Two weeks go by, and at least one new maritime agreement on the Somali peninsula has reared its head, with another retaliatory pact to potentially soon follow. The first was between Taiwan and Somaliland, following Hargeisa's Foreign Minister Abdirahman Dahir Osman's visit to Taipei in late July, during which he secured a cooperation agreement between the coastguards of Taiwan and Somaliland. And the inevitable Beijing-Mogadishu response has now arrived, with the Chinese Embassy in Somalia announcing that it has discussed enhancing "cooperation" with the federal government's Coast Guard. As ever, the officials reaffirmed their commitment to "safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity of China and Somalia."
Somalia's latest plunging crisis has divided not only the usual domestic political actors but the 'international community' as well - if such a thing even exists anymore. Though nominally on the same page in regard to fighting Al-Shabaab, foreign perspectives on the diagnosis of Somalia's ills – and the appropriate remedies -- have proven radically different. And since Al-Shabaab's dramatic territorial advances beginning late February, many of the international responses to the country's escalating political and security emergencies have been working at cross purposes with one another. Meanwhile, Villa Somalia's interactions with foreign partners have continued to vacillate between blatant rent-seeking and hypernationalism.
The Wolf Turned Warrior Last week, Ahmed Moallim Fiqi took charge as Somalia's new Defence Minister, replacing Jibril Abdirashid, who had served just a month in post. While the reshuffle marked little more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, the placing of the combative former Islamic Courts Union (ICU) leader at the helm of Somalia's flagging fight against Al-Shabaab is being hailed by many-- and not just regime supporters. Some hope that the 'hard man' of Somali politics may be able to slow the jihadists' seemingly inexorable advance towards Mogadishu. And at his official inauguration, Fiqi was in fighting form – "I know these youngsters well and I was involved in the campaign to dislodge them from Mogadishu (in 2011)," he boasted. But just a few days in, Fiqi has been caught up, again, in a nationalist diplomatic firestorm, this time by banning individuals using Taiwanese passports from entering the country.