Southern Somalia’s warlords resist peace because conflict preserves their stolen gains.

Evidence

It is not that people do not know how to make peace or reach political compromises, as some international organizations naively suppose; it is a matter of motivation. In the south, in the main and for the moment, the stakeholders (to use development jargon) have other objectives. The cost of peace and political settlement is estimated as too high by the scrap merchants who have risen to such prominence and manifestly want to retain, or increase, their economic and political status. Perhaps most importantly of all, the Habar Gidir colonizers of so much land and property in southern Somalia have little desire to return it to its previous owners. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 709

Categorization

• QUESTION: Lewis frames southern stalemate as rational self-interest of militias and Habar Gidir land occupiers rather than Somali inability to make peace — worth testing against later Somali developments.
• XREF: connects to: Post-Siyad Somalia reverted to Burton’s clan republics but with modern arms; Siyad fled Mogadishu in January 1991, and clan divisions became Somalia’s only security structure; Southern Somali warlords reject peace because they profit from maintaining conflict (+1 more)

Related

• Southern Somali warlords reject peace because they profit from maintaining conflict (similarity 0.92)
• North Somaliland restored order through local clan initiatives while the south failed (similarity 0.82)
• Foreign aid itself fueled conflict in southern Somalia (similarity 0.80)
• Local clan-based peacemaking in Somaliland outdid international conferences in the south (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• North Somaliland restored order through local clan initiatives while the south failed #exemplifies (0.70) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 622