Peace talks in Mogadishu between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the opposition have collapsed without agreement, deepening Somalia's constitutional crisis. Fletcher and Octavio dig into the extraordinary history of a country that lost its state in 1991 and is still struggling to find it.
Las conversaciones de paz en Mogadiscio entre el presidente Hassan Sheikh Mohamud y la oposición han fracasado sin acuerdo, profundizando la crisis constitucional de Somalia. Fletcher y Octavio exploran la historia extraordinaria de un país que perdió su Estado en 1991 y todavía lucha por encontrarlo.
7 essential B1-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| clan | clan | En Somalia, el clan es más importante que el Estado para muchas personas. |
| autonomía | autonomy | Las regiones quieren más autonomía del gobierno central. |
| señor de la guerra | warlord | Los señores de la guerra controlaban diferentes partes de la ciudad. |
| confianza | trust | No hay suficiente confianza entre los grupos políticos para hacer funcionar el gobierno. |
| café para todos | one-size-fits-all solution (literally: coffee for everyone) | La propuesta del gobierno era un café para todos que no respetaba las diferencias regionales. |
| frágil | fragile | El progreso en Somalia es muy lento y muy frágil. |
| fracasar | to fail, to collapse (for negotiations or plans) | Las conversaciones de paz fracasaron porque no había suficiente acuerdo. |
I filed dispatches from Mogadishu in 1993 and again in 2007, and I still can't fully explain Somalia to people without watching their eyes glaze over about forty-five seconds in.
So today I want to try properly.
Talks broke down in Mogadishu yesterday.
The U.S.
and the U.K.
were mediating.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the regional opposition couldn't agree on how to run an election.
And underneath that very dry headline is one of the most extraordinary political implosions of the twentieth century.
Mira, Somalia es un país muy difícil de entender porque su historia es muy complicada.
Look, Somalia is a very difficult country to understand because its history is very complicated.
Pero creo que la palabra más importante para entender Somalia es 'clan'.
But I think the most important word for understanding Somalia is 'clan'.
Todo en Somalia, la política, la guerra, los negocios, todo funciona a través del sistema de clanes.
Everything in Somalia, politics, war, business, everything works through the clan system.
Right, and that's where I want to start, because Europeans arriving in the nineteenth century completely missed that.
Or they understood it and decided to ignore it, which was worse.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Cuando llegaron los europeos, Somalia no era un país.
When the Europeans arrived, Somalia was not a country.
Era un territorio con muchos grupos diferentes, con sus propias leyes y tradiciones.
It was a territory with many different groups, with their own laws and traditions.
Los británicos tomaron el norte y los italianos tomaron el sur.
The British took the north and the Italians took the south.
Y las dos colonias eran muy diferentes.
And the two colonies were very different.
The British ran their bit from Aden, cheaply, as a provisioning stop for ships.
The Italians put real money into the south, built roads, plantations, institutions.
When independence came in 1960, you had two territories with completely different administrative DNA trying to become one country overnight.
Y además, Fletcher, el territorio somalí no terminaba en las fronteras del nuevo país.
And also, Fletcher, Somali territory didn't end at the borders of the new country.
Había somalíes en Etiopía, en Kenia, en Djibouti.
There were Somalis in Ethiopia, in Kenya, in Djibouti.
Desde el primer día, Somalia quería unir a todos los somalíes.
From the very first day, Somalia wanted to unite all Somalis.
Este sueño se llamó la Gran Somalia.
This dream was called Greater Somalia.
Pan-Somalism.
And the five-pointed star on the Somali flag, each point represents a Somali community, including two that were never part of the country.
That's a foreign policy doctrine baked into the national symbol on day one.
Correcto.
Correct.
Y esto causó guerras con los vecinos muy pronto.
And this caused wars with the neighbors very quickly.
Pero la democracia en Somalia funcionó bastante bien en los primeros años.
But democracy in Somalia worked quite well in the early years.
Había partidos políticos, elecciones, debates.
There were political parties, elections, debates.
Muchos africanos miraban a Somalia como un ejemplo positivo.
Many Africans looked at Somalia as a positive example.
And then 1969.
A coup.
General Siad Barre takes power after the president is assassinated, the parliament is dissolved, and Somalia pivots hard to the Soviet Union.
Siad Barre era un personaje muy interesante.
Siad Barre was a very interesting character.
Era inteligente, era carismático, y usaba las ideas del socialismo para justificar su poder.
