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ABSTRACT
This article provides critical examination and explanation of the claim of ‘clan cleansing’ in Somalia as was featured forcefully in the recent book by Lidwien Kapteijns on the 1991 Somali clan convulsions. Upon the publication of the book, conflicting narratives of the Somali conflicts were projected from oral discourse to academic venture as the debate over who lost what, why and where in 1991 and over who won, what, why and where has become both a politicized project and an academic phenomenon. By problematizing the whole picture, the article casts the light on Kapteijns’s book and demonstrates how inaccurate simplistic statements were used as a documentation of the clanized conflicts. Blaming specific clans and communities of complicity for ‘clan cleansing’, when there is no reliable and real proof, is tantamount to igniting a new round of warfare. Drawing on long experience of living and working in Mogadishu – the city where this reviewer was born and bred as well as the site of the conflict itself – and also using interviews conducted with players and bystanders of Somali politics across clan lines, the article argues that Kapteijns has produced a work of mythico-history. By identifying the invalidity of partisan and partial points, the article reveals a work of lobbying for certain clans at the expense of others.
RÉSUMÉ
Le présent article fait un examen critique et une explication du supposé « nettoyage clanique » en Somalie tel qu'il fut présenté avec force dans le dernier ouvrage de Lidwien Kapteijns sur les convulsions claniques somaliennes de 1991. Lors de la publication du livre, des récits divergents des conflits somaliens étaient projetés, allant du discours oral à l'aventure académique au cours du débat sur qui a perdu quoi, pourquoi, et où en 1991 et sur qui a gagné quoi, pourquoi, et où a été à la fois un projet politisé et un phénomène académique. En problématisant la situation dans sa globalité, le présent article met en lumière l'ouvrage de Kapteijns et démontre comment les déclarations simplistes inexactes ont servi à documenter les conflits clanisés. La condamnation de clans et de communautés spécifiques pour complicité « d'épuration clanique », sans preuve sérieuse et tangible, équivaut à déclencher un nouveau cycle de guerre. En s'appuyant sur sa longue expérience de vivre et de travailler à Mogadiscio, la ville qui a vu naitre et grandir l'auteur de cette analyse ainsi que la zone du conflit měme, et à l'aide d'entretiens menés avec les acteurs et les observateurs de la politique somalienne à travers les lignes claniques, l'article soutient que Kapteijns a produit un travail mythico-historique. En identifiant l'invalidité des points de vue partisans et partiaux, l'article révèle un travail de lobbying pour certains clans au détriment des autres.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Of all the clanocides meted out by the military dictatorship to certain communities, Kapteijns mentions just two ‘collective clan punishments’ (Citation2013, 80 & 87, 90).
2 Samatar himself, a Daarood academic in the US, saw the Somali government in Mogadishu as a Hawiye government, because it was led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, a Hawiye (e.g. Samatar Citation2013). Nuruddin Farah has also hinted that he does not recognise President Mohamoud as a Somali President nor does he see him someone representing him or his clan. In short, to his mind, the President is a rival clan President (Farah Citation2013). Farah’s diatribe came after the heated dispute between President Mohamoud and Farah’s clan Ogaadeen élites over the partial declaration of the clan mini-State of ‘Jubbaland’ backed by neighbouring Kikuyu-led Kenyan government. This despite the fact that Farah himself has admitted that he met his father in a refugee camp in Kenya wherein the father verbally assaulted (even insulted) the Hawiye as a people in general. He wrote during the height of the war between the Hawiye and the Daarood: ‘I asked my father why he thought he would be killed, simply because he was from another clan […] ‘Mogadiscio has fallen into the clutches of thugs’, my father went on, ‘no better than hyenas. Now, could you depend on a hyena to know what honour is, what trust is, what political responsibility means?’ (Citation1996, 6, 9, paras 5 and 7)
3 The role of the Siad Barre regime was noted, but its agency in the Hawiye versus the Daarood was dismissed. It is when Kapteijns leaps from her own misinterpretation to persecutory statements that she falls down. She misleadingly argues that the military regime has been the subject of scholarly inquiry for ‘at least three major studies’ (Citation2013, 77). However, she maintains drawing on only those studies that verify her aims. Missing (and ostensibly shrugged off) is the most nuanced study that both historically contextualised and politically surveyed from the 1960s to the 1990s. The substantial study of Simons (Citation1995), which is an ethnographic work conducted in Mogadishu months before the collapse of the dictatorship is missing in Kapteijns’s discussion of literature on the fall of the regime. Menkhaus and Craven reported that retreating Siad Barre militias ‘combed the state farms, as well as the Somalfruit banana warehouses and garages, initially stripping them of vehicles and cannibalizing them for motors, furniture, spare parts, and any other movable goods’ (Citation1996, 173). For similar penetrating studies, see Brons (Citation2001), Hashim (Citation1997) and Ingiriis (Citation2012a, 63–94).
