Reconstruction Planning

Confronting Terrorism: Restructuring Somalia’s Primary Export

As the actions of Al Shabaab extended beyond the Somali border and into Kampala just a few days ago, leaving over 76 dead from the bombings, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the role of the AMISOM forces and the prospects for stabilizing this broken nation. Are the actions taken by UNISOM sufficient to achieve peace and security within Somalia? What more needs to be done, and more importantly, what actions can be taken based upon the available resources? Looking back over the African Union’s AMISOM newsletter, The AMISOM Bulletin, I only find evidence that UNISOM forces have pursued merely a conventional and unidimensional approach toward counterinsurgency. The only evidence to the contrary is a statement from the AMISOM Force Commander, Major General Nathan Mugisha, “ There is no military solution to this conflict; only a political solution, that is, dialogue and negotiations can achieve a lasting solution to the conflict in Somalia. Somalis must sit around a table and resolve their differences. The solution will not come from without; it will only come from Somalis themselves.” However this is only indicates a recognition of the political forces within the stabilization and reconstruction process, it does not make any reference to the sociocultural, economic, environmental, and global elements that are necessary to end the violence and benefit the lives of the inhabitants. It is obvious that AMISOM is ill equipped to meet facilitate all of these concerns, yet as the country remains bound by violence, it is difficult for NGO’s to fill in the gaps.Counterinsurgency is a complex process that requires more than just military action. It requires building relationships and most importantly, the ability to provide the local populations with something they consider valuable. It requires constructing metrics to determine progress, the development and implementation of a popular narrative for mobilization, and to have a keen understanding of the enemy that goes far beyond intelligence passed down from upper command.Within Somalia, it is important for counterinsurgent forces to recognize the founding factors of radicalism, terrorism, and militancy. Terrorism is not merely the product of social processes and economic devastation, but can be understood as an economic commodity. The socio-economic infrastructure is oriented around a culture of violence as much as it is concerned with other basic commodities such as food or shelter because in contemporary Somalia, survival requires an understanding of violence and its social underpinnings. As a lone individual, or as a part of a family or community, to survive and have insurance of future survival (security) is to either partake in the socio-economic processes that facilitate conflict or to avoid them. Either way, each course of action requires the same understanding of these processes.Sadly, as Somalia has been left to indulge in its own suffering and deterioration by the international community for so long, the internal economic structure has consolidated so that its exports can reflect nothing else. As there is no longer a sufficient livelihood in animal husbandry or agriculture, yet no infrastructure for technical development to partake in the global marketplace, one of the best options is to either partake in piracy or militancy. While the Somali people must necessarily seek greater unity and peace, without the sufficient infrastructure to carry out those goals, they lack a means to implement this vision in a durable fashion. In the end, the only way to negate the exportation of terrorism is to work toward a Somalia based on something more durable, less violent, and more integrated within the global marketplace. Mitchell Sipus on July 16, 2010