The Role Of Ethiopia In Ensuring Peace And Security In Somalia

Ethiopia has been playing its level best to stabilize Somalia and create a peaceful neighbor which is quite instrumental in realizing its long term development goals. Ethiopia’s peace building efforts in Somalia which springs from its goal to safeguard its national interest focuses on dismantling the terrorist group Al-Shabbab on the one hand and capacitating the Somali government and mobilizing the Somali people towards peace building endeavors on the other hand. This multi-purpose peace building effort enabled Ethiopia achieve popular acceptance in Somalia which in turn is crux in stabilizing the country.Right the demise of the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia entered to the notorious club of failed states. Its failure has countless negative spillover effects to the region in general and to neighboring countries such as Ethiopia in particular. Hence, the international community including the USA tried their level best to enhance peace and stability in Somali though the state remained destabilized yet. Ethiopia also deployed its troops in 2006 to Somalia to dismantle the self-styled Union of Islamic Courts/UICs which declared jihad against Ethiopia. As a result, Ethiopia dismantled that group and withdrew from Somalia in 2009.True, countries economic growth/development would be progressive if they can create a kind of mutual interdependence among themselves. This interdependence would enable them maximize their economic benefits and this in turn will help them endure their relations. It is, however, difficult to think of overall development successes including economic interdependence without ensuring dependable peace which is instrumental for the very survival of the nation. Hence, Ethiopia should play its level best to ensure peace in Somalia so as to endure its own overall development dreams thereby ensure economic interdependence between these two sisterly countries.This research, hence, adds some viewpoints why the US-led international interventions were failed and why the Ethiopia’s current evolvement has been witnessing promising result in stabilizing Somalia.And it consists of five chapters where the first deals with introduction, while the next chapter talks about the Chaos and International Interventions in Somalia. The Third unit tries to address the core question of the research by analyzing the role of Ethiopia in stabilizing the state of Somalia, the fourth chapter focuses on the achievement and challenge of Ethiopia’s efforts in stabilizing Somalia while the last chapter summarizes conclusion and forward some recommendations. Chapter one deals with introductory part of the study which in turn consists of the research proposal and review of literatures which in turn consists of research background, methodology, research questions, and review of literatures.On the other hand, chapter two focuses on the political situation of Somalia. Hence, it explains the cause of the decades-long conflict, the effect of the Somali conflict on the Horn of Africa and international response to the conflict.Due to the absence of central government, competition for resources, elite manipulation, political interest of clan leaders, Somalia remained divided for a decade. The instability of Somalia has caused the horn of Africa region a tremendous effect to the countries for more than two decades. The Somali civil war has been raging in Somalia for more than 22 years and its effects have been spilling to the neighboring countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, and Djibouti as well as to other African Countries, such as Tanzania and Uganda, where it has been a source of instability.And the split between the clans led to a plethora of parties becoming involved in the newly established democratic process; the huge number of opinions and ideas being represented and the continuous struggle for power reduced once promising political institutions to an unstable and volatile system. Another issue in the creation of Somali national identity was the division of ethnic Somalis among bordering countries. When the country originally gained independence, the newly established government made clear that their intention is to create a greater Somalia by freeing those Somalis out with sovereign Somali territory. Over time this grand plan was eliminated as the struggle between clans became the focus of Somali politics. The idea was not, however, completely forgotten and was to reemerge a decade later in the policies of General Muhammad Siad Barre.The United Nations had been involved in providing humanitarian relief within Somalia prior to the collapse of the Barre Government. However, following the descent into civil war amid increasing security concerns, the United Nations withdrew its relief operations in mid-1991, leaving only a few NGOs to deal with the escalating humanitarian crisis. At the time neither the means nor the will existed in the United Nations to mount a major humanitarian response to the swelling crisis. International assistance for the first year and a half of the civil war paved better way for relief international organizations and neighboring countriesChapter three of this thesis emphasizes on the role which Ethiopia has been playing to bring about peace and stability in Somalia. The horn of Africa is a region which has been unstable for more than three decades and because of the absence of strong centralized government in Somalia, a terrorist group flows freely and attack neighboring countries. This thematic region negatively affects the region in general and that of Ethiopia in particular in many ways. Thus, Ethiopia has been doing its level best to dismantle the terrorist groups which the country regards them immediate threats to its security. In doing so, it has been playing a vital role in creating strong allies with many African countries and the international community in its struggle against terrorism in the region.Ethiopia created enabling environment where the TFG and various factions around Mogadishu coming together and discuss peacefully which was instrumental for factions to submit their arms and personnel’s to TFG and jointly combat terrorists by mobilizing the general public.Moreover, Ethiopia thoroughly discussed with various clan leaders sand warlords and convinced them to disarm themselves and held peaceful talks with the TFG. And both the TFG and these warlords farther agreed to work together where military personnel of these warlords were trained so as to join the TFG forces to consolidate their struggle against extremist groups. This in turn was critically instrumental in delegitimizing the terrorist groups where the general public showered virtually its fullest support to the TGF then after. Same was to Kismayo and its environs.Ethiopia as individual country and collectively under IGAD has been exerting its maximum efforts to maintain peace and stability in Somalia in all respects. Ethiopia has continued to seek all possible solutions to stabilize the situation in Somalia by supporting the TFG to exercise its powers and duties in the country. In Somalia, IGAD sought to create an enabling environment for the reconstruction of a collapsed state. In Africa, in particular, sub-regional organizations such as IGAD have, over the past decade, come to assume a large role in mediating internal conflicts that spill over to bordering countries or threaten to do so.Finally Chapter four deals with the achievements and challenges which Ethiopia has been facing in creating peaceful Somalia. Ethiopia has played a major role in supporting IGAD’s peace and security activities, including the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan and the peace process for Somalia. The achievement of Ethiopia in dismantling the terrorist group Al-Shabaab with the ambition of establishing an Islamic State is consistent with her aims and determinations to bring about lasting peace and stability to the region. The country has become a very real force for peace in the Horn of Africa region. And hence, its achievement can be measured by prevailing relative peace and stability to the Somali people in particular and stability of the Horn of Africa region in general.When Ethiopia intervened in Somalia to defend its national interest against terrorist groups for they posed clear and present danger to its security, the country has been facing many challenges. The core challenge springs from the very nature of Somali political environment where the nation lacks central government. Different clan leaders had their own warriors and this in turn created serious challenges to bring about stability with central command. Hence mobilizing the general public on same spirit has been so challenging and tiresome.In conclusion, Ethiopia’s military action in Somalia is justified as a means to defend its security because the Islamic Courts posed a clear and present danger to the country which in turn triggers acute regional turmoil. The Ethiopian defense force along with the TFG forces dismantled the UICs in a short period of time. Furthermore Ethiopian government continues supporting the Federal government of Somalia to maintain peace and stability.