UAE must ‘coordinate’ with Somalia’s govt to end dispute, says Crisis Group

By The Star Staff Writer

MOGADISHU – The United Arab Emirates must work together with Somalia’s national government on how to end the current row between the two nations instead of stepping up support for the Horn of Africa nation’s factions and regional administrators, said the International Crisis Group on Tuesday.

“The UAE should pledge to coordinate its aid and commercial interests with Mogadishu,” said the ICG in a 22-page report. “Talks between the Somali and UAE governments are a priority.”

A diplomatic tension has erupted between the two Arab League countries after Mogadishu decided to remain neutral in the year-long Gulf crisis pitting Qatar against four Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Those countries have since cut ties with Doha and imposed an air, sea and land blockade on the tiny nation.

However, Somalia rejected to follow suit, angering the anti-Qatar camp. An Emirati official told ICG researchers that if Mogadishu had objected to Abu Dhabi’s interests, “it’s better that we keep our relationships with the federal states.”

“The UAE, alarmed at losing ground to its main geopolitical rivals, appears to have upped support for Somali opposition leaders and federal states in an attempt to promote its interests and protect its investments,” said the report. “The Somali government, feeling besieged, has deepened ties to Qatar and Turkey, further fuelling Emirati disquiet, and adopted heavy-handed tactics against rivals at home, aggravating Somali factionalism.”

Last month, the European Union and African Union expressed concern over the UAE’s involvement in Somalia’s internal affairs, with the AU saying that Abu Dhabi’s interference could undermine the war-scarred nation’s security and state-building efforts. The international community is worried that the UAE’s unilateral ties with rogue regional administrators could erode the national government’s authority across the country and embolden the Qaida-linked group of al Shabab.

The political hostility between the national government and regional administrators “is at its worst level in years, threatening to further fracture the country,” said the ICG report.

Somalis have been accusing the United Arab Emirates of trying to divide their country into clan-based fiefdoms by pitting regional administrators, especially politicians in the northwestern and northeastern regions, against the central government in Mogadishu. The UAE struck unilateral military and trade deals with politicians from the two regions to operate the ports of Berber and Bossaso and set up a military base there.

The deals irked the national government, which in March asked the United Nations Security Council to take action against Abu Dhabi for violating its sovereignty.

The UAE has since discontinued a financial support it was providing to the Mogadishu-based national army and closed an outpatient hospital it ran in the capital.

The ICG report entitled “Somalia and the Gulf Crisis” said “certainly, President Farmajo had good cause to remain neutral” in the Gulf crisis, but the national government’s “ repressive tactics” against local politicians, often using their alleged ties to Abu Dhabi as pretext, didn’t help matters.

In December last year, Somali forces raided the house of an opposition figure, Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, killed five of his bodyguards and reportedly released him only on condition that he would not speak to the media or leave the country.

The government has also clashed with former Mayor Thabit Abdi Mohammed, accusing him of corruption and of receiving Emirati funds. President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo eventually fired the man in January this year.

“Overall, while the government’s crackdowns against Somali rivals are counterproductive, its apparent tilt toward Qatar and Turkey is understandable, given the importance of their investment and aid,” said the report.

Both Qatar and Turkey support Somalia’s national government, with Ankara giving an annual $2.5 million direct budgetary aid to Mogadishu. Turkey has a $50-million military base in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, whose seaport and airport are also managed by Turkish companies.

Despite its objection to Mogadishu’s neutral position, Saudi Arabia also gives the Somalia government about $30 million each year.

“The government’s nationalist stand against the UAE also strengthens the perception, which it has struggled to shake, that it is overly attached to Doha and, to a lesser extent, Ankara,” said the report.

A Qatari foreign ministry official told ICG researchers that Doha’s goal was “never to have a rivalry with the UAE in Somalia.”

“It’s about creating stability and countering extremism in Somalia, through genuine humanitarian and developmental projects that we are implementing either bilaterally or through the UN,” said the unnamed Qatari official, according to the ICG report.

Another Qatari official told the group in April that, “if the UAE continues its policies in Somalia, this country will be destroyed, just as the UAE is doing to Yemen.”

