Anarchy in Somalia

Somalia, from 1991 to present, is cited as a real-world example of a stateless society and legal system.¹² Since the fall of Siad Barre's government in January 1991 , there has been no permanent national government in Somalia.³ Large areas of the country such as Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug, Maakhir and Northland are internationally unrecognized autonomous regions. The remaining areas, including the capital Mogadishu, were divided into smaller territories ruled by competing warlords. In many areas there were (and still are) no formal regulations or licensing requirements for businesses and individuals.

Somalia is currently claimed as the sovereign territory of the Transitional Federal Government, a deeply divided collection of warlords and tribal leaders, headed by nominal President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. Before December 2006, the TFG controlled only the town of Baidoa, the third largest city.³ The intervention of Ethiopian government forces following the rise of the Islamic Courts Union, culminating in the latter's defeat in the Battle of Baidoa, allowed the TFG to expand its control under the protection of the Ethiopians. The TFG has not been able to effectively collect taxes, has no notable finances or real power base,⁴ and has struggled to exert control over Mogadishu since an attempted move in late December 2006.³

Economist Alex Tabarrok has claimed that Somalia in its stateless period provided a "unique test of the theory of anarchy" as espoused by anarcho-capitalists David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard,⁵ although this is strongly disputed by anti-capitalist anarchists who contend it is not anarchy, but merely chaos⁶ resulting from unequal distribution of power and meddling by neighbors and developed nations like the United States.⁷ The Somali experience since the collapse of the state, and especially the failure of international intervention, has offered a clear challenge to elements of conventional economic, political and social order theory and the very premises under which Western diplomacy and development agencies operate,⁸ and in particular, in the words of anthropologist Peter D. Little, "assumptions about the role of states in maintaining order and services".⁹

The rule of law

Following the downfall of the Siad Barre regime, there was effectively no formal monocentric government law in Somalia. While some urban areas such as Mogadishu had private police forces,¹⁰ many Somalis simply returned to the traditional clan-based legal structures for local governance and dispute resolution.⁸ Identified by The New York Times as "legendary individualists",² Somalis have been thought of as particularly susceptible to anarchist forms of social organisation; social scientists have identified the pastoralist way of life that a great many Somalis lead as in tension with formal statist legal systems.¹¹ Political loyalties are based on clan and region rather than political party, which, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs makes the sustainability of a centralised political system "difficult".⁴

Anthropologist Spencer MacCallum has identified the rule of law during the period as that of the Xeer, a customary law indigenous to Somalia. The law permits practices such as safe travel, trade, and marriage , which survives "to a significant degree" throughout Somalia, particularly in rural Somalia where it is "virtually unaffected".¹ MacCallum credits the Xeer with "Somalia's success without a central government, since it provides an authentic rule of law to support trade and economic development."¹ In the Xeer, law and crime are defined in terms of property rights; consequently the criminal justice system is compensatory rather than the punitive system of the majority of states, and the Xeer is "unequivocal in its opposition" to any form of taxation. Powell et. al (2006) find that the existence of the common law dispute resolution system in Somalia makes possible basic economic order.¹² MacCallum compares the Xeer to the common law in 6th century Scotland, and notes that there is no monopoly of either police nor judicial services,¹ a condition of polycentric law.

Social conditions

The international aid group Médecins Sans Frontières stated that the level of daily violence during this period was "catastrophic".¹³ A statistic from 2000 indicated that only 21% of the population had access to safe drinking water at that time, and Somalia had one of the highest child mortality rates in the world with 10% of children dying at birth and 25% of those surviving birth dying before age five.³ Additionally, "adult literacy is estimated to have declined from the already low level of 24% in 1989 to 17.1% in 2001."¹⁴ A more recent 2003 study reported that the literacy rate was 19%.¹⁵ The impact on human development in Somalia of governmental collapse and ensuing civil war was profound, leading to the breakdown of political institutions, the destruction of social and economic infrastructure and massive internal and external migrations.¹⁴

Social organisation in the absence of government

In the absence of functioning governmental institutions and regulations, voluntary non-coercive alternatives emerged to a limited extent. Commentators identify evidence of areas where the private sector adapted to the stateless environment. A 2004 World Bank study of the Somalian economy concluded that "it may be easier than is commonly thought for basic systems of finance and some infrastructure services to function where government is extremely weak or absent."¹⁵ The New York Times referred to post-state Mogadishu as "the ultimate example of deregulation,"¹⁶ noting that "[g]utsy entrepreneurs, including some women, opened their own hospitals, schools… telephone companies, power plants and ports."¹⁶

