Somali civil war and its water dimension

After explaining the relationship between water shortages and violent conflicts and showing different scales in which these conflicts can take place, I want to go a bit into detail and highlight one specific conflict to show the importance of water once again. With this post, I would like to emphasize the interconnections of different dimensions within a conflict.

But, no worries guys, this post will be the last one in which I talk about just one single conflict. In the upcoming blog entries I will focus on other questions.

The conflict which I want to use to show you the complexities of the whole topic is the civil war in Somalia (Some background information). It is (unfortunately) a well-known one because it (unfortunately again) already has a long history with a lot of horrible incidents which happened during this time. The media around the world are reporting a lot about this conflict and as a result they give an insight into the different dimensions of this war. But often, they only focus on the very spectacular topics like Islamism or Pirates but they leave out a lot of other dimensions.

The civil war grew out of conflicts during the early 1980’s and since then different parties are fighting each other in the East-African state. This conflict has a lot of different dimensions and there are a couple of reasons why it is still ongoing. The first reason is the clan system in the Somali society. The whole society is divided into different clans with different lifestyles and different opinions and claims. But the majority of these clans have one thing in common: They do not accept a centralized political power. And as a result, many of them do not accept the government and they have their own political organization. Of course, this leads to many conflicts between the different clans and conflicts between the clans and the state. As already mentioned, all clans have different plans for the development of Somalia (or single regions) and an agreement on single topics between different clans is hard to make.

Another issue of this conflict is Islamism. This topic is of increasing importance in Somalia, as many different groups are fighting for their islamistic ideas and objectives (for example Al-Shabaab or since 2015 the Islamic state).

Another point which is part of the complexity of this conflict are military interventions from other countries. Several countries took part in this conflict and intervened in it. One example for these countries is Ethiopia, which supported different groups in Somalia several times (e.g. 2007). Another example is the international community which also took part in this conflict (UN mission 1992-1995). All these interventions caused additional trouble and did not really solve the problem.

But finally, I want to get to the point we are all interested in: Water. As I already mentioned, the media often only reports about topics which are more or less easy to explain as well as horrible and spectacular (US drone strike, US airstrike). The question about water and land tenure is maybe less spectacular and sometimes not as obvious as attacks from Al-Shabaab or other different groups. But the whole conflict about water and land tenure is crucial when we want to have an end of the civil war in Somalia (National conflicts about water). The main problem is that different clans want to have land for their own usage and claim it as their own (MAYSTADT & ECKER 2014: 19). Of course, they do not want to have land which is not useful for their clan and as a result many different clans claim the same regions as their own property. The most wanted land is the region around the rivers Juba and Shabelle in the south of Somalia (Juba and Shabelle). Due to the rivers, it is a very fruitful region and as a result a good place to live in for many clans. But as I already explained there is a kind of strong rivalry between different clans and especially this very popular region is fought. Many small clans used to live in this region but due to the conflict and its dynamics the two biggest clans (Hawiye and Darod) moved into this region and started fighting against each other for reaching domination in this region (Clan politics). In consequence, many smaller clans moved away and many farmers who stayed in this region now work as a kind of slave for the bigger clans.

In conclusion, the Somali civil war is not just about political issues or economic issues but also about water. The water issue was not one of the trigger of this conflict but now it is a crucial part of it. And if you want to have an end of this war and a sustainable solution for this whole region, you have to solve this problem. Otherwise there will not be a peaceful end to this conflict.

As I mentioned in the beginning, in the upcoming posts I want to focus on some other aspects of this whole topic. Maybe I will tell you guys a bit about possible solutions for water conflicts. I do not just want to talk about solutions and their importance all the time but do not offer some.

As always, feel free to comment on my entry and share your opinion!