He was intelligent, he was charismatic, and he used the ideas of socialism to justify his power.
Decía que los clanes eran el problema de Somalia, que era necesario eliminar el sistema de clanes para crear un país moderno.
He said that clans were Somalia's problem, that it was necessary to eliminate the clan system to create a modern country.
He banned clan names in public.
He made people refer to each other as 'jaalle,' comrade.
The theory being that if you can't name the thing, the thing loses its power.
Pero en realidad, Barre usaba los clanes para controlar el poder.
But in reality, Barre used the clans to control power.
Favorecía su propio clan y los clanes de su familia.
He favored his own clan and his family's clans.
Era hipócrita.
He was a hypocrite.
Y mientras decía que eliminaba los clanes, los clanes se hacían más fuertes porque la gente dependía de ellos para sobrevivir.
And while he said he was eliminating clans, the clans were getting stronger because people depended on them to survive.
Then the Cold War does what the Cold War always does to the wrong countries.
Somalia switches sides.
In 1977 Barre invades Ethiopia to grab the Ogaden region, which has a big Somali population.
Moscow drops him, sides with Ethiopia.
Washington swoops in.
Y así Somalia perdió la guerra contra Etiopía pero recibió dinero y armas de los americanos.
And so Somalia lost the war against Ethiopia but received money and weapons from the Americans.
Millones y millones de dólares.
Millions and millions of dollars.
Y Barre usó estas armas no solo para el ejército.
And Barre used these weapons not just for the army.
Las usó contra su propio pueblo, especialmente contra los clanes que no le apoyaban.
He used them against his own people, especially against the clans that didn't support him.
The Isaaq clan in the north got the worst of it.
In 1988, Barre's forces bombed Hargeisa, the second city, killed somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand people.
It was a massacre that barely registered in the Western press because we were too busy worrying about whether he was our guy or Moscow's guy.
Sí, y al final, cuando la Unión Soviética desapareció y la Guerra Fría terminó, Somalia ya no era útil para nadie.
Yes, and in the end, when the Soviet Union disappeared and the Cold War ended, Somalia was no longer useful to anyone.
El dinero americano paró.
The American money stopped.
El ejército no tenía control.
The army had no control.
Y los grupos armados de los diferentes clanes empezaron a luchar entre ellos.
And the armed groups from the different clans started fighting each other.
Barre fled in January 1991 in a tank.
Drove himself out of Mogadishu.
And that was it.
The government didn't just fall, it dissolved.
Ministries, courts, the central bank, the police, the army, all of it simply ceased to function.
Political scientists use Somalia as the textbook definition of a failed state.
Y esto es muy importante para entender lo que pasa hoy.
And this is very important for understanding what is happening today.
Cuando un Estado desaparece completamente, es muy difícil construirlo otra vez.
When a state disappears completely, it is very hard to build it again.
La gente aprendió a vivir sin el Estado.
People learned to live without the state.
Aprendió a depender del clan, del jefe del barrio, del señor de la guerra.
They learned to depend on the clan, on the neighborhood chief, on the warlord.
Estas estructuras son muy difíciles de cambiar.
These structures are very hard to change.
I want to talk about 1993, because that's when the world really started paying attention, and also when the world decided it was all too hard and walked away.
The U.N.
came in, the U.S.
sent troops, the mission was to protect aid convoys during a famine that was killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Y después vino la batalla de Mogadiscio en octubre de 1993.
And then came the Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993.
Los americanos intentaron capturar a los jefes del señor de la guerra Mohamed Aidid.
The Americans tried to capture the chiefs of the warlord Mohamed Aidid.
Fue un desastre.
It was a disaster.
Murieron dieciocho soldados americanos y muchos somalíes.
Eighteen American soldiers died and many Somalis.
Fue el momento cuando todo cambió.
It was the moment when everything changed.
Black Hawk Down.
Two helicopters shot down, soldiers dragged through the streets, the images broadcast around the world.
Clinton pulled the troops out within months.
And that decision, that exit, cast a shadow over every subsequent debate about intervention in Africa for the next decade.
Rwanda happened six months later.
Es una conexión muy importante.
It's a very important connection.
Muchos historiadores dicen que la experiencia de Somalia explicó la inacción internacional durante el genocidio de Ruanda.
Many historians say that the Somalia experience explained the international inaction during the Rwanda genocide.
