CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0 General Introduction
This study is initiated with the purpose of establishing the compliance of AMISOM with international statutes while undertaking their peacekeeping duties in Somalia. Many nations have experienced atrocities from the presence peacekeeping forces in their territories. The input of the missions is significant to the current state of affairs which improves with each day in Somalia. However, there is a need to address the injustices committed by the mission’s personnel against the public. This forms the basis of this research which is to give a detailed account of the compliance of AMISOM troops and personnel with three major international treaties namely The Geneva Convention 1949, United Nations Convention against Torture (CAT) 1984, and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CSR) 195.
1.1 Background of the Study
Since the year 1991, Somalia has not been under a nationally popular government. The fall of Siad Barre’s regime marked the beginning of a turmoil that has known no end till lately. Individual countries were involved in their own capacities including the United States of America but their success was never sustainable. The reason for the problems that have faced Somalia has been clans. Somalia is one of very few countries that speaks one language, has a single popular religion, and people with the same culture. With such a homogenous population, one would be quick to suppose that there is harmony. This has
This fact led to successive Somali leaders since independence, to claim that the territories in which the ethnic Somalis live, are indeed part of Somalia. Solomon argues that the urge to unite all five Somali speaking territories (the other two are British Somaliland, and Italian Somaliland) into one country, led to what was referred to as the shifta war with Kenya from 1963 to 1967 (p353, 2014) Identity played a significant role in causing an all-out guerrilla warfare in the North eastern part of Kenya by Somalia, using the narrative that they are trying to “unite’ its people. In his journal on the examination of Kenya-Somalia relations, Donovan Chau argues that Somalia has been championing for the control of Somali-speaking region of Kenya from the British colonialists even before independence (p68, 2010). In his argument it is clear that Somalia’s claim had been influenced by the fact that the community living across the border have Somali identity. He claims the idea by Mohammed Abdille Hassan in the years between 1899 and 1920, was to unify all the Somali speaking in the region under one Islamic country (p68). “The political goals of the new wars are about the claims to power on the basis of seemingly traditional identities - nation, tribe, religion (Kaldor, p72, 2007). Somalia had two of those claims - tribe and religion, and
The history of Somalia is a bloody one, filled with failed occupation, anarchy and civil war. Early Somalia established itself as a merchant state. Its key geographical location by the natural strait between the Horn of Africa and Yemen made it a focal point for trade.This essay will explore the history of internal struggles of the Somalilands and its many wars. It will investigate the colonial influences and conflicts between Somalia and its imperial occupiers and how these influences set the stage for future conflicts between the clans. Also, it will attempt to define the reasons why Somalia has become a failed state. The importance of United States foreign policies will be discussed as they have
Separated not only by the Atlantic Ocean, Somalia and the United States are also separated by the differences in economies and populations. These two countries that are quite opposite in size have some similarities in their governments and education systems.
NATO has impacted human rights around the world by enforcing existing laws, forging alliances between countries, and being a trailblazer in protecting human rights. During the Libyan Civil War of 2011, protestors that wanted democracy were brutally subdued and slaughtered by the special forces of the Libyan government (Haglund). Since they are the ones perpetrating the atrocities, it is natural that they would not want the international community to interfere. However, NATO successfully invoked the Responsibility to Protect, which is an idea adopted by the UN in 2005 that when a country is either unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or in this case, crimes against humanity, then others can step
Conflicts within the nation of Somalia were sometimes planned as a means to an end. Whereby the United States Government supported a certain regime before they used their power to gain control of the situation and overthrow the tyrant. In other cases the use of national power was used such as the Islamic Courts Union to gain control over Somalia by implementing logical line of operations by providing the people their needs and services to gain their trust. In these situations it would be considered as an irregular warfare environment, because they were violent struggles
Somalia is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, and the Indian Ocean to the east. With the longest coastline on the continent, its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains, and highlands. It is made up of the former British Protectorate of Somaliland and Italy’s former Trust Territory of Somalia. Somalia’s modern history began in the late 1800’s, when European powers began to trade and settle in the Somalia area. These events and the events that occurred during the 20th century helped shape the modern Somalia government and culture today.
The International community such as the International Contact Group, the African Union and the United Nations to assist with U.S. foreign policies in achieving a peaceful, stable and comprehensive Somalia by eliminating terrorist threats, promote political stability and by supporting the organization of a central government and provide humanitarian assistance to the Somali people.
