia and other weak states develop, we are able to meet
the demands imposed.
Mr. Chairman, Somalia did not become a ``failed state'' in a day.
Similarly, solving the governance problems that make Somalia an
attractive potential home for terrorists will not happen overnight. We
have made a start. I am cautiously optimistic that the United States,
Somalia's neighbors and the international community can make a
significant contribution to helping the Somali people regain functional
government, and that the conditions that make Somalia attractive to
terrorists can be overcome. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Now we will
start 7-minute rounds of questions for you.
Mr. Secretary, how can the United States avoid a situation
in which our policy simply responds to various factions within
Somalia who in effect smear their opponents with charges of
links to al-Qaeda or other international terrorist groups?
These charges can obviously be employed in entirely self-
interested ways that have nothing to do with combating global
terrorism, and so I am curious to know what steps can the
United States take to avoid being used in this fashion and
thereby be drawn into Somalia's internal divisions, rather than
helping to achieve what you have obviously indicated we are
trying to achieve, which is bring stability to the country.
Mr. Kansteiner. This is a daily problem, and it is on two
levels we have to deal with it. One, it does not help the
Kenyan initiative or the Djibouti initiative to bring these
factions together when they are slandering each other all the
time. It also has another very practical problem in the sense
that they are constantly trying to pass us intelligence or
information they claim is intelligence, so it makes the jobs of
my colleagues in some of the intelligence agencies very hard;
they must figure out what is disinformation--just slandering
their opponent--and what is real, because sometimes the
information does have some authenticity to it. So it makes it
very tough for the inteligencel community to sort it out.
Senator Feingold. Obviously, it is a dilemma, and I look
forward to hearing how you are going to try to resolve it. I
know, as you suggest, it is a day-to-day problem, and you have
already sort of suggested that this is not necessarily an
impossible situation, but are Ethiopian and Kenyan interests in
Somalia necessarily contradictory? What are the real prospects
for a coordinated policy? You have indicated that there is some
participation of all of the interested countries in some of the
talks, but how realistic is that?
Mr. Kansteiner. I am more optimistic today than I was in
early December. I was in the region mid-December, actually. At
that time it looked as if Kenya and Ethiopia, the largest
states in the neighborhood that have real, direct frontline
interests, although clearly Djibouti and Sudan and others do,
too, were seeing the situation a little bit differently.
I think they have overcome some of that misunderstanding
and misperception, and I think there is some genuine
coordination there now. I think President Meles of Ethiopia has
clearly signaled to President Moi that he is willing and eager
to assist him in sharing this process. I think there is some
pretty good coordination now.
Senator Feingold. I understand in part in that Somalia al-
Ittihad is providing social services to communities through
Islamic schools, health care centers, and as we all know, this
is a strategy that terrorist groups have applied quite
successfully in the Middle East.
How can the United States and the international community
work to ensure that al-Ittihad does not become perceived as the
sole entity that is interested in the welfare of Somalis in the
areas where it operates? It would seem that what is called for
is some kind of a dual-track strategy of international
assistance and pressure on alternative local authorities to
take responsibility for the welfare of their people. What is
your view?
Mr. Kansteiner. You just nailed it. In fact, it is dual-
track, and the folks in the second panel I think can discuss
some of the civil society-building they are doing. We are
clearly and eagerly wanting to fund that, but we cannot let
AIAI be the sole providers of health care, schools, and other
basic services that government, and particularly local
government, often provide.
So the NGO community and international organizations do
have to get in there and help. At the same time, at some point
a governing institution or a government is going to have to
step up and start doing this themselves, so I think it is a
dual track. We get the private NGO's in there now so AIAI does
not have the full run of the field, and at the same time we
start building those governing institutions to take this thing
on themselves.
Senator Feingold. Very good. Back to Ethiopia. Obviously,
Ethiopia has legitimate security interests to pursue vis-a-vis
Somalia and al-Ittihad, but the Ethiopian Government also has a
history of repressing dissent, and I am concerned about a
scenario in which the United States will acquiesce to internal
repression in Ethiopia in the name of a global campaign against
terrorism.
Do you think the State Department has enough information to
be able to distinguish between legitimate and opportunistic
claims of the Ethiopian Government regarding security threats,
and is there any way for the United States to reach out to some
of the dissident elements in Ethiopian society with no actual
terrorist agenda to clarify that it is not our intention to
deny them their political rights?
Mr. Kansteiner. As you alluded to, Mr. Chairman, the
longstanding rivalry that has existed between Ethiopia and
Somalia is something we are very cognizant of. At the same
time, Ethiopia is an active and willing partner in the war on
terrorism. We do have to recognize the historical interests
that exist there and at the same time measure those against our
own immediate and mid-term interests.
The internal Ethiopian situation is one where we can
constantly do some work, and prod and pull and push. As
uncomfortable as it is sometimes, I think we need to do it.
Senator Feingold. That reminds me of the answer of the
Secretary of State yesterday to my question in a broader
context about the use of the human rights report, that it is
not always going to be comfortable, but it has to continue,
even in the post September 11 context.
Do you know of any new financial mechanisms that have taken
over the important role that Al-Barakaat once played in
transferring foreign remittances back into Somalia? You alluded
to this. Do any of these new financial mechanisms, to the
extent they are springing up out of necessity, provide a
similar platform for terrorist financing in the region?
Mr. Kansteiner. We are worried about that. There are other
financial institutions that provide the same services as Al-
Barakaat, especially in repatriating moneys, but also new ones
that are coming up. The question is, are they just fronts for
the old Al-Barakaat? If so, we have to be pretty vigilant on
that. There are plenty of financial institutions that now can
get money from the United States and Europe back into
Mogadishu, so that repatriation is not a great problem. The
real problem is are these new ones problematic in the terms of,
control and use by terrorist organizations, and we are watching
it.
Senator Feingold. Thank you. Senator Frist.
Senator Frist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Kansteiner, Somalia is often described as a
collapsed or a failed state. Expand a little bit on your
thoughts on how we can identify and engage with legitimate
authorities in Somalia.
Mr. Kansteiner. We engage with the three primary governing
institutions, as we call them, because we do not officially
recognize any of them, the TNG, the government in Puntland, and
the government in Somaliland. We do have interaction with them,
we talk to them, we pose questions to them, and we expect
answers from them, and answers are forthcoming. So there is a
diplomatic dialog, if you will, as unofficial as it is, so we
are engaged with them.
We are also getting better capabilities to reach out to
others. We do not have a presence in Mogadishu. We do not have
a permanent U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu. We do have folks that
base primarily in our Nairobi embassy in Kenya that go into
Somalia, and they are, as we call them, Somali-watchers. They
are often going up to Somalia where they meet and test and
listen and gather information and intelligence, so we are
learning.
Senator Frist. On the Transitional National Government, as
I listen to people and just some of the observers who are
observing and participating at a certain level, you hear of
this domination, or potential domination by Islamic
fundamentalist groups, members of AIAI security forces being
integrated in certain ways into the new government security
forces. I know the TNG repeatedly denies any links to these
terrorist organizations, and have repeatedly said that they
will cooperate with the United States. Could you comment from
your perspective on the level of cooperation to date?
Mr. Kansteiner. Sure. In this open hearing I would say that
there is some cooperation. At the same time, there is analysis
and research that would suggest that AIAI and the TNG do have
some kind of relationship. There is interaction there. We are
trying to get a handle on the level and extent of that
relationship. But there has been some responsiveness from the
TNG on some counterterrorist questions.
Senator Frist. In your testimony, you mentioned warring
factions. Are we far enough along to have criteria, or fairly
clear criteria as to what we can use to identify authorities as
legitimate or not?
Mr. Kansteiner. In a failed state context what you do not
necessarily want to fall into the trap of equating legitimacy
with how many AK-47's a faction controls. You do not want to
see legitimacy bestowed on simply those that have military
power, but at the same time, security is one of the aspects of
being an authentic governing authority. I mean, if you cannot
provide security to your own government or your own people,
then are you really legitimate?
So in this failed state environment it is, I think, a
particularly tricky one. I think you do have to look at some
kind of broad measure of what kind of support does this
supposed government, or supposed warlord group actually get
from the local populations, and it is pretty tough to measure.
Senator Frist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Feingold. Mr. Secretary, what efforts might be
included in efforts to bolster the Somalia economy, and how can
this be structured? The formal structures are nonexistent, or
extremely weak.
Mr. Kansteiner. I think the formal financial structures are
going to remain weak for sometime, and so I think what we are
going to have to do is look to project development. That is,
you are going to have to look to the international NGO
community to get in there and assist in building some kind of
sustainable development. The agricultural base is there. There
is a tradition of livestock export. There are parts of Somalia
that have superb fruit production. It used to be a huge banana
exporter. There is agricultural potential in Somalia.
Now, they have had a series of droughts that do not help,
but it is still, or it could still be, a viable, agriculturally
based, economy.
Senator Feingold. Have any of our allies or any other
members of the donor community signaled any desire to engage
more seriously in a comprehensive political or development
strategy for Somalia?
Mr. Kansteiner. Probably the Italians have been the most
aggressive. The Italians in a low-key manner, have asked about
building a Friends of Somalia group, or something like that. We
are quite frankly all ears. We are ready to listen to anything.
Senator Feingold. Are we in a position to sort of respond
to them and indicate we are going to help them put that
together?
Mr. Kansteiner. Yes. In fact, we have, and how it is done
informally, or if it is done through the G-8, or if it is done
through a subset of the United Nations, we have to wait and see
how they want to structure it. But if the goals are what we
think they are, that is, they really want to see this long-term
development, mid and long-term development of the country, then
certainly philosophically we are all for it.
Senator Feingold. I think you have already answered this in
part in answer to one of Senator Frist's questions, but given
the relative stability in Somaliland and the indicators
suggesting that the authorities there are interested in
improving the conditions of the people, does it not make sense
for the United States to build some relationship with their
authorities, and you were talking about this generally, but
could you say a bit more about the status of our relationship
to date?
Mr. Kansteiner. It is probably dangerous to make judgments
on effectiveness of governing institutions in a place like
Somalia. But Somaliland seems to have a pretty good grasp of
some of what we would call traditional local government
services. They probably come closer to providing those services
than any of the others, and their economy is probably the
healthiest, so there is not only a temptation, but I think a
necessity, to at least recognize the successes they have had
and try to build on those successes.
Now, the tough part is how we build on the successes and
whether that means formal recognition of them as a sovereign
state. Then we come back into the problem of the OAU, or the
tenets of boundaries and borders, and so we have to be very
careful there.
Senator Feingold. The most recent International Chamber of
Commerce piracy report notes that piracy is on the increase in
Africa, and press reports indicate piracy is a problem off the
coast of Somalia. What can you tell the subcommittee about the
nature of Somalia's piracy problem?
Mr. Kansteiner. There has been quite frankly a long
tradition of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and it is
probably not that much worse today than it generally has been.
What you do see is added incentive, if you will, for pirates to
operate, because they know there is no coastal patrol. There
has not been a whole lot of coastal patrol in the past anyway,
but now there is absolutely none, with the exception of some of
the international maritime interdiction that is, in fact, going
on in terms of the war on terrorism; I think one of the very
healthy byproducts of that is maybe we will see a reduction in
the piracy off the coast.
Senator Feingold. Some of the written testimony received
for this hearing mentions Somalia as a transshipment point.
What do we know about this issue? What kinds of items are being
transshipped through Somalia, by what actors, and for what
purpose?
Mr. Kansteiner. There are a couple of areas where we have
seen Somalia as a transshipment point. One is financial. It is
a transshipment point for money, and in fact Al-Barakaat was
very much proof of that. We also see Somalia as a transshipment
point for weapons, and it has been, quite frankly, for a long,
long time. I do not think it is a huge increase, but there is
some increase, and so I would say those two would be the most
problematic.
Of course, the other area that it is a transshipment point
is people in the sense of terrorist cells do have the
capability to move in and out, and we have seen it.
Senator Feingold. By what actors, in terms of these?
Mr. Kansteiner. You see it, we have seen it from--al-Qaeda
certainly used it as a money transshipment point, but then also
some of the small arms dealers that operate all through Africa.
If they need to stow or stash weapons, certainly no flight
plans are necessary if they are flying the arms in and out.
There is no air traffic control. So if they need that kind of
shelter, you are seeing it in some of the small arms dealers.
Senator Feingold. Thank you. The last human rights report
from the State Department noted some cases of trafficking in
persons out of Somalia. For example, law enforcement
authorities in Djibouti have arrested traffickers who were
attempting to smuggle Somali women to destinations such as
Lebanon and Syria to work in brothels. There are also some
reports indicating trafficking in children for forced labor may
be a serious problem.
Now, I understand the information here is understandably
scarce, but could you discuss, based upon your own anecdotal
observations, the extent to which trafficking in persons poses
a significant problem in the region, and are the traffickers
likely to be connected to larger terrorist or criminal
organizations operating in Somalia?
Mr. Kansteiner. Mr. Chairman, I will have to check on that,
I am sorry. If I can take that, that would be great. I have not
seen a whole lot of reports on that.
Senator Feingold. That is fine, Mr. Secretary. Senator
Frist.
[The following information was subsequently supplied.]
Mr. Kansteiner. As we have stated in the Human Rights Report, there
have been indications of trafficking of persons from and through
Somalia. We have reports that women are taken to Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
and Italy with the promise of jobs and then are forced into
prostitution. We have received no specific reports on trafficking in
children for forced labor although we have heard of fraudulent
adoptions. Given the poverty and the absence of government in Somalia,
we would expect Somalia to offer considerable scope for criminal
elements to profit in the trafficking of persons. However, our
information on this as all other subjects relating to Somalia is
attenuated because of the absence of a USG presence.
