The Root Causes Of The Somali Civil War

One of the worst civil wars in African history has been waged in Somalia for over two decades. The Somali civil war has various complex causes including political, economic, and cultural. Several internal and external actors have roles throughout the various stages of the conflict, but the root causes of the Somali conflict were competition for power and resources, an oppressive state, and the colonial legacy. With this in mind, it is important to examine the root causes of the Somali conflict and examine obstacles that have plagued peace efforts within Somalia.

The most important factor that has created the clan-based militias conflicts is competition for power and resources. Somali clans had often clashed over resources such as water,

African modes of thought, cultural structure, and ways of life were impacted by changes brought about by foreign invasion. Over the last several decades, no other country has struggled so intensely to establish basic government structures. Somalia’s instability originates partially from conflicts between the state structures imposed during the colonial era and the clan structures that traditionally play a heavy role in the lives of Somalis. The 1991 ousting of Barre lead a new era of conflict and anarchy from which the region has never fully recovered. In the absence of a central government, warlords and armed factions have violently conflicted for political and economic dominance. Somalia has also served as a proxy battleground for international actors and ideologies, such as the Cold War. The end of the Cold War saw a change in the pattern of Africa’s foreign assistance. No longer driven by ideological rivalry, external interests were now more precise in how they spent their money. Before, strategic imperatives had persuaded foreign donors to turn their head to domestic excess; now state elites were made accountable for how they governed their domestic jurisdictions. Political conditions attached to aid programs contributed to the pressures that produced political reforms in the

Eventually, in 2004 peace movements resulted in the successful formation of the Transitional Federal Government, led by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. Although it was proposed to be a government of national unity that would direct political transition, the Transitional Federal Government represented a limited set of clan interests and lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the Somali people. An African Union peacekeeping mission was established in 2007 to support the Transitional Federal Government, but the mission did little to restrain the emergence of a rebellion composed of both Islamic and secular militias hostile to the Transitional Federal Government. The careless and often arbitrary counter rebellion tactics of the Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopian forces further compounded the crisis, and more than 400,000 people were driven from their homes in Mogadishu during 2007. By 2008, fighting in Mogadishu worsened. Meanwhile, the country faced a severe humanitarian food crisis with more than one million people displaced from their homes and in danger of starvation. With the increasing need of food aid, the country was on the brink of famine. The rise in piracy along the coast of Somalia placed the country in the international spotlight, but the situation in Somalia remains