Freedom in the World 2004 - Somalia

Political Rights: 6
Civil Liberties: 7
Status: Not Free
Population: 8,000,000
GNI/Capita: $120
Life Expectancy: 46
Religious Groups: Sunni Muslim, Christian minority
Ethnic Groups: Somali (85 percent), other [including Bantu and Arab] (15 percent)
Capital: Mogadishu

Overview

A year of talks hosted by Kenya failed to make much headway in securing a lasting peace in Somalia and establishing an elected national government in 2003. Delegates to Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG) missed deadlines to select members of parliament and schedule presidential elections. The three-year mandate of the TNG expired in August 2003, but it remained in place to prevent a power vacuum in the country. The president of the TNG, Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, and other key faction leaders have boycotted the Kenya talks since September 2003 following disagreements over the adoption of an interim constitution. The self-declared republic of Somaliland in the north has not participated in the TNG. Intermittent fighting among clan leaders and factions for control of Mogadishu and other areas claimed at least 200 lives in the last year. Concerns that Somalia harbors members of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations further complicate the picture.

Somalia, a Horn of Africa nation, gained independence in July 1960 with the union of British Somaliland and territories to the south that had been an Italian colony. Other ethnic Somali-inhabited lands are now part of Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. General Siad Barre seized power in 1969 and increasingly employed divisive clan politics to maintain power. While flood, drought, and famine racked the nation, the struggle to topple Barre has caused civil war, starvation, banditry, and brutality since the late 1980s. When Barre was deposed in January 1991, power was claimed and contested by heavily armed guerrilla movements and militias divided by traditional ethnic and clan loyalties.

Extensive television coverage of famine and civil strife that took approximately 300,000 lives in 1991 and 1992 prompted a U.S.-led international intervention. The armed humanitarian mission in late 1992 quelled clan combat long enough to stop the famine, but ended in urban guerrilla warfare against Somali militias. The last international forces withdrew in March 1995 after the combined casualty count reached into the thousands. Approximately 100 peacekeepers, including 18 U.S. soldiers, were killed. The $4 billion UN intervention effort had little lasting impact.

The Conference for National Peace and Reconciliation in Somalia adopted a charter in 2000 for a three-year transition and selected a 245-member transitional assembly, which functions as an interim parliament. Minority groups are represented, and 30 of the members are women. A government security force in Mogadishu has been cobbled together from members of the former administration's military, the police, and militias.

The TNG and more than 20 rival groups signed a ceasefire in October 2002 in Kenya as a first step toward establishing a federal system of government. However, over the next year, the talks deadlocked when some faction leaders dropped out to form their own parallel talks in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. The TNG was intended to comprise all the country's various clans, but is opposed by a number of warlords, some allegedly supported by Ethiopia; Somalia and Ethiopia have been at odds over a long-running border dispute. A final meeting of Somali leaders, billed as a last-ditch "retreat," is planned in Kenya for the second week of December.

In November, the UN Security Council extended its mandate in the country until 2005. Despite an arms embargo, the Security Council noted a "persistent flow of weapons and ammunitions" to Somalia in 2003. In October, a Somali delegate to the TNG was murdered, along with two Kenyan associates, in what appeared to be a business deal gone sour. The police arrested a former Kenyan member of parliament in connection with the murders.

Somalia is a poor country where most people survive as pastoralists or subsistence farmers. The country's main exports are livestock and charcoal. Three years of drought have led to a humanitarian disaster in the Sool and Sanaag districts in Somaliland, as well as parts of Bari district in Puntland, where some 60,000 people faced food shortages in 2003. The TNG has unsuccessfully called on the international community to unfreeze the assets of Somalia's Al-Barakaat telecommunications and money-transfer company to help the country's battered economy. Al-Barakaat was Somalia's largest employer, and hundreds of thousands of Somalis depended on it to receive money transfers from abroad. U.S. authorities froze the assets of Al-Barakaat in 2001 on suspicion that its owners were aiding and abetting terrorism, a charge the owners deny.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Somalis cannot change their government democratically. However, the 2000 elections marked the first time since 1969 that Somalis have had an opportunity to choose their government on a somewhat national basis. Some 3,000 representatives of civic and religious organizations, women's groups, and clans came together as the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development, following Djibouti-hosted peace talks, to elect a parliament in August 2000. The 245 members of the Transitional National Assembly (TNG) elected the president. More than 20 candidates contested the first round of voting for the presidency. The Inter-Governmental Authority chose the lawyers who drafted the country's new charter. Under the transitional constitution adopted by the TNG in 2003, the country's main clans will each receive a quota of the 351 parliamentary seats, although the process has bogged down in disputes over the nomination process.