Los gobiernos tenían miedo de otro Mogadiscio.
Governments were afraid of another Mogadishu.
El costo fue terrible.
The cost was terrible.
So the world leaves.
Somalia spends the next decade and a half with no government, warlords carving up neighborhoods in Mogadishu, and then something unexpected happens in the mid-2000s.
The Islamic Courts Union takes Mogadishu, brings some order, bans warlords from roadblocks, reopens the port.
Sí, y la gente en Mogadiscio estaba muy cansada de la violencia.
Yes, and people in Mogadishu were very tired of the violence.
Algunos somalíes apoyaron a los Tribunales Islámicos porque traían paz, aunque era una paz muy estricta.
Some Somalis supported the Islamic Courts because they brought peace, even though it was very strict peace.
Pero después los americanos convencieron a Etiopía de invadir Somalia para eliminar a los Tribunales Islámicos.
But then the Americans convinced Ethiopia to invade Somalia to eliminate the Islamic Courts.
And from the wreckage of the Islamic Courts Union came Al-Shabaab, which is still fighting today.
The intervention that was supposed to prevent an Islamist takeover produced a more radical and more durable Islamist insurgency.
There's a lesson in there that keeps getting ignored.
Y mientras todo esto pasaba, el norte del país, la región que los británicos controlaban antes, hizo algo extraordinario.
And while all this was happening, the north of the country, the region the British controlled before, did something extraordinary.
La región de Somaliland declaró su independencia en 1991 y construyó un sistema político que funciona bastante bien.
The Somaliland region declared independence in 1991 and built a political system that works quite well.
Tienen elecciones, tienen instituciones, tienen paz relativa.
They have elections, they have institutions, they have relative peace.
Somaliland is one of the most quietly remarkable political stories on the continent.
It functions better than a lot of recognized states.
It has its own currency, its own passport, its own army.
And not a single country in the world officially recognizes it, because recognizing it would mean acknowledging that borders drawn by colonial powers can be unmade.
Y esto explica el problema actual.
And this explains the current problem.
Las conversaciones en Mogadiscio fracasaron porque el país tiene partes que funcionan de maneras muy diferentes.
The talks in Mogadishu failed because the country has parts that function in very different ways.
El gobierno central quiere controlar todo.
The central government wants to control everything.
Las regiones quieren más autonomía.
The regions want more autonomy.
Y nadie confía en nadie porque la historia del Estado somalí es una historia de traición.
And nobody trusts anyone because the history of the Somali state is a history of betrayal.
The specific dispute yesterday was about electoral logistics in South West State.
But that's not really what it's about.
It's about whether a central government in Mogadishu has the legitimate authority to organize a national election when significant parts of the country don't accept that authority as legitimate.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y la legitimidad en Somalia es muy complicada porque depende del clan.
And legitimacy in Somalia is very complicated because it depends on the clan.
Si el presidente es de un clan diferente al tuyo, no confías en él automáticamente.
If the president is from a different clan to yours, you don't automatically trust him.
Esta no es irracionalidad.
This is not irrationality.
Es la lógica de una sociedad donde el Estado no protegió a la gente durante muchos años.
It's the logic of a society where the state didn't protect people for many years.
I interviewed a Somali elder in a camp outside Mogadishu in 2007.
He told me, the government is a building.
We are the land under it.
When the building collapses, the land is still there.
I've been thinking about that sentence for nearly twenty years.
Eso es muy profundo.
That is very profound.
Porque describe exactamente por qué Somalia sobrevivió sin Estado durante tanto tiempo.
Because it describes exactly why Somalia survived without a state for so long.
El Estado fue siempre un elemento extranjero para muchos somalíes.
The state was always a foreign element for many Somalis.
Primero colonial, después impuesto por la Guerra Fría, después construido con dinero extranjero.
First colonial, then imposed by the Cold War, then built with foreign money.
And the piracy era, roughly 2005 to 2013, is another piece of this.
When there's no coast guard, no navy, no functioning government, Somali fishermen started losing their fishing grounds to foreign trawlers who just showed up and took whatever they wanted.
The piracy started partly as a response to that.
Sí, la piratería somalí fue un escándalo internacional, pero hay que entender el contexto.
Yes, Somali piracy was an international scandal, but you have to understand the context.
El océano cerca de Somalia fue, durante muchos años, un lugar donde barcos de muchos países tomaban los recursos del mar somalí sin permiso.
