Somalia Thread

[Godfather of Soul]

Oh yeah, the US intervened in this little situation and now we have TOTAL CIVIL WAR:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042300302.html?hpid=sec-world

Fighting Rages for Sixth Day in Somalia

By SALAD DUHUL
The Associated Press
Monday, April 23, 2007; 11:23 AM



MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Masked Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government forces pounded each other with machine-gun fire, mortars and heavy artillery in Somalia's wrecked capital Monday, bringing the death toll from six days of fighting to at least 250, a human rights group said.

Somalia Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said his interim government was winning the battle against the insurgents, but called for greater support from the international community.

"If we do not get international support the war may spread throughout the region and Africa," he told reporters. "These terrorists want to destabilize the whole region."

The latest fighting flared after Ethiopian and Somali government troops made a final military push to try to wipe out an Islamic insurgency that had controlled much of southern Somalia until it was defeated in January, Western diplomatic and Somali government officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The government and its Ethiopian backers have been facing mounting pressure from the U.S., European Union and United Nations over the mounting civilian death toll and appear determined to bring order to the city before a planned national reconciliation conference in June, the Western and Somali officials said.

Mogadishu's clan and warlord militias also have joined the fight against the Ethiopians and government forces, but they switch loyalties easily. Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan has been behind the cease-fire and ordered key insurgents out of the capital to try and broker peace.

A bid earlier this month to wipe out the insurgency left more than 1,000 people dead, many of them civilians. More than 320,000 people have fled the fighting.

The United Nations said the fighting had sparked the worst humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged country's recent history, with many of the city's residents trapped because the roads out of Mogadishu are blocked.

At least 18 civilians were killed and 21 wounded in Monday's fighting, said Sudan Ali Ahmed, the chairman of the Elman Human Rights Organization group. He said 19 insurgents were killed and 31 wounded but had no figures for Ethiopian or government casualties.

The new tallies bring the death toll in six days of fighting in Mogadishu to at least 250, with more than 291 wounded, according to the Elman Human Rights Organization group.

Rotting bodies have remained strewn across the streets for days, witnesses said, because it is too dangerous to retrieve them. Halime Ibrahim, who fled from south of the city, said she had seen 11 bodies. "I even failed to recognize if they were men or women," she told The Associated Press.

A Somali government official said Sunday that his government planned a major offensive against the insurgents soon and wanted residents of the capital to move from insurgent strongholds.

"People in Mogadishu should vacate their homes that are located near the strongholds of terrorists and we will crack down on insurgents and terrorists very soon," said Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle.

In a separate development that could increase tension in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea suspended its membership in a regional body mediating the Somali conflict. Rivals Eritrea and Ethiopia have fought two wars over an unresolved border dispute and many experts say the Somalia conflict could become a proxy war between the two, with each backing different sides.

U.S. officials have said that Eritrea is backing the months-old Islamic insurgency in Mogadishu, an accusation Eritrea has denied.

Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, plunging the country into anarchy. The transitional government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help, but has struggled to extend its control over the country.

___

Associated Press Writer Malkhadir M. Muhumed contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.

[piercehawkeye45]

That is probably explains the very high Somalian population over here.

The Ethiopian-Somalian War still confuses me. Why did Ethiopia attack Somalia?

[Godfather of Soul]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Somalia_%282006%E2%80%93present%29

The War in Somalia is an ongoing armed conflict involving largely Ethiopian and Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces versus the Islamist militant umbrella group, the Islamic Court Union (ICU), and other affiliated militias for control of the country. The war officially began on December 21, 2006, when the leader of the ICU, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, declared "Somalia is in a state of war, and all Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia".[7] On December 24, Ethiopia stated it would actively combat the ICU.[8]

Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, said Ethiopia entered hostilities because it faced a direct threat to its own borders. “Ethiopian defense forces were forced to enter into war to protect the sovereignty of the nation,” he said. “We are not trying to set up a government for Somalia, nor do we have an intention to meddle in Somalia's internal affairs. We have only been forced by the circumstances.”[9]

While it is true the ICU made threats to carry the war into Ethiopia, the circumstances referred to were in part due to prior Ethiopian actions. Ethiopia's involvement in Somalia had begun months before, with the intercession of forces to support the establishment of the transitional government, and to support other regional governments considered more acceptable to Ethiopia.[10]

The ICU, which controlled the coastal areas of southern Somalia, engaged in fighting with the forces of the Somali TFG, and the autonomous regional governments of Puntland and Galmudug, all of whom were backed by Ethiopian troops. The outbreak of heavy fighting began on December 20 with the Battle of Baidoa, after the lapse of a one-week deadline the ICU imposed on Ethiopia (on December 12) to withdraw from the nation.[11] Ethiopia, however, refused to abandon its positions around the TFG interim capital at Baidoa. On December 29, after several successful battles, TFG and Ethiopian troops entered Mogadishu relatively unopposed. Although not announced until later, a small number of U.S. special forces troops accompanied Ethiopian and TFG troops after the collapse and withdrawal of the ICU to give military advice and to track suspected al-Qaida fighters.[12]

The two sides had traded war declarations and gun fire on several occasions before. Eastern African countries and international observers fear the Ethiopian offensive may lead to a regional war, involving Eritrea, a long-time enemy of Ethiopia, who Ethiopia claims to be a supporter of the ICU.[13]

Historic background
A broader perspective shows many incidents of Ethiopian-Somali conflict. Boundary disputes over the Ogaden region date to the 1948 settlement when the land was granted to Ethiopia. Somali disgruntlement with this decision has led to repeated attempts to invade Ethiopia with the hopes of taking control of the Ogaden to create a Greater Somalia. This plan would have reunited the Somali people of the Ethiopian-controlled Ogaden with those living in the Republic of Somalia. Without that, ethnic and political tensions have caused cross-border clashes over the years.

1960–1964 Border Dispute
1977–1978 Ogaden War
1982 August Border Clash[19][20]
1998–2000 Cross-border warfare during the chaotic warlord-led era.[21]
Conflicts between Ethiopia and Somalia are not limited to the 20th–21st Centuries. Wars between Somalia, or its precursor Islamic states, and Ethiopia, stretch back to 16th century. For example, Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi was a 16th Century Islamic leader popular in Somali culture for his jihad against the Ethiopians during the rise of the Adal Sultanate.