Somaliland has exercised de facto independence from Somalia since May 1991. A clan conference led to a peace accord among its clan factions in 1997, establishing a presidency and bicameral parliament with proportional clan representation. Somaliland is far more cohesive than the rest of the country, although reports of some human rights abuses persist. Somaliland has sought international recognition as the Republic of Somaliland since 1991. A referendum on independence and a new constitution were approved in May 2001, opening the way for a multiparty system. Dahir Riyale Kahin of the ruling Unity of Democrats party emerged as the winner of historic presidential elections in 2003. Kahin had been vice president under Mohamed Egal, who died of kidney failure in 2002. Somaliland's constitutional court dismissed a challenge to the poll results filed by Kahin's rival, Solidarity Party candidate Ahmed Muhammad Silanyo, after ordering a recount. International observers from 14 countries declared the voting to be free and fair. Municipal elections in December 2002 also drew 440,000 people to the polls.

Puntland established a regional government in 1998, with a presidency and a single-chamber quasi-legislature known as the Council of Elders. Political parties are banned. The traditional elders chose Abdullahi Yusuf as the region's first president for a three-year term. After Jama Ali Jama was elected to replace him in 2001, Abdullahi Yusuf refused to relinquish power, claiming he was fighting terrorism. Yusuf seized power in 2002, reportedly with the help of Ethiopian forces.

Somalia's charter provides for press freedom. Independent radio and television stations have proliferated. Most of the independent newspapers or newsletters that circulate in Mogadishu are linked to one faction or another. Although journalists face harassment, most receive the protection of the clan behind their publication. The transitional government launched its first radio station, Radio Mogadishu, in 2001. There are three private radio stations and two run by factions.

Somalia is an Islamic state, and religious freedom is not guaranteed. The Sunni majority often views non-Sunni Muslims with suspicion. Members of the small Christian community face societal harassment if they proclaim their religion.

Several indigenous and foreign nongovernmental organizations operate in Somalia with varying degrees of latitude. The charter provides workers with the right to form unions and assemble freely, but civil war and factional fighting led to the dissolution of the single labor confederation, the government-controlled General Federation of Somali Trade Unions. Wages are established largely by ad hoc bartering and the influence of clan affiliation.

Somalia's charter provides for an independent judiciary, although a formal judicial system has ceased to exist. Sharia (Islamic law) operating in Mogadishu has been effective in bringing a semblance of law and order to the city. Efforts at judicial reform are proceeding slowly. The Sharia courts in Mogadishu are gradually coming under the control of the transitional government. Most of the courts are aligned with various subclans. Prison conditions are harsh in some areas, but improvements are under way.

Human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killing, torture, beating, and arbitrary detention by Somalia's various armed factions remain a problem. Many violations are linked to banditry. Several international aid organizations, women's groups, and local human rights groups operate in the country. In October, two elderly British teachers with the humanitarian group SOS Children's Villages were shot dead in their home. That same month, an Italian aid worker was also killed. The Somali authorities have made arrests in both cases.

Although more than 80 percent of Somalis share a common ethnic heritage, religion, and nomadic-influenced culture, discrimination is widespread. Clans exclude one another from participation in social and political life. Minority clans are harassed, intimidated, and abused by armed gunmen.

Women's groups were instrumental in galvanizing support for Somalia's peace process. As a result of their participation, women occupy at least 30 seats in parliament. The country's new charter prohibits sexual discrimination, but women experience intense discrimination under customary practices and variants of Sharia. Infibulation, the most severe form of female genital mutilation, is routine. UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations are working to raise awareness about the health dangers of this practice. Various armed factions have recruited children into their militias.