Somalia's DIY Government

Since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, Somalia has had no effective government. War, crime and famine -- and botched intervention by the U.S., U.N. and Ethiopia -- have only prolonged the anarchy. But that doesn't mean the entire country's in chaos. In isolated pockets, everyday Somalis have formed Do-It-Yourself local governments, taking into their own hands all the things we in developed world assume someone else will do for us. There's no better example than Dr. Hawa Abdi's refugee camp in Afgooye, outside Mogadishu. I profile Dr. Abdi's DIY government in the latest issue of GOOD:

"I’m the camp coordinator, the director of the hospital –-
everything,” Abdi says, deep furrows of worry and fatigue radiating from her eyes. She’s dressed in a yellow shawl and purple robes -– and despite more than a decade of accumulated stress, she still has an appropriately regal bearing. To her roles as camp coordinator and hospital director she might add president, sheriff, magistrate and general.

To survive in a lawless land, the camp has had to take on all the functions normally performed by the national government. Abdi makes rules and enforces them, ordering her small security force -– former militiamen armed with AK-47s –- to lock up violators in a makeshift cell “so they can think about what they did.” Even murderers have spent time in Abdi’s lock-up. And when marauders raid the camp, the camp’s cops become its army and Abdi its battlefield commander. In October bandits attacked, aiming to steal donated food. “We defended ourselves and they took nothing,” Abdi says. But one camp resident was wounded.

“We are providing health care … for which we get help from Medicins Sans Frontieres Suisse – and also a nutritional center for children stocked with dry food from the World Food Program,” Abdi says. “We have dug our own well. We are providing them [the refugees] with water.” But an effort to found schools within the camp failed when Abdi couldn’t secure international funding for the teachers.

The story's not online, so you'll have to subscribe to read it all. It's worth it. All subscription fees go to charity, and in your first issue you'll get not only my (ahem) masterpiece, but also a sweet China article by Thomas Barnett. And check out my Somalia journal.

See Also:*
Somali Pirate Map Found!
Why Bombing Somalia is a Bad Idea
Mogadishu's Wheeled Battlecruisers
Somalia's Mystery Weapons*