Senator Frist. I have no more questions. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Feingold. Thank you so much.
Mr. Kansteiner. Thank you very much.
Senator Feingold. We have an excellent second panel of
witnesses with us today, and I would ask those three to come
up, please. Thanks to each of you for coming.
Dr. Ken Menkhaus is an associate professor of Political
Science at Davidson College. His work focuses on the Horn of
Africa. From 1993 to 1994 he served as Special Political
Advisor to the United Nations operation in Somalia, and from
1994 to 1995 he was a visiting civilian professor at the
Peacekeeping Institute of the United States Army War College.
In 1998, Dr. Menkhaus served as a Senior Technical Advisor
to the United Nations Development Office for Somalia and in
Nairobi. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Somalia, and
is the author of over two dozen articles and monographs on
Somalia and the Horn.
Ambassador David Shinn is no stranger to this subcommittee,
having come before us before when he was confirmed to be U.S.
Ambassador to Ethiopia, where he served from 1996 to 1999.
Before that time, he served as a Director for East African
Affairs at the State Department, and as the Department's
Coordinator for Somalia from 1992 to 1993. He was the U.S.
Ambassador to Burkina-Faso in the late 1980's, and also served
in Cameroon, Sudan, Mauritania, Tanzania, and Kenya during his
Foreign Service career. He is currently an adjunct professor at
the George Washington University.
Robert Macpherson is currently director of CARE USA's
Protection and Security Unit, a role in which he is responsible
not only for the safety of CARE international staff, but also
for developing policies and procedures associated with at-risk
populations such as refugees and internally displaced persons.
Previously, he worked with CARE's emergency group organizing
and implementing emergency response activities in humanitarian
crisis situations.
Mr. Macpherson is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel with
25 years of experience, including Vietnam, Desert Storm, and
Somalia. As part of the United Nations Operation Restore Hope
in Somalia, beginning in late 1992 Mr. Macpherson served as
Deputy Director for Civil-Military Operations, prioritizing and
coordinating multinational relief efforts.
I welcome all of you and look forward to your testimony. We
will hear from all of you and then proceed to questions, and so
let us begin with Dr. Menkhaus.
STATEMENT OF DR. KEN MENKHAUS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL
SCIENCE, DAVIDSON COLLEGE, DAVIDSON, NC
Dr. Menkhaus. Distinguished Senators, ladies and gentlemen,
good afternoon, and thank you for allowing me to testify, and I
think I speak on behalf of many in thanking you for putting the
spotlight on Somalia. With your indulgence, I would like to
focus on the final section of my written testimony dealing with
long-term policy recommendations, but I would be very happy to
answer any questions about my own analysis of the nature of the
Somali crisis if they should come up.
If our long-term objective is to render Somalia an
inhospitable place for regional and global security threats,
then the goals that should frame our long-term policies on
Somalia should be clear. They are promotion of national
reconciliation, building capacity of local and national
authorities to promote rule of law, policing and good
governance, promoting economic opportunity and recovery and
reducing the country's chronic vulnerability to recurring
economic crises, shaping the political and economic environment
in Somalia in ways which create incentives for communities to
cooperate with us and discourage them from association with
radical movements, and finally, winning the hearts and minds of
a new generation of Somalis who have known only war and state
collapse and who are looking for answers to these crises.
Everything we do in Somalia should be aimed at advancing one or
more of these goals.
A number of principles and priorities can help to undergird
successful long-term strategies in Somalia. One is sustained
engagement. The United States can no longer afford a policy of
benign neglect in Somalia. It simply must reengage in the
country. This includes more visible and active diplomatic
efforts to communicate with local political actors as well as
revitalization of nonemergency aid programs. The quality of
this reengagement will be more important than the quantity.
Reengagement must also be sustained. Somali communities
need to be convinced that the United States is interested in
helping them resolve long-term problems, not just address our
short-term security concerns. Patience and sustained approaches
are crucial in the promotion of national reconciliation as
well. Rushed approaches, as we have seen in the past, to
reconciliation in Somalia have usually made things worse.
Second, improved intelligence. The United States shifted
much of its intelligence assets away from poor, weak states
like Somalia in the 1990's. Now we are scrambling for
information and analysis in these zones of the world, where new
attention to close field-based knowledge and extensive contacts
with nationals is essential if the United States is to make
well-informed policies on Somalia. Terrorist networks may be
dissuaded from operating in Somalia if they know we have many
friendly eyes and ears in the country.
Third, a shaping strategy. Somali society is remarkably
pragmatic. Somalis as a group are not prone to embrace foreign
ideologies and radical Islamic agendas are considered there to
be foreign unless they yield tangible benefits. The moment
those benefits disappear, support for the ideology tends to
evaporate as well.
This pragmatic cost-benefit analysis approach to the
external world can and should be made to work to our advantage
in minimizing the impact of radical Islam in Somalia. Through
creative use of the carrots as well as the sticks which we have
at our disposal, we can shape Somalis' cost-benefit
calculations in ways that make it worth their while to
cooperate with us in preventing terrorist activities in their
country.
Fourth, expanding economic opportunity. Despite the
weakness of the local economy, Somalia has exhibited remarkable
innovation and adaptability in commercial and service sectors.
Much more of this entrepreneurism would flourish if a few key
constraints were removed or better managed. The United States
is in a position to assist in this regard, and would earn much
goodwill in the country if it did.
Projects aimed at making the American market more
accessible for key experts and assisting Somali livestock and
seafood exports, improving infrastructure and management at key
ports, or at encouraging American partnerships with Somali
entrepreneurs are among the many, many possibilities. A robust
domestic market is itself a tool which could be used to
catalyze productive opportunities in Somali and integrate the
country closer into the Western economy.
Fifth is flexibility in our partnerships. Reengagement in a
country with no recognized government begs the question of
reengagement with whom? This nettlesome question creates
significant problems in the Somali context. After 10 years of
state collapse in Somalia, the only tenable policy is one based
on the yardstick of effective administration. The United States
cannot presume that a functional central state will be revived
in the near future. Therefore, we must be adept at dealing with
subnational polities.
In that regard, the United States must insist that it work
with any and all authorities which are actually administering a
region or an area. Political groupings which make no attempt to
provide basic administration for the people they claim to
represent should not be recognized. This suggests in my view a
preference for a building block or regional approach to
reconstituting a central authority in Somalia, a policy which
was in place from 1997 to 1999, but which was overtaken by the
Djibouti initiative to create a central government via national
conference in the year 2000. Top-down efforts to impose a
central state on Somalia appear unlikely to succeed.
Sixth, engagement with the business community. The business
community in Somalia has emerged as one of the most powerful
political forces in the country. It has a mixed track record,
but as a group the business community needs to be engaged with
the aim of creating informal partners in the war on terrorism.
They will be especially sensitive to the cost of noncooperation
with us and to the benefits of working with the United States,
and are in a better position than most other groups in Somalia
to monitor and discourage radicalism.
Seventh, encouragement of coexistence between Ethiopia,
Arab States, and Somalia. As long as Somalia is the site of a
proxy war between Ethiopia and the Arab world, national
reconciliation will be difficult to impossible. Somalia and its
neighbors have many powerful shared interests in expanding
regional commerce, reducing armed conflict, and lawlessness in
working toward a functional political authority in Somalia. The
United States is in a unique position to press its friends in
the region to cooperate to this end.
Eight, sustainability. The United States and its
international partners must take care not to throw money at
self-declared regional or national authorities in ways which
reinforce old, bad political habits in Somalia. For too long,
the Somali political elite has viewed the state not as an
administrative body responsible for providing basic services
for its people, but as a catchment point for external
assistance to enrich those who are clever and lucky enough to
control it. Massive levels of foreign aid, combined with little
accountability during the cold war, led to a bloatable and
unsustainable Somali State, a castle built on sand. Whatever
political entity emerges in Somalia must be sustainable mainly
on the bias of its own tax revenues, or we run the risk of yet
another collapsed state.
Nine, assistance to the educational sector. We must also be
engaged in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the Somali
people. The educational sector is key in this regard. Investing
in the rebuilding of Somalia's education sector is not only a
vital investment in its human resources and hence in economic
recovery, it is also an important socialization tool, shaping
the values and world view of a new generation of Somalis who
have only known war and state collapse.
Currently, the education sector is dominated by externally
funded Islamic schools. Most of these are high quality
institutions playing a legitimate role, not fronts for al-
Ittihad, but if they are the only type of education available,
the next generation of Somali leaders will have been socialized
into a world view which could make Somalia a more hospitable
environment for radical Islam.
Finally, creativity. In cases of protracted state collapse
like Somalia, we need to be prepared to think outside the box.
Specifically, we may need to anticipate and assist both
unfamiliar processes toward national reconciliation in Somalia
and an unconventional type of national authority emerging in
Somalia. Given the resource constraints faced in Somalia, the
kind of central government which may ultimately arise in the
country could be a minimalist structure providing only core
services while subcontracting other responsibilities out either
to the private sector or to local governments.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Menkhaus follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Ken Menkhaus, Associate Professor of
Political Science, Davidson College
``weak states and terrorism in africa--u.s. policy options in somalia''
Somalia has now been without a functioning and recognized central
government for over eleven years. It is the most extreme example of the
troubling phenomenon of failed states which are especially prevalent in
contemporary sub-Saharan Africa and which are now commanding our
attention as possible sites of terrorist activities. The realization
that failed states like Somalia constitute a security threat is not
new. By the mid 1990s, government officials, the media, and academic
analysts devoted considerable attention to the security implications of
the rash of failed states such as Angola, Rwanda, Bosnia, and
Afghanistan. At that time, four distinct security issues were linked to
collapsed states. One concern emphasized traditional security threats--
the dangers of terrorists and transnational criminal elements
exploiting collapsed states as safe havens where they could operate
beyond the rule of law. A second cluster of concerns focused on non-
traditional security issues emanating from failed states--the threats
to global security posed by massive refugee flows, the spread of
dangerous new diseases, environmental degradation and other by-products
of protracted chaos. A third worry was regional security--the dangers
of spillover of anarchy, arms flows, and armed conflict into
neighboring countries, triggering a domino effect of complex
emergencies and instability. A fourth and final security preoccupation
was political and humanitarian. The humanitarian crises provoked by
failed states produced strong public pressure on administrations to
intervene, which in turn led to periodic commitments of U.S. forces to
peace operations in the 1990s. Protecting U.S. forces from harm in
these ``operations other than war'' became a major security concern in
itself.
All four of these sets of security concerns were, and remain,
entirely legitimate. Yet at the same time that a widespread consensus
emerged that failed states pose a threat to American security
interests, the U.S. government--with little dissent from the public--
appeared increasingly disengaged from these crisis zones. How is it
possible that such a disjoint could exist between analysis alerting us
to danger and policy response which continued to place these troubled
parts of the world on the back burner? The answer is in large part that
our diagnoses of the problem did not produce viable policy
prescriptions. These failed states, and the crises they produce,
constitute enormous, frustrating, and complex challenges which are not
amenable to quick fixes and routinized, incremental responses. In
short, we have avoided confronting directly the challenge of failed
states in part because we don't know what to do about them. It has been
easier to keep our involvement limited to treating the symptoms rather
than causes of these crises, restricting our role to that of a
dependable and generous provider of emergency relief. September 11 has
changed this dynamic. We still face fundamental challenges,
uncertainty, and risk in zones of state collapse, but failed states
have been placed squarely on the front-burner of national security
policy.
distinguishing between different types of terrorist operating
environments
Our emerging anti-terrorism strategy is based on the objective of
depriving terrorist networks a viable base of operations--in the
vernacular of anti-terrorist analysts, ``draining the swamp.'' An
important first step in refining and operationalizing this strategy is
to distinguish between the different types of ``swamplands'' in which
terrorist networks may operate. I would propose five types of potential
terrorist operating environments. First are collapsed states such as
Somalia, where central governments have lost control over most or all
of the country, leaving large areas of real estate beyond the writ of
state authority. These governments, if they are functioning at all,
cannot be expected to police their countries effectively to prevent or
apprehend terrorists. Second are weak states, or what the journalist
Thomas Friedman recently termed ``messy states.'' These states feature
large and functioning central governments, but due to a combination of
corruption, low pay, ethnic tensions, and economic strains have serious
deficiencies in their capacity to deliver law and order and other
essential government services. Large and sprawling urban slums are
often beyond the control of these governments, and police forces easily
bribed. A third category consists of ``compromised states.'' These are
cases where relatively strong and effective governments are constrained
from taking forceful action against Islamic terrorists or radicals for
political reasons. The movements in question enjoy a certain amount of
local support, so that a frontal attack on them makes governments
vulnerable; the result is an uneasy co-existence and efforts by the
government to channel the radical movement's energies away from it and
onto other targets (often, the U.S.). Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt
are among the states which arguably fall into this category. Fourth are
rogue states, governments which actively sponsor or shelter terrorist
networks. Finally, there are liberal democracies, including our own;
terrorists exploit the civil liberties and non-intrusive government
presence to operate in this setting as well.
