Issue No. 807

Sheegow, the Bantu, and the cost of injustice 

In August 2023, government forces forcibly arrested General Sheegow Ahmed Ali, the only senior government officer who hailed from the Jareer Weyne minority, at his home in Mogadishu. Accusing Sheegow of operating a militia, four people were killed in the ensuing violence between security forces and his bodyguards, while over a dozen were also injured. The separate treatment of the popular leader proved highly controversial amongst the long-ostracised Jareer Weyne, triggering protests in both the capital and Beledweyne. Nevertheless, Sheegow was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a military court that November and has remained in jail since. But with Al-Shabaab sweeping across Lower and Middle Shabelle in recent weeks and reports of Sheegow's ill health, the importance of the former official could be returning to the fore.

A photo of an apparently poorly Sheegow in a government hospital bed has circulated in recent days, with many on social media clamouring for his release. Back in August 2023, some asserted that his arrest was an attempt to block the Jareer Weyne military official from playing a leading role in planned operations against Al-Shabaab in southern Somalia, dubbed 'Operation Black Lion.' Much of the territory intended to be liberated, though the offensive never began, was the Jareer Weyne's traditional homeland, driving concerns that they would be displaced and their land seized. Sheegow had previously played an influential role in freeing several towns in Lower and Middle Shabelle from Al-Shabaab, including during the 2014 African Union-led 'Operation Indian Ocean.'

Certainly, Sheegow's prosecution in light of the rampant corruption and failures elsewhere within the Somali National Army (SNA) jarred many within his community. But it also spoke to a broader malaise within the army, where lower-caste soldiers are repeatedly overlooked despite their competence. Accountability for officers from dominant clans is virtually non-existent, and many of the SNA's calamitous failures in the past 18 months have been shrugged off by the Ministry of Defence. The same August as Sheegow's arrest, Al-Shabaab overran SNA positions at Osweyne, killing well over a hundred soldiers and triggering the collapse of the frontline in Galgaduud. To date, no one has been charged for these defeats, with the central Somalia offensive never truly recovering from Osweyne. Today, Al-Shabaab's territorial gains in Middle and Lower Shabelle must squarely be placed in this context of the sustained negligence, corruption, and discrimination within the SNA.

But Sheegow's detention in August 2023 was notable for another set of reasons. First, it demonstrated an increasing politicisation and mobilisation of the Jareer Weyne, with accusations that Sheegow was operating a militia marking a first for the marginalised group. Protests in Mogadishu and Beledweyne further symbolised an increasingly cohesive identity, as well as hinting at broader concerns at the government's treatment of non-Hawiye clans and communities, particularly lower-caste. While Daud Aweys, the Information Minister, is a Somali Bantu, speaks Swahili perfectly, and grew up in Tanzania, he has not advocated for Bantu rights. Rather, his presence in government and within the ruling Damul Jadiid faction is primarily symbolic – to show Hassan Sheikh and the Ikhwan Islamists as 'egalitarian.'

The Jareer Weyne are otherwise known as the Somali Bantu and draw their lineage to the riverine farming communities that predate the spread of Somali nomadic groups into southern Somalia. Others are related to enslaved people from East Africa who laboured under Somalis and others in the 19th century. But in all of urban and rural Somalia, the Jareer function as the biblical 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' – farming, herding livestock, house cleaning, cooking, petty trade and hawking merchandise on the streets. Racism towards the Jareer is rife, with the slur 'addoon,' meaning slave, still commonplace. Miscegenation also remains taboo – even to this day. A Jareer woman who marries a Laan Dheer (a pure nomadic Somali clan) is usually tolerable, as she 'marries up,' but the reverse-- a Jareer man marrying from a 'noble' lineage-- is considered sacrilege and often triggers violence. In Puntland during Ramadan, a group of Bantus were recently not allowed to partake in a supposedly free iftar. However, some years earlier, the US government's Refugee Resettlement Programme targeted the Jareer, with thousands of Bantus resettled in America. This has given them a degree of visibility and allowed some extended family members in Somalia to benefit from the remittance economy.

Having been repeatedly displaced from their riverine land by marauding militias in the early 1990s and through decades of internecine warfare, the Jareer Weyne now make up a peri-urban impoverished underclass. These communities comprise a significant proportion of the swollen displacement camps on the edges of Somalia's major cities, including Mogadishu and Beledweyne, and have been used as humanitarian bait by stronger clans. Though many Jareer Weyne have been reticent to join Al-Shabaab, the jihadists' offer of status through a gun and a steady income has proven tempting for some. Still, the militants have been reported to extract higher rates of tax from the Bantu than other, more influential communities and have violently targeted those practising animism.

In a recent interview with SYL Somali TV, Hirshabelle Deputy Minister of Information Abdishakur Shasha slammed the federal government for Sheegow's deteriorated health. He accused the government of being "too busy organising protests and counter-protests" to spare "even a single moment to address Sheegow's condition." But this may be something the federal government could quickly come to rue if Sheegow's condition worsens or if the Jareer Weyne leader dies. Villa Somalia will be blamed-- again-- by his community, who maintain his innocence, in the event of further inaction or Sheegow's passing. Barring the Abgaal/ Da'ud, most Hawiye sub-clans have not yet definitively broken from the government towards Al-Shabaab, which would allow the militant group to progress further into the outskirts of Mogadishu. That equation might yet change if the Jareer Weyne on the capital's peripheries and across the Shabelles were to see further painful evidence of their marginalisation and join the jihadists in considerable numbers at the worst possible moment for Villa Somalia.

Luckily for the federal government, it cuts another way, and if action can be pursued in freeing or empowering Sheegow, then a major and previously influential resource could be tapped into. The international community would be well placed to advocate for Sheegow's release on humanitarian grounds. Al-Shabaab's Ramadan advances in central Somalia have as much to do with the strength of the jihadist group as the self-inflicted injuries and perennial weaknesses of the federal government. But if the political space frees up, a coalition of Hawiye/Habar Gedir– Dir/Biamal– Digil– Bantu forces could theoretically be cobbled together to resist Al-Shabaab in Lower Shabelle.

This is a big 'if,' though, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud having burnt innumerable bridges in the past 18 months. It is unclear if the president could still play a role in bringing together the requisite sub-clans and groups, or if he even wishes to do so and risk divesting power. Despite announcing talks intended for reconciliation last week, President Hassan Sheikh quickly departed for Djibouti to meet with his counterpart, Ismail Guelleh. It was hardly a signal that Villa Somalia had about-turned from its attempts to rally international support rather than mend domestic bridges. While a lunch meeting with regional presidents from Hirshabelle, Galmudug, and South West has been reportedly planned for the coming days, this does not touch the sides of what is required. Instead, it appears that the government may be laying its hopes on the deployment of Turkish Sadat mercenary forces to the capital and Middle Shabelle, a request apparently made by the Somali president while in Ankara. These forces currently secure the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu, but it is unclear if they will play a combat role if deployed. 

In so many ways, the federal government is reaping what it has sown over the past two years, while the treatment of Sheegow has also been symptomatic of the degrading treatment faced by those deemed ignoble in Somalia. Understandably, patchwork solutions for protecting Mogadishu in the immediate weeks have focused on reconciliation, particularly within the Abgaal, and the requisite political concessions from the government that are needed to make this happen. But it may be the Bantu- the most trodden-on community in Somalia- who could still end up playing a far more central role in the future of Mogadishu than most ever anticipated.

The Somali Wire Team