The Somali Regional State Diaspora: The New Battleground

The Somali Regional State Diaspora: The New Battleground
By Karamarda Group
Dec. 26, 2010

Introduction

From our sisters working as maids in Djibouti and the Middle East to late-night cab drivers scattered throughout the West, from labourers in the health- hazardous sand oil industry in Canada’s Fort McMurray to bus drivers in London and Stockholm, from chicken hangers in Wilmer’s turkey processing plants in Minnesota to shopkeepers in South Africa’s gang-ridden townships, from all the men and women who earn their livings by standing long periods handling objects that are moving at a constant motion in assembly lines to the few white- collar employees working in private and public sectors, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Diaspora is the lifeline of the people of the Somali region (SRS). The World Bank estimated world-wide remittances to Ethiopia at USD 3.3 billion annually and without a doubt a significant portion of this is sent by the generous SR Diaspora. Thanks to the Diaspora, this money fills hungry stomachs, builds shelters, keeps businesses running, treats the sick, transports the refugees and political dissidents to safer places, constructs Barkas to conserve highly precious water in rural areas, and funds community schools in Ferfer, Kebridehar, Shilabo among other things.

While it is true that the Diaspora community faces multiple challenges that are beyond the scope of our paper, majority of the people in the Diaspora are trying tremendously hard to transform their lives and the lives of their loved ones spread far apart over the third world.

On the political front, the Diaspora has been suddenly thrust into the limelight after UWSLF and Salahudin’s ONLF wing signed agreements with the Ethiopian government. Using this as an entry point, the government is striking this previously untamed political landscape to gain support in the Diaspora while ONLF’s main faction, UWSLF and other groups are determined to hold onto their traditional position of influence in the Diaspora. So, how is the Diaspora responding to all of this? Our assessment reveals that the Diaspora is weakly organized and is prone to manipulation. In this paper, we will review these developments and provoke a discussion on the role of the Diaspora in promoting peace and development in the Somali Region.

The Role of the Diaspora in SRS Politics Then

At the risk of generalization we categorize the involvement of Diaspora in the past into three core groups:

(A)	The first group of the Diaspora, mainly from the Ogaden clan, has been sympathizers and supporters of opposition groups particularly ONLF and Al-Itahad. They supported these groups financially, morally and politically.
(B)	The second group of the Diaspora, a sizable portion, has kept distance from opposition groups but has not actively supported the Ethiopian government either. Members of this group mainly constitute non-Ogaden Somalis and some Ogaden intellectuals who didn’t see value in supporting ONLF because of ONLF’s inability so far to accommodate and persuade this group but didn’t support the government either because they weren’t satisfied with how the region was governed.
(C)	The third group of the Diaspora, arguably a minority, has been supporters of the government. While there are few sincere nationalists in this camp, bulk of the people in this group can be described as ‘government of the day’ supporters. In other words, folks in this group are usually from the clan or close friends of the president of the day in Jigjiga. Their support is as unstable as readily decomposing compounds in chemistry. Their allegiance to the government starts with the crowning of their kin and ends with the collapse of their kin’s administration.

The Role of the Diaspora in SRS Politics Now

The Diaspora is a new battleground because the government is trying to expand its support among the Diaspora and opposition groups are trying to hold onto their influence. One may rightly ask why the government is suddenly keen to gain the support of the Diaspora? We will discuss this question later on but it is important to highlight the facade the government is hiding behind to lure the Diaspora. The government is using recently concluded peace agreements with Salahudin’s ONLF wing and UWSLF to present itself as a peace loving government to the Diaspora. It has arranged and paid for the travel of delegates from the Diaspora to the region. Is the government succeeding in its efforts to gain support among the Diaspora? We thought the best way to evaluate that is to snowball the views of those who visited the region. According to our assessment, those who came back from the region are one of three:

(1)	There are those whose assessment of the region is a mere despair. As opposed to the propaganda propagated by the government which is characterized by heavenly conjectures, all they have seen is a region mired in grinding poverty and governed without direction and vision. Unlike their homes in the West they have seen people being detained and at times killed without due process; they have observed Liyu police forces trespassing and raiding civilian homes. In fact some of the Diaspora told us that they have seen young girls who have been detained simply because they refused to date members of the Liyu Police. The politics they observed in the region is the kind of politics the French scholar Bayart referred as ‘the politics of the belly’ in his depiction of the African state. They have experienced men who do not distinguish public and private goods and who see public institutions as tools for self-enrichment. They have observed that the so-called leaders at all levels including those who toured Europe and North America are at each other’s throats, much less than a leadership unified by a vision.
(2)	The assessment offered by some of the returning Diaspora members is one which vilifies the regional government and praises the federal government. Most of the people in this category are Salahudin’s ONLF wing delegates and some UWSLF supporters. These irritated Diaspora members will tell you that the region is run by gangsters but that the federal government is dedicated to create peace and development in the region. It is ironic how this kind of assessment can emerge because one does not need a PhD in political science to understand that what is observed in SR is the artefact of the federal government policies. We will leave to the readers to decide whether two decades of bad governance and instability are by design or by accident but we firmly argue that the region, for better or worse, has been under the tutelage of TPLF cadres for the past two decades.
(3)	Finally, there is the third group whose members admire what they have seen in jigjiga. With banquets stretching from Addis to Jigjiga, they have been warmly welcomed by the regional government. Some of them are heavyweight Sheiks who are respected in the community. They have been able to secure plots of land in Jigjiga and Godey and are eager to invest in the region with the money they have raised from the Diaspora and Middle East contacts. Also in this group are those dazzled by the fresh Qat and villas in Jigjiga. They are stunned by the tarmac road between Jigjiga and Birqot that has recently came to define the so-called development in the region (the naive brothers and sisters hardly know that there are about 50,000 km engineered road networks in Ethiopia and they are in disbelieve of the only 360km tarmac road in the region). The target of the government is to tap into this sub-group.