Therefore, painful living history, oral and cultural traditions, long-standing ethnic divisions and sectarian differences lay between the two nations and fuel the conflict.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Essentially it is a proxy war in which Ethiopia is attacking Somalia under US pressure.  The Islamic Courts Union of Somaila had won the internal, pre-existing civil war and was establishing a stable (albeit repressive) government.  The US is not a fan of Islamic govenment and used the "al-qaeda" boogey man as an excuse to get involved (again, this is not the FIRST time we got involved in internal somali politics).  The US actually attacked the ICU forces with AC-130 gunships.  Oh, and there happens to be a great deal of oil in Somalia.     

[Bob]

Somalia may have oil deposits especially by the shores since its on the petrol-heavy red sea. The US may want to keep Somalia under control because its going to be even more important when large nations like China and India begin to import even more energy. China is already importing from Iran and unless they agree to pipeline the oil/natural gas, tankers will have to be used.

[blk talib]

what ever americano touch turn to shit/and nobody really care bout somalia only those who relate to what they going thru/

[The Wiseman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2067493,00.html

Inside Africa's Guantánamo

The only way the US can prop up its client regime in Somalia is through lawlessness and slaughter

By Salim Lone

04/28/07 "The Guardian" -- -- This is the most lawless war of our generation. All wars of aggression lack legitimacy, but no conflict in recent memory has witnessed such mounting layers of illegality as the current one in Somalia. Violations of the UN charter and of international humanitarian law are regrettably commonplace in our age, and they abound in the carnage that the world is allowing to unfold in Mogadishu, but this war has in addition explicitly violated two UN security council resolutions. To complete the picture, one of these resolutions contravenes the charter itself.

The complete impunity with which Ethiopia and the transitional Somali government have been allowed to violate these resolutions explains the ruthlessness of the military assaults that have been under way for six weeks now. The details of the atrocities being committed were formally acknowledged by a western government for the first time when Germany, which holds the current EU presidency, had its ambassador to Somalia, Walter Lindner, write a tough letter - made public on Wednesday - to Somalia's president, Abdullahi Yusuf.

The letter condemned the indiscriminate use of air strikes and heavy artillery in Mogadishu's densely populated areas, the raping of women, the deliberate blocking of urgently needed food and humanitarian supplies, and the bombing of hospitals. This is a relentless drive to terrify and intimidate civilians belonging to clans from whose ranks fighters are challenging the occupation.

There was a time when security council resolutions were hallowed in most of the world, as for example resolution 242 demanding the return of occupied Palestine territory in exchange for peace. But in our new world order, the powerful decide which UN resolutions are passed, and whether they need to be honoured. So the United States, which was violating the UN arms embargo on Somalia, rushed through another resolution in December that it thought would better serve US goals - and then proceeded to violate that one as well.

The new resolution forbade neighbouring countries from being part of the regional peacekeeping force the security council authorised for Somalia; but Ethiopia went much further and unilaterally invaded, with the covert assistance of the US - which also joined the war by bombing Somalia.

This December resolution actually contravened the charter itself, because it made the security council the aggressor and turned a clearly peaceful situation into war. The resolution linked the Islamic Courts government to international terrorism and mandated peacekeeping force, on the basis of chapter VII of the UN charter, to address the "threat to international peace and security" that Somalia posed - when every independent account, including Chatham House's on Wednesday, indicated that the country was experiencing its first peace and security since 1991.

The resolution paved the way for the Ethiopian invasion that has led to the bitter conflict that many independent analysts, including those at a meeting in Addis Ababa organised by Ethiopia's Inter-Africa Group, had warned would be the inevitable result. A government imposed through force by arch enemy Ethiopia was never going to hold sway.

The long silence and the refusal even now to announce measures that might arrest this slaughter mark the lowest point in the big powers' abdication of the "Responsibility to Protect" mandate - adopted, with British leadership, at a summit-level meeting of the security council two years ago. The world's most impoverished people are now being ripped to shreds with no effort whatsoever to get the perpetrators to desist.

A huge campaign must be launched to press western governments to end this slaughter, which is almost entirely the work of those in control of the country. The European Union warned a month ago that war crimes might have been committed in an assault on the capital last month - in which the EU could be complicit because of its large-scale support for those accused of the crimes. Human Rights Watch has documented how Kenya and Ethiopia had turned this region into Africa's own version of Guantánamo Bay, replete with kidnappings, extraordinary renditions, secret prisons and large numbers of "disappeared": a project that carries the Made in America label. Allowing free rein to such comprehensive lawlessness is a stain on all those who might have, at a minimum, curtailed it.

Work must begin to derail the astounding proposal from the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, which is to be discussed by the security council in mid-June. He would like to mount a UN-sanctioned "coalition of the willing" to enforce peace and restore order in Somalia - in other words, the UN would help Ethiopia and the United States achieve what their own illegal military interventions have failed to accomplish: the entrenchment of a client regime that lacks any popular support. Such an operation is unlikely to succeed in any event, but it could further threaten the turbulent Horn of Africa, which is already teetering on the brink of chaos.

The Somali government is busy crying "al-Qaida" at every turn and offering lucrative deals to oil companies, in a bid to entice greater western support. But this war was lost long ago. In turning to the arch enemy Ethiopia, the transitional government's fate was sealed: the nation will not abide an Ethiopian-US occupation.

Only a political solution will resolve this crisis. Africa must step up to the plate and show spine and leadership in a drive to protect its civilians, and work with Europe and the UN to convince the US to swiftly terminate its latest destabilising adventure.

Salim Lone, who was the spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, is a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya salimlone@yahoo.com

[The Wiseman]

Tales Of Terror - Somalia Report

BBC Newsnight For 26/04/07:

6 Minute Video

Asha Hagi Elmi, a politician, talks about the genocide in Somalia being committed under the pretext of of "War on Terror"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp8euKCi3w4&eurl=

[Jray]

The UN's humanitarian affairs office in Somalia reports that the recent clashes between Ethiopian troops and Somali resistance groups have killed more than 1,000 civilians and displaced more than 350,000 Mogadishu residents. The European Union, which is investigating whether war crimes were committed, argues that civilian areas were intentionally targeted.

The United States, however, is on a different page. When the Union of Islamic Courts defeated the U.S.-backed warlords, the Bush administration - using the war on terrorism as justification - supported the Ethiopian occupation, arguing that the Islamists were an emerging threat to U.S. interests. But approaching the complex conflict in this simplistic way and linking it to the war on terror was a mistake. The United States has inadvertently stepped into a local, tribal and regional quagmire.

The resistance groups - clans, business groups and Islamists - are challenging the occupying Ethiopian troops and the warlord government in many ways. Recent events in Mogadishu and Kismayo indicate that ignoring their grievances will only perpetuate the conflict.