4 However, Kapteijns reduces the death toll in Hargeysa at 5,000, when it was 50,000 casualties as confirmed by the Human Rights agencies in the US and the UK.
5 This was the same policy followed by Siad Barre in his regime (Aroma Citation2005, 143). This is yet another fundamental point downplayed by Kapteijns (Citation2013). However, she is close to acknowledge it elsewhere, when she stated that Siad Barre was responsible for pitting one clan against another (2001a, 28).
6 The book has endangered a controversy among Somali popular media and chatting groups. For an open letter, see Abdulkadir Osman ‘Aroma’, ‘An Open Letter to Professor Kapteijns: A Rejoinder’, Hiiraan Online, March 28, 2013. www.hiiraan.com/op4/2013/mar/28686/an_open_letter_to_professor_kapteijns_a_rejoinder.aspx (accessed 17 April 2013). Most recently, one wondered Somali blogger posed a serious question about the political benefits of the book for one community against the other over the State spoils. Available at: http://www.somaliaonline.com/community/topic/faisal-roble-seems-pretty-obsessed-with-the-book-clan-cleansing/ (accessed on 19 October 2014). For a poem (with explanation) criticising the book, see Eno (Citation2013, 22–31).
7 Elsewhere, Menkhaus (Citation2006/07, 84, 85 & 98) has also used the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ very broadly without defining what he means. At the same time, he has recently noted that ‘[w]hen xeer breaks down, revenge killings, threats of violence, or actual attacks by whole sub-clans against other lineages come to play a central role in the advancement and protection of clan interests’ (Citation2014b, 561). Elsewhere, Menkhaus recognised that what happened in 1991 was ‘general chaos’ (Citation1996, 173). Likewise, he has recently acknowledged that what happened in 1991 was ‘communal violence’ (Citation2014b, 569).
8 Cf. Adam (Citation1992, 11–26); Aroma (Citation1995); Besteman (Citation1999); Bongartz (Citation1991); Ahmed (Citation1995a, Citation1995b, ix–xiv); Cassanelli (Citation1996, 13–26); Duyvesteyn (Citation2005); Kusow (Citation1994, 31–46); Luling (Citation1997, 287–302); and Marchal (Citation2013, 331–54). In Kapteijns’s (Citation2013), there is no discussion of such a civil war literature, particularly what triggers and sustains the Somali wars. For a theoretical explanation, see Elbadawi and Sambanis (Citation2002, 307–34).
9 Abdiweli Gaas, who is currently leader of Puntland mini-State and briefly served as Prime Minister (2011–2012) in President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s government, was an informant and narrator whom Kapteijns contacted via email, telephone and from a gathering in Garowe (e.g. Kapteijns Citation2013, 246n16, 262n157, 264–5n40, 267n78, 267–8n81 and 269n100). On how Kapteijns became entangled and attached to this particular clan members, see among others (2001c, 719–22, 2001d, 10–18, 2000, 25–34, 1999, 27–47, 1992, 175–80). However, Kapteijns does not acknowledge her familial relations with her informants. By failing to do so, she reproduces the reductionist literature against which she chastises in chapter 3 (Citation2013, 146–58).