Of course there are citizens who do not fall under any classification. Nonetheless, our limited assessment of the current state of Diaspora makes this categorization relevant to both pre- and post ‘peace’ agreement periods. In sum, the dust has not settled and the battle is raging in the Diaspora. Lured or loved, the support of the Diaspora is sought-after by various groups. Our judgment is that the Diaspora is unprepared and ill-equipped and that is why it is hard to see how a disorganized Diaspora can contribute to the promotion of peace, justice and development in our region. We recognize that the Diaspora can play a key role in the political direction and economic development of the region and it based on this believe that we would like to provoke a debate over the role of the Diaspora. We sketch our take in the following sections.

Should Members of the Diaspora Travel to The Region?

Yes, for three simple reasons: (1) Individuals should go and observe how life is lived in SRS. After all, it is an obligatory on many levels (cultural, religious...etc) for people to visit their families especially parents and siblings, (2) Secondly, a visit from the Diaspora translates into an economic transaction (money spent in the region will reach beyond the visitor’s family) and (3) Thirdly, a person who visits the SRS will develop a close attachment to the region and will therefore become an informed citizen.

It goes without saying that this is against the orthodoxy promoted by some groups that calls for a boycott of regional visits primarily because the region is under oppression. Of course the region is under oppression but seeing the oppression and understanding it would help the passionate individual to become an informed and a better citizen. However there are undoubtedly dirty visits, the kind of visits primarily driven by personal ambitions to join or gain connection with nominal SR officials in order to participate in the ongoing looting, take vendetta against close rivalry associates or groups or to simply export mayhem, tribalism, bad manners, division and fraud to the region as rightly warned by Yusuf Ebrahim’s short poem. The people of the region want the Diaspora to bring civility, rule of law, humanity, equality, justice, investment, unity, and know-how to the region not the Perilous social ills well articulated by Yusuf.

Institutionalizing Diaspora Efforts

Visiting the region individually has a minimal significance in terms of policy. The Diaspora can play a significant role in policy formulation and implementation if it organizes itself into institutions. Of course, building viable institutions is not an easy task; it is naturally a slow process and is costly. But it is better to take the time to build reasonable institutions than creating artificial- brief case organizations with beautiful names. Strategically speaking, it is advantageous if such institutions are independent of the government and ONLF (the two main parties in SR policy arena). If the Diaspora does not organize itself then it will become a prey to groups whose agenda is simply promoting their own interests.

Stripped to its essentials, disorder in the Diaspora is in the interest of the government and other groups. The Diaspora should not live as consumers of events but should live by plans and vision for the region. Your financial resources, your connection power, your level of education and sophistication can direct the region to the right path. Many honest men and women have travelled to the region but so far nothing has changed in the lives of the people. People are living under the same government policies and under the same politics of the belly they have lived for the past two decades. Is the vision of the Diaspora to change that or to endorse that? That is the question the Diaspora should answer. If the plan is to change the way the region is governed then it can only be done when the Diaspora organizes itself and with its own resources.

The Government’s Diaspora Mobilizing Strategy

The recent visits of SR nominal leaders to some European and North American cities define the strategy of the government too well. Instead of encouraging the Diaspora to have one voice they demanded the Diaspora groups to organize themselves along clan and sub clan lines (same old politics of divide and rule). Instead of addressing real policy issues at the podium, they took the stage, unabashed of the misery they have condemned our people to, just to gloat over the underdevelopment the region finds itself as a heaven. Instead of talking about issues that are dear to the Diaspora (rule of law, representation and participation in the country’s political, economic and social life, justice, detention and disappearance of civilians, the fear that defines the lives of the ordinary people in the region, the land that has been given away,...and the list is so long) they chose to collect pictures of meetings which will buy them some political capital from TPLF cadres. We encourage the Diaspora to scrutinise the substance of government tours to the Diaspora.

