The Ghosts in Somalia: The Haunted Pieces of ‘Peace’ and ‘Peacekeeping’ in Somalia

Abstract

AbstractThe chapter looks at Somalia and the challenging search for positive peace. From pre-independence, Somalia has suffered negative peace as it spearheaded to free itself from the ‘colonial’ powers. Somalia imagined a political community in the Horn of Africa with all ethnic Somalis. The restlessness of a divided ‘homogenous’ society sends shockwaves to the neighboring states of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti with ethnic Somali populations at their borders and within, thus the root of Somalia’s negative peace. At Independence, British-Somalia chose to merge with the southern Italian Somalia. The larger goal was to attain Ogaden, and Haud in Ethiopia, Northern Frontier District in Kenya, and Djibouti symbolized by the Republic of Somalia’s five-pointed star. Instead, Somalia fragmented into pieces in 1991; British-Somalia declared independence as other areas later became federal regions. Subsequently, the ‘terrorist’ affiliate al-Shabaab took control of some areas.To date, Somalia struggles to keep an elusive peace as a sovereign state. As peacekeepers perform their mandates, the ghosts of the Cold War and independence, combined with clan animosity, terrorist clamor, and self-interested neighboring and powerful states, pull in different directions. Somalia’s positive peace is further now than it was at independence. Is there peace to keep in Somalia? Who is keeping the peace and how? What are their interests? Eventually, is there a way forward for Somalia's peace? The chapter uses conflict transformation theory to show that it has to be holistic for Somalia’s peacebuilding to hold. The work results from secondary sources and some primary data from a Ph.D. research besides archival materials. The chapter argues that self-interested bodies have used the opportunities to ‘restore peace’ in Somalia as a Trojan horse to gain access or scatter peace attempts. The ghosts in Somalia mean there is no peace; hence no ‘peacekeepers’, top, middle, and grassroots need to establish peace before peacekeepers attempt to keep it.KeywordsSomaliaPeacePeacekeepingEthiopiaHorn of AfricaCold war