Thursday, April 18, 2013
At his inauguration last September, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud
said rebuilding Somalia's armed forces would be one of his
administration's six pillars for restoring national stability and unity.
As the Somali government undertakes that challenge, it is taking a
comprehensive strategy to recruit, train and equip members of the armed
forces.
In February, the government launched operations to remove squatters and rehabilitate old military training centres.
In March, security forces dispersed around Mogadishu were relocated
and consolidated into designated training facilities, Somalia's Defence
Minister Abdihakim Haji Mohamud Fiqi told reporters on March 6th.
Securing illegal weapons has been a major concern. "We are collecting
the illegal weapons possessed by civilians in the city, and we will
strictly secure and monitor warehouses used to store them so that
[illegal] weapons do not fall in the hands of civilians or criminals
again," Fiqi said.
The year-long easing of a United Nations Security Council arms
embargo on Somalia is also expected to help the government strengthen
the Somali National Army and other security branches by allowing it to
better equip troops with light weapons in their fight against
al-Shabaab.
The Somali government also is working to decrease its reliance on
receiving military training overseas, according to African Union Mission
in Somalia (AMISOM) spokesman Colonel Ali Aden Humud.
During the month of April, about 100 Somali National Army soldiers,
including 28 officers, were set to complete training at the Jazeera
Training Camp, Humud told reporters on March 28th.
In the months after Mohamud's inaugural speech, the Somali armed
forces, backed by AMISOM and regional troops, scored some military
successes and territorial gains, which elevated the troops' standing in
the public eye.
Most recently, the armed forces liberated swathes of territory from
al-Shabaab, expanding the government's control from Mogadishu to Baidoa
in the west, Marka in the south and Jowhar in the north.
However, observers say, poor training and
inter-tribal tensions have undermined the federal government's efforts
to re-build the nation's armed forces, which collapsed 22 years ago with
the fall of the Mohamed Siad Barre regime.
Tribal loyalties:
Despite the recent successes, some citizens feel that members of the
security services and armed forces have yet to earn the Somali public's
full trust, according to Mogadishu traditional elder Mohamed Hassan Had.
Instead of feeling protected by the armed forces, some citizens fear
them, he said. In addition, the government's failure to pay soldiers in a
consistent manner diminishes their loyalty to the federal government
and fuels tribalism, Had said.
"The government does not take care of its armed forces," Had told
Sabahi. "It does not pay most of them and they are not under a central
command. Basically, they are independent militias who can take their
weapons and do as they please."
But General Ahmed Hassan Maalin, chief of Benadir police, rejected allegations that any of his forces belong to tribal militias.
"We are police and we do not have troops organised by tribe," he
said. "The troops that are currently registered with us are mixed and
represent every region [in Somalia], and they would not fight among
themselves."
Nonetheless, skirmishes fuelled by tribal loyalties have flared up
among security forces. A recent example was a case of inter-tribal
fighting that broke out among government forces in Marka on March 22nd,
killing at least two people and injuring two others.
The armed militias that patrol some cities under the control of the
federal government undermine law and order, said Hassan Mudey Abdalla,
assistant director of the Mogadishu-based al-Shahid Centre for Research
and Media.
Some of these militias are not affiliated with the government but
wear military-style uniforms, he said, adding that private business
owners and organisations hire them as security guards.
"At times it is hard to distinguish them from the government troops," Abdalla said.
Patience is required:
Re-building the army and other branches of the armed forces will take
time, so people should have realistic expectations, said General
Mohamed Nur Galal, a former deputy defence minister in the Barre regime.
"Rebuilding a destroyed army will not happen overnight," he told
Sabahi. "The government should be given enough time to work out any
problems in building professional armed forces as well as reinforcing a
sense of nationalism among troops.
This was accomplished before and can be done again, Galal said.
"The national armed forces [during the Barre regime] were mostly
composed of people who did not receive elementary education. They came
from the rural areas and were enlisted as troops," he said. "They were
then trained, and tribalism was erased from their psyche. Therefore, the
ethics of the militia that roam around the city with weapons can be
repaired."
"If the troops are collected from different provinces and integrated,
they can become proper troops that do good work," he said. "This is the
way to combat the tribalism between them."