Over the
last four years, I have had numerous debates with my friend Mohamed
Ahmed Yahya aka Mo, a Briton of Somali descent about UPDF involvement in
his motherland. My view is that state consolidation is primarily an
endogenous process. External agents can help; but that assistance can
only be successful if its role is secondary, aimed at improving the
capacity of already existing strong and committed local actors.
The other serious internal actor to emerge ovThe other serious internal
actor to emerge over the last 16 years and secure effective control over
Mogadishu, establish order and security of person and property were the
Islamic Courts Union. Within a short time of taking over Mogadishu and
many parts of the country, they had used Islam to create some level of
unity and common purpose in a country long divided along clan and
sub-clan lines. They had also established the rule of law (hence the
term Islamic Courts) in a country that had only known the law of the
jungle. However, they were immediately bombed out of Mogadishu by the
Americans supported by Ethiopian forces on the ground.
Therefore,
the failure to recreate an effective state in Somalia has not been just
due to internal infighting among the different clan militias but most
critically external interference in its internal politics. My unorthodox
view is that it is better to minimally facilitate the strongest group
militarily to take control. Even if crude in its operational methods, a
group like Al Shabaab can actually be sanitised through cajoling, bribes
(of foreign aid and diplomatic recognition) and threats (of invasion or
criminal prosecution). Yet today the international community is pushing
for a functional democracy and civilised government in Somalia from the
word “go”; an unrealistic objective.
Mo, on the
other hand, has been a strong supporter of UPDF since it went in
telling me that the different clan and Al Shabaab militias have wreaked
so much havoc to be allowed to consolidate. On July 26, we boarded a
plane for Mogadishu. Although Mo was born there about 35 years ago, he
left the country when he was four years and had never returned. On the
plane we met other Somalis; one of them was carrying a Danish passport
and has been working in Somalia for an NGO, travelling through many
parts of the country. This was his first time to Mogadishu. The other
was a guy in his late 50s from Canada travelling with his son – again
going back to Somalia for the first time in 30 years. I sat next to a
Somali who now lives in Kenya but travels frequently to Mogadishu.
Mo and I
kicked off our long standing debate on the role of UPDF in his country –
is it liberation or occupation? Inadvertently we let lose the dogs of
debate on the plane. The Somali from Kenya supported fervently by Mo was
clear and unequivocal: UPDF and more precisely President Yoweri
Museveni of Uganda is the best thing to have happened to Somalia in 20
years. The Somali carrying a Danish passport took almost the opposite
view: UPDF’s counter insurgency operations have come at a very high cost
in civilian life, what Americans euphemistically call “collateral
“damage”. The one with a Canadian passport kept shifting between the two
positions unsure which one to really stand for.
My role
was to be an agent provocateur: all the time challenging the claim that
UPDF are liberators although for nationalistic reasons I would really
like to see our military seen by others as liberators. Besides my
brother, Col. Kayanja Muhanga, is the commanding officer of UPDF’s
Battle Group Eight that routed Al Shabaab out of Mogadishu. He is also
the deputy contingent commander of the UPDF in Somalia. Like any human
being, I am sure that even subconsciously I can only desire him to be
involved in something noble. But I was keen to listen to the views of
those most affected by the war – the Somalis – in Somalia.
Any theory
has to be tested on the ground especially among those who live the real
experience which the theory is meant to explain. If the views and
feelings of the concerned parties are incongruent with the theory, then
an adjustment is necessary. The tendency by most academics is to create
another theory to explain the incongruence – so Karl Marx came with
“false consciousness” and his followers in the imperialism school came
with “neo-colonialism”. Who is to tell that UPDF are liberators or
colonisers: the people of Somalia or a foreigner armed with an abstract
theory? The problem of course is that the people of Somalia – as seen
from the debate on the plane above – are not univocal. There are as many
opinions and feelings as the people who live there. However, if a big
majority, say 80 percent, feel that Ugandans are their liberators, who
am I to say otherwise?
At
Kayanja’s command headquarters, we met a young lady who had been blocked
by Al Shabaab from running her shop – because she is a woman and
therefore not supposed to do business. Now back to her business under
the protection of UPDF, she was passionate, almost hysterical, in her
denunciation of Al Shabaab and defence of our troops. I also met a young
boy of about 15 whose mother was killed in his presence by Al Shabaab.
Kayanja rescued him from the terrorists and now lives with him. For him,
the UPDF are not just his saviours but also his family.
When we
visited Lower Shebelle region, I held what Americans call “Town Hall”
meetings with ordinary Somalis many of them former leaders and fighters
of Al Shabaab now turned into soldiers of the Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) and intelligence officers for the UPDF. It is difficult
to know whether they could tell me their inner feelings given that I am
Ugandan and I spoke to them in the presence of UPDF soldiers. However,
there are many whose body language and passion in expressing themselves
made me believe they genuinely support our troops’ role in pacifying
their country. This was especially so with the younger former Al Shabaab
fighters.
