SOMALIA - TFG APPREHENSION ABOUT UPCOMING IGAD

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NAIROBI 002380

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/E AND A/S FRAZER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/16/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI PTER SO
SUBJECT: SOMALIA - TFG APPREHENSION ABOUT UPCOMING IGAD
SUMMIT

Classified By: Special Envoy John Yates. Reasons: 1.5 (b,d).

Summary
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1. (C) In an October 15 meeting, visiting Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed
Abdisalam Adan worried about Ethiopia's plans for the October
27 - 29 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
Summit on Somalia. Adan reported that the TFG and
transitional parliament were awash in rumors about the
impending event, among them that the Ethiopian Government
would seek to oust TFG President Yusuf. He confirmed that
all 275 parliamentarians would come to Nairobi for the
Summit, and hoped that, whatever occurred, it would further
the Djibouti Process which, he said, Somalis continue to
support. Abdisalam lamented the TFG's continued lack of
institutional capacity and resources, and urged enhanced
international community assistance while giving a
considerably rosier glow to TFG "success" than most
observers. He reported that al-Shabaab in Mogadishu was
increasingly fragmented and on the defensive in the wake of
its unpopular closure of Mogadishu's airport. Popular
resentment of AMISOM remained high following several
incidents that had produced civilian casualties, Abdisalam
said. Needed in Mogadishu were jobs for the many unemployed
youth who, otherwise, easily became guns for hire. End
summary.

IGAD Anxiety
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2. (C) Visiting TFG Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of
Information, Youth and Sports Ahmed Abdisalam Adan told us
October 15 that the TFG and its parliamentarians were worried
about the Government of Ethiopia's (GOE) plans for the IGAD
Summit on Somalia to be held in Nairobi October 27 - 29. The
fact that all of the 275 transitional parliamentarians had
been invited had fueled rumors that they would be asked to
vote on something, perhaps the future of TFG President Yusuf
or an extension of the TFG's Charter, or that the Summit
would be used to announce the Ethiopian National Defense
Force (ENDF) exit from Somalia. (Note: Many of the 25
parliamentarians who attended an October 6 - 9 National
Democratic Institute-run workshop in Nairobi had expressed to
us great frustration with Yusuf's presidency.) Abdisalam
implied that the USG was aware of and had endorsed the GOE's
plans for the IGAD event. He hoped that the IGAD meeting
would, in the end, support the Djibouti process, although he
did "not see the link" between the two tracks, and he thought
that the international community was focused "too much on
procedure" in its concentration on summit meetings like IGAD.
Abdisalam, and others in the TFG, believed that the
Ethiopians' lack of transparency meant at a minimum that
"something fishy was going on."

TFG Succeeding Under the Circumstances
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3. (C) Abdisalam suggested that the TFG was doing as well as
could be expected under the circumstances. Hampering it were
lack of institutional capacity and resources. The key issue
was security, and Abdisalam returned numerous times during
the conversation to the need to employ Mogadishu's youth, who
were otherwise guns for hire.


4. (C) Even absent resources, Abdisalam was somewhat
optimistic about recent developments in Mogadishu, where he
had been until October 10. He described increasing
impatience with al-Shabaab and its allies since their closure
of the capital's airport. The economic hardship the closure
caused provoked "challenges" in the mosques. Improved
behavior by ENDF troops and the TFG's militia had further
isolated al-Shabaab, Abdisalam alleged.

AMISOM Increasingly Unpopular
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5. (C) Abdisalam said that although some condemned
al-Shabaab's targeting of AMISOM troops from residential
areas, AMISOM's lack of restraint in retaliating had badly
damaged its reputation in Mogadishu. While all understood
that the AU's troops were being provoked, their

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disproportionate response meant they were increasingly seen
as enemies of Somalis. In Mogadishu, many have begun to see
AMISOM and the ENDF in the same light, he said. Abdisalam
alleged he had been active on behalf of the TFG in attempting
to end the cycle of violence. He had met with AMISOM
representatives, and urged restraint, and he had held a press
conference, where he had spoken out against the closure of
the airport and al-Shabaab's intimidation of CARE and the
International Medical Corps.

Thoughts on al-Shabaab
--------------


6. (C) Abdisalam thought that al-Shabaab had evolved into a
very loosely connected network of cells, whose impact far
exceeded its numbers. Its operatives moved quickly around
the country, creating havoc. He likened their strategies to
insurgent groups operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reducing
their ability to hire mercenaries and interfering with the
small number of key operatives could rapidly limit their
influence, he thought. To that end, Abdisalam proposed that
the international community provide a discretionary fund that
the TFG could use to create an employment program for young
people.


7. (C) Abdisalam also believed that al-Shabaab had to be
aggressively challenged if progress were to be made. He
noted that he and the Prime Minister had landed at Mogadishu
airport after al-Shabaab had declared it closed. The TFG,
Somali businessmen, and local clan elders had similarly set a
date, in defiance of al-Shabaab, for the opening of the
airport. Their determination had forced al-Shabaab
concessions, Abdisalam believed.


8. (C) The ENDF and TFG's efforts to force disarmament in
Mogadishu had been a "mistake," Abdisalam thought. Citizens
who were not threats had either relinquished or hidden their
weapons, but al-Shabaab and the city's criminal class had not
been affected. The TFG hoped to institute a weapons
registration procedure, and to license "security firms," as a
way of correcting the problem. A registration procedure
would, once implemented, allow humanitarian aid escorts to
operate without interference. (Comment: The Somali owner of
the trucking firm that suffered hijacking of a WFP shipment
it was transporting asserted to us that guilty culprits were
Union of Islamic Court militia; not TFG, warlords, ENDF, or
al-Shabaab. End Comment).

New Twist on Benadir Administration
--------------


9. (C) Abdisalam claimed that the negotiations over a Benadir
Administration were going well. He described a complicated
system that seemed to merge a clan-based delegate
distribution system with a geographically-driven arrangement
of the region's sixteen districts. Abdisalam claimed that
the new system would offer representation to clan elements
who have been opposed to the TFG in the past. However, it
will not afford Mogadishu residents the opportunity to
participate in a direct electoral process. (Note: Whatever
the process, implementation of the August Addis agreement on
this point is more than a month behind the stipulated 15-day
deadline. End Note).

Comment
--------------


10. (C) Abdisalam, and TFG Ambassador to Kenya Mohamed Ali
Nur, who was with him at the meeting, had no apparent
strategy for the IGAD summit, and seemed to have made little
effort to find out from the Ethiopians what it might mean for
the TFG. Although Abdisalam made a strenuous effort to
portray the TFG as active and relevant to recent developments
in Mogadishu, many of the successes he claimed credit for
--recent backtracking by al-Shabaab for example-- are more
plausibly the work of Hawiye elders, popular dissatisfaction,
and Mogadishu-based businessmen, in addition to
miscalculations by al-Shabaab. Abdisalam frequently
criticized President Yusuf, going so far to allege at one
point that there were "two TFGs, just as there are two ARSs."
He traced lack of TFG influence in Mogadishu to Yusuf's
unwillingness to cooperate, and he said nothing during the
meeting to suggest that the TFG was actively developing a

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strategy for the remaining twelve months of its mandate. The
TFG's Council of Ministers had not met for months, Abdisalam
noted, and given the controversy over the implementation of
the Addis agreement, uncertain how many ministers constitute
the current cabinet; none of which augurs well for the
future.
RANNEBERGER