The fighting has multiple causes - competition for resources, repression, the country's colonial legacy, widespread atrocities and politicized clan identity. Ethiopia, through its proxy warlords, was the principal spoiler of peace efforts. Somalis fear that landlocked Ethiopia wants to balkanize their country into clan-based regions in order to get access to the sea.

Ethiopia, which had been heavily criticized by the U.S. State Department for its human rights record, also used the Somalia occupation as a way of getting closer to Washington.

The United States has been heavily involved in Somalia since the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration closed Al-Barakaat - the largest telecommunications company and bank, though the investigations of the 9/11 Commission could not establish any link to terrorism. Washington also added about 20 Somali individuals and organizations to its terrorist list. The United States and Ethiopia collaborated to destroy the UIC, a homegrown popular Islamist movement that ruled southern Somalia in the later part of 2006.

Washington should revisit its strategy. Somalis are determined to resist the Ethiopian occupation and attempts to rescue the warlord-government and impose it on the people have backfired. Despite international calls for inclusive government, the leadership in Baidoa has decided to exclude even more individuals and groups - evidence that these warlords have neither the will nor the political competence.

Ethiopian troops are not filling a security vacuum; they are a source of destabilization. Ethiopian occupation must end. The United States is the only country that can order Ethiopia to leave Somalia.

Rewarding warlords will not bring peace to Somalia. These individuals have committed heinous crimes and they are not interested in peace or democracy. The United States should help in establishing a commission of international inquiry that investigates the Somalia war crimes.

As State Department officials have stated many times, the Bush administration understands the need for a genuine peace process in Somalia. But it has to act. Instead of endorsing the so-called congress in Mogadishu - a convention for the Ethiopian proxies - Washington should support Saudi Arabia's proposed peace conference. The Saudi government has helped mediate similar conflicts in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Moreover, most Somalis consider it a neutral country. It has a close relationship with Washington and can influence the Islamist groups that are indispensable for ending the fighting.

Washington can play a constructive role in building peace in Somalia if it identifies with the aspirations of the Somali people, removing the Ethiopians, controlling the warlords, and initiating a genuine Somali-owned peace process.

http://www.somalianews.com/

[Jray]

 Ethiopia finds itself trapped in Somalia

Analysts comparing problem to the U.S.'s situation in Iraq

By STEPHANIE MCCRUMMEN, Washington Post
April 29, 2007

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Four months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared his own "war on terror" against an Islamic movement in Somalia, Ethiopia remains entangled in a situation that analysts and critics are comparing to the U.S. experience in Iraq.

Though Meles proclaimed his military mission accomplished in January, thousands of Ethiopian troops remain in the Somali capital, where they have used attack helicopters, tanks and other heavy weapons in a bloody campaign against insurgents that in recent weeks has killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, and forced half of the city's population to flee.

On Thursday, the Ethiopian-backed Somali prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, declared that three weeks of heavy fighting was over, a statement tempered by the mortar blasts that continued to boom in the distance, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, a political crisis seems to be worsening, as the Somali transitional government, steadfastly supported by the United States, faces a swell of criticism for ignoring concerns of the city's dominant Hawiye clan, whose militias form the core of the insurgency and who are motivated not by the ideology of jihad, but power.

"It's just exactly like the Americans in Iraq," said Beyene Petros, a member of the Ethiopian Parliament and an early critic of the invasion. "I don't see how this was a victory. It really was a futile exercise."

Ethiopian officials declined to be interviewed on the subject of Somalia, and a general blackout of information about the war prevails in the capital. Opposition members of Parliament complain that they have not been informed how many Ethiopian soldiers have been killed, how much the war is costing per day, or how the government is paying for it.

There is also a sense here that while the invasion served Meles' own domestic interests, Ethiopia was also doing a job on behalf of the United States and is being left with a financial and military mess.

Supporters of Meles are mostly playing down the trouble, even as they are scrambling behind the scenes to find a solution. Knife Abraham, a close adviser to the prime minister, described the situation in Mogadishu - where the bodies of Ethiopian soldiers have been dragged through the streets - as "a hiccup."

"The victory was swift and decisive," Abraham said. "Now Ethiopia wants to stabilize the situation and get out."

But it remains unclear how Ethiopia will manage to do that while preserving Somalia's fragile transitional government and preventing more violence.

"The military victory was not complemented by a political victory," said Medhane Tadesse, an occasional adviser to the Ethiopian government who initially supported the invasion. "Long-term stability in Somalia requires a long-term social strategy, but Ethiopia and the U.S. only had a military strategy."

Privately, diplomats in the region say the main problem for Meles comes down to one man: the president of the Somali transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf, who has always had close ties to Ethiopia. Although Yusuf promised an inclusive government, he has failed to satisfy key leaders of the Hawiye clan, the historic rivals of Yusuf's Darod clan and the main base of support for the ousted Islamic Courts movement.

One diplomat closely involved in the reconciliation process said Yusuf has refused to meet with Hawiye elders.

In an attempt to breach that gap, Ethiopia has lately been negotiating directly with Hawiye leaders, while the Hawiye seem to be trying to untangle themselves from certain Islamic Courts figures in an attempt to polish their image. This month, the clan asked two of the more extreme Islamic leaders to leave Mogadishu, saying they were a liability.

In an allusion to sectarian violence engulfing Baghdad, residents now call the north part of the city Shiite and the south Sunni.

Gedi said that most of the fighting had ended and that Ethiopian and Somali government troops were merely clearing out the remaining "pockets" of resistance.

But Mohamud Uluso, a prominent leader of a Hawiye sub-clan called the Ayr, said that despite Gedi's declaration, fighting will most likely continue. "What is worrying for Somalis and the international community now is the possibility of what happened in Iraq," he said. "The fighting was under the control of the Hawiye leadership committee, but once that control disintegrates, then there will be underground leadership. You don't know who or where they are."

[Jray]

Somalia's 'total nightmare'
Adam Mynott
      
By Adam Mynott
BBC News, Somalia

The Somali capital Mogadishu has this week seen some of its worst fighting for 16 years. A fragile transitional government there has been trying to destroy groups of fighters left over from the so-called Islamic Courts group which was in control of much of the country last year.

Abdi Shakur is a retired sea-captain.

   
A 'technical' being driven by a Hawiye clan soldier
Abdi Shakur and his brothers paid £10,000 for a 'technical', a pick-up truck with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back

He spent his working life on merchant vessels steaming to and from the Somali port of Bossasso and is now enjoying what he described to me as half retirement.

He was helping us with translating while we were working in northern Somalia.

"Come and visit my family," he said and we drove to his house on the outskirts of the port town.

