Chinese Lifeweek Magazine

Interview with David Shinn

East Africa and the Horn
1 November 2009

Question: You studied East Africa when you were a student at George Washington
University. Your career as a professional diplomat is also related to East African
countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia. Why did you take an interest in these countries
and continue the interest throughout your career?

Answer: You are correct. While obtaining a Master’s degree at George Washington
University in the early 1960s, I studied African affairs and wrote my final thesis on the
Pan-Somali movement. To some extent, I was encouraged by university professors to
focus on Africa and particularly Somalia. At the same time, I was preparing to join the
U.S. Foreign Service and concluded that Africa was a part of the world that was not well
understood in the Department of State in the 1960s. It seemed like an ideal career
opportunity to get in on the ground floor by having an academic background on Africa. I
also concluded that Africa is a fascinating continent.

Question: Have you been to Somalia before 1991? If so, could you tell us something
about your trip? What was your impression of Somalia? What was Somalia like before
1991?

Answer: Early in my Foreign Service career, from 1969 to 1971, I was the State
Department desk officer in Washington for Somalia and Djibouti and the assistant desk
officer for Ethiopia. I made my first trip to the region—Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia—
in 1970. Siad Barre had seized power in Somalia in a military coup in the fall of 1969,
soon after I became desk officer. Somalia went from nine years of democratic
government since its independence in 1960 to a dictatorship soon after Siad Barre seized
power. Nevertheless, my recollections from that first visit are entirely positive. I visited
Mogadishu and several locations outside the capital in addition to the northern city of
Hargeisa, where the United States had a consulate. Somalia was a relatively prosperous
and peaceful country at that time. The capital, Mogadishu, which today is largely
destroyed, was attractive and had a special charm. This trip also allowed me to take the
train from Djibouti to Addis Ababa on the narrow gauge railway built at the beginning of
the 20th century and to visit parts of Ethiopia.

Question: When you where the Deputy Director of the Somali Task Force and
Coordinator for Somalia in 1992 and 1993, what problems in Somalia did you face?
What tasks were on the agenda? What’s your observation of Somali society at that time?
What things did you do when you held this post? What were some of the important
decisions that you were involved in on behalf of the U.S. government?
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Answer: The United States, the United Nations and the international community faced
three major issues during this period. First, was the need to end the Somali famine,
which was the reason the international community intervened in Somalia. The
international community was successful in achieving that goal. Second, was the need to
impose security over a country that had no government and was under the control of
various war lords. The international community succeeded briefly in this effort and then
lost control of the situation. Third, there was the goal of nation building in Somalia and
helping Somalis to rejoin the community of nations. This effort failed.
By late 1992, Somali society had begun to disintegrate. The national government
had disappeared. War lords were replacing elders and clan leaders. Individual militias
were controlling various parts of the country. Government services had largely broken
down. My task was to coordinate actions concerning Somalia within the State
Department and to serve as the State Department liaison person with other agencies such
as the National Security Council, Department of Defense and U.S. Agency for
International Development. My most important role was to support the State Department
presence in Somalia, ensure that the most senior officials in the State Department
received regular briefings on the situation in Somalia, brief Congressional committees on
Somalia and make recommendations for resolving new problems that arose. In July
1993, I led an interagency team to Somalia that had responsibility for reviewing U.S.
policy there and making recommendations for possible changes.

Question: You were ambassador to Ethiopia from 1996 to 1999 and served earlier as a
political officer at the American embassy in Kenya. What did decision makers think at
the time? What were the most important events and moments? How were you involved?
How has the situation in Somalia changed? Could you tell us your stories with an
insider’s view as an ambassador in Ethiopia?

Answer: Let me turn first to Kenya, where I served at the U.S. embassy during 1966-
1967. At the time, Somalia pursued a pan-Somali policy, which was an effort to unite
with Somalia those Somalis who lived across the border in neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia
and Djibouti. This policy envisaged incorporating territory from these three countries
and making it part of Somalia. The leaders, not surprisingly, of these three countries
opposed this goal. There were periodic conflicts, especially with Kenya and Ethiopia.
This situation had quieted down by the time I arrived in Kenya, but it was still a
contentious issue. Relations between Kenya and Somalia were not good at the time.
During my time in Ethiopia from 1996 to 1999, Somalia had no national
government and it was not in a position to challenge the government of Ethiopia in those
parts of the country inhabited by Somalis. There was an Islamic extremist organization,
al-Ittihad al-Islami, based in Somalia that conducted a few attacks inside Ethiopia,
including one attempt to assassinate in Addis Ababa the Ethiopian minister of
communications, an ethnic Somali, who was severely injured. During these years,
Ethiopia was primarily concerned with isolating Somali dissident activity inside Somalia
so that it would not spread into neighboring Ethiopia. To achieve this purpose, Ethiopian
troops occasionally crossed the border into Somalia to neutralize suspected opposition
elements.
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Question: During your stay in East Africa, you must have become acquainted with many
Somali politicians, businessmen, war lords and local people. What do they believe?
How do they think and behave? Could you tell us two or three stories about your
acquaintances with Somali people that have impressed you most? What is the unique
culture that defines their way of social networking and behavior?

