Comment: We Cannot Afford to Lose The Shark

We got over the demise of the dodo, the passenger pigeon and even the Chinese river dolphin, but will the human conscience ever get over the upcoming possible extinction of sharks?

Conservative estimates reckon that between 30 to 70 million sharks are killed annually in commercial and recreational fisheries, and some conservation organisations put that figure closer to 100 million.

Sharks are killed for a whole manner of reasons, their meat is used for food, fins for soup, cartilage in health supplements, livers for oil, skin for leather and teeth for curios, some are even killed for the sheer pleasure of it.

And demand is increasing. As whitefish stocks have collapsed, previously unprofitable shark fisheries have become commercially viable and shark meat more acceptable.

Even in the most optimistic of scenarios this slaughter cannot be sustained. Sharks do not produce huge numbers of eggs like other fish, their young are either born live or in egg cases, and the average brood is only about 12 pups.

Sharks first appeared on earth some 400 million years ago, before land vertebrates and before many plants had colonised continents. Modern sharks, such as the mako and the porbeagle, are regarded as living unchanged from the species we see today, 100 million years ago. The oldest great white shark teeth date from about 65 million years ago, around the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The fact that present-day sharks have not changed substantially for the last 100 million years suggests that they may have attained a level of evolutionary perfection that is unmatched by any other animal. And yet during the last 20 years alone humans have done more harm to sharks than had been done in the previous 100 million years, with some species of shark declining by 90%. It would be sadly ironic that having survived the extinction of the dinosaurs sharks may well disappear from this planet for the sake of a rather tasteless soup.

Humans have been responsible for the extinction of a single species of animal in the past, but never have a whole order been endangered as we see with sharks. In barely the time it has taken to set up and establish a cohesive shark conservation strategy we are in danger of losing one of the most iconic and evocative animals this planet has ever known.

Shark fishing is mostly unregulated, and conservation measures have been too slow in coming, but we can act now individually. If you see a Chinese restaurant selling shark fin soup, or a health food shop selling shark supplements, or a shop selling shark meat, or a media piece showing a sports fisherman with his dead shark trophy, take five minutes of your time to tell them that this is totally unacceptable.

An ocean would not be an ocean without sharks, and as an apex predator they are crucial to the marine ecosystem and yet the current situation for sharks couldn't really be much worse I'm afraid. We are on the brink of losing an animal that unlike others perhaps, we as humans, really cannot afford to lose this time.


Written for Hii Dunia by the Blue Planet Society

In Pictures: Exiled

Over 80,000 Tibetans have fled the Chinese occupation of their country and established a refugee community in Dharamsala in India. The former British Hill Station has been the site of the Tibetan government in exile since 1960, and is home to their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Many of these refugees have walked hundreds of miles across the Himalayas to reach Dharamsala to escape presecution, to seek education, and to be near the Dalai Lama. Most have left their familes behind and hope to eventually return to Tibet.

This series of portraits are from two important locations for the exile community. Firstly the Refugee Reception Centre where newly arrived refugees are provided with accomodation, food, basic amenities and support with building a new life in the community and secondly the Shugseb nunnery, where both novice and experienced Nuns lead a life of prayer, religious study and meditation.

All of the above pictures are from a series called 'Exiled' by photographer Laura Stevens and can currently be seen as part of an exhibition called 'Battleground' at the Brighton Media Centre, Brighton, UK.



Links & Resources:

Brighton Photo Fringe - Information about 'Battleground'

Laura Stevens - Homepage of photographer

Somalia: A Fractured Nation

A woman held up a Koran at a recent rally in Mogadishu, at which people expressed opposition to having foreign peacekeepers based in Somalia. Picture Credit: Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times

A deteriorating official economy, displaced and repressed people, a corrupt regime, a large shadow economy involving the large scale sale of small arms, and a severe draught dictating a severe scarcity of resources, came to ahead in Somalia in the early 1990s with disastrous consequences, according to George Ayittey President of the Free Africa Foundation “Armed thugs and bandits roamed the country, pillaging and plundering, and murderous warlords battled savagely for the control of the capital, Mogadishu. The carnage and the draught claimed over 300,000 lives, and heartbreaking spectacles of emaciated bodies of a famine that became the daily diet of the Western media”.

All of Somalia’s underlining problems exploded upon Somali society when Siad Barre’s regime was overthrown by the USC (United Somali Congress) and was replaced by an interim government led by Mohammed Ali Mahdi in 1991. The Somali National Movement (SNM) proclaimed independence from Somalia breaking away to form Somaliland in the North, leaving the rest of Somalia fractured, stateless, and lawless, with an abundance of small arms from the Cold War era circulating on the shadow economy, as many sought security within clan identities. US and UN humanitarian intervention in early to mid 1990’s sought to reconcile the fragmentation of Somalia, but was criticised for making the situation worse. Foreign aid gave Somali warlords a greater ability to fund and continue violent offensives. Warlords exchanged aid for small arms upon the shadow economy creating new nodes of authority. Jacqueline Coolidge and Susan Ackerman writing for the World Bank noted “it is now understood that the politics of warlordism in Somalia is no more than a logical extension of the Siad Barre’s methods of wielding power…. Aid to Somalia has been part of the problem, not part of the solution.” Moreover, this has continued as foreign aid capital has been replaced by shadow economic networks.

According to a report in the Somaliland Times the main actors within the Somali conflict centre upon the control of property that enables them to generate, authority and profit through illicit infrastructure. Control of illegitimate airports, markets and bridges that carry a toll allows warlords to make a profit within the power vacuum left by the collapsed state. This makes fighting and power struggle within Somalia dependent upon material investment rather than notions of state building or political power struggle. The profits generated from illicit taxation allows Somali Warlords or businessmen that back the Warlords to buy arms from an endless list of willing sellers through illicit means. UN experts according to the Somaliland Times reported to the security council in 2003 that “Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, the Sudan, Yemen, Egypt , Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have given arms, money or training to Somali factions” at some point since 1991.

William Reno in a special piece for the Somaliland Times argues that the factors that have brought about the collapse and the continual fragmentation of the Somali state are not purely economical or clan based. He claims that institutions that have lasted the Somali conflict that have created violent and economic authority cannot be traced solely to structures within the collapsing state, ethnic lineage or clan families. Moreover, he claims orthodox structures of authority such as those who control the legal arrangements that exist within Somali society, world economic players and alliances with non state international actors are essential when attempting to understand the unorthodox social evolution of Somalia since the collapse of the state. Such institutions still exercise a degree of control over what and who is considered legitimate, who gets available resources and where coercion is exerted. Not discounting that Somali traders have continued economic and inter-clan networks of trust following the collapse of the state, with Somali scholars identifying at least 67 sub clans from the six major clan families that have formed defensive networks against predation since the 1990s, making clan lineage not necessarily detrimental to Somalia’s strife. For instance, oral history from the Jabba river valley outlines how loss of elder control over matters of matrimony will lead to disruption- as has been the case, while throughout other regions of Somalia (according to The Global Review of Ethnopolitics) “traditional clan structure … acted as a framework for identity the settlement of disputes and conflicts, and communal security”. However, it is undeniable that some clan structures have cooperated with violent entrepreneurial-ship activity, as by clan nature not all clan families have the same history or cultural heritage.