Communications

Journalist Kevin Sites, after a trip to anarchic Somalia, reported that "Somalia, though brutally poor, is a kind of libertarian's dream. Free enterprise flourishes, and vigorous commercial competition is the only form of regulation. Somalia has some of the best telecommunications in Africa, with a handful of companies ready to wire home or office and provide crystal-clear service, including international long distance, for about $10 a month."¹⁷ Abdullahi Mohammed Hussein of Telecom Somalia stated that "the government post and telecoms company used to have a monopoly but after the regime was toppled, we were free to set up our own business",¹⁸ The World Bank reported in 2007 that only about 1.5% of the population had a telephone¹⁵ resulting in the emergence of ten fiercely competitive telephone companies.¹⁹ According to the CIA World Factbook, private telephone companies "offer service in most major cities" via wireless technology, charging "the lowest international rates on the continent",³ while The New York Times has noted the private provision of mail services.² The Economist cited the telephone industry in anarchic Somalia as "a vivid illustration of the way in which governments…can often be more of a hindrance than a help."²⁰ Gaalkacyo, a desert town in the central Somalia, was provided with streetlights by local entrepreneur Abdirizak Osman, who expanded his enterprises from telecommunications to power generators, not only lighting the town but also supplying free electricity to the local hospital.¹⁹ Since the fall of the government, dozens of private newspapers, radio and television stations mushroomed (Mogadishu has two fiercely competing TV stations¹⁹), with private radio stations or newspapers in almost all major towns.⁴

Transport

In 1989, before the collapse of the government, the national airline had only one airplane. Now there are approximately fifteen airlines, over sixty aircraft, six international destinations, and more domestic routes in Somalia. Private airlines, including Air Somalia and Daallo Airlines, serve several domestic locations as well as Djibouti, the United Arab Emirates, Paris and London. According to a 2005 World Bank report, the "private airline business in Somalia is now thriving with more than five carriers and price wars between the companies."²¹ Mohammed Yassin Olad, owner of Daallo Airlines, has stated that the absence of government has led to both difficulties and benefits, and commented that "corruption is not a problem, because there is no government…We build the airports and we service the airports and we only fly when we are sure it's safe".²¹ A small fishing village prior to the fall of the state, Bosaso developed a lucrative import/export trade of U.S. $15 million per year out of its port during the 1990s.²² The population grew in eight years from 5,000 to 150,000, sustained by public services provided on a competitive basis by private enterprise, and court systems, schools and a university founded by the local community.²²

The expansion of the aviation industry has been accompanied by the disruption of road transport; many roads are frequently blocked by militia checkpoints which demand payment (between $3 and $300, depending on goods carried) in order to allow the cars to continue their journey. A BBC report claimed there were seven such checkpoints in the 50km between an airstrip and the capital, Mogadishu. Most of the money is used to buy khat, a drug used by the militiamen.²¹

Education

In a 2007 study of the current state of education in Somalia since the collapse of central authority in 1991, Abdullahi Sheikh Abdinoor found that "the Somali people have adapted rather well, under the circumstances, to the absence of the state, despite continuing insecurity and lawlessness prevailing in the country."⁸ Following the destruction of educational systems and infrastructure during the civil war, nascent educational institutions have emerged in anarchy; teachers and other educators who saw the need for education "quite spontaneously" opened their own institutions.⁸ For-profit educational institutions were established simultaneously by entrepreneurial businessmen.²

For centuries, the Somali community, as opposed to the state, has been in charge of Islamic education in all aspects, providing financial and administrative support.⁸ The majority of the schools are provided by the free market, sustained by school fees (typically $10 per month¹⁶); in cases where there are state-supported public schools, private schools are often coveted for their academic excellence, outperforming their public competitors in academic achievement tests.⁸ The number of primary schools have risen from 600 before the civil war to 1,172 schools today, with an increase of 28% in primary school enrollment over the last 3 years.²³ Enrollment in secondary schools has also increased since 1998.¹⁴ In Mogadishu, the Benadir University, the Somalia National University, and the Mogadishu University are three of the eight universities providing tertiary education in Southern Somalia.