Answer: Somalis are a highly individualistic people. One of the earliest pieces of advice
I received concerning the Somali approach to diplomacy is that every Somali sees
himself as his own minister of foreign affairs. I found that to be useful guidance. At the
same time, Somalis have very close attachments to their clans, sub-clans, sub-sub-clans
and extended family. With the passage of time, there has been some weakening of clan
ties, but it remains an important part of Somali society. Based on my contact with many
Somalis over the years, they are also a highly nationalistic people. Although clan
distinctions remain important, they ultimately think of themselves, wherever they live, as
Somalis.
Somalis are incredibly entrepreneurial. They are excellent business persons. In
that sense, they have something in common with Chinese. They know how to drive a
good bargain and establish a successful business. This applies to both men and women.
At the same time, many Somalis have adopted the harmful practice of chewing chat (also
known as khat or qat), an addictive stimulant grown in the highlands of Kenya and
Ethiopia that produces amphetamine-like effects. Somalis usually chew the fresh green
leaves of the plant while talking endlessly with friends. The chewing of chat consumes an
enormous amount of time and reduces productivity. After-effects include lack of
concentration, numbness and insomnia.
Somalis who live in rural parts of the Horn of Africa are exceptionally hospitable
towards visitors who bear them no harm. Their way of live is pastoral. The weather is
often harsh. Their very existence is difficult. Yet, they are unusually sharing with
visitors even when they have little themselves.

Question: Based on your observation and experiences, why and how do war lords and
religious organizations take power in Somali society, mobilize and organize people,
especially in rural Somalia?

Answer: War lords and extremist religious groups are a relatively new phenomenon in
Somalia, although there are some similarities with the political activities of Muhammad
Abdille Hassan, better known in the West as the “Mad Mullah,” who dates back to the
early part of the 20th century. Sayyid, as he is called by most Somalis, received
fundamentalist Islamic training in Saudi Arabia and fought the imposition of foreign
values in northern Somalia.
Most of the recent extremist groups arose after the collapse of the Somali state in
1991. Initially, the war lords were the greatest threat to Somali society and the obstacle
to the reconstruction of a national Somali government. An extremist Islamic group, al-
Ittihad al-Islami, also posed a threat until it disappeared a number of years ago. More
recently, zealous Islamic groups such as al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam pose the greatest
challenge to the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG). They want a religious
state under a strict interpretation of Islam. This runs counter to the traditional Sufi Islam
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that has long predominated in the country. The coming months and years will determine
the outcome of this fundamentalist Islamic challenge.

Question: After 1991, former soldiers were forced to go back home. What happened to
them? Do they form the backbone of the war lords, local government, fishermen and
arms dealers? Could you tell us from your observation and experience how piracy is
organized and thrives?

Answer: As is the case throughout Somalia since the collapse of the government in
1991, the former soldiers can be found in all walks of life. Some became war lords or
joined war lord militias. Others became businessmen. Some are now living outside
Somalia in the diaspora while still others are part of the TFG. They are just trying to
make a living like any other Somali.
Somali pirates are an interesting collection of people who are examples of Somali
entrepreneurialism, albeit criminal entrepreneurialism. Most of the Somalis who attack
ships in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean are young, unemployed men
attracted by quick ransom profits. There is almost no work for them in Somalia. Some
are former fishermen who were unable to compete with foreign fishing vessels engaged
illegally off Somali shores. Most are not; they just see piracy as a way to make a lot of
money. The pirate masters who organize the attacks remain on land and do not take the
risk of attacking foreign vessels in the open ocean. They take most of the ransom profits
at little risk to themselves. Then there are the providers of information on ship
movements, ransom negotiators and money handlers who live in foreign countries. They
probably make most of the money from the ransom payments. War lords, extremist
organizations and even local government officials may also benefit from the ransom
money occasionally, but piracy is essentially a criminal business with a profit motive.

Question: How did the former Somali central government manage to protect and control
the coastline? How did the coastline gradually become lawless and chaotic?

Answer: Until 1991, Somalia had a central government in control of the land and a
small navy and coast guard capable of patrolling Somali waters. When the government
collapsed, the navy and coast guard also ceased to exist. As the economy deteriorated,
unemployment rose. Somalis became increasingly desperate. A small number of
Somalis, especially along the coast of Puntland, learned they could make a lot of money
by seizing foreign vessels and demanding ransom for the release of the ships and their
crew. Although this has been a problem for many years, it became especially serious in
2007 and has worsened every year since then. A successful pirate attack now results in
an average ransom payment of about $2 million. That is an enormous amount of money
even when it is divided among all the intermediaries involved in release of a ship and its
crew.
Until a Somali government regains control of the country, this problem will not
end. Ship owners can take better measures to prevent pirate attacks. International naval
vessels, including those from China, that patrol pirate-invested waters can reduce the
number of pirate attacks. These measures can not, however, stop Somali piracy.