Somalia: The Cell Phone Effect

[Valin]

Strategy Page:

July 11, 2016:

 

Early today al Shabaab attacked an army base fifty kilometers southwest of Mogadishu. After using a suicide car bomb at the main entrance al Shabaab gunmen entered the base. The shooting went on for several hours. Over twenty people died, most of them al Shabaab. The Islamic terrorists promptly declared this a great victory but it was a failed attack and the local civilians noticed that.

 

Al Shabaab is making fewer attacks than in the past but is still managing to do enough to stay in the headlines and make some parts of Somalia sufficiently unstable that the Islamic terrorist group can maintain a regular presence and camps. Yet a lot of the al Shabaab violence is an extension of the traditional clan feuds and warlord politics that has characterized Somalia for thousands of years. The clan violence was never newsworthy but add the Islamic terrorism angle plus mentions of al Qaeda and ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and you have the world’s attention. The UN certainly agrees and recently approved another year of support for peacekeeping in Somalia with an emphasis on eliminating al Shabaab.

 

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The cell phone is itself a key player in the two decades of civil war in Somalia. By 2000 clan militias and warlords had created enough stability to enable growth in commercial activity. For example, by 2004 three cell phone companies competed to provide service ($10 a month for free local calls, 50 cents a minute for international calls and 50 cents an hour to get on the Internet.) Each new cell phone transmitter installed required that the local clan chief or warlord get a payment. Everyone recognizes the value of the new phone service, after having gone without for years after the old government run phone company was looted and destroyed. As a result, phone company equipment really is protected by the clans and warlords, who do not want to lose their dial tone. The new phone service is cheaper and more reliable than the old government owned landline phone network. This is because there is competition, no government bureaucracy and no taxes (other than the necessary bribes and security payments). There is some fear that if a new government gets established well enough regulations and taxes will greatly increase the cost of service, and reduce reliability. Not yet and for years all of Somalia had better, and cheaper, phone service than any of the other nations in the region. But that’s another story. Even al Shabaab had to respect the cell phone network, even though they tried to shut down cell towers some of the time to avoid detection. Al Shabaab lost that battle. Cell phone service became one of the things nearly all Somalis would fight for.

 

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