The Academy Holds a Series of Consultation Meetings for Clan Elders

(Hargeisa, Somaliland, June 23, 2010) The governor of the Maroodi-jeeh region approached the Academy for Peace and Development on 27, 12, 2009 to assist the governor's office to facilitate a series of consultative meetings for clan elders of the region. Following this, the Academy agreed to prepare and facilitate a series of four two-day consultations and one-day final validation meeting in which the outcomes of the consultation meetings were aggregated.

The Academy held intermittently the consultation meetings from the 3rd to the 31st of May, 2010. The consultation meetings began with active discussions on the critical working conditions of the contemporary Somaliland clan elder. In deliberating on this point, the clan elders repeatedly defended the position of the clan elder and commonly asserted that the clan elder continues to play a crucial role in managing local issues in their respective communities.

The deliberations reflected the participants' experience-particularly the older participants who are active since the colonial period, a period when the clan elder was relatively more celebrated and, as such, wielded more power including administering traditional courts that were aligned to the formal judiciary system. The meetings' younger participants attributed the dilemma of today's clan elder to the mistakes of Somaliland's successive administrations since the declaration of independence in 1991.

	A Photo of the Clan Elder's Attended the Meeting		A photo of Maroodi-jeeh Governor, Mohamed Abdi Daud Openning the Meeting		Clan Elders Get-together in a Group Discussion Under the guidance of the Academy's Researcher, Mohamed Abdi

The participants, all of whom were clan elders, universally highlighted the difficult circumstances that currently shape the status of the clan elder in Somaliland including: low remuneration, diminishing cooperation with the law enforcement institutions as well the marginalization of the clan elders' authorities. Moreover, the elders asserted that the authority of the clan elders has been undermined by increasing number of sultans, who, unlike the elders themselves, enjoy particular political patronage with the Somaliland administration.

On the subject of the changing traditional power structure, state institutions had always consulted clan elders on resolving emerging local problems, particularly under the colonial administration as well as under the post-independence civilian administrations. Since, however, the rebirth of Somaliland, a proliferation of upper level of traditional elders (sultans, garads and traditional kings) had been superimposed on the authorities of the clan elders, thereby driving them down to lower levels of the traditional power structure.

During the discussions, the elders engaged in interactive discussions on several pressing issues which the Governor prioritised with the Academy. The discussions mainly focused on the implications of the increasing rate of homicide on the Diya-paying practice among local communities. Although this is a practice deeply engrained in the culture and tradition of Somalis, this has nonetheless negatively impacted the capacity and willingness of respective clans to continue it at such a rate. Many of the participants agreed that capital punishment was a viable substitute.

At the conclusion of the series of the discussions, however, the fact that it cannot be easily adopted into the prevailing context was realised as a certain obstacle.

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