Making Peace in Somaliland

Abstract This paper reports the results of a brief anthropological field study, carried out in the summer 1993, on the organisation and progress of grass-roots peace initiatives in the Somaliland Republic. Fieldwork was supplemented by a literature survey and based on the joint authors' previous extensive research in Somalia. When President Siad's government was overthrown in Mogadishu, the Somaliland National movement, based on the Isaaq clans, set up an interim government in the North-West. This administration did not, however, have the authority or means to impose order amongst the country's unruly and abundantly armed clans. Starting in 1991, grass-roots peace initiatives gradually built up a national network of peace conferences. Using traditional institutions and diplomacy, they succeeded to a remarkable degree in restoring relative calm and normalising inter-clan relations on an impressively wide front. The results of this low budget, locally inspired process were much more impressive than those of the lavishly expensive high profile peace conferences engineered by foreign agencies in southern Somalia.Farah Ahmed Y., Lewis Ioan M. Making Peace in Somaliland. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 37, n°146, 1997. La Corne dans tous ses États. pp. 349-377