326 Scarcity and SurfeitKey ActorsAll of the main Somali clans are involved in the Somali conflict. The Hawiye,
Darod, Isaq, Dir, Rahanweyn and others including almost all the minority
groups are involved. Each clan has its own faction or is part of a coalition of
factions. Some groups have dominated the others, forcing the oppressed to
look for and use any other means it can to survive in lawless Somalia, thus
making each and every clan an actor in the conflict.
The Jubbaland conflict involves almost all the Somali clans, since each
and every Somali clan claims at least at partial ownership of Kismayu or the
Lower Jubba region. Kismayu is the capital city of the Lower Jubba region,
which itself consists of five main districts: Kismayu, Jamama, Afmadou,
Badhadhe and Hagar. Historically the Ogaden and Marehan clans took over
Kismayu from the Galla tribe (a mixture of Borana/Oromo and Wardey). The
traditional Ogaden elders claim they captured Kismayu from the Galla tribe
with the help of their Marehan counterparts, while the traditional Marehan
elders claim they were the first who crossed the Jubba River and who cap-
tured the region from the Galla. The Majerten clan elders argue that the Harti
clan lived in the region for more than a century making the Lower Jubba
region and Kismayu in particular a place to which each and every Somali clan
claims at least a partial ownership.
Other clans in the area are the Harti sub-clan of the Dulbahante, the
Bartire of Absame, and a group of other minority sub-clans mainly from the
Hawiye clan: Doqondide, Shekhal, and Galjecel. In Kismayu there are many
other Hawiye clans such as the Habar Gidir and Hawadle, and non8omalis
like Bajunis, Brawas, Arabs and Swahilis who all claim that the town has
been captured from them.
Although the current conflict is political rather than environmental, con-
trol of deegaan is central to the onset and continuation of conflict in
Jubbaland and Somalia more widely. The current political conflict is between
the Jubbaland Alliance, led by the Marehan Somali National Front (SNF), and
General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan's Harti Somali Patriotic Movement
(SPM), presently exiled in Baidoa. The SNF-led coalition and the SPM forces
are allied with the Transitional National Government (TNG) and the
Ethiopian-backed Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC)
respectively. The Ogaden clan, which both the Marehan and the Harti clans
recognise for their prominent role in the Kismayu and Jubbaland politics and
deegaan, is also divided between the different factions. Some of their promi-
nent leaders are working with General Morgan while others are allied with
the Jubbaland Alliance. Politics aside, the issue of the deegaan and the con-
trol of Kismayu and the surrounding region is at the core of the conflict.
A number of external actors are also engaged in the Somali conflict of which
Ethio~ia's involvement is crucial. The government of Ethiopia. has facilitated