Being about to notice the fact that political leaders and many others in the government are embezzling found was bad enough but that they went as far as to be obvious is even worse, and it describes Somalia perfectly. Somalia has other problems along with a bad government; there a perfect location for terrorist attacks, poverty, hunger, and the rise of warlords. The article, State Failure, State-Building, and Prospects for a “Functional Failed State” in Somalia, tries to describe the issues in building government Institutions to help the people of the country in order for them to become a more developed country. For the last two decades Somalia has been in a bad shape, and construction of (an) institution(s) has been taking an extensive amount of time. Mostly due to the funds not reaching the right places and the lack of motivation to build a better central government. From most of the evidence collected for the article show that local laws seem to work best, people running their towns, homes, and businesses the way that they see best rather than depending on the government to inforce their laws. According to what seems to be working, informal government such as the what the small town made to keep things going peacefully, are better at building institutions then formal governments, thus it said that “institution building might not be for Somalia”. Seeing how the creation and betterment of the formal government institution has created many problems, it’s not a big surprise that small more focused policies work best for a country that can’t depend on its
As one of the longest running state breakdown, Somalia confronts large portions of the significant debasement challenges that influence struggle torn nations, with across the board
Somalia has had a long and variegated history, marked by the rise and fall of Empire. Beginning in the late 19th century, the major Western imperial powers began to occupy and divide Somali territory, which is located in the Horn of Africa. The independent Republic of Somalia was formed in 1960 when the British and the Italians withdrew. But though the foreign powers had left, there remained an important reminder of the oppression of imperialism: the state. Beginning in the 7th century, the Somali tribes in the Horn of Africa had developed a complex oral legal system, which operated in a polycentric way: that is, it guaranteed the autonomy of the different Somali clans without any unifying state actor. Yet at the same time, this system, the Xeer, allowed room for conflict resolution and restitution. As a result, the culture of independence among the Somalis meant that one tribe would never be content to be ruled by another—the transitional government created strife as each tribe sought to use it as a means to control the others. In 1991, the Somalis took apart their government and began their modern period of semi-anarchy (with the remnants of the government being propped up by an international coalition desperate to impose their imperialistic mindset on the indigenous culture)—which was also marked with a resurgence of extra-governmental conflict resolution
Child soldiers may generally be considered as victims of war because of their vulnerability and the inability to understand their actions3. Given that children are the future of the world, international law has developed an important number of legal framework concerning the prohibition of recruitment of child soldiers, either in the field of general international human rights law, or in international humanitarian law (IHL). Moreover, the international criminal law has also focused on accountability of persons who have recruited or used child soldiers. However, although often seen as victims, child soldiers have voluntarily perpetrated atrocious crimes. They have committed rape, murder and other gross human rights violations in the course of wars in place like Sierra Leone ,Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This leads us to wonder whether child soldiers should be criminally responsible for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The position of the international criminal courts regarding this question is divergent whereas there is possibility to prosecute child soldiers in certain domestic laws, for instance in the USA, DRC and Rwanda. In this respect, we have to analyse the legal framework of the international protection of child soldiers on the one hand (I), and to examine the possibility to prosecute child soldiers on the other hand
Even though these groups agreed to the ceasefire, there was still violence going on in Darfur. In August 2004, 7,000 Rwandan and Nigerien peacekeeping troops are sent by the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to work in Darfur. Around 2 million civilians were displaced in Darfur and Chad by the end of 2004, around 100,000 were dead. On September 9, 2004, the conflict in Darfur was declared a Genocide. Some of the other countries involved blame the Sudanese government because they have done nothing to help the citizens of Darfur, but the UN doesn’t agree. On January 9, 2005, the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Second Sudanese Civil War ends. In March 2005, the people who violated the ceasefire in Darfur have sanctions authorized against them by the UN Security Council. There were also people accused of war crimes. These people are referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In June, a formal investigation is begun, but the Sudanese government chose not to
By November of 1992, conditions were getting worse instead of better. Food was still being stolen and sold off to clan leaders while aid workers were threatened and attacked. Americans were stunned at the lawlessness and starvation. Thousands of troops were ordered into Somalia to assist in the aid by President George H. Bush. Now food was getting to the people that it was intended for but distrust for the American soldiers was growing after they often violated Somalis privacy by bursting into their homes and confiscating the weapons that was the Somalis only defense against the opposing clans.6 In March of 1993 the U.S. withdrew most of its troops leaving the security of the people to the UN. By this time anger was growing towards the outsiders and the UN took most of the fallout for that by being attacked regularly. Hostility grew even more when the UN announced that the clan led by Aidid was the one responsible for the lawlessness in Somalia.7 When the UN took sides against the most powerful warlord in Somalia, the attacks against the aid workers was stepped up. 24 Pakistani peace keepers were killed
The clan system is a major factor of the catastrophic civil unrest that is going on in Somalia. To this impact, since Somalia achieved statehood, private interest and savage rivalry over the assets of the nation have been a checked element among Somali elite behavior. The way the system is setup is that each elite class individual believe he ought to look out for interest of his clans only. Worst of all each member of the governing elite believed that he is in the government, not as a national figure, but as a clan representative. The pragmatic thought behind this is every single peaceful Somali, along these lines, speaking to his tribe, has a privilege to fitting a cut of this blessing from Allah. This kind of conduct is contrary with running
Much recent discourse surrounding humanitarian intervention has focused on the responsibility to protect (R2P). Prevention is a key component for good international relations and few would say it is not important, but as evidence to date would show prevention is very ineffective, the legality of military intervention still needs to be debated, as to date there is no consensus. For any intervention to be legitimate, whether unilateral or multilateral, it must comply with international law. So as not to cause any confusion, any situation in which an “intervention” is done with the permission or by request of the state being intervened, should be considered humanitarian assistance as state sovereignty is not breached. This paper will