As the faltering Barre regime became more repressive in an attempt to hang on to power it led to a fracturing of security that to a large extent created privatised nodes of authority that would make transition to democratic rule more difficult. During the 1980s the regime began to privatise Somalia’s economic assets so that they would be tied to the regime, allowing the regime to administer authority through privileged economic networks. An example of this dates back to as early as 1975 when the regime expanded land tenure law, encompassing it in patronage networks, by giving legal legitimacy to those civil servants and businessman that could get government backing. This enabled them to claim traditional clan owned village that were not already being used for commercial farming. This has had an adverse affect especially upon southern inter-clan relations as the law was applied mostly to Southern lands destroying any autonomous traditional authority over resources. The severity of the situation meant that economic power, especially in primary export resources was now tied to a quickly fragmenting state. This has resulted in many of the most violent warlords that emerged post state collapse being part of patronage networks during the regime. An example being, General Mohammed Aydeed, a former elite within the Barre government during the 1980s, that with political backing giving him the authority to administer land in Southern river valleys, provided land on which ‘Mooryan’ (free lance armed groups), could settle. Moreover, those tied to Aydeed including his principle backer Osman Ato organized the looting of locally owned farmsteads before establishing militia controlled banana plantations that exported to Europe, providing financial support for his violent campaigns in Somalia after the collapse of the state. The already embedded networks of Southern elites meant that much of Northern Somalia was marginalized. However Barre still exercised control in the North through violent means arming Ogadeeni refugees to fight Isaaq communities that were thought to pose a threat to his rule. The control of those that posed a threat through violent armed groups made clans fight against each other down clan lineage divisions, destroying hope that stable political order would emerge after regime collapse. While illicit trades on the shadow economy promoted the fragmentation of Somalia and authoritative elements that may have had a hand in building a new order.

Rigid divides between communities formed as a result of outsiders disrupting and seizing local lands due to coercive policies created animosity and security dilemmas between communities. This forced people to seek protection from clan militias and outsiders that exploited land and resources to lead long-term violent campaigns and build rigidified ethnic in groups and out groups Moreover, since the collapse of the regime studies show that very few Somali’s have benefited from aid, with agriculture only receiving 22 percent of development spending in the 1980s, the vast majority of which was invested in large scale commercial farming in the South that was dominated by those with links to the Barre regime. The result of such un-equal and deprived spending in many parts of Somalia was that marginalized, disfavoured groups were forced to rely upon the shadow economy. This had a reinforcing affect upon warlords who participated in shadow economy activity to generate revenue for violent struggle.

The link between the Barre regime and patronage networks that dictated who controlled economic resources following the collapse of the regime meant that there was very little space for the emergence of indigenous resistance and traditional nodes of authority to stabilise Somalia. Groups that may have been able to resist the onslaught of ‘warlordism’ such as the Somali African Muki Organization (SAMO) based within the Shebelle and Jubba valleys representing the Bantu population, do not have the same access to the economic resources that were granted to warlords via patronage networks during the Barre regime. This can be seen as a taking away of responsibility of organized violence from clan division, and instead placing responsibility on regime malpractice. Moreover, it can be argued that a cause for the continuation of conflict in Somalia can actually be traced back to colonial influence that broke with customary networks of trade between what are now competing clans and regions. The same can be said upon the destruction of the traditional authority held by elders that influenced land and marriage arrangements, which helped haze ethnic lineage boundaries.


Links & Resources:

Free Africa Foundation - Washington Based NGO advocating "African Solutions for African Problems"

Hii Dunia - Previous Somalia articles

Somaliwide - Useful Somalian news source

The Somaliland Times - Online home of this English language important weekly paper

University of Denver - "The Collapse of Somalia and Economic Considerations" a paper by T. Craig Murphy

More For Less - Film Award Nomination

Filmmaker Sonal Sachdeva has been nominated for best documentary film at the ‘Reduction Festival’ for her excellent short film ‘More for Less’ shown on this site in July.

The film is the story of two men called Martin and Alf who have been living over the past few years from the excessive waste generated by other people. In their way they have chosen to go against the societal norm of having steady, paid jobs and yet survive comfortably by not participating in the process of earning money and adding to the burden of existing over-consumption.

Hii Dunia wishes Sonal the very best of luck and if you too would like to show your support for her film you can cast your vote here by going to the category marked 'Documentary'.


Links & Resources:

Filmakers For Conservation - Organisation of Environmental filmakers backing the Reduction Festival

green.tv - Site dedicated to hosting Environmental themed short films - including 'More For Less'

Hii Dunia - 'More For Less'

Reduction Festival - Festival Homepage

Vimeo - View more of Sonal Sachdeva's films

Can Zardari uphold Pakistani Democracy?

On Tuesday 9th September 2008 Asif Ali Zardari the husband of the former two times Prime Minister the late Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as President of Pakistan. Here Faisal Hanif asseses Zardari's past and asks if Pakistan's first democractic leader this century is fit and able enough to guide this most fragile of democracies through possibly its most difficult of days.




Becoming President seems the most unlikely of achievements for a man who was indicted on endless charges of corruption for the past decade before the assassination of his wife and spent many years in prison as a result. What makes Zardari’s victory even more remarkable is that until Benazir’s assassination he had been in exile from the country for most of the last decade and returned only upon the assassination of Ms Bhutto last December. Up until July 2008 he was still facing corruption charges and as early as last month he was part of a coalition government with Pervez Musharraf still in power as President. The election of Mr Zardari marks a most remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of a man who for most of his career has carried with him the most unceremonious title of Mr ten percent in depiction of his less than amicable business and political dealings. In fact before Ms Bhutto's death, Zardari’s public image was so bad that the Pakistan People’s Party went to great lengths to keep him out of the public eye as much as possible in the run up to February's general elections. Having so recently been seen as a liability for the PPP it is somewhat of a miracle that Zardari is in the position he now currently occupies.

This does not by any means imply that Mr Zardari has now gained immense popularity. On the contrary recent polls have suggested that forty four percent of the population rejected all three of the candidates in the general election. The PPP main opposition the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by former two times prime minister, Nawaz Sharif (still the most popular politician in the country) holds sway in Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous region of Punjab. Zardari’s comprehensive victory in the Presidential election did not rely on the population vote but a parliamentary electoral system where members of both of Pakistan’s parliamentary bodies and provincial assemblies decide on the new incumbent. Yet Zardari’s election as President has in the words of retired army General Talat Masood “made him the most powerful civilian President one can imagine." This is especially as he inherits a scope of powers that includes the ability to sack parliament, appoint army chiefs and control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Put it like that and many more would be indisposed to Zardari possessing the top job.

Unfortunately such simplistic notions do not hold sway over the ultimate factors that determine any politician’s fate especially in Pakistan. Asif Ali Zardari gained 480 of 702 Electoral College votes to give him victory and be sworn in as the fourteenth President of Pakistan in its sixty year history. A clearly delighted Zardari proclaimed the victory as a completion of the democratic process. Flanked by his two daughters, supporters and members of the PPP shouted slogans of ‘long live Bhutto’ in memory of their martyred leader. The assassination of Ms Bhutto has no doubt impacted on Zardari’s rise to president. Her death invigorated a fragmented political opposition in Pakistan which had failed to provide any serious opposition to Musharrafs’ reign as President. Yet it also provided Mr Zardari with a platform as de facto leader of the Pakistan’s largest political party to wield control. In the aftermath of Bhutto’s assassination Zardari’s accession has represented all the hall marks of a Machiavellian type politics to not in his words complete democracy but form a political dynasty led by him and allied to Bhutto name.