It was a few weeks back and the full fury of the fighting in the capital Mogadishu had not started, but already the threat of conflict breaking out was undeniable.

Abdi Shakur feared that once fighting began in Mogadishu it would quickly spread.

"There will be shooting here in Bossasso, and I am worried about my family," he said, "but I can protect myself - I have guns - every Somali who can afford it has guns, and last year my family bought a technical."

Abdi Shakur and his brothers paid £10,000 - a vast fortune in Somalia - for a "technical", a pick-up truck with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back.

Why on earth would Abdi Shakur and his family need a machine gun on wheels?

"You can't be too careful in Somalia," he told me.

And this is what life is like for Somalis who have lived for 16 years in a land run by warlords.

Intense fighting

I spoke to Abdi Shakur on the phone the other day.

Map of Somalia

The family technical had still not been used in anger but he said he was increasingly worried about his cousins in Mogadishu.

The capital has been devastated in the past two weeks by intense fighting.

Ethiopian forces in support of the transitional government, rooted out militia loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts at the turn of the year.

In the past fortnight they have unleashed a devastating artillery and rocket barrage on obdurate remnants of Islamic Court fighters in the capital.

The Islamists are fighting alongside members of a powerful Somali clan, the Hawiye, who are enemies of those controlling the transitional government.

Mass migration

It is a complicated and bloody struggle.

In the past few days more than 300 have been killed and since the turn of the year 2,000 have died, most of them civilians caught in crossfire.

Many thousands have been injured.

The appalling violence has led to one of the largest mass migrations in recent times.

Somali residents of Mogadishu pile their belongings onto a cargo truck
An increasing number of people continue to flee the volatile capital

Hundreds of thousands of people who were living in Mogadishu have grabbed what few possessions they could carry and headed for places of safety.

Some have moved to the outskirts of the capital away from the fighting.

Others have gone out into the Somali hinterland.

They have travelled into an environment that cannot sustain them, into villages dotted along dusty roads in the scrubby, scruffy bush of southern and central Somalia, into communities which were hit in the past year, first by drought and then by flooding.

There is little stored food, goat and cattle herds are only just recovering and the capacity to feed and care for thousands of displaced people does not exist.

And in the past few days the annual rains have started.

At the best of times Somalia poses huge problems for aid agencies.

Now it is, as one aid worker put it to me, "a total nightmare".

Fighting, poor infrastructure and flooded muddy roads are impeding the movement of food and medical supplies and the transitional government has been accused of deliberately blocking some aid because they feared it might end up in the hands of their enemies.

Cholera is now seeping through the displaced thousands, picking off the young and the weak.

In the rain and misery, hundreds have died.

'Islamist threat'

Just a few months ago, Mogadishu and much of Somalia were enjoying their most stable period for 16 years.

Under the brief control of the Islamic Courts Union, the grip of the warlords was loosened and some of the basic expectations of an organised life were being restored.

Schools were opening, police were being trained, roadblocks were removed and litter was even collected from the streets.

Many Somalis were unhappy with the more extreme rules of the Islamic Courts: closing down the cinemas, banning music and insisting women were veils.

But the Islamists were able to spread their power steadily through more of Somalia and this alarmed the government in neighbouring Ethiopia who have long feared a radical Islamic group in control of the country.

It worried the Americans too, who feared the Islamic Courts were harbouring al-Qaeda elements.

So with tacit American approval and with other international governments looking on, Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia to support the weak transitional government.

Ethiopia is now trapped.

It wants to get out of Somalia, but cannot go until what it calls the "Islamist threat" is eliminated.

But every moment Ethiopian troops spend in Somalia stirs up more resentment and their presence acts as a compelling recruiting sergeant for insurgents, who say they will die trying to rid their country of the Ethiopian invaders.

[marcos]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=12768

Somalia: The Other (Hidden) War for Oil
by Carl Bloice 
 May 07, 2007
 
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The U.S. bombing of Somalia took place while the World Social Forum was underway in Kenya and three days before a large anti-war action in Washington, January 27. Nunu Kidane, network coordinator for Priority Africa Network (PAN) was present in Nairobi, and after returning home asked out loud how 'to explain the silence of the US peace movement on Somalia?'

 

Writing in the San Francisco community newspaper Bay View, she suggested one reason I think valid: 'Perhaps US-based organizations don't have the proper analytical framework from which to understand the significance of the Horn of Africa region. Perhaps it is because Somalia is largely seen as a country with no government and in perpetual chaos, with 'fundamental Islamic' forces not deserving of defense against the military attacks by US in search of 'terrorists'.' To that I would add: the major U.S. media's role in the lead up to the invasion and the suffering now taking place in the Horn of Africa. 'The carnage and suffering in Somalia may be the worst in more than a decade -- but you'd hardly know it from your nightly news,' wrote Andrew Cawthorne from Nairobi for Reuters last week. Amy Goodman's Democracy Now recently examined ABC's, NBC's and CBS's coverage of Somalia in the evening newscasts since the invasion. ABC and NBC had not mentioned the war at all. CBS mentioned the war once, dedicating a whole three sentences to it. This, despite the fact that there have been more casualties in this war than in the recent fighting in Lebanon.

 

While the major U.S. print media has not completely ignored the conflict, its reporting is even shallower than its reporting was prior to the invasion of Iraq. As recently as last week, Reuters was still maintaining that Ethiopian troops had invaded its neighbor with the 'tacit' support of the United States. At least the New York Times has taken to describing it as 'covert American support.' Both characterizations obscure the truth. The attack on Somalia was preplanned and would never have taken place without being approved by the White House. We now know that the Bush Administration gave the Ethiopian government the go ahead to ignore its own imposed ban on weapons purchases from North Korea in order to gear up for the battle ahead. U.S. military forces took part in the assault.

 

'US political and military alliance with Ethiopia  - which openly violated international law in its aggression towards Somalia, is destabilizing the Horn region and begins a new shift in the way the US plans to have permanent and active military presence in Africa,' wrote Kadane.

 

The planning for the invasion actually began last summer when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took control of the Somali government. It, too, was supposed to be a slam dunk. The U.S.- Ethiopian version of shock and awe was to swiftly bring about the desired regime change, installing the Washington-favored, government- in-exile of President Abdullahi Yusuf. Only a few days after their troops entered the country, Ethiopian officials said their forces lacked the resources to stay in Somalia and they would be leaving soon. At one point, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared - Bushlike - that the invaders' mission had been successfully accomplished and two-thirds of his troops were returning home. That turned out not to be true. Three months later the Ethiopians are still in Somalia committing what numerous observers are calling horrendous war crimes.

