Somalia stands out among the countries where Turkey has sought to employ “soft power” as part of its “active” foreign policy. Public conscience is easy to mobilize for Somalia, a country that has become synonymous with hunger, and that is what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took advantage of on Aug. 19, 2011, when he landed in Mogadishu on a humanitarian aid mission as Turks back home resisted their own hunger during the Ramadan fast. The timing was poignant and coupled with intense publicity about Erdogan being the first foreign leader to visit Somalia in a number of years. Turkey’s Red Crescent and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), backed by a number of civil groups, embarked on such an extensive aid campaign that international actors could not help but wonder, “What are the Turks after?”
Boxes full of cash
Today, Turkey’s high profile in Somalia is fading with an equally striking symbolism. Reuters reported on Feb. 14 that Ankara had cut its $4.5 million in monthly cash assistance to the Somali government at the end of 2013. Everyone’s attention turned, however, not to the aid cut itself, but to another detail in the story: The aid had been delivered to the Somalis by hand, in boxes of cash. The reason for this selective focus is obvious: The box emerged as the symbol of anti-government criticism in Turkey after Dec. 17, when police discovered millions of dollars stashed in shoe boxes in the home of Suleyman Aslan, the chief executive officer of Halkbank and one of the suspects arrested in the massive corruption probe targeting cabinet ministers.
Abdisalam Omer, former central bank governor in Somalia, told Reuters that he would go once a month to Turkey’s Mogadishu embassy to collect the $4.5 million in boxes full of cash. “It was always in $100 bills,” he said. Given that the Somali government’s 2014 budget stands at $218 million, the impact of Turkey's aid cut will be significant. Some $91 million of the country's budget is provided by foreign donors. Citing Turkish officials, Reuters said Ankara had no immediate plans to resume the payments. Nevertheless, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud could well count on Gulf money to make up for the gap. Unlike Turkey, the Gulf states are much more discrete in the assistance they provide.
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