The story of this perceived cunningness begins in the immediate aftermath of Ms Bhutto’s assassination with the publication of her will which Zardari claimed to have. Her perceived wish was for her husband to take up the leadership of the political party. This is somewhat remarkable especially as mentioned Bhutto herself and the PPP had gone to great lengths to distance Zardari’s involvement with the party or politics in the aftermath of her return to Pakistan. Secondly given Zardari political liability and his status as a relative novice in such high office the decision seemed a strange one to say the least. What happened next was even more remarkable in that Asif Ali Zardari declined to accept such office and passed on the reigns to his nineteen year old son Bilawal. This was just as astonishing as Pakistan’s largest political party was to be headed by an Oxford undergraduate who had spent most of his life outside of Pakistan and had no political experience what so ever. The genius of such a manoeuvre on Zardari’s part was twofold. Firstly this was a man who realized his legitimacy for such high office was susceptible given his past dealings especially as at this point corruption charges continued to linger over him. To accept such a position without challenge would no doubt have led to the previous rhetoric of a devious and power hungry businessman come to the foe. Yet this is not a man who was about to let the opportunity of power slip so easily. In a supposed gesture of humility Zardari declined the position that his wife had anointed for him and passed the buck to his teenage son. Pakistani law does not allow someone so young to take up such high office and Zardari was not oblivious to this fact. While naming his son as a titular head for the time being Zardari would take up day to day running of the party and soon the country. He also announced that his children would from now forth be known by the name of Bhutto Zardari as opposed to the latter singular. Zardari use of Benazir’s death was symbolic making sure that the legacy of the Bhutto name would continue with him as its torch bearer. The famous Pakistani religious and political commentator Tariq Ali stated this in no uncertain terms in an article published in the Independent newspaper the day after Ms Bhutto’s assassination as he wrote "the Pakistan People's Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader,… the deadly angel who guided her when she was alive was, alas, not too concerned with democracy. And now he is in effect leader of the party."

What came next was an ingenious manipulation in the turmoil of Benazir’s death which would lead Zardari towards the top position. This was held at the time by Musharraf and first he must be got rid of. To do this Zardari called for unity on all sides to restore democracy in Pakistan. This meant allying himself with the traditional foe and influential ex Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This was a major coop as Sharif had perhaps a bigger axe to grind with the man whom he had appointed Army Chief and who later would dispose of him as leader of the country. This did not prove too difficult a job as firstly elections in the aftermath of Benazir’s assassination scored an inevitable victory for the PPP. The beneficiary it seemed was a Yousaf Raza Gillani vice chairman of the PPP who was drafted in as Prime Minister to complete what Zardari referred to as the first phase of restoration of democracy. This was another surprising decision to say the least. Firstly as Gillani was elected in front of the universally popular Makhdoom Muhammad Amin Fahim who had been de facto head of the PPP for eight years of Benazir Bhutto’s exile and whose election record is 7-0 as a member of parliament. It is no exaggeration to suggest that this was the man most qualified and legitimised to take over as leader of the PPP after Bhutto’s death. On March 15th 2008 Fahim himself said that he did not understand why the PPP had still not named him as its candidate. It is clear why as this was an influential man well liked by the people who would not be susceptible to manipulation by any other. What Zardari required was a puppet and despite such a bold and controversial interpretation such a claim can be emphasised by Mr Gillani’s arrival in Washington where upon he was greeted by none higher than Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. Many news agencies reported on the lack of diplomatic courtesies extended towards Mr Gillani and his entourage who were told to remain on the plane while Mr Gillani and his wife looking rather perturbed walked to a welcome shed instead of the usual complimentary chauffer driven experience handed to state officials. It says much of the standing of an individual who despite heading a vital United States ally in foreign affairs not to mention a nuclear state is given such a lack of prominence upon a state visit. Notably Zardari’s visit as President a few months later did not see the absence of any of the usual pomp that accompanies significant world leaders.

The coalition government with an elected PM was now in a very strong position to get rid of Musharraf. Yet this coalition existed on a number of stipulations on Sharif’s part. Firstly the disposed Supreme Court judges that had caused such an up roar with in the country and in turn signaled the beginning of the end of Musharrafs rule where to be reinstated. Of course it was under this same judiciary that allegations pertaining to outstanding corruption charges against Zardari where still pending. With this condition agreed to but later not met and Sharif’s instance on both factions uniting behind a non partisan candidate to head the country as president Sharif announced his parties decision to cease from a coalition with the PPP on August 25th 2008 stating repeated broken promises by Asif Ali Zardari on resolving a judicial dispute and on who should be the next president. This was a cunning manoeuvre by Zardari to play Sharif against Musharraf, getting rid of one while isolating the other. The path was now clear for Zardari to put himself up for the top job of President. Mr 10 % was now to become Mr 100 per cent.

Of course such a view seems opinionated and open to vast scrutiny but what makes such sentiment is in the words of Dr Farzana Shaikh, of London's Chatham House think-tank, "the problem with Zardari is not that he is a unknown quantity it is he is a known quantity" and as the old proverb goes a leopard cannot change its spots. It remains to be seen how Zardari performs with troubles looming on all sides. The United States has moved quickly to make sure Zardari is in line with its war on terror strategy. Yet with the war spilling over into Pakistani borders recently the issue of Pakistani sovereignty has come to the foe with Zardari’s inaugural address siding very much with the American position. In relation to the much documented problems with the Taliban and Al-Qaida presence with in Pakistan Zardari made a bold statements presenting common ground with America on the issue. The response was brutal as a day later a car bomb decimated Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel sending a clear message to Zardari of the battle he faces. Secondly the issue of the army remains an everlasting problem for any elected official in Pakistan. Despite General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani stating very clearly that he would make sure the army stayed out of politics such sentiments can never be relied upon especially with Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty at stake. After all it was differences between Sharif and Musharraf over Kargil and India’s incursions that led to the former being dismissed. And finally there’s the Bhutto curse. Having allied himself with the Bhutto name and legacy Zardari must also contend with its consequence that has seen so many prominent members of the family killed. Even in his inaugural speech as President Zardari was keen to highlight the Bhutto influence stating "I accept this position on behalf of my martyred wife.’ Given Zardari’s past record a return of any of these most unsavoury incidents of Pakistan’s history may be a blessing in disguise for the nation". Yet as with any aspect of Pakistan’s turbulent history watch this space.


Written for Hii Dunia by Faisal Hanif

Picture: Getty Images

Somalia: The Conception and Expansion of Patronage Networks

To fully understand the initial reasons for the expansion of the shadow economy in Somalia analysis needs to be directed to the colonial and Cold War era, where foreign powers held great influence over the Somali economy. In pre-colonial times Somalia was a relatively peaceful homogenous society that held very strong ties to the land. However, these were neglected by Italian and British colonisers, as Pietro Toggia and Pat Lauderdale writing in Columbia International Affairs Online point out; “land and its sacred identity of place was neglected by the colonialists with propriety of ownership and production becoming the central concept”.

Due to this negation by the colonial powers traditional trade relations between different clans within Somali were strained or destroyed. The major trade relationships that had served many of the Somali people well for centuries was between the primarily agricultural clans in the South that held territory in and around fertile river valleys and those that occupied drier regions and dealt mainly in livestock. Colonialism disrupted the trade between such groups as Somali’s were dictated to by their colonial administrators in order to create a situation of dependency upon their colonial power. The North of Somalia now the defacto state of Somaliland was affected differently from the South by their British colonisers. British colonialism did not employ the same coercive technique of breaking up trade routes as Italian colonialism. Instead they pursued their political and economic goals by keeping the native population underdeveloped to a degree. In many ways due to Cold War benefaction colonial dependency in Somalia did not end until the fall of the Barre regime. A further factor from the colonial era that has had recriminations today was the arbitrary drawing of a national boundary around the Somali clans, creating tensions that would have served the colonial powers divide and rule techniques well. When administering state boundaries the colonial powers showed little regard towards clan heritage and traditional living such as the nomadic lifestyle of some sub clans of the Darood, Ishaak, Hawiya and Dir that traditionally lived nomadically, sometimes venturing across borders into Ethiopia and Kenya establishing trade routes.

Cold War support for Somalia was mainly a reaction to politics within Ethiopia primarily concerned with the militarization of Somalia rather than the establishment of progressive politics. This meant that there was little social and political development made while arms were pouring into Somalia, as Stephen Zunes Professor of Peace and Justice at San Francisco University outlines in Foreign Policy in Focus “as the US poured in more than $50 million worth of arms annually to prop up the Barre regime, there was virtually no assistance offered that could help build a self-sustaining economy”.

