|
Somalia Politics of Succession
The USC's announcement of a provisional government in
February 1991 angered its allies, who maintained that they had
not been consulted. Other opposition movements, particularly the
SSDF, felt that the USC had slighted their long years of struggle
against the Siad Barre regime, and refused to accept the
legitimacy of the provisional government. The SPM and the SSDF
formed a loose alliance to contest USC control of the central
government and ousted USC forces from Chisimayu, Somalia's main
southern city. Violent clashes throughout March threatened to
return the country to civil war. Although in early April 1991,
the USC and its guerrilla opponents in the south agreed to a
cease-fire, this agreement broke down in the latter part of the
year as fighting spread throughout those areas of Somalia under
the nominal control of the the provisional government. The
provisional government was continuing to hold talks on power
sharing, but the prospects for long-term political stability
remained uncertain.
The situation in northern Somalia was even more serious for
the provisional government. The dominant SNM, whose fighters had
evicted Siad Barre's forces from almost all of Woqooyi Galbeed,
Togdheer, and Sanaag regions as early as October 1990, had also
captured the besieged garrisons at Berbera, Burao, and Hargeysa
at the end of January; they were not prepared to hand over
control to the new government in Mogadishu. Like its counterparts
in the south, the SNM criticized the USC's unilateral takeover of
the central government, and the SNM leadership refused to
participate in USC-proposed unity talks. The SNM moved to
consolidate its own position by assuming responsibility for all
aspects of local administration in the north. Lacking the
cooperation of the SNM, the provisional government was powerless
to assert its own authority in the region. The SNM's political
objectives began to clarify by the end of February 1991, when the
organization held a conference at which the feasibility of
revoking the 1960 act of union was seriously debated.
In the weeks following Siad Barre's overthrow, the SNM
considered its relations with the non-Isaaq clans of the north to
be more problematic than its relations with the provisional
government. The SDA, supported primarily by the Gadabursi clan,
and the relatively new United Somali Front (USF), formed by
members of the Iise clan, felt apprehension at the prospect of
SNM control of their areas. During February there were clashes
between SNM and USF fighters in Saylac and its environs. The
militarily dominant SNM, although making clear that it would not
tolerate armed opposition to its rule, demonstrated flexibility
in working out local power-sharing arrangements with the various
clans. SNM leaders sponsored public meetings throughout the
north, using the common northern resentment against the southernbased central government to help defuse interclan animosities.
The SNM administration persuaded the leaders of all the north's
major clans to attend a conference at Burao in April 1991, at
which the region's political future was debated. Delegates to the
Burao conference passed several resolutions pertaining to the
future independence of the north from the south and created a
standing committee, carefully balanced in terms of clan
representation, to draft a constitution. The delegates also
called for the formation of an interim government to rule the
north until multiparty elections could be held.
The Central Committee of the SNM adopted most of the
resolutions of the Burao conference as party policy. Although
some SNM leaders opposed secession, the Central Committee moved
forward with plans for an independent state, and on May 17, 1991,
announced the formation of the Republic of Somaliland. The new
state's border roughly paralleled those of the former colony,
British Somaliland. SNM Secretary General Abdirahmaan Ahmad Ali
"Tour" was named president and Hasan Iise Jaama vice president.
Ali "Tour" appointed a seventeen-member cabinet to administer the
state. The SNM termed the new regime an interim government having
a mandate to rule pending elections scheduled for 1993. During
1991 and 1992, the interim government established the sharia as
the principal law of the new republic and chose a national flag.
It promised to protect an array of liberties, including freedom
of the press, free elections, and the right to form political
parties, and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to win international
recognition for the Republic of Somaliland as a separate country.
|