 

'The obviously indiscriminate use of heavy artillery in the capital has killed and wounded hundreds of civilians, and forced over 200,000 more to flee for their lives.' Walter Lindner, German Ambassador to Somalia, wrote to the country's acting president last week. Displaced persons are 'at great risk of being subjected to looting, extortion and rape - including by uniformed troops' at a various "checkpoints." "Cholera - endemic to the region during the rainy season - is beginning to cut a swathe through the displaced,' he continued, adding that attempts by international groups to offer assistance to the victims are being obstructed by militias who are stealing supplies, demanding 'taxes' and threatening relief workers.

 

On April 3, the Associated Press reported that a senior European Union security official had sent an email to the head of the EU delegation for Somalia warning that 'Ethiopian and Somali military forces there may have committed war crimes and that donor countries could be considered complicit if they do nothing to stop them. I need to advise you that there are strong grounds to believe that the Ethiopian government and the transitional federal government of Somalia and the African Union (peacekeeping) Force Commander, possibly also including the African Union Head of Mission and other African Union officials have, through commission or omission, violated the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court," the e-mail said.

 

In the meantime, the Bush Administration has worked hard to raise troops from nearby cooperative states to take over the job. Promises were made, but with one exception, remain unfulfilled. In a telephone conversation, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni promised President Bush to provide between 1,000-2,000 troops to protect Somalia's transitional government and train its troops. The Ugandans arrived but are said to have been largely confined to their quarters, refraining from taking part in the effort to crush the opposition.  Meanwhile, the 'Transitional Government' and Ethiopian forces have been reported shelling civilian areas in the capital from the government compound they are supposedly guarding.

 

None of the reporters on the scene appear to have explored the question of why the other African governments have failed to send troops but I think the answer is obvious. They would be called 'peacekeepers' but would be called upon to inject themselves into a civil conflict on the side of an unpopular puppet government, something they are loathed to do.

 

Three months ago, I wrote in this space that 'If the unfolding events in Iraq are any indication, what started out as a swift invasion and occupation could turn out to be a long and widening war.' That was an understatement. As of this writing, about 1,300 people are reported to have perished in the fighting, over 4,300 wounded and nearly 400,000 have fled their homes.

 

Refugees trying to cross the Red Sea are reported drowning off the Somali coast.

 

"There is a massive tragedy unfolding in Mogadishu, but from the world's silence, you would think it's Christmas," the head of a Mogadishu political think- tank told Cawthorne. 'Somalis, caught up in Mogadishu's worst violence for 16 years, are painfully aware of their place on the global agenda.'

 

"Nobody cares about Somalia, even if we die in our millions," Cawthorne was told by Abdirahman Ali, a 29- year-old father- of-two who works as a security guard in Mogadishu.

 

And, just as in Iraq, the U.S. supported forces  -  the small army of the enthroned and very unpopular government and the invaders  -  are caught up in a civil war, set in motion by the invasion and occupation. In addition to the forces loyal to the overthrown Islamist government, the regime in power is opposed by the Hawiye, one of the country's largest clans. A spokesman for the clan recently called upon 'the Somali people, wherever it exists, to unity in the fight against the Ethiopians. The war is not between Ethiopia and our tribe, it is between Ethiopia and all Somali people,' he said.

 

"For the major [world] leaders, there is a tremendous embarrassment over Somalia," Michael Weinstein, a US expert on Somalia at Purdue University told Reuters. "They have committed themselves to supporting the interim government -- a government that has no broad legitimacy, a failing government. This is the heart of the problem. ... But Western leaders can't back out now, so of course they have 100% no interest in bringing global attention to Somalia. There is no doubt that Somalia has been shoved aside by major media outlets and global leaders, and the Somali Diaspora is left crying in the wilderness."

 

Last week, during what was described as a lull in the fight, Ethiopian soldiers were moving from house to house in the capital Mogadishu, taking hundreds of men away by the truckloads to an uncertain fate. Meanwhile, the traumatized residents of the rubble strewn city were reported gathering up bodies, many of them rotting, for burial. 'Most of the displaced civilians are encamped on Mogadishu's outskirts, where the scenes are medieval,' reported The Economist last week. 'People lack water, food and shelter. Cholera has broken out. The sick sometimes have to pay rent even to sit in the shade of trees. Things will get worse with the rains, which have started. Aid agencies say people will soon start dying in large numbers. Some reckon Somalia is facing its biggest humanitarian crisis, worse than in the early 1990s, when the state collapsed amid famine and slaughter.'

 

Martin Fletcher wrote in the London Times, April 26, about five days he spent in Mogadishu, during which he canvassed many ordinary Somalis. 'Overwhelmingly, they loathed a government they consider a puppet of the hated Ethiopians.'

 

Last week the Washington Post reported that interviews it conducted in Ethiopia and testimony given to diplomats and human rights groups, 'paint a picture of a nation that jails its citizens without reason or trial, and tortures many of them -- despite government claims to the contrary.'

 

'Such cases are especially troubling because the U.S. government, a key Ethiopian ally, has acknowledged interrogating terrorism suspects in Ethiopian prisons, where some detainees were sent after being arrested in connection with Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December,' said the Post story. 'There have been no reports that those jailed have been tortured.' The following day, the paper reported, 'More than 200 FBI and CIA agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees -- including a U.S. citizen -- picked up in Somalia and held without charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the interrogations are lawful.'

 

History will probably record the Ethiopian government's decision to team up with the U.S. Administration for regime change in Somalia as the height of folly. The country has enough problems at home. This was brought into sharp relief April 24, when forces of an ethnic- Somali separatist group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, raided an oil exploration facility, killing 74 people, including nine employees of a Chinese oil company. 'As Much as China's  - and indeed America's - ally Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, might like to be on top of security across the Horn, he is not always able to deliver,' said the Financial Times editorially April 26. 'His army is the region's most powerful conventional force. But under his rule, Ethiopia is fraying again around the edges. Armed separatist groups are now changing tactics. Unable to match the army on the battlefield, the Ogaden National Liberation Front has chosen the spectacular to draw attention to its cause. Only recently, a separatist group in the north tried something similar, by kidnapping a group of British diplomats.'

 

'Both horrific events can be attributed partly to fallout from Ethiopia's messy intervention in neighboring Somalia,' said the newspaper. 'Initial battles last December were decisively in Ethiopia's favor. But like the Americans in Iraq, the Ethiopians in Somalia were ill prepared for the aftermath. A growing insurgency has delayed the withdrawal of their troops, exposing the government to attacks at home. It has also inflamed tension among ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia, who fight for the ONLF.