One of
them is nicknamed “Arab”. He does not know when he was born, never went
to school and joined Al Shabaab for lack of anything else to do. Al
Shabaab gave meaning to his life; its ideology of fighting for Islam
tends to unite many Somalis from different clans and sub clans who would
otherwise never work together. And this unifying ideology is what is
missing in the TFG – this sense of a common purpose. Some of the Somalis
I met were critical of the politicians seeing them as seeking to build
their powerbases around the same divisions that have wreaked havoc and
dismembered their country.
The one
thing I noticed is that UPDF soldiers work with former Al Shabaab
fighters as brothers. They eat the same food around the same table –
there was no discrimination whatsoever, not even the slightest sign that
they are treated with any suspicion. I found this puzzling. Is UPDF
being naive? I asked my brother? No, he told me, we can feel many things
intuitively. Kayanja told me that when he was training his battle-group
with American “counterterrorism experts” in Singo, they told them very
many valuable things but equally very many erroneous ones. “Americans
think Al Shabaab, because they are labelled terrorists, are enemies whom
you should never bring near both organisationally and physically. In
UPDF we do not agree with such notions and it explains why we are
successful with only 6,000 troops where Americans failed with over
50,000.”
I saw hope
in the Special Force of TFG. Its combatants are young, passionate and
proud. They have a strong ideological conviction of ridding their
country of extremism and helping build a functional state and prosperous
economy. The few minutes (perhaps 30) I spent talking to them as they
broke their fast and prepared to go on a search and destroy mission that
evening was perhaps one of the most encouraging moments of my stay in
Mogadishu. I just fell in love with these youthful soldiers and wanted
to go with them on their missions and spend an entire day with them. For
“security” and other reasons of program I could not. Their rapport with
UPDF officers and men was great; and their admiration of our troops
amazing.
I was also
quick to notice that it does not cost much to transcend the dichotomy
of enemy and ally. I spent a couple of days with some of the captured,
rescued or surrendered Al Shabaab fighters now working with UPDF. In
those few days, a bond of friendship and mutual obligation with many had
emerged. I wondered whether it is a shared race (identity can be a
powerful emotion)? Or was it my naivety taking advantage of me? In Lower
Shebelle region, I asked the governor Abdul Kadhir Sidi to hire the
former Al Shabab chief of revenue collection, Hussein Mohamed, as his
tax man advising that this man’s skills are critical for the TFG.
Kayanja later called me to say that Mohamed had been hired as I had
asked, and he had even helped them arrest an Al Shabaab fighter passing
through the customs offices by alerting UPDF.
It became
clear to me that solving African problems actually needs African
solutions, even though there is also a lot to learn from outsiders. In
fact one of the ways through which people like Museveni and President
Paul Kagame of Rwanda have contained conflicts has been to avoid
treating their adversaries as permanent enemies. For Museveni
historically, the strategy has been to defeat the enemy militarily and
yet not subject them to the humiliation of defeat. Just when Museveni
feels the enemy is defeated, he enters into “peace talks” (even though
in effect they are actually surrender talks) with them. Consequently, he
has tended to integrate enemy combatants into the UPDF, the political
leaders into his government as ministers and some get financial
compensation to go home.
In Rwanda,
a similar logic has been applied. Whether Kagame learnt is from
Museveni or it was a pragmatic response to the conditions on the ground
is not important. After 1994, the RPF moved quickly to integrate
officers and men of the Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR), the army they had
routed, into the RPA now RDF. In July 1994 when it captured power, the
RPA was only 18,000 troops strong. By March 1995, they had integrated
over 25,000 ex-FAR, making it the majority in the new army. When Rwanda
entered into Congo in 1996, over 65 percent of the army was Ex-FAR. In
fact it was largely the Ex-FAR units that were sent to rout the
interahamwe and return civilians being hostage in refugee camps. When
international human rights groups claim that RPF committed genocide
against Hutu refugees in Congo, they are actually saying that Hutu
officers and men committed genocide against their kith and kin – utter
nonsense!
It is not
clear whether Uganda’s attempt at state building in Somalia will work.
It is really too early to tell. Besides, immediately there is peace in
Somalia, the attention of its people will shift from the threats of Al
Shabab to even little mistakes by our troops. Once Al Shabaab is
finished, even small transgressions now tolerable are likely to become
explosive. Assuming a UPDF mamba on one of its forays knocked and killed
a Somali child or an errant UPDF soldier raped a Somali woman. Such
small incidents can be tolerated now but will become fault lines
tomorrow. How will UPDF cope with growing Somali nationalism demanding
end of liberation that will now have turned into occupation? We do not
know.
For now, I
can only conclude by re-echoing the lesson I got from my brother, Col.
Kayanja: UPDF has succeeded with only 6,000 troops in Somalia where
America failed with 50,000 – not because it has superior fighting skills
but because it has a superior ideology and a superior counter terrorism
doctrine.
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