Each of these contexts suggests a distinct set of tactics and
approaches if they are to be rendered inhospitable environments for
terrorist cells. Importantly, we must presume that terrorist networks
have considered the particular advantages and disadvantages of each of
these political settings and have devised a division of labor to
exploit the opportunities each setting affords them. It is in the
context of this division of labor that we should consider the
particular advantages which collapsed states such as Somalia offer
terrorists.
security threats posed by state collapse in somalia
Typically, collapsed states like Somalia pose a special set of
security problems related to terrorism. Some of the attractive features
of collapsed states to terrorist networks include:
Chronic lawlessness, which creates safe havens for
transnational terrorists to operate beyond the reach of law
enforcement;
Danger and inaccessibility, making it more difficult for
Western journalists, relief workers, or government officials to
learn about their activities;
Easily co-opted or recruited gunmen;
Weak local authority structures, which can be used as a
Trojan horse by radicals to provide cover for their de facto
control of an area or become a potential ``Taliban'' type
national government providing the terrorists direct support;
Opportunities for profiteering from a range of economic
activities, including drug production, drug and gun smuggling,
money laundering and counterfeit activities, commerce in high-
value goods such as diamonds, timber, or even people; and
Extreme levels of poverty, making it relatively easy to
secure local clients and purchase temporary cooperation locally
even from militias or communities which do not share a
terrorist agenda. Profound underdevelopment also provides a
backdrop of social frustration and desperation which terrorists
can use to their advantage, especially if they are able to link
that underdevelopment to the West or to governments with close
ties to the West.
All of these factors are present to some degree in Somalia, and
hence require careful scrutiny. But Somalia has by many measures not
yet proved to be as worrisome a security threat as some other states.
Unlike Afghanistan, Somalia has not produced a Taliban-type radical
administration openly sponsoring terrorist groups. Unlike, Yemen,
Somalia is not heavily infiltrated by al-Qaeda. Unlike Colombia,
Myanmar, and Afghanistan, Somalia has not become a significant producer
or conduit of drugs. And unlike Congo, Angola, and Sierra Leone,
Somalia has no valuable natural resources which foreign terrorist and
criminal elements can export for profit. And despite crushing levels of
underdevelopment and perceived abandonment by the West, Somali
communities as a whole are not particularly anti-Western and have not
proven particularly receptive to radicalism; Islamic extremists have
not been able to exploit Somali desperation with their prolonged
economic and political crises to create a broad-based movement. Somalia
is instructive on this score; by all measures it ought to be a more
active site of Islamic radicalism than it is.
One possible explanation is that we have tended to overestimate the
attractiveness of collapsed states to terrorist networks. What may at
first glance appear to provide opportunities to terrorist organizations
could actually constitute problems for them. Many of the same factors
which plague and jeopardize humanitarian aid operations also conspire
to produce sub-optimal environments for terrorist operations. Foreign
terrorists would find it very difficult to operate inside Somalia in
secret; Somalis are quick to learn about and discuss the activities of
foreigners, as they often constitute an important economic opportunity.
Terrorist networks would find themselves vulnerable to extortion,
threats, and kidnappings. They would find themselves unable to avoid
being caught up in local clan feuds over their local partners and
allocation of whatever resources they may have, increasing the odds of
being reported on to Western authorities. Importantly, in a collapsed
state such as Somalia any organization or movement is immediately
visible; there is nowhere to hide in a collapsed state. Terrorists
networks in Somalia and other collapsed states face the real
disadvantage of being in an exposed environment. Finally, the very
absence of a recognized government in Somalia makes it much less
politically complicated for the U.S. to intervene with military force
to bomb a terrorist camp or snatch individual suspects by Special
Forces. Given the experience of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan, it seems reasonable to conclude that they will now work
very hard to avoid presenting themselves as a fixed military target.
Instead, they will seek to change the playing field from a military
conflict to a protracted, transnational law enforcement exercise.
Islamic radical cells will in this sense find weak and/or compromised
states more attractive bases of operation; there they can use a weak
state as a form of protection which is not available in a zone of state
collapse. That does not mean that Somalia and collapsed states like it
are unattractive to radical Islamists. Instead, it suggests that
Somalia may come to play a ``niche role'' for terrorists, one which
exploits aspects of lawlessness while minimizing the vulnerabilities
terrorist networks are exposed to in Somalia. Specifically, we can
expect to see Islamic radicals using Somalis as a transshipment zone,
for short-term movement of money, materiel, and men. Short-term
operations in Somalia can be done in secret and through any number of
local interlocutors; for a price, terrorists can and have worked with
Somali factions or clans which do not share their political agenda but
which are happy to profit from them. This is a scenario explored in
more detail below. The key here is that we need to begin to anticipate
that terrorist networks are learning how to use different types of
operating environments for different purposes, and that collapsed
states like Somalia will be less useful to them as a permanent base of
operations, more attractive for short-term missions. To date, the
terrorist threat posed by Somalia has been articulated in very general
and often confusing terms. There are in fact a wide range of potential
security threats in Somalia related to Islamist radicalism. These need
to be disaggregated and considered as distinct, though not mutually
exclusive, possibilities. Each possibility may require a different
policy response.
somalia as operational base for non-somali al-qaeda terrorist
This concern has dominated Western media coverage of Somalia;
speculation about this threat has made Somalia a leading target in an
expanded war on terrorism. It is also one of the less plausible
scenarios. There is at this time no credible evidence that al-Qaeda is
using Somalia as an operational base--i.e., as a site for training
camps or bases. Indeed, there is little evidence of non-Somali al-Qaeda
members having a presence in Somalia today. This was actually a more
realistic worry prior to 1997, when al-Ittihad held the town of Luuq
and was active in the coastal settlement of Ras Kiamboni; then, there
is some evidence to suggest non-Somali al-Qaeda members visited the
areas. But since al-Ittihad lost Luuq in 1996 and more recently
abandoned Ras Kiamboni, it operates no discrete bases or camps. As
stated above, non-Somalis running camps in Somalia would find it
extremely difficult to keep such an operation secret in Somalia, both
because Somalis would report them and because they would be easily
detected by aerial and satellite surveillance now being undertaken in
the country. They would also present themselves as an easy, fixed
target for an aerial attack, which presumably they will no longer be
foolish enough to do.
somalia as safe haven for non-somali al-qaeda terrorists
Because Somalia remains a collapsed state with little to no local
law enforcement capacity, and because of its long, unpatrolled coast
line, external countries are understandably concerned that it may serve
as a safe haven for fleeing al-Qaeda members. Those al-Qaeda members
would not be attempting to build an operational base in Somalia; they
would only use Somalia to hide undetected, either in crowded urban
centers or remote rural areas, until they deem it safe to depart. This
concern has led to patrols and interdictions by U.S. and European naval
vessels off the Somali coast. This scenario is possible but not
inevitable, because non-Somali Islamic radicals would be very
vulnerable to being turned in by Somalis, and presumably know this.
Still, given the very poor alternatives facing fleeing al-Qaeda
members, it is conceivable they may try to hide in Somalia, relying on
local counterparts to shelter them.
somalia as transshipment or transit site of al-qaeda operations
Somalia is not an especially hospitable site for a fixed base of
operations for al-Qaeda, but it is an excellent location for short-term
transshipment and transit operations by all sorts of transnational
criminal and terrorist groups. Its natural beach ports and long coast
allow easy and undetected smuggling of people and materiel which can
then be moved overland on track roads into Kenya or Ethiopia; its
innumerable dirt landing strips also allow access by small aircraft.
Local partners in such short-term operations are easily contracted, for
the right price, and need not share any ideological affiliation with
the group in question. Al-Qaeda could very well view Somalia as playing
this niche role in the future, allowing the movement to move goods and
people into various parts of East Africa undetected.
somalia as financial facilitator for al-qaeda
Somalia's fast-growing telecom and money transfer companies are a
critical part of the country's growing dependence on remittances from
its large labor force working abroad. Remittance companies rely on a
global network of agents to enable diaspora members to transfer money
to relatives informally and businessmen to place orders in Dubai and
elsewhere. Given the absence of banks in the country, such informal
mechanisms to transfer cash is the only option Somalis have. Since
individuals usually do not have an account with these companies,
however, hawilaad companies are easily misused by criminal elements
seeking to move cash without leaving a paper trail. The U.S.
government's move to freeze the assets of the largest Somali remittance
and telecom company, al-Barakaat, was partially justified on grounds
that al-Qaeda was using it to move its funds. Somalia as revenue
generator for al-Qaeda. Some have charged that several of Somalia's top
business companies, in sectors such as remittances, import-export, and
telecommunication, are fronts for al-Qaeda's business empire. This was
another charge leveled at Al-Barakaat. Businesses may either have
secured loans from al-Qaeda (in which case the profit-sharing
arrangements which result generate revenue for al-Qaeda) or are owned
directly by al-Qaeda and fronted by Somali business partners. There is
little available evidence to assess this concern. Though the remittance
sector in particular is profitable, Somalia is an extremely weak
economy and presumably would not constitute an especially good place
for returns on investments. To the extent that this threat exists, it
surely constitutes a minor aspect of the al-Qaeda business portfolio.
somalia as host for somali organizations associated with al-qaeda
This is an important distinction to make, as it suggests the
possibility of a radical Islamic threat inside Somalia without any
foreign presence necessarily involved. On this score, the Somali
Islamist group al-Ittihad is the subject of considerable discussion as
a possible security threat. The extent to which al-Ittihad is
significantly associated with al-Qaeda is uncertain. Two points are
clear: al-Ittihad is not simply a local subsidiary of al-Qaeda; and al-
Ittihad has had links of some sort with al-Qaeda. What is difficult to
determine is the significance of those associations. If links to al-
Qaeda have been superficial or expedient, an analysis based on guilt by
association runs the risk of misreading al-Ittihad. If those links
prove to be significant and enduring, then al-Ittihad is clearly a
major security threat as an organization.
somali local polities as ``trojan horses'' for al-ittihad
A corollary to the above scenario (one which presumes al-Ittihad is
linked to al-Qaeda) is the possibility of al-Ittihad infiltrating and
indirectly controlling local polities--the ``Turabi strategy.'' It is
clear in fact that al-Ittihad has been attempting this, though not with
the level of success some alarmist analyses have presumed. By
integrating into local administrations and gaining control of key posts
such as the judiciary, al-Ittihad hopes to build political power and
control within an ostensibly non-Islamist polity. That way, they avoid
making themselves visible target. This is Ethiopia's chief worry, and
the basis of its accusation against the TNG.
somalia as home to individual somalis affiliated with al-qaeda
Here a distinction is made between charging al-Ittihad as an
organization with terrorist links and identifying individuals (probably
al-Ittihad members) who have dangerous links to al-Qaeda or other
terrorist networks. This is one of the most likely scenarios, and one
which presents the most difficult policy challenges to the outside
world. If these individual Somalis are ``big fish'' in the al-Qaeda
organization, they will need to be apprehended. Because local
authorities are so weak, it is unlikely the U.S. can or should rely on
them.
somalia as host for al-qaeda-affiliated ``sleepers''
To date, no Somali has been implicated as a perpetrator of
terrorist attacks against the West, and Somalis do not appear to have
been a prominent or numerous group in al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.
Still, it is possible that a small number of Somalis have been trained
abroad and placed back in Somalia as sleepers. This would be
exceedingly difficult to monitor. Because there are no external targets
of any consequence inside Somalia (no embassies exist there at present,
for instance), any sleeper placed inside Somalia would presumably have
to travel abroad to carry out a terrorist mission.
al-ittihad as a threat to ethiopia
Evidence of al-Ittihad's links with al-Qaeda and with a global
agenda of terrorism are weak, but not so its agenda towards Ethiopia.
It is publicly committed to working toward an Islamic state in Somali-
inhabited areas of Ethiopia, and it has been implicated in two hotel
bombings in Ethiopia and an assassination attempt against an Ethiopian
minister in the mid-1990s. Those acts earned it designation as a
terrorist organization and are justification in Ethiopia's view for
pursuing and eliminating al-Ittihad from Somalia, even if the
organization has no links to al-Qaeda. The significance of al-Ittihad's
terrorist acts inside Ethiopia are a matter of debate. For many, they
stand as compelling evidence of the threat the organization poses to
Ethiopia, and justifies the belated U.S. decision to label al-Ittihad a
terrorist organization. Others argue that the terrorist acts in
Ethiopia were not carried out by the organization as a whole, but
rather by one Ethiopian-based wing; that the attacks were more a
reflection of Somali irredentism than Islamic radical; and that other
branches of al-Ittihad strongly disagreed with those attacks. Some al-
Ittihad spokesmen in Somalia insist that they are a non-violent
movement with a focus strictly on Somali politics. Assessing these two
positions is not easy, as it requires reaching conclusions about the
intentions and nature of an organization about which little is known.