 

'Ironically, the Chinese workers killed near Ethiopia's border with Somalia may have been victims more of Washington's policy in the region than of Beijing's. The US has actively backed Mr. Meles's Somali adventure. In doing so it has undermined multilateral efforts to bring about peace.'

 

'There are two main questions that Colonel Yusuf's and Ethiopia's western backers should now ask themselves,' said the Guardian April 26. 'What was gained by encouraging the Ethiopian army to topple the Islamic Courts? The US allowed Ethiopia to arm itself with North Korean weapons and also participated in the turkey shoot by using gunships against suspected insurgents hiding in villages near the Kenyan border. Washington was convinced that the Islamic Courts were sheltering foreign terror suspects. But how many did they get and what price have Somalis paid?'

 

'America can be more heavily criticized for subordinating Somali interests to its own desire to catch a handful of al- Qaeda men who may (or may not) have been hiding in Mogadishu,' said The Economist. 'None has been caught, many innocents have died in air strikes, and anti-American feeling has deepened. Western, especially European, diplomats watching Somalia from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya to the south, have sounded the alarm. Their governments have done little.'

 

Chatham House, a British think tank of the independent Royal Institute of International Affairs, has concluded, "In an uncomfortably familiar pattern, genuine multilateral concern to support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Somalia has been hijacked by unilateral actions of other international actors -- especially Ethiopia and the United States -- following their own foreign policy agendas.'

 

Actually, there is no more reason to believe the Bush Administration promoted this war, in clear violation of international law and the UN Charter, 'to catch a handful of al-Qaeda men,' than that the invasion of Iraq was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. What has unfolded in over the past three months, flows from much larger strategic calculations in Washington.

 

The invasion and occupation of Somalia coincided with the Pentagon's now operational plan to build a new 'Africa Command to deal with what the Christian Science Monitor dubbed 'Strife, oil, and Al Qaeda.'

 

When I first visited this subject shortly after the invasion, I quoted a 10 percent figure for the proportion of petroleum our country takes in from Africa and noted that some experts were saying the U.S. will need to up that percentage to 25 by 2010. Wrong again. Last week came the news that the U.S. now imports more oil from Africa than the Middle East, with Nigeria, Angola and Algeria providing nearly one-fifth of it -- more than from Saudi Arabia. While the rulers in Addis Ababa claim the invasion was a preemptive attack on a threatening Somalia and the Bush Administration says giving a wink and a nod to the attack was only a chance to capture a few terrorist holed up in Somalia, for most of the media and diplomatic observers outside the U.S. it was another strategic move to secure positioning in the region where there is a lot of oil. On file are plans  -  put on hold amid continuing conflicts - for nearly two-thirds of Somalia's oil fields to be allocated to the U.S. oil companies Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips. It was recently reported that the U.S. - backed prime minister of Somalia has proposed enactment of a new oil law to encourage the return of foreign oil companies to the country.

 

Salim Lone, spokesperson for the United Nation mission in Iraq in 2003, now a columnist for The Daily Nation in Kenya, recently told Democracy Now: 'the prime minister's attempt to lure Western oil companies is on a par with his crying wolf about al-Qaeda at every turn. Every time you interview a Somalia official, the first thing you hear is al-Qaeda and terrorists. They're using that. No one believes it. No one believes it at all, because all independent reports say the contrary.'

 

I spoke with Kidane last week and she allowed that the situation in Somalia might seem complex to many in the peace and social justice movements. However, she said it is impossible to overlook the parallel with the situation in the Iraq. 'It's aggression, that is undeniable, and the same language is being used to justify it,' she said. Kidane is on target in insisting that the movements for peace and justice in the U.S.  - and elsewhere  -  must take up the issue. The unlawful U.S.- Ethiopian invasion and occupation of that country and the accompanying human suffering and human rights abuses constitute a new  -  and still mostly hidden  - war in many ways similar to that in Iraq. And, waged for the same reason.

 

 

[BC Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union.]

[Jray]

 Guns banned from Somali streets
The new mayor of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has banned people from carrying weapons on the streets.

Former warlord Mohamed Dheere announced the ban at his inauguration ceremony, following his appointment last week.

The move is seen as a big step forward in the process of restoring stability to Somalia, which has not had a working government in 16 years.

The government last week ended a six-week operation against Islamist and clan fighters in the city.

Some 1,600 people were killed in the clashes, local aid groups say.

Tinted windows

Mr Dheere announced that those who flouted the ban would be punished but did not give details.

Only government security forces would be allowed to carry weapons, he said.

New police chief Abdi Hassan "Qaybdiid" Awale - also a former warlord - announced a ban on tinted windows in the city.

   

"Anyone who fails to abide by these rules will be brought before the court," he said.

The new measures come a day after prominent companies handed their weapons over to African Union peacekeepers and said they would trust the government to look after their security.

The business community had set up its own security teams to protect their operations from rogue militiamen during Somalia's years of lawlessness.

Until last week, when the government announced victory against the Islamists, weapons were openly on sale in the Mogadishu market.

But the BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in the city says the Ethiopian-backed government troops closed down the arms bazaar.

However, he says the dealers were allowed to keep their weapons.

Somalia is awash with guns after 16 years of civil war.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/6625647.stm

[Jray]

 Somali firms hand weapons to AU
Influential Somali businessmen have surrendered weapons to African Union peacekeepers in the capital, Mogadishu.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan says the move is a boost to relations between locals and the AU troops.

The business community had set up its own security teams to protect their operations from rogue militiamen during Somalia's 16 years of lawlessness.

The interim government says it is in control of Mogadishu after weeks of fighting in which some 1,000 died.

The government says it has defeated Islamist fighters and some of the 400,000 people who fled last month's fighting have started returning to the capital.

Anti-terror law

Our correspondent in Mogadishu says 151 companies operating in the city have agreed to disarm and registered their weapons but only four gave their weapons in at a ceremony on Thursday.

   

Somalia's four major communication and money transfer companies were the first to hand over weapons.

"The companies handed over assault rifles, ammunition and rocket propelled grenades in bags and boxes to the African Union troops," our correspondent said.

The exercise was witnessed by Mogadishu Mayor Mohammed Omar Habeb Dhere and police chief Abdi Hassan Awale Keybdid, both once feared warlords.

"The process has started and these are not the only weapons, we urge all Somalis and other business people to voluntarily disarm," said AU force spokesman Captain Paddy Ankunda.

Meanwhile, the parliament in Baidoa has approved a new anti-terrorism law that will allow life imprisonment, execution and confiscation of property of those found guilty of supporting "terrorists".

