Evidence from an Alternative Path to Reconciliation: The Case of Somaliland

Abstract

The International Community’s work in conflict management and peace-building in Africa has usually been associated with a double regime of responsibility: protecting humanitarian rights and enforcing democracy. However, existing research suggests that these attempts have rarely improved the humanitarian conditions of conflictual societies, or either encouraged their democratic aspirations. Following the pitfalls met by traditional conflict management, alternative approaches have been advanced and scholars have explored to what extent the transformative power of conflict (Vayrynen, 1991; Azar and Burton, 1986) can actively reduce the level of violence in ongoing conflicts. Hence, this paper presents the case-study of the grassroots peace-building in Somaliland, where an alternative approach to conflict management has achieved more interesting and sustainable results than those pursued by the traditional diplomacy in Somalia. The empirical part of this paper introduces first the failures of the international intervention in Somalia and afterwards it describes the Somaliland alternative route to reconciliation, focusing on three aspects: the resort to traditional methods of conflict management; the gradual and preparatory nature of this peace process; the codification of traditional peace-building into a process of institution-building. This paper argues that the community-based approach adopted in Somaliland has been most productive then the traditional mechanisms adopted by the International Community in Somalia, given the ability of the ‘community’ to bypass two fundamental dilemmas that affect the top-down methodology: the ownership and the legitimacy dilemma.