On the one hand, it is entirely plausible that al-Ittihad is in fact
divided over tactics and other matters, and that treating the
organization as monolithic is an error. On the other hand, it would be
naive to accept at face value the claims of a nonviolent agenda from an
organization implicated in terrorist acts. Ethiopia's internal security
situation is always tenuous, and any movement--foreign or domestic--
which seeks to politicize Islamic identity in a country where half of
the population is Muslim will be viewed by the Ethiopian government as
extremely dangerous. At this point, the Ethiopian government has made a
determination that al-Ittihad poses a threat to its security and it is
very unlikely to deviate from that view. For Ethiopia, co-existence
with al-Ittihad in any manner is off the table. That implies a long-
term conflict in the region with the potential to destabilize both
sides of the border. To the extent that Western (and especially
American) interests lie in promoting Ethiopian security, the
possibility of some sort of modus vivendi between the West and al-
Ittihad is also highly unlikely.
somali diaspora as threat to global security
Somalia is now a diaspora nation, unbound by fixed geographic
borders. The country's principal export is its own people, its role in
the global economy reduced to that of a labor reserve for the Gulf
states and the West. Estimates of the number of Somalis living abroad
range from one to two million--perhaps 20% of the total population. The
diaspora's role has been mainly positive, as a vital source of
remittances keeping Somalia's failed economy afloat. But in some
instances individual diaspora members have been attracted to radical
movements. Somali communities abroad can be mobilized (and in some
cases coerced) into contributing funds to militias and factions,
including al-Ittihad. Some Somalis abroad are drawn to Islamic
movements both in the West (often as an attempt to maintain their
identity and culture) and in Arab and Islamic states where such
movements are active. Few Somali diaspora members have been directly
implicated in radical Islamic groups, but this remains a possible
security threat to host countries.
somali lawlessness as threat to regional stability
Despite the intense media attention given to the threat posed by
Islamic radicalism in Somalia, the greatest security threat emanating
from the country continues to be spillover of banditry, gunrunning,
refugees, and lawlessness into neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya. Ethiopia
has never fully controlled the Ogaden region, and that has not been
made easier by a decade of state collapse on the Somali side of the
border. Kenya's security predicament is palpably worse. The Kenyan
government has lost control of most of the Somali-inhabited territory
north of the Tana River; Somali bandits roam across parts of Kenya and
even into northern Tanzania on cattle raids and carjackings; Somali-
populated refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma are sources of chronic
tensions with host communities, occasionally leading to armed
incidents; and the Somali-inhabited neighborhood of Eastleigh in
Nairobi is virtually beyond the control of the Kenyan police, and is a
haven for illicit activities and gun-smuggling. In border areas, some
argue that security is actually worse on the Kenyan side than on the
Somali side. Should the general security situation in Kenya deteriorate
as elections approach in December 2002, these spillover problems from
Somalia have the potential to exacerbate communal violence.
long-term policy considerations for somalia
The underlying causes of the regional and global security threats
emanating from Somalia are profound economic and political crises--the
utter collapse of the state, and the dangerously unsustainable and
unproductive economy. These two crises tend to act as a vicious circle,
reinforcing each other, so solutions will need to address both
simultaneously. A number of principles and priorities can help to
inform successful, long-term policy in Somalia:
Sustained engagement. The U.S. can no longer afford a policy
of benign neglect in Somalia; it must re-engage in the country.
This includes more visible and active diplomatic efforts to
communicate with local political actors, as well as
revitalization of non-emergency aid programs. The quality of
this reengagement will be more important than the quantity. Re-
engagement must also be sustained; Somali communities need to
be convinced that the U.S. is interested in helping them
resolve long-term problems, not just address our short-term
security concerns. Improved intelligence. The U.S. shifted much
of its intelligence assets away from poor, weak states like
Somalia in the 1990s. Now we are scrambling for information and
analysis in these zones of the world. Renewed attention to
close, field-based country knowledge and extensive contacts
with nationals is essential if the U.S. is to make well-
informed policies on Somalia.
``Shaping'' strategy. Despite, or perhaps because of, the
harsh economic realities in the country, Somali society
remarkably pragmatic. Somalis as a group are not prone to
embrace foreign ideologies (and radical Islamic agendas are
viewed as foreign) unless they yield tangible benefits; the
moment those benefits disappear, support for the ideology
evaporates as well. This pragmatic, cost-benefit analysis
approach to the external world can and should be made to work
to our advantage in minimizing the impact of radical Islam in
Somalia. Through creative use of the carrots as well as the
sticks which we have at our disposal, we can shape Somalis'
cost-benefit calculations in ways that make it worth their
while to cooperate with us in preventing terrorist activities
in their country.
Expanded economic opportunity. Despite the weakness of the
local economy, Somalia has exhibited remarkable innovation and
adaptability in commercial and services sectors. Much more of
this entrepreneurism would flourish if a few key constraints
were removed or better managed. The U.S. is in a position to
assist in this regard, and would earn much goodwill in the
country if it did. Projects aimed at making the American market
more accessible for key exports, at assisting Somali livestock
exports (either through provision of livestock certification at
the ports, or facilities for chilled meat factories near
airports), improving infrastructure and management at key
ports, or at encouraging American partnerships with Somali
entrepreneurs, are among the many possibilities. Our robust
domestic market is itself a tool which could be used to
catalyze productive opportunities in Somalia and integrate the
country closer into the Western economy.
Flexibility in partnerships. Re-engagement in a country with
no recognized government begs the question of re-engagement
with whom? This nettlesome question creates significant
problems and disagreements in the Somali context. After ten
years of state collapse in Somalia, the only tenable policy is
one based on the yardstick measured in effective
administration. The U.S. must insist that it will work with any
and all authorities which are actually administering a region
or area. Political groupings which make no attempt to provide
basic administration for the people they claim to represent
should not be recognized. This approach is essentially in
reinforcing the message to Somali political elites that their
goal can no longer be to claim control over the state (or a
region) in order to secure foreign aid. Sovereignty in a
collapsed state must be empirically earned, not secured through
empty juridical claims. This suggests a preference for a
``building block'' or regional approach to reconstituting a
central authority in Somalia, a policy which was in place in
1997-99 but which was overtaken by the Djibouti initiative to
create a central government via national conference in 2000.
That government, the Transitional National Government, claims
sovereign authority over the entire country but controls only
half of the capital Mogadishu. U.S. policy has to date
appropriately viewed the TNG as the result of an incomplete
process. In time, the TNG may have to be convinced to
reconstitute itself as a regional, not national, authority, and
engage with other regional polities in devising a federal
system of government. If not, top-down efforts to impose a
central state on Somalia appear very unlikely to succeed.
Engagement with business community. The business community
in Somalia has emerged as the most powerful political force in
the country. It has a mixed track record; many of its members
gained their fortunes in the war-economy of the early 1990s,
and some continue to take decisions harmful to Somali national
interests; but as a group the business community needs to be
specifically engaged with the aim of creating informal partners
in the war on terrorism. They will be especially sensitive to
the costs of non-cooperation and the benefits of working with
the U.S., and are in a better position than most other groups
in Somalia to monitor and discourage radicalism.
Encouragement of co-existence between Ethiopia, Arab states,
and Somalia. As long as Somalia is the site of a proxy war
between Ethiopia and the Arab world, national reconciliation
will be impossible. Somalia and its neighbors have many
powerful shared interests in expanding regional commerce,
reducing armed conflict and lawlessness, and working towards a
functional political authority in Somalia. The U.S. is in a
unique position to press its friends in the region to cooperate
to this end. This should include encouragement to allies in the
Arab world to subject their assistance programs to the same
levels of monitoring and evaluation as Western NGOs, to insure
they are not being misused for political purposes.
Avoidance of past mistakes. The U.S. and its international
partners must take care not to throw money at self-declared
regional or national authorities on the grounds in ways which
reinforce old, bad political habits in Somalia--habits of
competing to control the state solely to profiteer from
diverted foreign assistance. For too long, the Somali political
elite has viewed the state not as an administrative body
responsible for providing basic services for its people, but as
a catchment point for external assistance. Massive levels of
foreign aid combined with little accountability during the Cold
War led to a bloated and unsustainable Somali state--a castle
built on sand. Whatever political entity eventually emerges in
Somalia must be sustainable mainly on the basis of its own tax
revenues, or we run the risk of another collapsed state.
Likewise, the U.S. must avoid policies which inadvertently
reinforce the power or credibility of warlords Creativity. In
cases of protracted state collapse like Somalia we need to be
prepared to think outside the box. Specifically, we may need to
anticipate and assist both unfamiliar processes toward national
reconciliation in Somalia and an unconventional type of
national authority emerging in Somalia. Given the resource
constraints faced in Somalia, the kind of central government
which may ultimately arise in Somalia could be a minimalist
structure providing only core services while subcontracting
other responsibilities out to the private sector or to local
governments.
Senator Feingold. Thank you. Ambassador Shinn.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID H. SHINN, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO
ETHIOPIA AND SPECIAL COORDINATOR FOR SOMALIA; ADJUNCT
PROFESSOR, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Shinn. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for
including me in this panel today, and I would like to commend
the subcommittee for focusing on the long-term aspects of
dealing with Somalia. There is an awful lot of attention,
particularly in the media, on dealing with the immediate
terrorist issues. That does not really deal with the problem,
at least certainly not the problem we face for a long time to
come.
When you asked the question to Assistant Secretary
Kansteiner about piracy, I could not help but recall that my
first assignment in the Department of State in Washington was
as the Somali desk officer from 1969 to 1971. I do not say that
to date myself, but during that time I spent an awful lot of
that 2 years dealing with issues of piracy. In this case it was
state-supported piracy. It was the Government of Somalia
seizing American geophysical research ships, holding them
hostage until we could somehow negotiate their release, and
that oftentimes took many, many weeks. So piracy of one kind or
another has a very long history in that part of the world.
Senator Frist mentioned the issue of Somalia in the
regional context and how it plays into the conflicts that exist
in the region. I think that point deserves to be reemphasized.
All of the countries of the Horn are interlinked with the
others in terms of conflict. The record is quite frankly
atrocious, and Somalia is no exception. I think it is worth
just putting on the record that the primary cause in the case
of Somalia is the fact that you have Somali populations that
live in neighboring Ethiopia, the northeastern frontier
district of Kenya, and in a part of Djibouti. It has been the
stated policy of the Government of Somalia since independence
in 1960 to incorporate these populations into an independent
Somalia, all united.
Having written my master's thesis on the pan-Somali
movement at a time when it was very much in vogue and everyone
in academia thought that this might even be a good idea, we
have seen in effect the opposite happen in recent years, at
least since the late 1980's. There has been a fracturing of
Somalia with the clans going their separate ways. For one, I
think we are going to see a return some day, perhaps not in my
lifetime, where the pan-Somali effort is going to haunt us
again, if it has not already begun to head in that direction.
For the time being, however, the issue is one of fracturing
and fragmentation, and not one of uniting. But the point is
that there is a very long history here of a serious issue that
will almost certainly come back to haunt everyone in the
region, and those who have an interest in the region.
I submitted in writing a much more detailed statement on
ideas for dealing with Somalia. I am not going to read that
statement. I simply want to summarize some of the key points
from it. The request was to focus on long-term policies, and I
tried for the most part to do that. I began by making several
assumptions. One of the assumptions, and this has been stated
by others, is that we really do not have good information, good
intelligence, on the situation in Somalia today, for the simple
reason that we basically abandoned Somalia in 1994.
All of our troops left in March of that year, and the
Somali liaison office shut down several months thereafter. The
U.N. stayed on for almost another year, and we had tangential
interest in what the U.N. was doing, but we pretty much washed
our hands of Somalia. There were relatively few visits of
Americans going back into the southern two-thirds of Somalia.
We have not had a very active collection effort on what is
happening there. I think until the last several months, until
after September 11, we did not even really know who all the
players were.
Now, there has been a crash effort to learn all of that. I
think a great deal has been learned, but the fact is that we
had an intelligence vacuum in that area for about 7 or 8 years,
and it takes time to build back up. That is one of the reasons
that argues against doing anything on a rash basis in Somalia
until we do have a better understanding of what is going on.
I do not have any doubt about the terrorist links of Al-
Ittihad. I have felt it was a terrorist organization for many
years, and I am on the record as having stated that. Nor do I
question, although I am in no position to prove that it has
links to al-Qaeda, the fact that it did conduct terrorist
activities in Ethiopia in the mid-1990's. Indeed, Al-Ittihad
even took credit for some of those terrorist acts, blowing up
of hotels, attempted assassination of an Ethiopian minister.
There is no question but what Al-Ittihad has some blood on its
hands and should be held accountable.
The degree to which its agenda is aimed against us is more
questionable. There are some allegations of linkages to the
bombings of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and some
suggestion that they were involved in a few of the attacks on
the international community when we were there in force in
1993. But with those exceptions, by and large it has been a
Somali agenda, one that has focused on creating an Islamic
state in Somalia, and incorporating the Somali inhibited part
of Ethiopia, or at least freeing it from Ethiopian sovereignty.
Before one can really talk seriously about any kind of a
long-term American policy in Somalia, there really has to be
some modicum of central authority, some indication that rule of
law is either underway or has at least begun. It is in my view
impossible to talk about any really serious policy in that
country without the prospect for something that is akin to a
nation-state.
It does not have to look like it used to look, and it does
not have to look even like its neighbors, but it cannot
continue to rule by independent fiefdom with a Transitional
National Government that has absolutely minimal control in the
country. Until steps are taken to achieve that goal, it is
going to be very difficult for us to have a serious long-term
policy.
Equally important, in my view, and I am still working on
the assumptions of my policy remarks, a unilateral U.S. policy
is doomed to fail. We simply do not have either the will or the
resources to carry out any kind of significant unilateral
policy there. I was very pleased to hear from Assistant
Secretary Kansteiner that that is not the way we seem to be
going.
We seem to be willing to talk with others who do have
perhaps a more serious interest in Somalia, or at least would
be willing to partner with us. I think that is absolutely
critical. The whole issue of scarce American resources and
probably an inability to deliver in the long run on our own
argues against any kind of unilateral policy.
The process that I would propose in trying to develop a
long-term policy is to start a series of consultations with our
European allies, particularly Italy and the United Kingdom,
with key countries in the region, the three neighbors,
obviously, plus Egypt, and then finally with the United
Nations. I would also consult with the European Union. I think
this is a process that should begin much sooner rather than
later. In fact, I see no reason why the process should not
begin almost immediately.