During the Barre regime the official economy failed to diversify away from what Somalia’s colonial powers had dictated. Somalia’s trade was primarily regional with its main export markets being Saudi Arabia that brought much of Somalia’s exported beef, and Kenya. However, trade with both Kenya and Saudi Arabia was subject to irrational economic circumstances as both the Saudi Arabian and Kenyan border was shut to Somali trade at various times during the 1980’s. The Kenyan President of the day Daniel Moi shut of trade with Somalia periodically due to regional violence and instability. This had severe consequences for those who imported and exported the mild stimulus ‘qat’ that grows in the Kenyan highlands that is very popular with Somali’s.

Although the shadow economy was prevalent in Somalia prior to the collapse of the state in 1991, its growth was embedded within the collapsing of the regime. Western liberal policy advocated by the major International Financial Institutions (IFIs),( the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank) dictates that a large shadow economy can lead states to collapse as governments raise taxes to increase their revenue that in turn causes a flight into the shadow economy, further weakening government authority. IMF researchers Friedrich Schneider and Dominik Enste claim “a heavily regulated economy combined with weak and discretionary administration of law provides especially fertile ground for shadow economy activities”. Initially the Barre regime followed a policy of heavily regulating the economy in line with their socialist doctrine. On the 8th May just one year after taking control the regime authorised guidelines for the tight control of the economy including the nationalisation of the Italo-Somali Electric Society (SEIS), oil distributing companies and all foreign banks. Such a situation was complicated in Somalia due to regime rule, a poor failing official economy, foreign aid, intervention, and clan rivalries. All of these factors enabled and led to the expansion of the shadow economy as Somali’s sought security and food.

Warlords are able to generate extra revenue through involvement with the illegal trade of qat, which according to a 2003 panel of UN experts has been used to generate revenue to buy weapons and prolong Somalia’s internal strife. Qat use increased dramatically after the outbreak of civil war possibly due to its virtues of escapism. International aid agencies have cited the use of qat, commonly known in Somalia as khat, as a primary cause of the continued fragmentation of Somali society as researchers have estimated 75 percent of adult males use the stimulus that has addictive properties that can lead men away from traditional family and work responsibilities.

When the Kenyan border closed Somalia entrepreneurs turned to the shadow economy in order to smuggle ‘qat’ across the Somali / Kenyan border to sell in provincial Somali markets. Through the illegal cross-border trade Somali smugglers were able to avoid paying tariff chargers and trade licenses for the ‘qat’ making it more lucrative to smuggle on the shadow economy than to import officially. As the Barre regime became increasingly oppressive, corrupt and de-legitimised, expansive networks began to form for shadow economic activity. By the late 1980s trading in small arms was prevalent within the Somali shadow economy as private Somali entrepreneurs often with links to the Barre regime sold small arms to Somali clans, and resistance fighters in regional states such as Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, at the same time as this upsurge in small arms sale upon the shadow economy the Barre regime was becoming increasingly violent towards political opponents with incidents of mass jailing, attack on civilians and the indiscriminate use of landmines in dissident regions as Julius Ihonvbere writing in ‘Somalia: The Real Background Issues’ claims that “the Majareeten, the Isaacs, and the Hawiye clans were ruthlessly suppressed.” Such action did not have the results the regime intended or expected as opposition to the Barre regime and inter-clan violence began to erupt. Moreover, increasing numbers of weaker minority clans and sub-clan groups became displaced from their territory, further worsening the official economy and security in Somali society.

Written by Lee Taylor

Photo Credit: Nasteex Faarax - AP

Links & Resources:

Covertaction.org - Michel Choussudovsky - 'The Globalization of Poverty: Impacts of IMF and World bank Reforms'

Foreign Policy in Focus - Stephen Zunes - 'Somalia as a Military Target' (Updated)

Hii Dunia - Somalia related articles

Review of the African Political Economy - Publications' Home Page

The Washington Post - 'Khat Trade Rules in Somalia'

Somalia: The Nature of the Conflict

Armed clashes were most destructive and widespread in Somalia between 1988-1992 due to the overthrowing of the Barre regime, extreme resource depravation and clans jostling for political position. However, throughout the course of the 1990s conflicts in Somalia altered radically. In the early 1990s conflict almost always was based upon inter-clan fighting, as the UNHCR reported “the first explosion came immediately in the wake of the fall of Mogadishu, when the victorious Hawiye started to kill all non Hawiye residents of the capital”. This was also the case in the South with widespread fighting between the Darood and Hawiye clans over control of territory and resources. The primary funding of such conflicts was through pillaging and looting defeated clan territories and villages. However, as early as late 1991 although generally more prevalent in the mid to late 1990s there was a sign that intra-clan quarrels would lead to further conflicts as the major Hawiye clan in Mogadishu split in two forming the ‘Abigal’ led by Ali Mahdi and the ‘Haber Gedir’ led by Hussein Farah Aideed. Such a split brought an onslaught of heavy fighting throughout various districts of the capital, making a quick restoration of peace impossible. Meanwhile, the Darood clan based in Southern Somalia also conceded to intra-clan fighting in and around the Southern coastal city of Kismayo. While inter-clan hostilities still prevailed in many other parts of the country such as at Baidoa between Rahanweyn and Hawiye clans. This has had a knock on affect upon ethnic topography that has become distorted in many parts of Somalia, especially the border regions due to migration and temporary settlement caused by the social strife resulting from clan conflict.

Throughout the 1990’s the break-up of different clan allegiances became the primary prerequisite for fighting. This had implications for Somalia’s battered social tissue. Atrocities against civilian populations began to decrease due to the localised nature of intra-clan conflict and the re-emergence of traditional based authority from clan elders, meaning that conflict crimes would be more likely to be punished through clan customary law (xeer) or the enforcement of blood payment (diya). Pillaging and looting also saw a decrease in intra-clan conflicts as less territory was gained in such clashes. This indicates that actions and interests in Somalia following the collapse of the Barre regime have not remained fixed. It could also be argued the change of conflicts from one based upon ethnicity to one based upon interests will give external actors more leverage in building peace.

Clan based political actors such as the United Somali Congress (USC), the Somali National Front (SNF) that emerged following the overthrowing of the Barre regime have since retreated from the political agenda in Somalia. This is partly due to the fracturing of ethnic divides and the breaking up of numerous lead organizations. An example being, the split in the mid 1990s of the USC, into the Somali National Alliance (SNA) led by General Mohammed Farah Aideed and the Somali Salvation Alliance (SSA) led by Ali Mahdi Mohammed. Similar fracturing has led to a weakening of support and power for many of the warlords and militias since the years immediately after 1991, making those groups that once benefited smaller and more fractured.

Ken Menkhaus a professor of Political Science at Davidson College North Carolina claims most businessmen who initially profiteered from conflict have made a transition into more legitimate goods and commercial networks. Professor Menkhaus writing in the Review of African Political Economy indicates that recent armed conflict in Somalia is not so much driven by economic interests directly linked to warfare but rather, “parochial political agendas of individual leaders engaged in power struggles.” Moreover as previously mentioned this is often within their own sub-clan. Menkhaus further argues in his article in the Review of African Political Economy that Somalia’s continual collapse cannot be explained only by greed interests as they would profit more from an internationally recognised ‘paper state’, allowing them to attract foreign aid that the elites could pocket as was the case with much of the aid that was given to Somalia during the 1990s. This however is not the desire of many Somali clans, militias and businessmen, as attempts to establish a transitional government in Somalia have been met with an increase in armed conflict, as many groups remain with the capacity to spoil a peace process.


Links & Resources:

ROAPE - Review of African Political Economy homepage.

UNHCR - 'Somalia: Civil War, Intervention and Withdrawl 1990 -1995'

Links & Resources - September 2008

No More Aid?