The United States has repeatedly accused the ousted Islamist administration of harbouring al-Qaeda operatives in Somalia.

The Islamists were ousted last December by Ethiopian-backed government forces.

Somalia has not had an effective national government for 16 years.

It has been fought over by various militias, leaving the country awash with guns.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/6620869.stm

[Jray]

Background info:
Somalian Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalian_Revolution_%281986-1992%29

War in Somalia/ Ethiopian involvement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Somalia_%282006%E2%80%93present%29

[Jray]

Somalia war fuelling refugee crisis
An outbreak of cholera in Bulla Hawa has
killed dozens and left hundreds seriously ill
Somalia now has the worst refugee crisis in the world, the UN says, with nearly half a million refugees who have fled Mogadishu lacking food, medicine and shelter.
 
The refugees fleeing fighting between pro-government forces and Union of Islamic Courts fighters have ended up in the country's impoverished border regions.
   
The UN estimates 400,000 people have fled Mogadishu since February, making Somalia's refugee crisis the world's worst.
 
After weeks of fighting, the interim government backed by Ethiopian forces launched a huge operation against Islamic Courts fighters in March, killing more than 1,000 people.
   
The UN accused both sides in the conflict of breaking humanitarian law by indiscriminately firing on civilian areas.
 
Border town
 
Your Views

"As long as the Ethiopian troops are on Somalian soil I don't think this war torn country can secure peace"

M. Sherif, Addis, Ethiopia

Send us your views
Up to 18,000 refugees from Mogadishu have ended up in a district called Bulla Hawa on the Somali-Kenyan border.
 
Most of them hope to cross into the already overflowing refugee camps in Kenya, but even that murky oasis is out of reach as the border has been closed.
 
Mohammed Adow, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Bulla Hawa, said the refuges lived in desperate conditions in the lawless town.
 
Nimo Billow, one of the refugees, said: "I decided to flee Mogadishu with my children when our neighbours' houses were hit by mortars and rockets.
 
"It was a sudden decision and even my husband was not at home when we fled. The market where he works was hit my mortars the same day we fled. We still have no information on his whereabouts."
 
The refugees are putting more pressure on an already impoverished community.
 
An outbreak of cholera in the area has killed dozens and left hundreds seriously ill.
 
Nimo Billow, left, and her children fled after
her neighbourhood was bombed
The frontier town, like many parts of Somalia, remains chaotic and unsafe, with militias ruling and gun battles common.
 
Abdullahi Yusuf, the Somali president, said last month that his pro-government forces had won the battle in Mogadishu and the fighting was over. He urged residents to return to their homes. 
 
"I urge residents in Mogadishu to return to their homes... We, the government, regret fighting in residential areas and forcing them to flee their homes," he said.
 
But many refguees do not appear to be heeding his call.
 
Despite the poor conditions in areas like Bulla Hawa, most will not return to Mogadishu but hope for help to reach them.
 
"Despite all my problems here I do not intend to go back to Mogadishu anytime soon," Billow said.
Source: Al Jazeera

[Jray]

TPLF Regime's Invasion of Somali is U.S. Invasion Through an Agent - President Isaias

Shabait.com (Asmara)
NEWS
8 May 2007
Posted to the web 8 May 2007
Abu Dhabi

In an interview with Abu Dhabi TV station, President Isaias Afwerki said that the TPLF regime's invasion of Somalia is a US invasion through an agent.

In the interview focusing on the objective situation in the region, President Isaias said that the Somalis have the capacity to resolve their issues themselves, if the issue is to have a genuine resolution, he underlined that without any external interference all Somali parties should sit around a table for discussion, resolve their differences and give priority to the reconstitution of Somalia.

As regards the Sudanese issue, the President stated that the peace and stability of Sudan is imperative to cooperation among countries in the region and asserted that in line with this principle Eritrea is exerting efforts to promote peace and stability in all corners of Sudan.

President Isaias further pointed out that all parties that wish to see stability prevailing in the country should coordinate their efforts in order to achieve genuine solution to all Sudanese issues.

[Jray]

Eritrea, Ethiopia: UN worried
09/05/2007 07:28  - (SA) 

Geneva - The Security Council huddled behind closed doors on Tuesday to review a report by UN chief Ban Ki-moon voicing "deep concern" over growing tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The 15-member council was considering adopting a non-binding statement on the volatile situation exacerbated by the failure of the two Horn of Africa neighbours to implement an international ruling on a festering border dispute.

Ban said: "I am deeply concerned by the impasse in the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace process.

"The situation is exacerbated by hostile public statements, a volatile military and security situation in and around the temporary security zone and the parties' involvement in other complex regional issues (a reference to Somalia)."

Ban also noted "no progress has been made" toward implementing the ruling by the UN-appointed Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission on the demarcation of the border.

In November, the panel told Eritrea and Ethiopia to resolve their dispute within a year or face the UN taking the matter out of their hands.

'Withdraw troops'

The UN secretary general said: "The international community would welcome an indication by the government of Ethiopia of its readiness to extend full co-operation to the boundary commission, so that the demarcation of the border can proceed without further delay or preconditions."

The stalemate has left the status of the 1 000km frontier unclear more than six years after a peace deal ended the border war.

On January 30, the Security Council passed Resolution 1741 enjoining the Ethiopian government to accept the border with Eritrea demarcated in 2002.

It also called on Eritrea to withdraw its troops from the buffer zone and to lift unconditionally restrictions it had imposed on operations of UNMEE, the UN force monitoring the border dispute.

The boundary commission had awarded the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea. Ethiopia, however, insisted the ruling be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.

Troops back 'weak government'

Resolution 1741 also extended the mandate of UNMEE for six months, to July 31, and reduced its strength from 2 300 to 1 700, including 230 military observers.

Meanwhile in Somalia, Ethiopian troops are backing the country's weak government in their battle against Islamist insurgents and clan fighters.

Addis Ababa blames Eritrea for supporting the Somali Islamist insurgents.

[Jray]

Red Cross: Somalia Needs $15 Million


Wednesday May 9, 2007 12:16 AM

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY

Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The international Red Cross asked donors Tuesday to contribute more than $15 million for Somalia as the African nation tries to recover from the worst fighting in more than a decade and a devastating humanitarian crisis.

The move would bring the agency's budget to nearly $38 million for 2007 to address recent violence in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which aid groups estimate has killed more than 1,500 people since March and sent more than 300,000 fleeing their homes.