As part of that process, we also need to be thinking in
terms of how we interact with Somalis themselves? This is not
an easy process. We have had some luck in using our embassy in
Djibouti and making periodic visits to Somaliland, the northern
one-third of the country, and visiting Hargeisa, the capital of
Somaliland. That has provided us a much better information base
than what we have in the southern two-thirds of Somalia.
I would argue, quite frankly, that even though we should
under no circumstance extend diplomatic relations to Somaliland
at this point, it is time to be thinking in terms of a small
office there. I do not care what you call it. There has got to
be some way to place a couple of State Department and a couple
of USAID people in Hargeisa.
I know that is controversial. I know it probably will not
fly at this point in time, but it is high time to think about
that. Security is not a serious issue in most of Somaliland,
and that should not be the argument for preventing an American
low-level involvement there.
The second step of the contact process with Somalias would
be simply to increase the Somali-watcher presence working out
of Nairobi. It might even be useful to have someone in the
embassy in Addis Ababa to perform a similar role, because you
get so many visitors from Somalia who pass through Addis Ababa.
Let me turn to the long-term policy suggestions. They are
not set forth as any sort of concrete plan. They are simply
points to begin the dialog, to begin the discussion. The first
would be targeted assistance to southern Somalia and
Somaliland, where I think it can be done rather easily. I
realize we have some assistance going in there now, but I think
it can increase.
In the case of the southern two-thirds of Somalia, I think
you have to work primarily through international NGO's and
indigenous NGO's. I believe it can be done, and I believe you
can step up the kinds of things we are doing there, everything
from very small rehabilitation projects on roads, for example,
to helping out with some small clinics, perhaps some primary
education, all of this working through NGO's because of the
security problems there. I think a targeted assistance program
is the place to begin.
Another thing to take a very serious look at is a stepped-
up public diplomacy program. We ignored Somalia until September
11. It is time to sit a group down, brainstorm, figure out ways
that you can start sending a message to the Somalis. For the
moment the Somali service of BBC seems to be the service that
is most listened to. I do not know how much credibility the
Voice of America has there. I do not believe it has a Somali
service at the moment. It may be necessary to build that up. It
may be necessary to use the BBC. It may be necessary to do
something more innovative like work with World Space and
provide donor-provided radio receivers to Somalis you can then
have your own programming going directly to them as
individuals. Clearly there is a group that could sit down and
brainstorm this issue and come up with a public diplomacy
program that makes sense.
Point No. 3 is intelligence cooperation. I gather this is
already underway. I will not get into it in any detail. This is
a very difficult thing to do, but because of the immediate
terrorist threat, I think it needs to be done with the
Government of Somaliland, with the Government in Puntland, with
the Transitional National Government, and with some of the
individual fiefdom leaders with whom we have reasonably good
contacts. I say this knowing full well that about 50 percent,
at a minimum, of their information is disinformation. You have
got to be able to separate good information from bad.
Looking further into the future, although not that far into
the future, we need to be thinking about building up and
reestablishing police forces in those parts of Somalia where it
is possible to do that. The U.N. actually was having some
success with that in 1993. It all came apart because the U.N.
became preoccupied with the hunt for Aideed. But if you do not
have a police force you are not going to have any kind of
viable security. There are areas where you cannot do it, but
there are some areas where you can do it.
The last policy recommendation I would suggest is that we
work with the Somali diaspora in the United States and in
Canada. The biggest Somali community in North America is in
Toronto. The biggest in the United States is in Minneapolis and
second largest in Columbus, Ohio. There are people in those
communities who are anxious to help. They are almost as divided
as the Somalis are in the country itself, but there ought to be
some innovative ways to work with that group and somehow bring
them into the process.
As I say, these policy suggestions are not intended to
serve as any kind of a blueprint. They are simply intended to
begin the discussion. I realize that once you have
consultations, you hear from other countries, many of these
ideas will be changed or refined, or thrown out, or new ones
will be added. But the bottom line is that Somalia has been a
security vacuum since 1991, and bad things enter vacuums.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Shinn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David H. Shinn, Former U.S. Ambassador to
Ethiopia and Special Coordinator for Somalia
I thank the subcommittee for inviting me to participate in this
hearing. The guidelines for this testimony requested my views on the
prospects and options for a coherent, long-term Somalia policy that
aims to strengthen state capacity and curtail terrorists' opportunities
within Somalia's borders, I have endeavored to focus on this rather
narrow but challenging objective. I need to make several assumptions,
however, so that my policy suggestions are clear.
assumptions
Geographical Scope
I include both the southern two-thirds of Somalia known prior to
independence as Italian Somalia and the northern third known earlier as
British Somaliland as constituting the territory under discussion
today. The Transitional National Government in the southern two-thirds
of Somalia exercises control over part of Mogadishu and a tiny part of
the rest of the country. Political factions, usually supported by
militias, maintain control in most of the country and operate as
independent fiefdoms. The northern third of the country has declared
its independence, established a government and exercises control over
most of its territory. No other country, however, has officially
recognized the Mohamed Ibrahim Egal government in Hargeisa.
American Comprehension of Somalia
The United States has been absent from Somalia since 1994. As a
result, its understanding of the situation on the ground, even after a
recent crash effort to get up to speed, remains flawed. As a result of
regular visits in recent years to Somaliland by personnel from the U.S.
embassy in Djibouti, our knowledge of the situation there is better.
Existence of Terrorist Organization
Somalia already harbors a terrorist organization known as al-
Ittihad al-Islamia (Unity of Islam), which the U.S. placed on the
terrorist list last fall. Al-Ittihad desires to create an Islamic State
in Somalia and either incorporate the Somali-inhabited territory in
neighboring Ethiopia or free it from Ethiopian control. Al-Ittihad took
credit for a number of terrorist acts in Ethiopia in the mid-1990s. The
focus of al-Ittihad is on Somali issues and it may have reduced its
involvement in terrorism in recent years. It increases its Somali
following by engaging in social programs and supporting Islamic
schools. It may have played a small role in attacks on U.S. and United
Nations forces in Mogadishu in 1993 by cooperating with Somali groups
hostile to the international presence. There are also murky allegations
that al-Ittihad played some kind of support role in the 1998 al-Qaeda
attack on the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania.
Need for Central Authority
Until a semblance of rule of law and some modicum of central
authority are reestablished throughout the country, it will be
virtually impossible to implement successfully long-term policies aimed
at eliminating or even reducing the terrorist threat from Somalia to
the international community.
Unilateral Effort Doomed to Fail
A unilateral, long-term U.S. policy initiative in Somalia is almost
guaranteed to fail or achieve little. The only long-term strategy that
has any hope for success will be coordinated carefully with key
countries in the region and European allies. This, necessarily, will
complicate agreement and may even dilute initial American ideas for
dealing with Somalia.
Scarce U.S. Resources
It will be very difficult to mobilize significant U.S. resources in
support of a new policy towards Somalia. There are too many competing
priorities, both domestic and international. Some in Congress and
elsewhere will argue that we spent billions in Somalia once before,
question whether it was worth the cost and be reluctant to reengage if
the cost is high. This is one of the reasons why it is important to
have domestic agreement on the policy and support for it by key
European allies and countries in the region.
first steps
Consultations
Before I move to long term policy suggestions, I would first
propose a comprehensive consultative process to discuss U.S. proposals
privately with select parties. A working-level, inter-agency team
headed by a Deputy Assistant Secretary from the Department of State
could accomplish this. In addition to the State Department, members
should include Defense, USAID, CIA and possibly Treasury and Justice.
The consultations should begin in Rome followed by London and the
European Union headquarters in Brussels. If other European capitals
show any interest, they could be added to the itinerary. A final stop
before continuing the dialogue with key countries in the region should
be a visit with the Office of Political Affairs at the United Nations
in New York.
Assuming there is general agreement with U.S. policy ideas, it
would be important at this stage to decide how to factor the Europeans
and the United Nations into the process. It could continue as an U.S.-
led effort, a joint undertaking or even under the leadership of another
country or organization. In any event, the next step should be
comprehensive consultations with Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Egypt.
As neighbors, the first three countries have a vested interest in any
new policy towards Somalia and are in a position to help or hinder
implementation of that policy. Egypt has long maintained a presence in
Mogadishu and injected itself into previous Somali peace initiatives,
Egypt also offers a window to the Islamic world. Somalia, like Egypt,
is a member of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic
Conference. Somalia's population is 99 percent Muslim.
Normally, one would have consultations at an early stage with
representatives of the country under discussion. The absence of a
meaningful central government and the existence of numerous Somali
fiefdoms argue against this until there is at least broad agreement
outside Somalia on a policy. It is, of course, possible there will be
no general agreement among the key parties outside Somalia and the U.S.
must decide if it has the will and the resources to proceed on its own
or in partnership with one or more parties that do agree with the
policy.
Presence in Northern Somalia
Somaliland is a special situation. We have had no American
representation there since we closed down a branch office some two
decades ago. Although this is not the time to extend diplomatic
recognition to Somaliland, it is time to locate a larger international
assistance presence and to establish a small American office in
Hargeisa, the capital. The focus should be on the provision of
international assistance and sharing of information on terrorism. The
American presence might consist of two State Department officers and
one or two USAID staff. In addition to monitoring a small American
assistance program, this office would serve as the eyes and the ears of
the U.S. on a variety of issues, including terrorism. Unlike Mogadishu,
the security situation in Hargeisa seems to allow the assignment of
American personnel there.
Monitoring the Rest of Somalia
Due to the tenuous security situation, Mogadishu and the southern
two-thirds of Somalia are a more difficult challenge. In the short-
term, it might be necessary to increase the number of Somali watchers
at our embassy in neighboring Nairobi, Kenya, and perhaps add someone
to the staff at the embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Eventually,
security conditions permitting, the goal should be to reestablish a
presence in Mogadishu. These steps will permit the U.S. to implement
its policy more effectively and consider suggestions for refining it as
conditions change on the ground.
long term policy ideas
Targeted Assistance
We should have no illusions about the role foreign aid has played
in Somalia in the past. Although some projects such as the construction
of ports in Berbera, Bosasso, Mogadishu and Kismayo were successful,
the list of failed aid projects in Somalia is disturbingly long. The
problematic security situation in the Southern two-thirds of Somalia
severely limits the ability of the international community to carry out
projects. Nevertheless, it is possible to work with local and
international NGOs in those parts of Somalia where security is
reasonably good. In fact, the successful provision of assistance to
such areas might serve as an example and encourage more troubled
regions to improve security so that they can also benefit from
international largesse. In addition, it should be possible to carry out
assistance activities in most of Somaliland.
Assistance will necessarily be limited at first and confined to
projects that seem realistic in view of the security situation. Small-
scale road and infrastructure repair activities that can use Somali
labor and be supervised by NGOs might be a good starting point. The
provision of small grants to local communities for reestablishing
primary schools that hire local teachers and basic health clinics that
can draw on former health personnel is another possibility. One could
consider more innovative programs such as funding the transport of
donated books collected by organizations such as the International Book
Bank. The books could be distributed to communities willing to
establish small reading rooms.
The objective is to build on successes and eliminate failures. The
latter will occur in an environment like Somalia. From the standpoint
of the donor community, the goal of the assistance program is to begin
the process of creating conditions that will discourage Somalis from
following organizations like al-Ittihad and learn there are programs
that will permit them to return to a more normal situation. Eventually,
it may be possible for parts of southern Somalia to reestablish law and
order and offer residents incentives for accepting local authority.
Over time, it may even be possible to knit these areas together in some
kind of federal or centralized governmental structure so that Somalia
can rejoin the community of nations.
After more than ten years as a failed state, it will be difficult
and take time for Somalia to reestablish control throughout the
country. There will be setbacks. But the policy of avoiding contact
with Somalia is worse and only increases the prospect of terrorist
surprises from that country. Reengagement through assistance programs
will eventually result in contacts on a variety of issues, including
terrorism. Foreign assistance successes in Somalia will also encourage
other donor countries to offer resources and perhaps trained personnel.
The fact is that it is not in the interest of the U.S. and the
international community to allow Somalia to continue as a failed state.
The international community can not prevent bad things coming out of
Somalia until it reengages and helps reestablish the rule of law.
Public Diplomacy Program
Now that the war on terrorism is the American foreign policy
priority, the U.S. needs to focus on actions it can take and themes it
can emphasize in the Horn of Africa generally and Somalia in
particular. The most obvious candidate for this task over the short
term is the Voice of America. In fact, however, the Somali language
service of the BBC has a greater reach and credibility in Somalia. This
is another argument for ensuring U.S. policy has the backing of key
allies. If the VOA is not in a position to carry out a major effort in
the Somali language to deal with the terrorist threat, then the U.S.
should investigate other options. Perhaps the widespread provision to
Somalis of radio receivers financed by donor countries and specialized
programming carried by the World Space satellite facility is an option.
Surely a group of innovative people could come up with a range of
public diplomacy ideas in a single brain storming session.
Intelligence Cooperation
Except for September 11 and the urgent need to quash al-Qaeda, I
would not propose early intelligence cooperation with Somalis.
Unfortunately, the current situation does not allow for delays. The
most cost-effective weapon the international community has against
terrorism is good intelligence. The absence of the U.S. from Somalia
since 1994 has resulted in a human intelligence void. This should be
rectified now and on a long-term basis. The U.S. needs to begin
intelligence cooperation with the Egal government in Hargeisa, the weak
Transitional National Government (TNG) in Mogadishu and with the
leaders of those Somali fiefdoms who are willing to work with the U.S.
This should be a two way street so long as U.S. information going to
Somalis concerns real terrorist threats and does not enmesh the U.S. in
local Somali disputes. While the U.S. should expect to receive a fair
share of information from Somalis that has as its purpose the weakening
of an enemy Somali faction, with experience U.S. personnel can separate
useful information from that which has another agenda.