The third grandly titled ‘High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness’ took place earlier this month in the Ghanaian capital Accra. Convened to increased aid effectiveness and transparency the forum looked at factoring new actors as well as criteria into the aid paradigm. These included broadening the range of civil society input and factoring in climate change to aid targets.

The promises made at the Accra forum led Development Industry to speculate of a World without the need for Aid Donors and Development Agencies.

The Better Aid blog has for the past week carried a host of articles detailing the events in Accra. Written by Nuria Molina in this article she heartenly applaudes the role played by civil societies at the conference.


Somalia

Throughout this month Hii Dunia is hosting a series of articles by Lee Taylor and others on the contemporary history of Somalia and the plight of its people.

This week the Frontline Club in London is hosting a series of events to draw attention to what it sees as the forgotten plight of Somalia. A series of screenings and talks culminate on Thursday 11th September with a Media Talk called ‘Somalia – War Within Wars’. Speakers include Sally Healy from the UK based think tank Chatham House and the editor of Africa Confidential Patrick Smith.

With more than 8000 Somalians killed by ongoing fighting in the last year many thousands more have fled and joined the already large Somali Diaspora that has found refuge in the World’s largest refugee camp at Dadaab just inside Kenya. The Guardian’s Xan Rice reported from the camp earlier this month. The camp and others are currently experiencing a rise in its numbers from those fleeing the latest civil instability within Somalia.


Children in Conflict

The ‘Forced Migration and Current Awareness Blog’ this month listed seven publications it sourced that have focused on the continued role of children in conflict and the lasting effects this can have on them.

From the Front Line last month carried an engaging article based on the work of CARE International highlighting the continued role of Children in the conflict in Eastern Chad and Darfur. The reporter David Axe wrote;

“...on June 20 this reporter observed several child soldiers in Chadian army service during a massive “friendly fire” incident in the eastern town of Gore. For two hours, elements of the Chadian army fought a running battle with other Chadian soldiers, each side apparently mistaking the other for Sudan-based rebel infiltrators.”


Other

Meanwhile, Kate over at the excellent Unpacking Development site is attending another conference. This site's knack at adding a personable touch to subjects or events that can otherwise appear distant or irrelevant is refeshing. Kate has recently attended the Medicine 2.0 conference in Toronto her experiences of the conference can be found here and here.

Somalia: The Rise of the Clan

Genealogy lies at the heart of Somali social and clan systems exemplified by the Mareehaan clan who still revere former leader Said Barre as a hero due to his immediate link with them, overlooking his ruthlessness and political corruption. The map below (click to enlarge) shows Somalia’s six major ancestral clan families, that are the; Darood, and the Hawiye that are the most prevalent in and around the capital Mogadishu, the Isaaq who were severely persecuted by the Barre regime, the Dir, the Digil and the Rahanwayn. The Dir, Darood, Hawiye and the Isaaq are often livestock dependent and nomadic, making their organisational structures transient and fragile with shifting allegiances and informal networks formed to promote power, in non-fixed regions.

Academic Alex de Waal claims that IMF and World Bank policies of Structural Adjustment Programmes have had a negative impact on clan-ism, helping to lead Somalia to a state of collapse. De Waal argues that IMF and World Bank attempts to alleviate Somalia’s economic problems during the 1980s neglected clan culture and traditions imbedded in Somali tradition. Claiming that IMF policies instigated in Somalia weakened traditional systems of exchange between clans that developed an importance upon co-dependency and traditional clan values such as the authority of elders that could dictate clan actions, making them easier to control through diplomatic means. Moreover, de Waal further critics the World Bank and IMF reforms for being half-hearted, lacking any genuine attempt to develop and offset Somalia’s economic woes in the long run and causing a weakening of the formal economy and the state, “The economic policies forced upon Somalia by the Western donors aggravated the situation…, deflating the formal economy merely drove entrepreneurs into the informal economy” he claims in his paper.

With the absence of any state authority, warlords and local elites have gained social, political and economic power throughout Somalia, indicative of Vilfredo Pareto’s assertion “whenever the influence of public authority declines, little states grow up within states, little societies within societies”. This contravenes liberal global governance paradigms as non-state actors that are hostile or possibly just have alternative values and interests to the liberal peace agendas of; rule of law, human rights and democracy are seen to possess a challenge to the status quo of the international system. Moreover, institutions of global governance such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), states and trans-national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are concerned that the disintegration of state authority in one state threatens the stability of other regional states. However, sub-state networks of powerful groups are not new in African states. Often chiefs or regional warlords are able to trace their authoritative lineage which has allowed them to remain in control of economic incentives at the local level to pre-colonial times. Moreover, during colonialism powers often disseminated their power to regional elites and strongmen for administrative and political purposes. These combined have had an affect upon power networks within present day Somalia and since the collapse of the Barre regime.

The Implications of a Collapsed State

Following the collapse of central authority in Somalia there has been much debate concerning possible socio-economic developments which may be radically different to the neo-liberal model. Needless to say economic activity did not stop but rather altered, creating different nodes of economic authority dictated by and dictating that some accumulated vast amounts of wealth and resource, while many were forced into a daily routine of survival. However, such economic inequalities are not new to Somalia although economic prosperity became tied to a greater ability for power-entrepreneurship, as before those who had wealth also required ties to the state to exercise the same degrees of authority and political will. As a consequence of greater gains combined with fewer restraints informal cross border trade grew, linking the internal Somali economy with global economic linkages. This allowed many of Somalia’s border territories to remain on an economic plateau with some of its’ neighbouring states. Moreover, following the departure of all US and UN troops in mid 1995 the Somali economy actually improved, benefiting those that had links to informal patronage networks.

Somalia’s major economic sector, livestock, is well suited to a stateless system in a number of ways as there is a heavy reliance upon systems of kinship, and tradition making it more of a lifestyle for many Somali’s rather than merely a means to accumulate wealth. However, there is still a great divide between the Somalia of livestock, herdsman and petty trade and the Somalia of arms, warlords and conflict in economic and political capabilities. The lack of health and education facilities in part due to the conflict and partly due to rural Somali culture has weakened capacities for social progress and fluidity between groups that are involved in separate economic and social sectors. Moreover, intra-state conflicts by their nature are very divisive for inter-group or ethnic relations while also strengthening bonds within groups, leading to an increase in tension as well as greater inter group disparities. This takes on greater importance in Somalia as clan divisions can disrupt trade between regions, as trust is critical for trade when there is little or no legal enforcement.

State collapse allows for the emergence of different nodes of authority that are often independent of outside support or legitimating actors. Mark Duffield argues in his book “Global Governance and the New Wars” that to regard war solely as a form of aberration and breakdown fails to understand the complexities, significance and adaptive processes that take place behind the bloody curtains of intra-state conflicts. The development and transformation of society and objectives that alter in circumstances of social breakdown remain to a large extent un-critiqued by western academic literature due in part to the illegality of much of the activity. As Duffield argues, when images of state collapse, conflicts and suffering appear on the evening news it is hard to acquaint them with western ideals of progressive social adaptation and possible statehood formation. Furthermore, liberal global governance attempts at settling disputes have not adapted or acknowledged the radical alterations in civil conflicts. Liberal peace agendas still focus upon formal economic activity that in countries such as Somalia represents a contracted footing for development prospects and only indirectly engages much of the population. Moreover, market liberalisation programmes such as Structural Adjustment Programme’s (SAP’s) of the 1980’s and the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIDPC) schemes in the 1990’s actually lessened the population’s reliance upon the state for basic needs such as education and health, further legitimising the informal networks as a means of survival.

