Failed States And Transnational Crime Prevention In Africa

[rujumba]

The recent upsurge in maritime insecurity and terrorism in the Horn of Africa has thrust Somalia into the spotlight. Law enforcement officers and counter terrorism analysts argue that Somalia is a failed state which acts as a sanctuary for criminals and terrorists who are currently at the heart of fuelling piracy in the Indian Ocean and terrorist attacks in the Horn of Africa. In this sense, a failed state is designated as one where the institutions of government have literarilly collapsed. Under such circumstances, there is no functional judiciary, police, intelligence, prisons service, etc. Under such conditions, the architects of transnational crime would ostensibly find it relatively easy to establish their networks unhindered. To a certain extent, this argument holds water. Somalia only started becoming a battleground in the Global War On Terror after bitter inter-clan factional fighting had eroded all the vestiges of government in this country. It was at this stage in the political history of Somalia that radical Islamist armed groups like Al Ittihad Al Islamiyya emerged to battle with secular groups for the control of state power in this country.

It is worth noting, however, that the 'failed state' paradigm has been challenged on two fronts. One school of thought argues that terrorists and criminals can not operate effectively under conditions of lawlessness. Subscribers to this school of thought point out that fugitives need a semblance of law and order to thrive. To this end, a breakdown in governance would bring with it a constant state of unpredictable shifts in socio - political alliances which criminals and terrorists would find very hard to rely on. For example an alliance between Al Ittihad Al Islammiyya [AIAI] and the Somali Salvation Democratic Front [SSDF] today could easily collapse tommorrow with the SSDF subsequently ganging up with one of its former foes to fight AIAI another day. Such conditions would ostensibly not be conducive for the smooth development of a group on the political scene. The second school of thought argues that the collapse of the institutions of state in countries like Somalia has not necessarily generated lawlessness. Scholars who subscribe to this school of thought argue that community initiatives spearheaded by an alliance of clan leaders, business men, former security officers and international aid organisations have created pockets of stability amidst chaos in these so called 'failed states'.

Given the contending conceptualisations of the phenomenon 'failed state', addressing terrorism and maritime insecurity through 'state building' becomes pretty problematic! If we adopted the assumption that failed states act as breeding grounds for international terrorists, then the 'state building' solution to the Somali question would be to establish new institutions of state in order to police Somalia's territory. The challenge with this approach, however, is that some of the actors on the Somali political scene would consider this approach to be an attempt to impose an 'alien' 'untenable' western political model on an African country! On the other hand, if we attempted to pragmatically 'co-opt' the 'pockets - of -stability' alliance model, then we would be faced with the oddious challenge of applying it beyond the 'neighbourhood' level! For example, it would be difficult constituting the clan elders - aid agencies - security agencies alliance into an organ or organs of government!

In tackling transnational crime, what shape should 'state building' assume?