Currency

Rival producers of Somali shillings emerged after 1991. These included the Na shilling, which failed to gain widespread acceptance, and the Balweyn I and II, which were forgeries of pre-1991 bank notes. A competition for seigniorage drove the value of the money down to about $0.04 per SoSh (1000) note, approximately the commodity cost. Consumers have refused to accept bills larger than the 1991 denominations, which has helped stopped the devaluation from spiraling further. The pre-1991 notes and the subsequent forgeries are treated as the same currency. It takes large bundles to make cash purchases.²⁴

The relatively stable value of the currency in the 1990s compared to the 1980s is explained by Peter D. Little in Somalia: Economy without a State as resulting from the lack of a corrupt central government printing currency to pay for military expenditures and political cronies. Traders avoid the need to carry large amounts of Somali shillings by converting them to U.S. dollars and then wiring them to money houses in Somalia. Because identification can be easily forged, those seeking to pick up wired money are required to answer questions about their clan and kinship relations. Private remittance companies known as hawala assist in the transfer of money. One of the largest such companies, Al Barakaat, was shut down in 2001 by a U.S.-led initiative due to alleged terrorist ties; the company's communications business, with more than 40,000 subscribers, was also shut down.

With the establishment of the Transitional National Government in 2000, a group of businessmen imported about 30 billion shillings of Canadian-printed notes, sparking a collapse of the currency and wide-scale demonstrations and protests in Mogadishu. The value declined by 30 percent (to 13,000 per $1) in three months, and by the end of the 2001 the currency had fallen to about SoSh 22,000 per US dollar. Further imports of money caused additional disruption and the TNG was forced to buy up large amounts of money.²⁵

Economic impact of anarchy

Although it states that no reliable statistics are available for the period in question, the United Nations claims that Somalia, already one of the poorest countries in the world, has become even poorer as a result of civil war.⁴ However, the CIA Factbook maintains that gains were made during the early 2000s; "despite the seeming anarchy, Somalia's service sector has managed to survive and grow. Mogadishu's main market offers a variety of goods from food to the newest electronic gadgets. Hotels continue to operate, and militias provide security."³

When extreme poverty (percentage of individuals living on less than PPP$1 a day) was last measured by the World Bank in 1998, Somalia fared better than many other countries in Africa, over some of whom Somalia also had superior infrastructure.¹⁵ The CIA World Factbook counsels that "Statistics on Somalia's GDP, growth, per capita income, and inflation should be viewed skeptically",³ while estimating Somalia's GDP per capita at $600.

In the absence of a Somali state and its institutions, the private sector grew "impressively" according to the World Bank in 2003, particularly in the areas of trade, commerce, transport, remittance and infrastructure services and in the primary sectors, notably in livestock, agriculture and fisheries.¹⁴ In 2007, the United Nations reported that the country's service industry is also thriving.⁴ Economist Peter T. Leeson, in an event study of "the impact of anarchy on Somali development", found that "[t]he data suggest that while the state of this development remains low, on nearly all of 18 key indicators that allow pre- and post-stateless welfare comparisons, Somalis are better off under anarchy than they were under government." Powell et al. concur that in absolute terms, Somalia’s living standards have improved and compare favorably with many existing African states, but also report that living standards have often improved "relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government."¹²

Islamic courts

Following the collapse of centralized government, much of the legal system and most of the educational institutions and social services fell under the control of religious institutions, which often received significant funding and support from international charities. In 2005, some of these clerical organizations united to form the Islamic Courts Union, after the secular warlords began to challenge the sharia-based judicial institutions. Wary of Islamist paramilitaries in the age of the War on Terror, the CIA funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to secular warlords inside Somalia in 2006, intending thereby to neutralize the threat of suspected members of Al Qaeda they believed to be sheltered by the ICU.²⁶ This was cited by experts as a factor in the resurgence of Islamic militias in the country, prompting the latter to engage in pre-emptive strikes which routed the warlords and led to the seizure of Mogadishu by the ICU.²⁶ The ICU gained control of Mogadishu and its surrounding districts in June 2006, after the Second Battle of Mogadishu. The ICU was later overthrown by the Ethiopian military with the support of the United Nations, African Union, and the United States government. After the ICU forces were chased from Mogadishu, the leaders of the Transitional Federal Parliament entered Somalia declaring themselves the rightful governors of Somalia. As of October 2007, there was still widespread opposition within Somalia to the TFG, and the TFG's leaders and their allies were still attempting to suppress a strong insurgency.

Contents

The rule of law

Social conditions

Social organisation in the absence of government

Communications

Transport

Education

Currency

Economic impact of anarchy

Islamic courts

See also

References

Further reading

External links