A Change of Nature within Conflict

To fully analyse the extent to which economically driven patronage networks impact upon the collapse and continual breakdown of any vestige of legitimate central governance within Somalia, greater examination of the warring parties is required to understand how they are resourced and through what means they establish a legitimisation of authority. It is important to examine how elites and warring groups function politically and economically, how they are resourced, what security they provide. Armed clashes were most destructive and widespread in Somalia between 1988-1992 due to the overthrowing of the Barre regime, extreme resource depravation and clans jostling for political position. However, throughout the course of the 1990s conflicts in Somalia altered radically. In the early 1990s conflict almost always was based upon inter-clan fighting. This was also the case in the South with widespread fighting between the Darood and Hawiye clans over control of territory and resources. The primary funding of such conflicts was through pillaging and looting defeated clan territories and villages. However, as early as late 1991 although generally more prevalent in the mid to late 1990s there was a sign that intra-clan quarrels would lead to further conflicts as the major Hawiye clan in Mogadishu split in two forming the ‘Abigal’ led by Ali Mahdi and the ‘Haber Gedir’ led by Hussein Farah Aideed. Such a split brought an onslaught of heavy fighting throughout various districts of the capital, making a quick restoration of peace impossible. Meanwhile, the Darood clan based in Southern Somalia also conceded to intra-clan fighting in and around the Southern coastal city of Kismayo. While inter-clan hostilities still prevailed in many other parts of the country such as at Baidoa between Rahanweyn and Hawiye clans. This has had a knock on affect upon ethnic topography that has become distorted in many parts of Somalia, especially the border regions due to migration and temporary settlement caused by the social strife resulting from clan conflict.

Throughout the 1990’s the break-up of different clan allegiances became the primary prerequisite for fighting. This had implications for Somalia’s battered social tissue. Atrocities against civilian populations began to decrease due to the localised nature of intra-clan conflict and the re-emergence of traditional based authority from clan elders, meaning that conflict crimes would be more likely to be punished through clan customary law (xeer) or the enforcement of blood payment (diya). Pillaging and looting also saw a decrease in intra-clan conflicts as less territory was gained in such clashes. This indicates that actions and interests in Somalia following the collapse of the Barre regime have not remained fixed. It could also be argued the change of conflicts from one based upon ethnicity to one based upon interests will give external actors more leverage in building peace.

Clan based political actors such as the United Somali Congress (USC), the Somali National Front (SNF) that emerged following the overthrowing of the Barre regime have since retreated from the political agenda in Somalia. This is partly due to the fracturing of ethnic divides and the breaking up of numerous lead organizations. An example being, the split in the mid 1990s of the USC, into the Somali National Alliance (SNA) led by General Mohammed Farah Aideed and the Somali Salvation Alliance (SSA) led by Ali Mahdi Mohammed. Similar fracturing has led to a weakening of support and power for many of the warlords and militias since the years immediately after 1991, making those groups that once benefited smaller and more fractured.

Ken Menkhaus a professor of Political Science at Davidson College North Carolina claims most businessmen who initially profiteered from conflict have made a transition into more legitimate goods and commercial networks. Indicating that recent armed conflict in Somalia is not so much driven by economic interests directly linked to warfare but rather, “parochial political agendas of individual leaders engaged in power struggles.” Moreover as previously mentioned this is often within their own sub-clan. Menkhaus further argues that Somalia’s continual collapse cannot be explained only by greed interests as they would profit more from an internationally recognised ‘paper state’, allowing them to attract foreign aid that the elites could pocket as was the case with much of the aid that was given to Somalia during the 1990s. This however is not the desire of many Somali clans, militias and businessmen, as attempts to establish a transitional government in Somalia have been met with an increase in armed conflict, as many groups remain with the capacity to spoil a peace process.

Written by Lee Taylor


Links & Resources:

Hawiye News - Colourful site for those interested in Hawiye Clan affairs

Hii Dunia - Previous Hii Dunia Somalia Articles

International Monetary Fund - IMF articles relating to Somalia

My Heart's in Accra - Ken Menkhaus's Insights into Somalia

Political Review Net - Review of Mark Duffield's 'The Merging of Development and Security'

University of Connecticut - 'Somalia and Survival in the Shadow of the Global Economy'

Russia's Mr Big: A Profile of Igor Sechin

Igor Sechin is an interesting phenomenon in modern Russia because he is both a politician and a businessman. He is Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, but he is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosneft, the predominantly state-owned Russian oil company. Like the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitrii Medvedev, Sechin is a close associate of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Until he became President, Dmitrii Medvedev had been Chairman of the giant Russian gas company, Gazprom. Another important difference in the backgrounds of Sechin and Medvedev is that whereas Medvedev has a legal background, Sechin’s background is in diplomacy. A gifted linguist, he served in the Soviet era in Africa as a translator for Soviet diplomats in Angola and Mozambique, countries which during the 1980s were fronts in the Cold War. He may in fact have been a translator for Russian military intelligence.

Conflict of interest

Igor Sechin is at the centre of one of the most important developments in modern Russia. In the 1990s the oligarchs, men like Boris Berezovskii, were genuinely powerful people. They had come from outside the state apparatus, but through their acquisition of banks, oil companies and newspapers they acquired an influence over the government. Under Vladimir Putin, the political climate changed. In the Russia of Putin, big business is at the mercy of the state and the big prizes now go to those, like Sechin, with a background in government service. There is an obvious conflict of interest in Igor Sechin’s position. Sechin’s political role means that he has loyalties and obligations to people outside the company of which he is chairman. At the same time, as long as he is Chairman of the Board of Rosneft, he cannot be expected to be a disinterested Deputy Prime Minister. According to the Kremlin’s website, helping coordinate government policy on energy and industry comes into Sechin’s sphere of responsibilities. However, given his dual role, he can hardly be relied on to ensure a ‘level playing-field’ in Russia’s energy sector, and his natural adversaries in the Russian government include figures like the President himself who are specially associated with Gazprom. But in theory, the President and the Deputy Prime Minister are united by their loyalty and obligations to Putin, to whom they both owe their careers. Sechin and Putin have worked closely for many years, and by all accounts Sechin is devoted to him.

The Khodorkovsky affair

Sechin has been the winner in this large-scale transfer of property away from the private sector and back to Russia’s traditional ruling class, the bureaucracy and the secret police. The big loser was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now in prison in Siberia. The story of Mikhail Khodorkovksy and his oil company Yukos is very involved. For a variety of reasons to do with the direction in which Khodorkovsky was taking the company and with Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions, Khodorkovksy became Putin’s enemy. Khodorkovsky wanted to turn Yukos into an oil major that could deal on equal terms with the big American oil companies. Putin wanted the Russian state to be in control of Russian natural resources so as to add to Russia’s clout on the international stage. Under President Yeltsin, Russian tax law had been very confused, and the line between tax avoidance and tax evasion was unclear. So, while tax fraud was not the reason for Putin’s hostility to Khodorkovsky, the Kremlin found it very convenient as a pretext for ruining the oil baron and confiscating his wealth. The trial of Khodorkovsky, as is clear from Valerii Paniushkin’s book, was a parody of justice. The imprisonment of the tycoon inaugurated a new era of large-scale transfer of assets into public ownership. Sechin became Chairman of Rosneft in 2004 and Khodorkovsky was sentenced to jail the following year. Throughout Putin’s presidency Sechin continued to serve as Putin’s aide in the presidential administration. By 2007, Sechin’s company, Rosneft, eventually acquired the bulk of Yukos’s assets. Indeed, Khodorkovsky believes Sechin egged Putin on to destroy him and the company out of greed, though deference to his master’s wishes was probably just as powerful a motive. Incidentally, Sechin’s daughter is married to the son of Vladimir Ustinov, the Russian prosecutor who was involved in the Yukos case.