The ocean near Somalia was, for many years, a place where ships from many countries took Somalia's sea resources without permission.
Cuando no hay Estado, no hay nadie que proteja estos recursos.
When there is no state, there is nobody to protect these resources.
Now.
Where does this leave us today?
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is actually a pretty credible figure by Somali standards.
He's been president before, 2012 to 2017, came back in 2022.
Al-Shabaab has been pushed back from major cities.
There are real institutions forming.
And the talks just fell apart anyway.
Porque el problema fundamental no cambió.
Because the fundamental problem didn't change.
No hay suficiente confianza entre los diferentes grupos políticos para hacer funcionar las instituciones.
There is not enough trust between the different political groups to make institutions work.
Y cuando no hay confianza, cualquier pequeño problema técnico, como los detalles de una elección, se convierte en una crisis total.
And when there is no trust, any small technical problem, like the details of an election, becomes a total crisis.
The international community keeps trying to apply a template, write a constitution, hold an election, form a government, repeat.
But that template assumes the underlying social contract exists.
In Somalia it has to be built at the same time as the institutions, which is extraordinarily hard.
Hay razones para tener algo de esperanza, aunque es difícil.
There are reasons to have some hope, even though it's hard.
Mogadiscio hoy es diferente.
Mogadishu today is different.
Hay cafés, hay universidades, hay empresas.
There are cafes, there are universities, there are businesses.
Muchos somalíes que vivían en el exterior volvieron con dinero y con ideas.
Many Somalis who lived abroad returned with money and with ideas.
Pero el progreso es muy lento y muy frágil.
But the progress is very slow and very fragile.
Thirty-five years after the state collapsed.
That's what we're talking about.
A generation and a half of Somalis who have never known a functioning national government.
You can't overstate how much that shapes every political instinct, every calculation, every negotiation.
Oye, Fletcher, antes dijiste algo interesante.
Hey, Fletcher, you said something interesting before.
Usaste la expresión 'plantilla' para describir el sistema que la comunidad internacional usa en Somalia.
You used the word 'template' to describe the system the international community uses in Somalia.
Me gustó esa palabra porque en español tenemos una expresión parecida: 'café para todos'.
I liked that word because in Spanish we have a similar expression: 'coffee for everyone'.
Significa dar la misma solución a todo el mundo sin pensar en las diferencias.
It means giving the same solution to everyone without thinking about the differences.
Café para todos.
Coffee for everyone.
As in, same cup, same coffee, doesn't matter if you want tea.
That's a good one.
Where does that come from?
Viene de la política española, curiosamente.
It comes from Spanish politics, interestingly.
En los años ochenta, durante la transición a la democracia, había un debate sobre cómo organizar las regiones del país.
In the eighties, during the transition to democracy, there was a debate about how to organize the regions of the country.
Algunas regiones querían más autonomía que otras.
Some regions wanted more autonomy than others.
Algunos políticos decían que era mejor dar la misma autonomía a todas las regiones, sin diferencias.
Some politicians said it was better to give the same autonomy to all the regions, without differences.
El café para todos.
Coffee for everyone.
No funcionó perfectamente, pero la expresión quedó.
It didn't work perfectly, but the expression stuck.
That's actually perfect for this conversation.
Spain in the eighties was trying to rebuild after forty years of dictatorship, figuring out how to accommodate regional identities that had been suppressed.
Somalia is trying to do something similar but starting from an even deeper hole, with less time, and under active military pressure.
The problems rhyme, even if the scales don't.
Sí, exacto.
Yes, exactly.
Y por eso 'café para todos' es tan útil en conversaciones políticas.
And that's why 'café para todos' is so useful in political conversations.
Puedes usarla cuando alguien propone una solución uniforme para un problema complejo.
You can use it when someone proposes a uniform solution for a complex problem.
Es una crítica elegante.
It's an elegant criticism.
No insultas a nadie directamente, pero todo el mundo entiende que la solución propuesta es demasiado simple.
You don't insult anyone directly, but everyone understands that the proposed solution is too simple.
Café para todos.
I'm taking that one.
Though knowing me I'll try to use it at a dinner party in Austin and accidentally say something about being pregnant instead.
Fletcher, te prometo que si algún día dices 'muy embarazado' en una cena en Austin, quiero estar allí para verlo.
Fletcher, I promise you that if you ever say 'very pregnant' at a dinner in Austin, I want to be there to see it.