The Power of Information and the Role of the Diaspora

After the agreements were concluded and leaders of UWSLF and Salahudin’s ONLF wing were allowed to travel throughout the region they publically acknowledged that they were badly informed of the level of development in the region. They were also amazed to learn that the Ethiopian constitution guarantees basic human rights as well as political rights including the right to secede from Ethiopia (article 39). Both group leaders should be commended for sharing their true feelings, but the issue is too important of a substance to be left at there. The question we ask is: How can leaders who mobilized our youth to die for the region’s underdevelopment and political marginalization all over sudden say Oh, Istaqfurullah! We didn’t know that the constitution guaranteed what we were fighting for and we didn’t know the region was as highly developed as it is? We are by no means here to vilify these groups. The genuine members of these groups have put their lives on the line for our people. Nonetheless, as a society we need to document our history and learn from our mistakes.

The fact outlined above underscores the importance of information and research. These leaders should have done their research before they had put their life and others’ on the line. But more importantly they should avoid making a similar mistake by hastily legitimizing the current state of affairs in SRS because there is hardly anything noble about the politics of the belly we observe in SRS. They should study the so-called development and the reality surrounding the implementation of the constitution before they make rushed conclusions. What the Diaspora can learn from this story is to do its research before it pours its hearts and minds to a cause they would later regret. We believe the Diaspora should travel to various parts of the region to enquire what is really transpiring in the region without the supervision of the government and other political bodies. If you are a guest of the government or other political institutions, your ability to observe freely will be compromised. We therefore urge the Diaspora to carryout systematic research into areas such as governance, investment, rule of law, corruption, political participation, development disparity and service delivery freely and without the control of the government.

Unanswered Questions for the Diaspora

Why is the government interested so much in the Diaspora and so little in those living inside the region? If the government cares about the Diaspora it would have acted locally. It would have focused on improving its relationship with our population in Ethiopia. Why would nominal SR officials need to travel across the Atlantic to meet with the Diaspora and not meet with intellectuals and elders in the region without spending a penny? Is the government expecting the Diaspora to collaborate while continuing same failed policies of discrimination, bad governance, and instability in the region? If the government is serious about the role of the Diaspora why not institutionalize it like other governments (Diaspora programs are usually well articulated programs that are seriously debated on and collectively devised by Diasporas and governments) instead of travelling to the West only to deliver evanescent lectures about prosperity in the region when it is officially categorized as one of the backward regions of Ethiopia, a country that finds itself at the bottom of the global Human Development Index? Is there really a change of heart on the part of the government or is this impulse a strategy to weaken pressure from ONLF and other groups who have taken the SR question from the periphery to the center in Ethiopia’s political picture? Would it be acceptable if the government lends olive branches and warm welcome to men and women in the Diaspora and at the same time detain and kill those living in the region without due process? Is it acceptable to the Diaspora if the government arranges banquets for Diaspora members and at the same time blocks both commercial food and aid to the needy and vulnerable in the region? Aren’t we one people? Is the Diaspora ready to embrace the government’s empty rhetoric without ascertaining the facts on the ground?

We strongly argue that this whole deal is a temporary one which will very soon take another twist given the deceptive cadence that has characterized TPLF’s politics for the past two decades and we urge the Diaspora to confront with these and many more critical questions before it is too late.

Conclusion

The Diaspora is too disorganized to effect a genuine change in the SRS. It should stop floating loose and institutionalize its efforts in order to make a tangible difference in the lives of the people in the region. In the meantime, we caution individual members who are coming to Jigjiga to dance to the tune of the government before the government shows a solemn commitment to listen to the concerns of Diaspora. Of course those who lack profundity to grasp issues of societal significance may grant servile obedience to TPLF and its nominal SRS leaders. That obedience may buy them some contracts, political connections and plots of land but if experience is anything to go by, posing for CakaaraNews cameras won’t be enough for the government. The honeymoon will last rather shortly and as happened before in many occasions your actions may haunt you and your loved ones once your fall short of satisfying the government’s insatiable appetite for more harm to the citizens of the region.

Finally, the ultimate measure of the Diaspora’s success in promoting peace, justice and development is not website pictures; it is not visits; it is not imaginations and promises; it is whether rule of law prevails in the region and Somalis are treated as citizens, not subjects. We are confident that the bulk of the Diaspora will be able to judge if there is a rule of law in the region because that is exactly what they live under and it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. They don’t live under humiliations, fear and terror; they live under governance systems that ensure minimum standards of human dignity and one can only expect that the Diaspora will demand nothing less for their brothers, sisters and parents in SR. In the same vein, the ultimate measure of the government’s sincerity is not how nice it is with the Diaspora, it is not the extension of banquets to Diaspora members who can afford to eat, and it is not signing papers to promise a false peace. It will be measured by how it treats those who live under its control.

Karamarda Group
Executive Committee

The Karamarda Group is a group of Somali Regional State citizens who are interested in promoting Democracy and Good Governance in the Somali Region of Ethiopia and could be reached at karamardagroup@gmail.com

- Deconstructing the ‘Peace Deals’ in Somali Regional State of Ethiopia
- ONLF MUST REFORM
- The Politics of Scaremongering: The Disorder Factor in Somali Regional State of Ethiopia
- The 2010 Election and the Formidable Cartel in the Somali Region
- Can the Young Despots in Somali Regional State Reconcile with the Diaposra Communities?

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