A centrifugal force

The Khodorkovsky affair demonstrated to everyone that Putin and his ‘strong men’ from the KGB, the ‘siloviki’, would now be writing the rule book for Russian business. Bishop Stubbs’s description of later medieval England as an era of “bastard feudalism” came under subsequent criticism from medievalists, but the term seems entirely appropriate to describe the Russia of Putin and Sechin. A clan or gang has a gang-leader. The gang-leader has carved out a network of supporters from within a bureaucratic hierarchy. (In Russian business, the letters KGB are now thought of as a much more valuable qualification than the letters MBA.) The gang-leader retains the loyalty and support of the group because he has a grip on the apparatus of state, and therefore can reward his ‘tail’ of clients. A hundred friends are worth far more than a hundred roubles. An influential bureaucrat will shake down a private company, or even break it up, for the benefit of his friends and relatives, or to reward the business rival of the target company. This system has some disturbing implications for modern Russia. Through state contacts and state collusion, it is possible to do over a business rival and advance one’s position. But the mechanism of intrigue and judicial manipulation can be turned against oneself at any time by one of one’s own rivals. The new generation of Russian businessmen has profited from the ruin of their predecessors; but unless they constantly strive to win the favour and approval of Sechin and his ilk, they can never be sure of avoiding exile or imprisonment in their turn. By definition, an arbitrary and capricious government undermines respect for the law and thereby weakens the authority of the state. Sechin is widely suspected to be behind the hounding of the oil baron Mikhail Gutseriev last year; his business, Russneft, was then sold to a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin, Oleg Deripaska. But Sechin has been implicated in infighting which has led to the arrests of people within the state apparatus as well as outside it, including, last year, a senior official in the Ministry of Finance, Sergei Storchak. The factional rivalry even with the circles of the siloviki is very bitter: although, given the amount of money at stake, this is perhaps to be expected.

Velvet reprivatisation

If the Czech Republic experienced a ‘velvet revolution’, Putin’s Russia has enjoyed a ‘velvet reprivatisation’, the description by the Russian official and businessman, Oleg Shvartsman of the strong-arm tactics used under Sechin to reassert state control in the energy sector. In an interview with Kommersant newspaper from 2007, Oleg Shvartsman claimed to be in charge of a developing organization called ‘Social Investments’. The organization, according to Mr Shvartsman, resembled a “vacuum cleaner” that “gathers assets into a structure that will later become a state corporation”. According to Shvartsman, velvet reprivatisation is not the same as corporate raiding, but it does involve minimising the market worth of the target enterprise through various instruments, “voluntary-coercive methods”, like blocking its growth “with all kinds of administrative stuff”. He added that he has an army of officials who are ready to oust owners disloyal to the authorities through the use of greenmailing or legal action by minority shareholders. The interview adds that Sechin, who gives the orders, runs an outfit of 600,000 people “with fuck all else to do who are looking for ways to make some money.” No one with the level of influence Shvartsman claims would ever talk like this, so the interview has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Possibly, it represents an attempt to embarrass Sechin by Gazprom. Although Shvartsman is a boastful man, inclined to exaggerate his own importance, his picture of heavy-handed state interference in private enterprise cannot simply be ignored.

Foreign investment

If Russian-owned assets get hoovered up by this ‘vacuum cleaner’, it is hardly surprising that foreign-owned assets should suffer the same fate. Shell and BP have already had to scale back their holdings in Russia in order to please the Kremlin. In the energy sector, what ‘velvet reprivatisation’ often means in practice is that a state company gets hold of the assets of a private company, and foreign investors are then given the opportunity to invest in the enlarged state company. Shell and BP’s losses in Russia have been Gazprom’s gains, and today non-Russians are happy to buy shares in Gazprom. The response of the CEOs of Shell and BP, Jeroen van der Veer and Tony Hayward, to Kremlin pressure has been to put a brave face on it and try to cut the best deal they can with the authorities, but it is clear that their status in Putin’s Russia is no higher than that of the hired help: in an era of dwindling oil reserves, they need Russia much more than Russia needs them. BP is now in a delicate position. In 2007 it attended, and therefore legitimised, the auction of some of Yukos’s assets to Rosneft in proceedings that appear to have been a foregone conclusion. BP also has a 1 per cent stake in Rosneft. This investment, dating from the 2006 IPO of Rosneft, has, according to BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward, been “really successful”. Tony Hayward attended the Rosneft AGM where he called in that very same speech for “respect for property rights” and “the consistent application of the rule of law”. Ever diplomatic, he also stated his “confidence in” and “respect for” Rosneft’s management, whom he knew “very well”. BP is likely to lose part or all of its joint-venture in Russia, BP-TNK. BP is in dispute with its Russian partners, and administrative difficulties with the Russian authorities have impeded its work. Sadly, the quarrels have overshadowed BP’s genuine technical achievements and its efforts to be a socially responsible employer. Reportedly, BP’s leadership was actually pliant and familiar with the rules of the game in Russia, so that the solution to the dispute with its partners it had been working on was to sideline them by throwing itself on the mercy of Gazprom. If so, this cannot have endeared BP to Igor Sechin, who no doubt wants BP-TNK’s assets to go to Rosneft.

Nationalism and foreign policy

Igor Sechin is noted for his hard-line views on foreign policy and is hostile to the West. Like Vladimir Putin, and like many of his fellow countrymen, he wants Russia to be more powerful and respected around the world. In August of this year he visited Cuba on a Russian mission to strengthen ties with the Castro regime. Sechin was never a professional oilman before he got the job at Rosneft, and yet it is hard to believe that he was once any sort of professional diplomat, given the way he treated Havana. He warned the United States that Russia was going to step up its military presence on Cuba, but he failed to discuss the matter with Castro first, causing unnecessary offence to the Cuban government as a result. Both Sechin’s attitudes and his clumsiness are likely to make Russia harder for Europe and the United States to deal with. But for the West there is also cause for concern about the disunity that Sechin can create within the Russian government. In a veiled attack on Sechin’s influence, the secret policeman Viktor Cherkesov publicly condemned the clan feuding within the secret police, warning that it might make Russia dangerously unstable. The murky internal rivalries within the Russian government make its foreign policy harder to predict. However, these rivalries may be not entirely to the West’s disadvantage. Although Putin and Sechin want energy to be a means for Russia to assert its power, Gazprom and Rosneft are competitors, making it harder for Sechin to coordinate Russia’s energy strategy in a way that maximises Russia’s advantages in its dealings with Europe. For the sake of Rosneft, which has large gas reserves, Sechin is now trying to break Gazprom’s monopoly control of Russia’s gas pipelines, something which, if it encourages Gazprom to become more efficient, may even result in cheaper gas for Russia’s European customers. Tony Hayward observed at the Rosneft AGM that energy security is now at the top of everyone’s agenda. Energy dealings with the EU are part of Sechin’s remit, and one way or another, Europe’s energy security is something on which Igor Sechin will have a considerable impact over the coming years.


Written for Hii Dunia by Joseph Altham

Somalia: New Networks of Power

The building of legitimate authority in Somalia is a hazardous task not only because of its’ warlord rivalry, lack of government infrastructure, authority and civil society, but also because of a low population density, and a fragile fluctuating social fabric. Due to a relatively low population density in Somalia it is expensive and more difficult to exert control over, and bond communities to one another, complicating the task of exerting a centralised authority over a diverse populous. This makes it increasingly hard to diminish the power of local elites and warlords that hold regional influence. A knock on effect of this is that peace building processes become more fragile, potential spoilers more numerous. It also increases the likelihood of peace processes further worsening a situation, potentially adding further complexities to already complex situations.

A further empirical problem faced in the establishment of a centralised government authority is due to its agricultural based economy, with livestock making up by far the largest export sector. Somalia’s agricultural based economy when combined with the nomadic nature of large swathes of its population makes it incredibly hard to implement legitimate taxation. Taxation of the commercial sector is equally difficult with petty traders and small businesses often oblivious to ideals of book keeping and accountancy. The problem of legitimate development in Somalia has been further complicated as wealth is often tied to regional power, similar to the colonial and Barre era where wealth was tied to political power. This led to a situation where the vastly wealthy often paid little or no taxes at all.