The UAE has in 2015 deployed its force in Yemen’s southern and eastern provinces as a part of a Saudi-led coalition that invaded the poor Arab country to oust an Iran-backed rebel group, Houthis, who seized control of the capital, San’a.  Many Yemenis, however, perceive the UAE troops in their country as occupiers whose only aim is to tear their country apart to occupy strategic ports and islands, such as Socotra and Abd al-Kuri island.

“Gulf rivalries – whether 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,” said the report.

Qatar pledged, according to unnamed Somali official, to construct new Somali army barracks, but when ICG researchers asked Qatari officials about that, they said talks between the two nations were ongoing.

Friction between Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi has been simmering since the eruption of the Gulf crisis last year. But it boiled over on April 8 when Somali security forces impounded a $9.6 million in cash at the nation’s airport from a UAE plane.

In response, the UAE suspended military cooperation with Mogadishu, pulled out its trainers and discontinued aid operations in the Horn of Africa nation.

President Farmajo’s visit to Doha last month — only five weeks after the seizure of the money and apparently to cement ties with Qatar — increased the tension between Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi, said the report.

Somali officials and Western diplomats believe that the UAE has quietly stepped up offers of support, particularly to politicians in coastal regions whose ports are of greater strategic interest to Abu Dhabi, said the report.

The Emirates admitted as much.

“They recognise what the UAE has done to support their development…. We don’t want them to collapse,” unnamed Emirati official told ICG researchers, according to the report.

Somalia’s five regional administrators have last month openly sided with Abu Dhabi in the row between Somalia’s national government and the Gulf monarchy, dismissing Mogadishu’s position as “pretense.” The politicians warned that if the national government didn’t stop its “trend” of siding with Qatar, the “ brotherly relationship among the three countries” would be negatively impacted, referring to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain. Mogadishu should “take honest steps from her side to repair and improve this valuable relationship,” they said after meeting in the western town of Baidoa, a gathering that many suspected was bankrolled by Abu Dhabi.

The Somali government “can respond in kind” to the UAE’s interference, and that it has “contingency measures,” a Somali official told ICG researchers, according to the report. But, the official added, Mogadishu didn’t want to further escalate the tension.

“We could, for example, deny the Emirates overflight rights over Somalia – tens of daily Emirates flights use Somali airspace,” said the unnamed Somali official. “ We could reopen the Iranian embassy in Mogadishu. We don’t want to do either, but we could.”

An Emirati official echoed the same sentiment, saying that Abu Dhabi didn’t either wish to “disconnect” itself from the Somali government, “even though we are reluctant to engage with” it.

“What we need now really is for things to just calm down. They will cool. Then a mediator could come in,” said the unnamed Emirati official.

The Brussels-based think tank report urges Somalia’s partners to move speedily to limit the impact of the Gulf rivalries on Somalia because they’ve already “brought fresh complexity to Somali instability.”

“Western powers with close ties to both the Somali government and Gulf powers should promote Mogadishu-Abu Dhabi dialogue, and back any attempt by Riyadh to mediate,” urged the report. “EU officials, also reportedly trusted by both sides, might also play some facilitation role.”

The report urged Abu Dhabi to be “ready to enter talks with Farmajo’s government and coordinate its aid and investment across the country.”

Saudi Arabia resents Farmajo’s policy on the Gulf crisis, but it still keeps open its channels of communication to the Somalia government.

“If the country becomes a battleground for richer, more powerful states, and they and Somali factions pursue a form of zero-sum competition ill-suited to the country’s factious and multipolar politics, the bloodshed and discord that have long blighted Somalia risk taking an even darker turn,” warned the ICG report.

The International Crisis Group said intra-Somali disputes may have benefited the Qaida-linked militants of al Shabab. A six-month deadline set for the integration of national and regional forces had already been missed, said the report, “partly due to political infighting in the capital but also to Mogadishu-federal state tensions.”

Since early 2017, drone strikes and ground operations by US and Somali forces have taken out dozens of militants, including commanders. “But,” said the report, “such tactics are unlikely to defeat the insurgency. Indeed, in some cases the civilian casualties they cause drive up support for militants.”

The report said disputes between the national and regional administrations “distract from efforts to counter Al-Shabaab and risk playing into the insurgency’s hands.”

The report said: “Al-Shabaab remains a formidable force, with clear command-and-control within its ranks, a ruthless intelligence apparatus, and a revenue generation system and ability to deliver basic services, particularly dispute resolution, that outstrip those of Mogadishu.”