CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y The best known of the minorities have come to be collectively known as “Bantu” Somalis, made up of a number of sub-groups of different origins.*44 These communities live mainly in the southern Juba and Shabelle states. Some are the descendants of people who were victims of the slave trade from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula during the period of the Zanzibar Sultanate, and were themselves enslaved by the majority Somali clans; others are the traditional land-holders in southern Somalia, whose river-valley land was expropriated by the Italians for agricultural enterprises in which they were then forced to work.245 Another set of minority communities are collectively known as the Benadiri, mercantile communities of mixed African, Arab and Asian origin. They include groups who speak dialects of the Somali language, including the Rer Hamar, living in Mogadishu, and the traditional residents of Merca port. Other Benadiri groups speak dialects of kiSwahili, including the Barawani, who live in the coastal city of Brava; and the Bajuni, a low-status and poor fishing community, traditionally living in the southern port of Kismayu and the offshore Bajuni islands near the Kenyan border, and along the coast into Kenya as far south as Lamu. Finally, there are “occupational” minorities present throughout the territory, collectively known as the Midgan or Gaboye, with each group having its own name derived from a traditional occupation that is regarded as being unclean (such as leatherworkers). Although all are Somali in origin, the occupational groups have come to represent distinct and stigmatised communities and are excluded from the traditional clan lineages.?*6 The subordinate status of the minority communities is encoded in the current Somali political settlement known as the “4.5 system”, first proposed at a reconciliation conference held in Arta in Djibouti in 2000, and confirmed in the Eldoret Declaration issued in Kenya in 2002, as a temporary measure to enable the establishment of an interim government.2*” Under the 4.5 formula, a residual category of “minority groups” receives one-half of the parliamentary seats and other public offices accorded to each of the four major clan branches. The Transitional Federal Charter provided for indirect election of parliamentarians by clan leaders, permitting this arrangement to enter into effect.2*° The system remains in place, although the 2012 Provisional Constitution does not specify any particular electoral system?*9; 244 This information is summarised from the Somalia entry in the Minority Rights Group World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, available at https://minorityrights.org/country/somalia/. See also Martin Hill, “No redress: Somalia’s forgotten minorities”, Minority Rights Group, 2010 https://minorityrights.org/wp-content/uploads/old-site-downloads/download-912-Click-here-to-download-full-report.pdf; “Looma Ooyaan — No One Cries for Them: The Predicament Facing Somalia’s Minority Women”, Minority Rights Group, 2015 https://minorityrights.org/wp-content/uploads/old-sitedownloads/mrg_report_somalia_jan2015.pdf; “Report on minority groups in Somalia: Joint British, Danish and Dutch fact-finding mission to Nairobi, Kenya, 17 — 24 September 2000, https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/1412772.html; Derek Nurse, “Review of the Bajuni sections of the Report on Minority Groups in Somalia, by a Joint British, Danish and Dutch fact-finding mission to Nairobi, Kenya, 17-24 September 2000”, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, 2010 (updated 2013), available with other relevant information at https://www.mun.ca/faculty/dnurse/Refugees/. 245 Catherine Besteman, ‘Translating Race across Time and Space: The Creation of Somali Bantu Ethnicity’, Identities 19, no. 3 (2012): 285-302; Mohamed A. Eno, ‘A Tale of Two Minorities: The State of the Gaboye and Bantu Communities of Somalia’, in Minorities and the State in Africa, ed. Michael U. Mbanaso and Chima J. Korieh (Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2010). 24 The occupational minorities are present in Somaliland to a greater extent than the other groups mentioned here. 247 The 4.5 formula is explained in “Salvaging Somalia’s Chance For Peace”, Africa Briefing No.11, International Crisis Group, 9 December 2002 https://www.crisisqroup.org/africa/horn-africa/somalia/salvaging-somalias-chance-peace. 248 Transitional Federal Charter 2004, art. 30. See also “Somalia: Continuation of War by Other Means ?”, Africa Report No.88, International Crisis Group, 21 December 2004 https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/somalia/somalia-continuation-war-other-means. 249 Provisional Constitution, 2012, art. 47. UNHCR — December 2021