Cooperation with Somali Security Forces
Eventually, the international community must assist Somalia with
the reestablishment of security forces under some kind of centralized
authority. The United Nations actually made some progress in
reconstituting a Somali police force in 1993. The preoccupation with
the ``hunt for Aideed'' ended any hope that this undertaking could be
successful. Nor is it now an appropriate time to try to rebuild a
police force. If there is success, however, on the assistance front and
if security improves, it would be appropriate to begin efforts to
reequip a police force, at least in those areas where the rule of law
has started to return. Although support for a national defense force is
much further down the road, it is not too early to begin thinking about
ways the international community could assist.
The Somali Diaspora
Many talented Somalis now live outside Somalia. Toronto has the
largest community in North America. Minneapolis, Minnesota, and
Columbus, Ohio, have the first and second largest communities
respectively in the U.S. Some of these Somalis are anxious to
contribute to the betterment of their country of origin. While it is
true that Somalis in the diaspora are about as divided as those
remaining in Somalia, this is still an untapped resource except for the
remittances that go back to relatives. Perhaps an American foundation
or NGO could be encouraged to assemble representatives from these
communities in North America to determine if there are ways they could
contribute more directly to stability in Somalia and solicit ideas for
reducing or eliminating the terrorist threat coming from Somalia.
conclusion
These long-term policy suggestions constitute a starting point
rather than a definitive program. The purpose of the consultations
recommended at the beginning of these remarks is to add, subtract and
refine policy ideas. Properly fleshed out, however, these suggestions
would allow an interagency team to begin the dialogue. The final
program might look much different. The urgency is in launching the
dialogue and gaining support from allies and countries in the region.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for your
testimony.
Mr. Macpherson.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT MACPHERSON, DIRECTOR, PROTECTION AND
SECURITY UNIT, CARE USA, ATLANTA, GA
Mr. Macpherson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator. Thank you
for allowing me to testify on behalf of CARE USA. CARE has
worked in Somalia for more than two decades providing emergency
relief and rehabilitation services to hundreds of thousands of
people in 14 of the country's 18 regions.
I traveled to Mogadishu for the first time in 1992, where
as stated warlords were cutting off food supplies and tens of
thousands of people were starving. I was there as a U.S. Marine
with Operation Restore Hope. We were there to make sure life-
sustaining assistance made it to the people who needed it.
In 1994, I began my work with CARE to assist with emergency
response and humanitarian demining efforts in post-war
countries, including Somalia. I returned to Somalia several
times, most recently in the year 2001. From what I have seen,
things have changed, and in some ways Somalia remains one of
the world's poorest countries. One out of 10 children dies
before their fifth birthday, and 86 percent of the children do
not attend school.
However, like an increasing number of impoverished nations,
it appears Somalia may have hit bottom and is slowly working
its way up. This is because its people, exhausted by war, are
taking responsibility for their own lives. For instance,
parents, tired of waiting for the government to educate their
children, have opened schools, often at great personal expense
and sacrifice.
Private businesses such as telephone and transport
companies are defying the warlords in order to deliver goods
and services. Irrigation canals and roads are being rebuilt to
support Somali agriculture and reduce reliance on outside aid.
Food production has increased and, most importantly, there are
significant local, regional and national attempts at
reconciliation and governance.
The signs of hope are many. After years of strife, Somalia
has now reached a critical crossroad. Thanks to the efforts of
millions of Somalis at home and abroad, their shattered land
has an opportunity to move forward. From CARE's perspective,
the U.S. Government can assist in two ways, promote stability
and support community groups already working for peace and
prosperity.
Stability is the foundation for all positive political,
social, and economic change in the country. In parts of
Somalia, political and administrative structures are
functioning and helping communities to make progress. For
instance, as stated, much of northern Somalia is peaceful and
well-ordered. In Hargeisa in northwest Somalia I am safe to
walk the streets during day or night. In contrast to many
countries, vehicles actually obey stop lights and the traffic
police. Money changers display hard currency on the street
without fear of robbery, and such security throughout large
parts of the country is a testament to the collective will of
the Somalis to reject their violent past.
However, southern Somalia is still plagued by fighting
between rival warlords in pursuit of personal gain. It must be
noted that ordinary Somalis survived despite and not because of
the warlords. What can be done to enhance stability and control
violence? The international community should support the
development of appropriate governing structures. We should
focus our assistance on strengthening those government
institutions that promote human development. Departments of
health, education, and social welfare require particular
attention.
For a country that has now missed well over a decade of
formal schooling, education is a priority. Largely through
private donations from Somalis living abroad, schools have been
built, textbooks printed, and teachers trained. Today in
Somalia there are more primary schools operating than existed
in the late 1980's, yet Somalia is still plagued by 17 percent
adult literacy rate, and 14 percent primary school enrollment.
This is a weak foundation upon which to build a peaceful,
democratic, and stable society. These individual efforts need
our collective help.
The international community should also invest in programs
that provide alternatives to violence. Today in Somalia there
are thousands of young men who know how to field-strip and fire
an AK-47 but cannot read or write, yet if you talk to any of
these young militiamen in Mogadishu, one common refrain comes
through. ``If I could do something else, I would.'' Vocational
training and employment opportunities for these men are
priority areas. Somalia needs carpenters, masons, electricians
to rebuild its shattered infrastructure. It needs tanners,
shoemakers and slaughterhouse technicians to capitalize on the
country's primary economic asset, and that is livestock
production.
This is not an impossible task. Across Somalia a new
generation of community groups dedicated to poverty reduction
and social change have emerged to challenge the power of the
warlords. Through an ambitious U.S. Government grant, CARE
assisted in identifying and training these groups. This
program, which has been running since the mid-1990's, has
received strong support from our government and is an example
of effective foreign assistance.
More than 50 CARE-trained Somali nongovernmental
organizations currently provide a range of emergency and
development services across the entire country. The CARE-
trained Somali NGO Bani Adam provides loans to farmers with a
95-percent repayment rate. The Somali agency, Agro Action, has
assisted more than 1,000 local farmers to improve their yield
through training, agricultural extension, and construction of
irrigation systems.
Somali partners in CARE's USAID-supported food-for-work
programs have organized communities to rehabilitate
approximately 1,400 miles of road in the past year alone. The
investment in civil society organizations such as these is one
of the best ways to promote development in Somalia.
Somalia is a country in transition. Unifying coherent
support to establish governing stability is urgently needed.
Equally important is increased investment in both public sector
and civil society in key development areas such as education,
job creation, and health. Far-reaching change in Somalia is
possible, but it will not be easy. An effective development
strategy should complement and support the enormous collective
will for peace and prosperity that exists within Somalia.
Helping Somalis achieve and sustain such progress should be the
central goal of American policy.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Macpherson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Macpherson, Director, Protection and
Security Unit, CARE USA
Distinguished Senators, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank
you for allowing me to testify today regarding United States policy
toward Somalia.
My name is Robert Macpherson. I am here today to offer testimony on
behalf of CARE USA. CARE is one of the largest non-sectarian
humanitarian organizations in the world, operational in 65 developing
countries worldwide. CARE works in partnership with communities on a
range of grass-roots economic, environmental, agricultural and health
initiatives. CARE also responds to humanitarian crises around the
globe, providing food and other life-sustaining assistance to people
whose lives are threatened by man-made and natural disasters. In
Somalia, where we have worked for more than two decades, CARE is
currently the largest humanitarian organization operational on the
ground, providing both emergency relief and rehabilitation services to
hundreds of thousands of poor people in 14 out of 18 regions of the
country.
I joined CARE after seeing its work relieving famine in Somalia
during the dark, chaotic days of 1992-1993. At that time, I was an
Officer in the United States Marine Corps during Operation RESTORE
HOPE. I was witness to the societal disintegration that tore Somalia
apart. I saw the factionalism, the looting, and the rise of warlords. I
witnessed the resulting humanitarian crisis, in which many tens of
thousands of Somalis died, and the ultimately successful effort of
humanitarian organizations to bring the crisis under control. You may
ask why someone who lived through that painful experience would appear
here today as an advocate for the people of Somalia.
The answer is that Somalia has begun to change. Based on my return
trips to Somalia since 1993, I can say that the Somali people have made
progress toward making their country a more peaceful, less impoverished
place. After years of civil strife, Somalia has now reached a critical
crossroad. Thanks in large part to the efforts of millions of
individual Somalis, at home and abroad, this shattered land today has
an opportunity to move towards a more secure, stable and prosperous
future. We should do all that we can to support such progress.
Somalis are exhausted by war. With little assistance from the
outside world, they are struggling to combat the forces of lawlessness
and division. Over the last five years, there have been significant
local, regional and national attempts at re-establishing governance
structures. Markets are bustling, new houses and businesses are rising
in Mogadishu and in major towns across the country. In some towns it is
rare to see a gun on the street. Things are, however, far from rosy;
there are still security problems and most Somalis are abysmally poor.
But today relief agencies can drive with peace of mind through many of
the same towns and on many of the same roads where once they were
threatened by ambush.
What can we do to support the positive efforts towards peace and
democracy made by thousands of individual Somalis? How can we help this
devastated country renounce the poverty and lawlessness of its past?
These questions are particularly relevant following the September 11th
terrorist attacks. As Secretary of State Colin Powell noted recently at
the World Economic Forum, ``terrorism . . . flourishes in areas of
poverty, despair and hopelessness, where people see no future.''
CARE believes that two principles should be at the core of any
development strategy the international community pursues in Somalia:
Stability and Somali Ownership.
promoting greater stability
Stability is the foundation of all positive political, social and
economic change in the country. It is a prerequisite for the formation
of effective government structures, and effective government is key to
the control of negative societal influences, including terrorism. For
example, regional authorities in Somalia today have only limited
ability to police and control borders. Until Somalia has increased
administrative capacity countrywide, it will be difficult for it to
participate effectively in the ``war on terror.''
In parts of the country--where some sort of functioning political
and administrative structures have been established--progress has been
made. Much of northern Somalia is peaceful and well ordered. In
Hargeisa, in northwest Somalia, it is safe to walk the streets at any
time of day or night. In contrast to many countries, vehicles obey
stoplights and traffic police. Moneychangers display hard currency on
the street without fear of robbery. Such security in large parts of the
country is a powerful testament to the collective will of Somalis to
reject the violent past.
However, southern Somalia is still plagued by sporadic fighting
between rival warlords in the pursuit of personal enrichment. It should
be noted that ordinary Somalis survive despite, not because of, these
warlords. The people are fed up with the fighting and the factionalism.
Until civil strife is curtailed, human development will be impeded.
What can be done to enhance stability and control violence? As the
international community has painfully learned from Afghanistan, we can
not afford to ignore failed states like Somalia. Somalia's problems
must be addressed at all levels, from the highest political echelons
involving the international community to the grass-roots. In focusing
increased attention on Somalia's problems, the international community
must take great pains to not undermine the positive political, social
and economic changes ordinary Somalis have wrought for themselves.
Somalia is experimenting with different forms of local and regional
government in a process that draws on the country's strong tradition of
participatory and consultative democracy at the community level. It is
time consuming and often flawed, but it is a process that has the
genuine support of the Somali people. Popular support is essential to
the eventual formation of a system of government that can best
guarantee peace and security over the long-term. Somalia has been
without a national government for more than a decade; it is in the best
interest of both the Somali people and the international community that
this void not be allowed to persist much longer.
While Somalia's leaders will need to take responsibility for
finding appropriate political solutions for their country, there are
things the international community can do right now to promote
stability:
The international community should vigorously support Somali
efforts towards peace and reconciliation. The policies and
actions of the U.S. Government, neighboring countries, and
other actors should be consistent, coordinated and have the
well being of Somalia at heart. The U.S. Government should
carefully examine the role and potential of the Transitional
National Government (TNG), the result of one important regional
initiative, to determine whether and how to support it. As a
non-political organization, CARE does not endorse any one
political process or regional administration. However, the
international community should support the development of
appropriate decentralized governance structures that allow for
a reasonable amount of regional autonomy, which has become an
increasingly important reality in Somalia in the last decade.
We should focus our support on strengthening those
government institutions that promote human development.
Departments of health, education and social welfare require
particular attention. Somalia still has some of the lowest
levels of educational attainment in the world: 17.1% adult
literacy rate and 13.6% primary school enrollment rate. This is
a weak foundation upon which to build a peaceful, democratic
and stable society. The international community should also
invest in programs that provide alternatives to violence. Today
in Somalia there are hundreds of thousands of young men who
know how to strip and fire an AK-47 but cannot read or write.
Yet, if you talk to any young militiaman in Somalia you will
hear a familiar refrain: ``If I could do something else, I
would.'' Vocational training and employment opportunities for
these men are priority areas, and not just an investment in
stability. Somalia needs carpenters, masons and electricians to
rebuild its shattered infrastructure. It needs tanners,
shoemakers and slaughterhouse technicians to capitalize on the
country's primary economic activity: livestock production.
promoting sustainable development through somali ownership
Somalia needs people and organizations that can counterbalance the
forces of lawlessness and division. There are local heroes, like Edna
Adan Ismail, who almost single-handedly raised a maternity hospital for
the women of Hargeisa in northwest Somalia. There are the executives of
Telcom Somalia who have built one of the cheapest and most efficient
telecommunications services in the world in the midst of civil strife.
There are individuals such as Dr. Mohammoud Zahid Mohamoud and Dr.
