A Study On External Intervention In Somalia (1991-2015)

In 1991, Siad Barre’s regime was overthrown in Somalia. Since then, Somalia fell into civil war and moved forward to collapse after only 30 years independence. The situation of conflict and anarchy in Somalia caused serious humanitarian crises, a large number of refugees, pirates, extreme Islamist and arms smuggling, which endangered the regional security and stability. Somalia seemed to have been unable to independently reconstruct the political order and state structure after the collapse of government, since then foreign intervention began to play a role. From 1991 to 2003, the international community had successively held fifteen reconciliation conferences outside Somalia, trying to rebuild the central government in Somalia. However, these external efforts failed due to the deep internal divisions and the complex external factors. Until 2004, with the help of international community, a very weak "transitional federal government" was set up and was recognized internationally without any legitimacy foundation at home. At the same time, the Somaliland in northwest of Somalia declared independence in May 1991 and gradually step toward peace and stability through the negotiation and reconciliation process by traditional elders and political elite. But this local bottom-up mechanism and Somaliland authority had never be recognized by the international community, with the contrast of most part of Somalia remains conflict and chaos. Until today, the international community is still in search of a solution to the conflict and the way for national reconstruction.This article attempts to present and analyze the twenty-five years external intervention in Somalia since 1991, to explore the background and motivation of external interventions, to discuss the effect and influence of external intervention for the peace and state building process in Somalia, in order to better understand the nature of the conflict in Somalia, and the possible development trend in the future. Based on this, this article tries to provide the author’s own inductive analysis and rational thinking about post-war reconstruction in African countries in conflict.As for the content structure, this article divides external interventions into four phases:the first phase is from 1991 to 1995, in the face of a serious humanitarian crisis, the United Nations and the United States carried out three times of humanitarian intervention; The second phase of 1996-2005, after the humanitarian intervention failed, the regional organizations and countries become major mediator. They dominated the peace process and established the transitional federal government; The third phase of 2006-2011, external interference strengthened, characterized by a series of military action, including Ethiopia’s military invasion, the African union peace keeping operations and Kenya’s military invasion; The fourth phase is 2012-2015, external forces pushed Somalia to end the interim period to set up the permanent federal government, which initiated a new stage of state building in Somalia.Through analysis, this article argues that:firstly, the reconstruction process of Somalia has been in the dominant of external forces, but most of the time, external intervention could not help solve the conflict in Somalia, but even worse, intensified the internal contradiction and cause more serious consequences, because of the neglect of local factors and constraints. Secondly, the international community and region countries are hard to find a common solution on the issue of Somalia. Worse, they tend to use Somalia as the place for the benefit and competition, and even support proxy war in Somalia, which could further exacerbate the Somali internal conflicts between different interest groups. Thirdly, military intervention tends to trigger a more serious crisis, especially military intervention from Ethiopia and Kenya with obvious selfish intentions and motives, which always causes fiercer resistance in Somalia. Undoubtedly, the Al-Shabbab’s rising is the direct consequence of Ethiopian invasion. Given this, the military presence of Ethiopia and Kenya would bring negative influence on Somalia’s political process. Fourthly, it is necessary to promote peace and state building through multilateral mechanism. The African Union Mission in Somalia has been carried out for nine years in Somalia, which is significant for security reconstruction of Somalia and peacekeeping capacity building of African Union. Fifthly, more importantly, the Somalis have to solve problems by themselves. It is urgent to change the situation of outside dominance and pay more attention to improve the capacity of Somali government. Finally, all the external intervention ignored the importance of economic development and improving people’s livelihood from the start, which is fundamentally important for stability of Somalia. Thus, China can play more active role in post-war reconstruction of Somalia, based on the good cooperation foundation of China-African relations.