Mogadishu (Comment) — Since 2013 Somalia has had a permanent government, but the nation state cannot formulate foreign policy beyond attending conferences held in foreign countries. The dependency on foreign peacekeeping forces limits the ability of a country to have a robust foreign policy to protect its interests.
The diplomatic stature of a Somali president attending a bilateral or trilateral summit is not on par with his counterparts. There are several reasons why Somalia cannot formulate a foreign policy despite its sovereignty based on political and territorial unity.
Somalia is country whose government cannot guarantee security within its borders. The ramifications for this Institutional impotence are wide-ranging. In May 2017 António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the London Somalia Conference said that African Union peacekeeping forces were in Somalia to respond to global threats from transnational terrorism. The presence of a militant extremist organisation — Al-shabaab — gives neighbouring countries justification to invade Somalia. Kenya invaded Somalia in 2011 and 2012 “to prevent Al-Shabaab from waging attacks on Kenya inside Somalia.”
Neighbouring countries whose forces are fighting Al-shabaab have a leverage in shaping the direction of the Somali foreign policy. The civil war in Somalia created dependency of the political class on foreign countries and turned the country into spheres of influence for countries with vested interests. The latest example of limited sovereignty for which Somali leaders mistake full sovereignty is the Executive Order on Somalia issued by the United States to respond to threats to its interests and foreign policy.
Under such conditions powerful donors shape what passes for a foreign policy in a country like Somalia to lock the country in natural resource agreements in the absence of political accountability. The Italian plan for Africa unveiled in Addis Ababa is latest gimmick into Somalia was drafted.
If President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud underestimates the state-building tasks needed to be rooted in politics based on the rule of law for a political class he exemplifies for whom politics means clan politics, an argument the President had expounded in his PhD dissertation at the University of Peace, the role of peacekeeping forces in Somalia will unnecessarily be deepened to prevent the emergence of a viable state in Somalia.
Focusing on public relations stunts to please donors, and ignoring conflicts such as the one raging in Northern Somalia are what marks out the Federal Government of Somalia as a divisive political entity.
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