Abdullahi Fara Asseyr who gave up lucrative jobs abroad to start a
medical clinic in downtown Mogadishu. There are trucking companies, who
guarantee delivery of humanitarian food and materials across clan lines
and often at great personal risk.
Education, for a country that has now missed well over a decade of
formal schooling, is of paramount importance to producing the human
resources that can participate meaningfully in the peaceful development
of the country. Individual Somalis have made extraordinary efforts to
revive formal education. Largely through private donations from Somalis
living abroad, schools have been built, textbooks printed and teachers
trained. Today in Somalia there are more primary schools operating than
existed in the late 1980s. Institutions of higher learning, such as
Amoud University, have opened thanks to private donations of money and
teaching talent from the international community of Somalis. Some of
the most popular curriculums feature English and computer science,
reflecting a general yearning across Somali society to rejoin the
modern world. Such individual efforts need our collective help.
These examples are indicative of an important trend in
Somalia over the past decade: the growth of civil society. They
also testify to the realities of development in Somalia. Simply
put, aid strategies work best when they promote a feeling of
ownership and investment among local communities. A corollary
to Somali ownership is to recognize what does network.
Specifically, aid should not be implemented through large,
externally-imposed schemes. CARE believes that the key to
development success in Somalia is to work ``bottom up'', not
``top down.''
Across Somalia, a new generation of community groups dedicated to
poverty reduction and social change is emerging to challenge the power
of the warlords. Through an ambitious U.S. Government grant, CARE has
become a leader in identifying, training and graduating these groups.
This program, which has been running since the mid-1990s, has received
strong support from the U.S. Ambassador and is a model for how the U.S.
Government can deliver foreign assistance in countries where it does
not have a USAID mission. More than 50 CARE-trained Somali non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) currently provide a range of
emergency and development services across the country, with greater
efficiency than many international agencies.
Why are they so successful? Key to the effectiveness of local
organizations is ``Somali Ownership.'' This principle recognizes that
if Somalis are going to protect and invest in their society, they must
have influence over the people and processes that order it. This is why
a local organization with roots in its community enjoys a degree of
protection and acceptance that international agencies and other
``outsiders'' cannot match. This protection allows Somali organizations
to access insecure areas or work with populations that might otherwise
be off-limits to an international agency. In times of peace, their
enhanced knowledge of the political and cultural context coupled with
their administrative and organizational skills make them effective and
respected advocates for, and servants of, their community.
The CARE-trained Somali NGO Bani Adam, for example, operates a
revolving loan fund to farmers that has a 95% repayment rate. The
Somali agency Agro Action has assisted more than 1,000 local farmers to
improve their yield through training, agricultural extension and the
construction of irrigation culverts and sluice gates. Somali partners
in CARE's USAID-supported food for work programs have organized
communities to rehabilitate more than 2,000 kilometers of roads in the
past year alone. Many Somali NGOs are women-led or run, giving a voice
to some of the most dispossessed and disadvantaged. Most international
agencies working in Somalia have expressed interest in or have already
started replicating CARE's work with local partner organizations. The
investment in civil society organizations such as these is one of the
best ways to promote development in Somalia. CARE recommends that such
investments be expanded.
conclusion
Somalia is a country in transition. How we act now can positively
influence that transition to the benefit of millions of poor people in
Somalia, while also promoting greater international stability. Unified
and coherent support for political processes to establish effective
governance in Somalia is urgently needed. Equally important is
increased investment in both public sector and civil society capacity
in key development areas such as education, job creation, and health.
An effective development strategy should complement and support the
enormous collective will for peace and prosperity that exists among
most Somalis. This will, and the resources that can be brought in
support of it, has the potential to transform Somalia from a land of
tragedy to a place of hope, opportunity and lasting peace. Far-reaching
change in Somalia is possible, but it will not be easy. Helping Somalis
achieve and sustain such progress should be the central goal of U.S.
policy.
Thank you for giving CARE the opportunity to speak to provide this
input on future U.S. policy toward Somalia.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Macpherson. I want to
thank all of you for your excellent testimony. You each have
very interesting comments and backgrounds, and a tremendous
commitment to this subject, and I appreciate it. I am about to
begin 7-minute rounds of questions, but first let me say how
pleased I am to see Senator Nelson, who is not a member of the
subcommittee but of course a member of the full committee, and
I appreciate his participation.
Let me ask all of you, how is the U.N. perceived in
Somalia, and how might existing perceptions affect any role the
United Nations might play in the future in bringing stability
to the country?
Dr. Menkhaus. I work frequently for the U.N. as a
consultant there, and I can tell you that the U.N. has a mixed
reputation. Its experience in Somalia with UNISOM tarnished its
reputation in some quarters. In other places, it is more a
sense of Somali frustration with the U.N.'s capacity to address
Somali needs.
The U.N. does not have much funding now. It is as baffled
as everyone else is about how to address these very complex
problems it faces, and in some cases unfortunately it is used
as a scapegoat for diplomatic problems such as recognition or
nonrecognition about Somaliland, about which it can do nothing.
No matter which position it takes it is hammered on both sides.
It has also put itself in a position in which it is seen as
having perhaps gotten a little too close to the TNG. It became
quite an advocate of the TNG. That is actually--the U.N. is a
bit more divided on that now than it was 6 months ago, but that
does compromise its ability to serve as a neutral arbiter in
some quarters, or as a mediator. It still has a very, very
important role to play, and a crucial role to play, but I am
not sure it can play the role of mediation right now.
Ambassador Shinn. I cannot add to the political side of the
equation, but I would add that some of the U.N. agencies still
do have fairly good reputations in the country. The World Food
Program for the most part, although the record has been mixed,
UNICEF, possibly the World Health Organization. I do not know
whether they have done anything there recently, but I think one
does have to make a distinction between the humanitarian side
of the U.N. effort and the political side of the U.N. effort.
Senator Feingold. How can the United States work to
increase the power of civil society? In particular, how can we
be sure that the United States policy really makes an effort of
consulting with stakeholders who are not armed, and getting
them a seat at the table when decisions are being made about
bilateral relations?
Ambassador Shinn. Let me take a first stab at that. In the
first instance there are some things we should not do, and that
is become too linked to any one or more of the factions in the
country. I think that is where we get off the track. It is very
easy to get caught up in a group that professes to believe in
all the things you believe in, but unfortunately these groups
believe in different things on different weeks. What they say
one week may not be the same the next week, so it is a very
tricky line to walk.
In terms of getting around the country and talking with
groups, beyond the political groups there are some there that
one can deal with, although it is not easy and there are
security problems in just moving around. You have laid out
frankly a very, very difficult issue.
I would suggest that that might be one of the issues that
could be explored with the Somali diaspora find out what ideas
they have, realizing full well that they are divided, but they
may have some thoughts on that.
Dr. Menkhaus. If I could comment, that points to another
dilemma we have in assisting Somalia in the long term toward
development and recovery, both economically and politically,
and that is that we simultaneously talk to the Somali people
about our desire to assist and empower civil society, and we
also emphasize good governance and building capacity at the
governmental level.
One of the strategies that many donors and U.N. agencies
and others have adopted in responding to the perplexing problem
of who do you work through, who is a legitimate interlocutor at
the local level when there is no state is, we have punted to
the local NGO's, and we said, we are just not going to deal
with the local authorities, and that has had some real
successes, as we have heard just today.
The down side is, there are some places in Somalia where
local nongovernmental organizations have far more money and far
more influence than the local authorities, than the nascent
governments at the local level. We need to have a strategy that
is designed not to inadvertently disembowel or undermine local
governments if, in fact, we are trying to build them up, and so
some strategy in terms of balancing the assistance that we give
to local governments and local NGO's needs to be met.
Senator Feingold. Let me ask you the same question I asked
Secretary Kansteiner. How can we avoid the situation where our
policy responds to various factions within Somalia who
sometimes smear their opponents with charges of links to al-
Qaeda and other international terrorist groups? The problem
obviously is these can be employed in self-interested ways, and
as I asked the Secretary, what steps can the United States
actually take to avoid being used in this fashion?
Ambassador Shinn. In the first instance, again, it is a
question of building up our knowledge and expertise on the
country which, as I think both Assistant Secretary Kansteiner
and I pointed out, has been really degraded in recent years.
Until such time as you have built up that expertise,
particularly on the ground, or in the case of the southern two-
thirds of Somalia, operating through your Somali-watchers in
the region, you are going to be at the mercy of trying to
divine who has it right and who has it wrong, and what is
acceptable and what is unacceptable. That is a very serious
dilemma to be in. Even if you are there, you are not always
going to get it right, as we found out during UNITAF and
UNOSOM.
We should also avoid a series of internationally arranged
conferences on Somalia such as took place at various places
around the Horn of Africa and East Africa. On these occasions,
we brought in all of the political factional leaders, and
occasionally even a few others who did not represent the
faction leaders. By and large those were not successful, and
they are not the Somali way of doing things.
The Somalis are more than happy to accept invitations to
those conferences, because it means spending several weeks in a
nice hotel in something other than downtown beautiful
Mogadishu. But it was not successful, and I do not think we
ought to be proponents of that way of doing business in the
future.
Dr. Menkhaus. If I could add, I think that it would be a
mistake for us to rely on any of the faction leaders for
intelligence or information. That would be the short answer.
There are hundreds and hundreds of wonderful, articulate,
thoughtful Somalis out there who follow political events in
their country closely and who, if you get to know them and you
establish a relationship with them, can provide invaluable
insights and very reliable ones, but that takes time for us to
buildup that kind of network.
Mr. Macpherson. I would just like to add, I jotted a note
here that the greatest lesson that Somalia teaches an outsider
is patience, but I have to say from when I left there in 1993 I
absolutely thought there was not a chance, and I meant what we
wrote here. Each time I have gone back, you have seen this
incremental development, and it takes time to get to know the
people, and it really is grassroots. The problem is, in that
case it is a bottom-up process rather than a top-down to get in
there, find out who the leaders really are, and that is an
enormous problem.
And look, we have had great successes, and we have had some
real challenges out there, but it is working because we have
got in at the bottom, met the people, and worked with them.
Senator Feingold. Well, your encouraging remarks are
certainly good to hear, and with that I will turn to Senator
Nelson for a round of questions or comments.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems like that
once we accomplish our goals in Afghanistan, that as we look
around to other areas that are ripe for terrorist takeover,
that Somalia is clearly one of those areas, with all of the
factionalism and with some of the things that are being taught
there. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
Dr. Menkhaus. I would say that one thing that would be very
useful for your subcommittee is to, as you look at weak states
and where an expanded war on terrorism could turn to,
distinguish between different types of states, or if our goal
is to drain the swamp, maybe the metaphor is to look at
different swamplands.
Somalia is a special case in that it is a completely
collapsed state, and I think our process of deduction leads us
to worry a great deal about that. If there is no government at
all, and there are some Islamic radical movements there, we
could anticipate seeing problems there.
One of the things that struck me, though, is the extent to
which radical Islamic movements and terrorists have not really
taken root in Somalia. In fact, you would expect it to be much
worse than it actually is. The more I look at Somalia, the more
I think that some of the problems that plague our humanitarian
agencies and the U.N. political efforts and so on are also
problems for radical terrorist groups.
When you try to operate as an organized movement in a
collapsed state, you are very visible. I would actually
anticipate radical Islamic movements using Somalia in a
division of labor in kind of a niche role, and transshipment,
short-term operations, where you could move men, materials,
money in and out of the country are very easy to do. Anyone can
be bought on a short-term deal, but for the long run you make
yourself very vulnerable, very exposed, and precisely because
there is a collapsed state it is actually much less complicated
politically for the United States to go after you directly.
I would worry more about weak states, states that they
exist, they have got governmental functions, but they have lost
control of large, teaming slums. They are places where a
network of radicals could disappear and not be noticed. They
will be noticed in Somalia, therefore I am not quite as worried
about that becoming a permanent base for, say, an al-Qaeda, but
as a transshipment site I worry a great deal.
Ambassador Shinn. As I indicated in my remarks, Senator, I
think al-Ittihad, which is the terrorist organization one
normally identifies in the case of Somalia is, in fact, a
terrorist organization, albeit perhaps with a rather limited
agenda and not necessarily particularly focused against the
United States.
The key, however, is that Somalia is not by any means the
same as Afghanistan. It is an area that deserves very careful
attention, but it simply does not have the kind of terrorist
infrastructure that Afghanistan clearly had and that we all
know about now.
The way to deal with what you have in a place like Somalia
is to take those long-term steps which are being talked about
in this hearing you need to try to help recreate--and I will
avoid the word, nation-building, but I must say, when you get
right down to it, that is really what you are talking about--
and to take those steps that permit some kind of a rule of law
and a modicum of central authority, albeit in a Federalist
system.
It does not make that much difference how it plays out over
time, but until you have that in Somalia, groups like al-
Ittihad are going to be a problem, perhaps not a huge problem,
but nevertheless a problem. I think that is what has to be done
to grapple with it.
Senator Feingold. Just on that point of nation-building, I
think it is so important to remember that some of us have
concerns about our military being involved in nation-building,
but the phrase itself is one that should not be tarnished by
that concern. There are many other ways in which we can address
this for our own national security interest.
I would like to get back to something that I asked the
Secretary, and given the fact that you are experts in this
area, I would like your comments too, again. It is about the
Ethiopian and Kenyan interests in Somalia. Are they necessarily
contradictory? We heard somewhat encouraging words from the
Secretary about some contact, or perhaps coordination between
them, but what are your views on how realistic that is?