Jean-Francois Bayart claims that social divisions in African states are for more tangled and difficult to conceptualise through orthodox western notions upon the state and societal classes. He argues that the forming of hegemonic states in an African sense is radically different to the formation of state hegemony that was seen in Europe. In an African context, Bayart places the pursuit of state hegemony as being greatly influenced by ideology and ethnicity rather than territory or state based administration, as in Africa the state has been strongly acquainted with ideals of identity, inequality and inevitably separation. Due to the complex tangles of the Somali social structure between 1991 and 2006 where Somali has been without a centralised authoritive political power, there has been a great dependence upon the illegitimate use of force, largely reliant upon clan associations and economic divisions. It is through such nodes of authority that the power vacuum has been illegitimately filled in post 1991 Somalia, as outlined by political scientist Martin Doornbos, “state collapse is not the offspring of any state theory that promotes the total withering away of the state, but rather the pathological by-product of a combination of local and/or global political, social and economic development.” Somalia’s ethnic and cultural divisions also impact greatly upon Somalia’s social and political cohesion.

Ali Mazrui a leading Kenyan Scholar has argued that Western importation of political and social institutions during colonialism established narrow roots in African state infrastructure that have been continued through processes of globalisation. This has led to circumstance that allow violent sub-state groups to emerge with ease. Arguing that the neo-liberal agenda has led to an increase an outsourcing of the powers of weak, unconsolidated governments, leading some authors such as Bayart, Ellis, and Fibou to refer to the privatisation of the African state as the ‘criminalization of the African state’ for reasons Mazrui outlines, “in a technologically underdeveloped society in the twentieth century, ultimate power resides not with those who controlled the means of production (as postulated by Marx), but in those who controlled the means of destruction (captured by the soldier/ bandit with an AK-47)”

The weakening of state structures, social provisions, and the loss of economic controls due, to the deregulation of economic power away from the state can be linked to the empowerment of private groups in Somalia that filled the power vacuum left by the state. This was spurred on by Somalia’s quasi statehood during the Barre regime due to the reliance upon foreign aid and the ineffective building of political and social structures.

Informal Networks and Social Fragmentation

Academics and NGO’s have been fickle in their interpretation of informal economies over the past thirty years, switching between proclaiming it to be a viable exciting progressive system for growth for much of the developing world to condemning it for causing social and state breakdown in the global south. Over the last ten years informal economies have been interpreted negatively partly due to the illicit sale of gems and minerals through war economy networks. However, informal economics in Africa are so expansive and integral to the survival and daily routines for millions that it is far too large to be generalised. Furthermore, those processes that operate within it are integral to African cultural and social ideals of kinship, ethnic grouping and local elites outlining it as “essentially non-liberal in its structure and aims,” but still integral in upholding African social orthodoxy. When informal economies take the place of the formal economy due to the collapse of the state, empowers illegitimate networks of power.

The Somali state under Barre’s regime began to progressively deteriorate. During the 70s and 80s the shadow economy developed to provide the Somali people with services that the state did not. As the shadow economy expanded opportunities were created for a few Somali’s to generate large amounts of wealth, while many more became dependent upon it for survival. Elites involved in the Somali shadow economy generated wealth through the importing and exporting of goods so that there were few incentives for the elites involved to reform and clamp down on the shadow economy within Somalia.

It has been argued that political power and regional authority is proportionally linked to economic wealth and a monopolisation of authoritative violence in Somalia. The linking of personnel wealth with violence and authority is unrestrained by the state and civil society. However, due to conclusions being drawn between personalised profit and illegitimate networks of authority it is too simplistic to argue that the cause of conflict could be pinned down to a single variable such as wealth.

Underdevelopment, corruption and the weak legitimacy of many sub-Saharan African governments caused many African leaders to avoid the centralisation of the military and potentially powerful social structures due to the threat they would possess. However, such a strategy led by the Barre regime caused the creation of autonomous regional centres of power capable of dominating the use of violence within a given region. Such a fracturing of authority was also prevalent within the regime itself, leading to a situation where many of the warlords in Somalia once held high office in government. This allowed for them to develop important commercial connections through patronage networks because of their positions.

Position within government that originally enabled an accumulation of wealth also necessitated access to provisions beyond that of personalised economic relationships. Office within government also granted them access to other requirements for conflicts such as arsenal, armed youths and paramilitary units. Also the predominant position held by ex-regime elites and bureaucrats meant that they had been priory engaged with and able to exert influence over mass opposition movements that may have been more politicised and ideologically motivated than themselves but lacked capital and connections. A possible indication as to why many rebel groups across sub-Saharan Africa despite having an apparent ideological or political title do little to try and promote ground support or mass social movements through the promotion of an ideological plan at local levels. Cynics have argued this to be due to a lack of any true political will designed to benefit populations at large but rather and indicator of economic aims. Moreover, old regime elites operating through illegitimate networks of power often want attention turned away from real politics and any potential political misgivings they have been involved in.


Written by Lee Talyor


Links & Resourcs:

BBC - 'Somalia's Sudden Shift in Power'

Hii Dunia - Somalia: The Build up to Chaos - Parts 1 & 2

Comment: Bycatch & Discards - Treating Marine Life like Trash

The objective of commercial fishermen is to catch fish that can be sold. The higher the price that these fish fetch at market, the more money the fishermen will make. The fishermen has limited time and space in which to maximise their income, so in order to do so their main objective must be to be as selective as possible.

However most fisheries are at least partially non-selective and catch fish and other animals that are not targeted. This non-targeted catch is known as bycatch. This bycatch is usually discarded (thrown over the side of the boat either dead or dying).

In the North Sea nearly one million tonnes of marine life is discarded in this way every year, and unbelievably, seventy percent is comprised of commercially important fish species. This equates to nearly one-third of the total fish landed by fishermen, and one-tenth of the estimated total biomass of fish in the North Sea. These fish are discarded because they are either undersized, over quota or not of sufficiently high value to the fisherman.

In EU Community waters the practice of discarding fish is not illegal and it speaks volumes on EU fisheries policy that when in a time of worldwide food and fuel shortages and rapidly declining fish stocks the practice of discarding is not only tolerated, but is in many cases a legally binding requirement.

There is no way of knowing what damage discarding has on the marine ecosystem as amazingly very little scientific research has been carried out to determine its detrimental affects on the marine ecosystem, but it is worth mentioning that no other industry gets close to the practice of discarding in terms of sheer waste and destructiveness.

Norway obviously feels strongly enough about the matter to have banned the discarding of commercial fish in its waters as early as 1990, requiring all boats to land the fish for processing into fishmeal. Measures have also been introduced whereby fisheries can be closed very quickly if an area is found to contain a large number of juvenile fish.

So what are the solutions? Personally I would completely ban the discarding of bycatch full stop, but since I see absolutely no hope of this happening, perhaps a ban could be put in place for a long enough period for there to be a proper scientific audit of the scale of the problem?

Almost half of all discards are caused by the various types of trawling, and it may be time to call and end to this particularly destructive method of fishing. If the Marine Stewardship Council's fishery certification program and seafood eco-label gain widespread acceptance within the EU member countries this may in itself help to end the indiscriminate methods employed by trawling.

Bycatch and discards are an aberration. We are now in the 21st century and yet the wholesale slaughter of our marine life still continues in our oceans. There are no meaningful protected areas from which marine life can recover from this onslaught, and the fishermen, once their catch is dead, can pick and choose which animals are worth keeping and which can dumped back into the ocean. This cannot be right.


Written for Hii Dunia by The Blue Planet Society