Gulf rivalries putting Somalia at risk
ADDIS ABABA: For nearly 30 years, Somalia has been a weak, divided state threatening the stability of the Horn of Africa and the key international waterway leading to the Suez Canal.
International actors, including the US and the AU, which has thousands of peacekeepers in the country to bolster the government, have been trying to train the country’s army, feed its people and keep Somalia from falling into total chaos or into the hands of the Islamist group al-Shabaab.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey have also been among Somalia’s most generous supporters. For years, Turkey was one of the biggest investors in Somalia – with its largest embassy abroad in Mogadishu – while the UAE paid and trained an anti-piracy force and other Somali military units.
But the year-old rivalry between these Middle Eastern powers is now threatening to destroy those gains, a new report by the International Crisis Group says.
In June 2017, tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE on one side and Qatar on the other burst into the open. A land, sea and air blockade was declared against Qatar by a Saudi-led bloc of countries. Somalia, under its new US-educated president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, declared his desire to remain neutral, but there was growing suspicion by the Saudis that Mogadishu was tilting toward Qatar and its Turkish allies.
Soon, the report says, Somalia’s factional politics started reflecting the regional split, with pro-Emirati and pro-Qatari groups in the parliament and government squaring off.
“Gulf rivalries – directly or indirectly – appear almost certain to have exacerbated divisions, hardening both the government’s and its rivals’ positions and complicating efforts to reach consensus,” it said.
Even military units trained by different countries now appear to be at odds, noted the report. “The UAE versus Qatar/Turkey rivalry also appears to be aggravating factionalism in the security forces.
“This dissension risks undermining the campaign against Al-Shabaab and could stoke future conflict, given that it often mirrors political divides,” the report warned.
The instability is also spreading to regions where local authorities accustomed to generous assistance from the UAE are opposed to the more pro-Qatari stance of the central government. The announcement that UAE’s DP World would be developing Somaliland’s strategic Red Sea port of Berbera in March sparked a new war of words.
The wealthy Arab states of the Persian Gulf had mostly ignored African nations on the other side of the Red Sea. “But the Gulf States believe their prosperity depends on taking control of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” said Rashid Abdi, ICG’s project director for the Horn of Africa.
The main theatre of this conflict has been in Yemen. All Horn of Africa countries have had to respond to the Gulf schism, but Somalia is the most vulnerable.