Ambassador Shinn. I think the bottom line is, they are not
contradictory. There are nuances of differences in the way they
approach Somalia and, indeed, one of the things that I would
like to see come out of the Kenyan Government is more attention
to the movement of al-Ittihad and any like-minded individuals
or groups that pass through the Somali-inhabited area of Kenya.
I think by and large Kenya has taken a much more laissez-faire
approach to this. They have been willing to look the other way
on occasion, when they know people are moving through. Perhaps
people have been bought off at borders.
The Ethiopians, on the other hand, take a very different
approach. They will cross the border and bash the folks on the
other side, and they have done that on a number of occasions.
Tactically there are differences in their approach, but both
countries know, and both countries have historical precedents
to prove that they have been at the brunt of attacks coming out
of Somalia with the goal of irredentism. In that sense the two
countries have a common concern. It is just that tactically the
two have looked at it differently.
Senator Feingold. Doctor, did you want to comment on that?
Dr. Menkhaus. I agree.
Senator Feingold. Let me ask this, then. To what degree
does Somaliland, where I understand--again, we talked about
this--the authorities most consolidated actually have control
or even knowledge of who or what crosses its borders or arrives
on its coast. Could somebody comment on that?
Mr. Macpherson. I cannot speak for the coast, but I can
certainly speak for some of the borders there, and one reason
is a lot of the demining or mine action work that we have done
in that region. They are aware, and they have structures,
police and local authorities who actually monitor what is
coming and going, and I am acutely aware of that, because of
just the number of people we had to have moving back and forth,
the permission, the people who observed what we were doing, and
keeping an eye on how this thing went.
That was one of the most impressive things I found about
Somaliland, was that there was this sense of presence. There
was a government in charge, and they let you know it.
Senator Feingold. Is there any assistance they need in
doing this? Is there anything that would improve their
capacity, and are there any pitfalls in providing that kind of
assistance?
Mr. Macpherson. Well, I am going to put a hat on. As a
marine in Mogadishu, the one thing that I applauded from the
minute it started in Operation Restore Hope, and that was to
rebuild the police force and to assist in everything from the
ground up, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing. You had
guys standing out there with a stick in their hand who were
making heroic efforts to bring some type of authority back to
the streets in Somaliland. I think that would be something we
could assist with, we the U.S. Government, that would make an
impact.
Senator Feingold. Fair enough.
Let me get back to something you have all touched on, but
it has to do with the incentives and disincentives that might
convince factions in Somalia not only to avoid any association
with terrorism, but also to work toward development and
stability. What carrots and sticks have meanings for the
existing power-seekers in Somalia?
Dr. Menkhaus. Well, if we could start with our economic
toolbox, we have lots of tools in that, both carrots and
sticks, as we have shown with Al-Barakaat. We can close down a
large business if it is perceived to have been infiltrated or
owned by radical terrorist group, but we also have an enormous
number of carrots.
We certainly could sit down with the top business people in
the country, a few dozen really king-makers in the country, and
work out arrangements in which they come to understand that we
have legitimate security needs. They are going to need to be
much more transparent and accountable in terms of money flows
through their organization, and in return we can do things to
provide credit, perhaps because that is one of the reasons some
may have turned to al-Qaeda, is simply for credit for loans to
facilitate transactions between the diaspora and the country.
The fact is that that is the No. 1 source of hard currency
for Somalia now, far and away the single most important source
of currency. If we can facilitate that in any way, they are
certainly happy to do that. They have been thrilled with the
partnerships they have had with American business people in
Telecom and other sectors.
They have got a problem, as we have heard from Assistant
Secretary Kansteiner, with the livestock export ban. They are
asking us and others to help with chilled meat factories near
airstrips that could then get the meat out to markets abroad. I
mean, there are so many ways that we can sweeten the pot just
in terms of economics.
Ambassador Shinn. I do not want to overemphasize the role
the American private sector can play in a place as conflicted
as Somalia is, but I think Ken is right, in part because the
Somalis are some of the most tremendous businessmen and women
in the world. They are truly astoundingly good at doing
business.
I visited Somalia in 1996, and I was astounded to find at
that time that they had probably the most sophisticated cell
phone operation of any place in Africa, and for the lowest
rates on the continent, and using by and large American
equipment. Al-Barakaat, the money changing organization that
has been shut down, also had a telecommunications operation in
which it ran AT&T long distance service.
These folks know how to make this stuff work, and you do
have to work with the business community. You have to bring
them into the equation. I do not know whether that is a carrot
or a stick, but it is something one can work with, and you
cannot say that about every country in the world.
Senator Feingold. Thank you. Senator Nelson.
Senator Nelson. Help me understand something of the
political instability now that was born out of the previous
regime of Siad Barre.
Dr. Menkhaus. The political instability in Somalia has, in
my view, gone through cycles. It is a radically localized set
of polities, and has been since the collapse of the state, but
we have seen periods of relative calm and political
consolidation, typically at the regional level, and then we
have seen things fall apart.
I think we are currently in a phase, I would say, of some
political deterioration. Part of that is born of the many
levels of tensions that were created when the Transitional
National Government was established. Up to that point, we were
seeing security levels in Mogadishu and parts of southern
Somalia that were better than we have seen since the departure
of UNISOM.
Now, there are tensions that I am in some cases quite
concerned about, the possibility of much larger-scale warfare
than we have seen in a number of years. That has been one of
the interesting trends in conflict itself in Somalia. It
continues to be a place, especially southern Somalia, of
sporadic armed conflict, but it is much more localized now.
Instead of having major factions fighting one another you have
got subclans fighting one another. Those fights tend to be much
shorter, in part because the clan elders can step in and stop
it. They tend to be shorter because the Somali diaspora in
local communities are not willing to fund that kind of fight.
Senator Nelson. And what about the previous regime caused
this to split apart as it is now?
Dr. Menkhaus. To go back to the root causes of some of
this, you could write a book on that, obviously, but there are
plenty. Somalia's conflicts are born in part of a history of
severe repression by the Siad Barre regime and reaction to
that, to ethnic tensions that the regime exploited in a divide-
and-rule campaign, and Somalis are still paying the price for
that. The high level of military assistance, first that came
from the Soviet Union, then from the West, that provided such
heavy levels of armaments, a very explosive level.
And then in the end I think one of the underlying causes
was just the size and the nature of the Somali State under Siad
Barre itself. This was, as I alluded to earlier, a castle built
on sand. One hundred percent of Somalia's development budget
was supplied from outside, 50 percent of its recurring budget
was supplied through foreign aid. The moment that that foreign
aid was cut, when Somalia became less strategically important,
the state shrivelled.
Barre used the state for patronage purposes. He had a
bloated civil service. He had a huge army. That was all
designed to buy people off. Once he lost that, he lost the
capacity--the center could not hold, and that is one of the
worries I have about a quick fix for a collapsed state like
Somalia. If the answer to the problem in some views is we need
to rebuild the state, and if it takes throwing money at it, so
be it, then I am afraid we are just setting ourselves up for
another failure on that score.
Senator Nelson. Earlier, you said that you did not think
that the religious climate there was conducive to the radical
Islamic element, and yet we keep reading a flurry of press
speculation that that is where we are going next. How would you
reconcile the two?
Dr. Menkhaus. In every country in the world there are going
to be religious extremists, no matter what the circumstances,
and Somalia is no exception, and they do have cells, al-Ittihad
cells. There is some evidence that some members of al-Ittihad
have had links with al-Qaeda as well. What I am arguing is that
at a social level, at a broader level there is not nearly as
much support in Somalia for the movement than one might
anticipate, given the circumstances that Somalis are in.
I attribute that in large part to a fundamental pragmatism
in Somali culture. To the extent that they do gravitate to
these kinds of ideologies, as they did 30 years ago with
socialism--suddenly everyone was a socialist. Why? Because
there were tangible benefits coming from the outside world.
I think that some of the attractiveness of al-Ittihad and
the al-Qaeda radical Islamic movements is because they are
perceived to be the only external interest in Somalia that is
providing schools and providing loans to businessmen. That
seems to be providing tangible results, and that is why I argue
we have got the carrots as well as the sticks to change that
calculation.
Ambassador Shinn. If I could just add on that point,
although I do not purport to be an expert on Islam, the kind of
Islam that al-Ittihad is representing is of the Wahabi sect
from Saudi Arabia and from the gulf. The traditional sect of or
creed of Islam in the Horn of Africa is Sufiism. Right from the
get-go there is a disconnect between what al-Ittihad is pushing
and what the local people have traditionally accepted. For the
reasons that Ken has laid out there is a certain acceptance of
what al-Ittihad brings to the table, because it includes things
that the people want.
Now, how committed most of these people are to what al-
Ittihad is selling on the terrorist side, who knows, but I
think that this is basically not fertile ground for any
widespread terrorist-type movement brought in by a group like
al-Ittihad or any similar group.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Senator Nelson, for your
questions and your participation. We will be starting votes in
just a couple of minutes, so I just want to ask one more
question.
Ambassador Shinn's written testimony states the list of
failed aid projects in Somalia is disturbingly long. What
lessons can be drawn from failed projects, what went wrong, and
how can those mistakes be avoided in the future?
Ambassador Shinn. A good question, and having said that, I
led off that part of my testimony with strong support for
targeted aid, that is, smaller projects working through
international and local NGO's dealing with things like road
rehabilitation, assisting local communities with primary
schools, et cetera. Those kinds of things can work, and even
some of the larger projects can and have worked in the past.
The ports of Berbera, Bosasso, Kismayo and Mogadishu were
all international development projects, and even though some of
those ports have gone into disrepair due to conflict, or due to
silting over, they were very successful ports in their day. A
couple of them are still very successful.
On the other hand, a lot of big-dollar projects that the
international community went into were not well-designed for
Somalia. They did not produce what they were supposed to
produce, and ended up, I suspect, in an awful lot of corruption
in the government at the time, the Siad Barre government. One
has to be very alert to the corruption element, and one has to
look very carefully at the size of projects.
They have to be carefully programmed for that country. You
cannot throw huge amounts of money at the development effort.
You have to begin, in my view, quite small, but I think you can
do that successfully and build over time, and bring the local
Somali community in your efforts so that you minimize the
corruption element. They are not all going to be successes.
There are going to be some failures, but I think it is possible
to do small projects, and do them well, working with NGO's.
Dr. Menkhaus. I spent a year in UNISOM, and we spent an
awful lot of time trying to buildup certain types of aid
projects there, and one of the things that strikes me when I go
back to Somalia today is, despite all of the energies and money
and training that we put into district councils as part of a
bottom-up political process there, you cannot find a district
council today. They have virtually all vanished, despite our
best efforts.
Meanwhile, we did nothing for the private sector. It did
not even occur to us to work to buildup a private sector, and
now you go over there and you see that there are these very
innovative entrepreneur sectors of the economy that are very,
very dynamic, and the lesson that that holds for me is that we
have got to be sure we are swimming with the tide in Somalia,
and not against the tide when it comes to foreign aid, that
foreign assistance needs to facilitate trends and innovations
that are already happening in Somalia anyway, and not trying to
impose something that has been thought up in the World Bank or
U.N. office.
Mr. Macpherson. I cannot help but echo that, and that is
the greatest lesson that we have learned there, and I really
liked what the Ambassador said, in essence, targeted and modest
right from the beginning and, as obvious as it sounds, to
incorporate the Somalis in the process. It is not a World Bank
level. It is what really works on the ground, how many miles or
kilometers of road need to be cleared to get the food to market
or the kids to school.
And the last thing is, is the glass half full or half
empty? From 1993 on, it is amazing to me that a nation-state
that completely collapsed could hold back some of the
influences that have been pressured on it from the outside. It
says an awful lot about the culture and the character of the
Somali people. With the terrorist aspect, it is amazing that it
is not prevalent throughout that entire nation, and that is
probably all I should say on it.
Senator Feingold. Well, I want to thank all of you. As a
concluding remark, let me say that this is through your great
efforts exactly what we had hoped this first hearing on this
subject would produce.
Looking back, obviously one of the lessons of September 11
is that there is no way that this Nation any more can simply
ignore festering situations, even in places in the world that
we know very little about, because of the potential
consequences not just for the people there, or in that region,
but for the consequences for ourselves and our children. That
is the lesson going back.
Going forward, the President has correctly called on us to
not lose our focus, that this is going to be a long struggle
that may involve military and other activity involving some
traditional countries that we are concerned about, but I think
he has to call for, and we all have to call for a similar
forward-focus over the long term in situations like this, and
that is going to be a challenge.
I think your last comments were perhaps the most helpful.
Clearly, we cannot return to simply ignoring a place like
Somalia or a place like Sierra Leone. On the other hand, if we
try to just jump in or do everything or go against the grain,
not only will it not work, but the American people will be very
concerned that we are going to use enormous resources that many
of them will be perceiving as wasted, so we have to do it in a
measured way, but I am grateful to all of you for getting us
off on the right track, and with that, with perfect timing----
Senator Nelson. Mr. Chairman, may I say one other thing? I
cannot resist saying this, but the discussion of this subject
of Somalia takes me back to January 1986, looking at Somalia
from the window of our spacecraft, and I am telling you this
simply to tell you it is one of the most beautiful parts of the
world from space, because of the color contrast of the reddish
brown of the land as brilliantly contrasted against the
brilliant blue of the water of the ocean, and it is
particularly vivid in my mind's eye on that, as compared to
other parts of the globe, that look much more of a dull brown
when you look at a land mass, but that was so rich in its tones
of color, bright brown, bright orange, set off against the deep
blue.
Senator Feingold. Well, if anyone has had a better claim to
having a unique perspective, I think that is a perfect way to
conclude the hearing.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]
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