Clan Conflict and Factionalism in Somalia

Abstract

At this time of writing in late 1997, Somalia had been without a formal government for more than seven years. Instead, it had large quantities of weapons, militarized and very determined political factions, and feuding clans which had made the task of re-establishing national institutions remote. Since the overthrow of former dictator Siad Barre in January 1991, Somalia has remained a classic ‘weapons state’ in which warlords and clan warfare have become the main defining features. However, it is worse than just a ‘weapons state’: Somalia appears like a collection of peoples who are in search of a state and an effective government. In terms of the values, norms, rules, principles and institutions which characterize international society, Somalia has lost most of these and appears to be heading for an exit from international society. In the past few years, Somalia has been without a national government, civil service, national army, police force, judicial system or any of the public services which people in most countries take for granted. Having lost the capacity to maintain law and order, and to feed its own citizens, Somalia has forfeited what any country needs to have in order to claim empirical sovereignty. And without empirical sovereignty, it would be pointless to talk of juridical sovereignty.1 In other words, Somalia has been something less than a state in the past few years.