10 Eltringham’s quote is cited in Kapteijns (Citation2013, 240).
11 ‘Response to David Laitin’s Reflections On Clan Cleansing In Somalia’. Available at: http://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2013/11/14/response-to-david-laitins-reflections-on-clan-cleansing-in-somalia/ (accessed on 27 December 2013). Cf. Kapteijns (Citation2001a, 11).
12 This does not mean to imply that what happened Somalia was an echo of Sierra Leone; on the contrary, Somali clan convulsions were nothing compared to Sierra Leonean wars.
13 Lewis has, nevertheless, employed these concepts differently in relation to alienation (Citation1973, 581–91).
14 These books, booklets and pieces were written by politically-conscious authors who considered themselves as ‘victims’ and hence advocating for their clan-group.
15 Samatar described ‘the clan massacres’ and ‘senseless cataclysm’ and ‘clan massacres’ to make sense of what occurred in 1991 (Citation1990/1991, 138). The 1990s wars were not simply between the Hawiye and the Daarood. As one detailed study on Somali social order described: ‘After Barre’s overthrow, the Daroods were endangered by retaliation from other clan lineages’ (Sorens and Wantchekon Citation2000, 14n14). It should be noted that the Daarood was not targeted as a Daarood, but as a beneficiaries of the State. Since the Daarood as a people became synonymous with the State, primarily because of clan affiliation with Siad Barre, they were identified with his oppressive clano-military regime after the fall. Hence, clan reprisals started where nearly 4,000 Somalis across clan lines were killed in a tit-for-tat clanised war. Human Rights reported that most of those killed were pro-Siad Barre supporters (Human Rights Watch Citation1992, 4).
16 Aidan Hartley has written about his experiences in reporting from the 1991 clanised wars in Somalia in his memoir, The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands (Citation2003).
17 For example, Pacifico’s meeting with Siad Barre is repetitively reproduced (e.g. Kapteijns Citation2013, 122, 126, 144 & 260).
18 Other Somalists would offer a unique insight into the MODH structure and grasp the gist of the concept if they could possess with linguistic mastery of the Somali rather than approaching it from (mis)translations by an interested third party. For reflective poetical analyses on the conflict, see Ahmed (Citation1996).
19 It is important to reiterate that the term ‘enemy clan’ was constructed, not after the overthrow of Siad Barre, but during his military rule. Surprisingly, the so-called enemy clans were hurdled at harsh condemnation in Kapteijns’s (Citation2013).
20 This statement cannot negate the fact that her informants were part of the 1991 consequence of the long clan dominance and oppression as long as they partook their role of the civil war.
21 Kapteijns carries war poetry, classified in her own individual judgement as ‘prestigious’ and ‘nonprestigious’ genres, with preferences of the latter, which means not to shy away of clanism (Kapteijns Citation2013, 53).
22 It is surprising that Kapteijns also leaves out women’s genre of poetry, Buraanbur.
23 On the misinterpretation of Kapteijns’s analysis on poet Mohamed Ali Ibaar’s resistance to the Ethiopian occupation, see Kapteijns (Citation2010, 57–64).
24 For example, Afyare Abdi Elmi has pointed out to several poets from the opposition groups, but not to those on the side of the military regime (e.g. Elmi Citation2010, 51).
25 Barda’ad was arrested in 1978 (The Indian Ocean Newsletter, Citation1984, 4). Compagnon (Citation1995, 347) put the date of his detention at 1975. Faarax (1990, 42) also claimed that Barda’ad was detained nearly 20 years by the Siad Barre regime, but the truth was that he was in prison for more than a decade. However, in 1992, Barda’ad gave an interview to visiting American newsmen in Gedo, detailing his determination to support Generals Siad Barre and Morgan, his clansmen. The interview to which is referred could be watched here: ‘1993 General Mohamed Hersi “Morgan”’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z8DwaomdOU (between min 00:05–02:34), accessed on 12 January 2015.
26 The thesis of my previous article on Siad Barre’s last days tackles Kapteijn’s statement that ‘written analyses of Barre’s tactics are still schematic, perhaps because no clan group dares to denounce the perpetrators among its own ranks’ (Kapteijns Citation2001a, 28; cf. Ingiriis Citation2012a, 63–94).