``The fighting follows a year in which Somalia experienced its worst floods in decades, as well as severe drought, armed conflict and widespread lawlessness, all of which has plunged the population into ever deeper poverty, added to its privations and increased its reliance on external aid,'' said Pascal Hundt, head of the delegation for Somalia for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The ICRC budget for Somalia is on a par with what the agency spends in Afghanistan. Only Sudan, Iraq and the Israel-Palestinian conflict have bigger budgets, the ICRC said.

Regular bloodshed since December have devastated Mogadishu, already one of the most violent and gun-infested cities in the world. The ICRC said it has treated 3,000 war-wounded so far this year.

The aid group said it was using trucks to get drinking water to 60,000 displaced people and residents on the outskirts of Mogadishu for three months.

The U.N. food agency said it was delivering food aid to weary residents of Mogadishu. By the end of the week, the World Food Program said it expects to have given aid to about 114,000 people.

``These people are exhausted,'' said WFP Somalia Country Director Peter Goossens in Nairobi. ``Most of them are women and they were either forced to flee their homes with their children during the recent fighting or they stayed in the city throughout the worst bombardments.''

In March, troops from neighboring Ethiopia used tanks and attack helicopters to crush a growing insurgency linked to the Council of Islamic Courts, a hard-line religious movement that controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months in 2006. The U.S. had accused the Islamic group of having ties to al-Qaida.

The group was driven from power in December by Somali and Ethiopian soldiers, and the government declared victory in late April. But the militants, who reject any secular government, have vowed to take back the city and fight until Somalia becomes an Islamic state.

---

[Jray]

Mogadishu’s Carnage, the Death of the TFG & its Fraudulent Reconciliation
by Abdi Ismail Samatar; April 05, 2007

    Introduction

    The European Union (EU) and the United States have “urged” Somalia’s weak and illegitimate Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to negotiate with ‘moderate’ elements of the Islamic Courts and other stakeholders in order to form a broad-based and inclusive transitional authority which can advance reconciliation and secure peace.  Such a push by the USA and EU is a tacit recognition that the TFG is illegitimate. The EU, unlike the United States which has supported Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia and which has endorsed the TFG, informed the latter that it was not prepared to release funds to help the country unless the latter committed itself to the creation of an inclusive government. In response to the EU’s demand several TFG ministers traveled to Brussels and reported to the EU that the regime was ready to organize the reconciliation conference in Mogadishu. Although all the details are not known it is clear from the regime’s proposal that it will invite 3000 delegates and manage the convention.  The EU appears to have accepted the proposal and the ministers returned to Nairobi/Baidoa in a cheery mood. Since then, the TFG leader has declared that the invitees will be solely clan elders and representatives, and a sprinkling of others. These developments have generated some excitement among the TFG and donors, however, if the reconciliation project proceeds along the lines imagined by the TFG and the funders it is highly unlikely that the affair will bear fruitful peace and garner legitimacy for the regime. This dim prospect for reconciliation has further been destroyed by the indiscriminate mass murder of Somalis by the Ethiopian forces in and around Mogadishu. The Ethiopian offensive has completely shattered any possibility for the TFG gaining any acceptance from the Somali people. In other words, the TFG is dead but Somalis must still move forward and work towards genuine reconciliation.

    Sterile Reconciliation

    Such grim prognosis is now vindicated by the brutality visited on Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops with the consent of the West. Thoughtful observers who were familiar with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)-led Kenya-based Somali peace process in 2002/4 will recognize the un-mistakable congruence between the proposed congress, the formula put forward for selecting delegates, the attitude of the donors, and the modalities of the previous convention which produced the TFG. The original argument for holding the Kenya conference in the first place was the assumption that the Arta caucus, 1999-2000, that established the former Transitional National Government (TNG) was not inclusive as the warlords who were invited chose not to participate. IGAD and its international partners claimed then that the 2002/4 conference was inclusive since all the merchants of violence were present. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the donors refused to heed the warning that they were courting disaster by endorsing a fraudulent process that excluded genuine representatives of the major stakeholders, such as civic groups and religious leaders.

     The IGAD-led convention lasted slightly over two years and had a price tag of millions of dollars. Despite its cost in time, money, and the misery of people waiting for peace the conference produced neither peace nor reconciliation among Somalis. Instead, it sanctioned the warlords to concoct a deeply contradictory transitional charter which the international community endorsed as Somalia’s transitional constitution. A second consequence of the affair was the selection of the overwhelming majority of parliamentarians by warlords, who then chose a president and cabinet beholden to Ethiopia. The Kenyan host, IGAD, and the so-called international partners who managed and funded the conference hailed these developments as a major breakthrough. Unfortunately, before the ink dried on the documents of the agreement the warlords rekindled their conflicts and broke into two camps: those Ethiopia supported, led my Abdillahi Yusuf and Ali Geedi, moved to Jowhar, and their opponents returned to their Mogadishu base. Divisiveness among warlords and the incompetence of the key TFG leaders disabled the new regime from making any progress towards restoring peace and re-establishing public order. Consequently, Nairobi and Addis Ababa remain to be the hub of Somali politics as the former was the preferred destination of the TFG leaders as well as the headquarters of those elements of the international community involved in Somalia, while the latter city was transformed from the supplier of ammunition to some of the warlords to the virtual capital of the TFG .

    The stalemate between the two warlord factions was foreseen by honest observers of the conference but IGAD managers and their international supporters refused to come to terms with the odious establishment they have fostered. Their contempt for the Somali people was so deep that they thought even the worst of dispensations – a warlord authority that is a lackey- was good enough for Somalis. Paradoxically, they were eager to get credit for “restoring peace” to Somalia although they were disinclined to do the heavy lifting necessary to ensure that the people’s wishes were respected.  The creation of a dysfunctional regime incapable of doing anything right was due to not only mismanagement of the conference in which the mediators, Kenya and Ethiopia, were blatantly partisan, but also because the entire design of the gathering was anchored on a deeply flawed assumption. Key IGAD states such as Kenya accepted the scenario that clans are the natural political building blocs in Somalia, although Kenya has always shied away from politically Balkanizing its population into tribes. In contrast, Ethiopia, whose political structure has been constitutionally entrenched in tribal ethos since 1991, did everything possible to deepen the tribalization of Somali politics as that dovetailed with its own agenda. Further experts who advised the EU funders confounded the consequence of Somalia’s dictatorial rule with the causes of social fragmentation. That is, they felt that mismanagement of public affairs and the ruthless regime aided by corrupt elite competition was not the cause of recent social fragmentation but the neglect of genealogy as the principal base of governance. This understanding of Somalia’s political problem is identical to that of the warlords.  Hence, the funders missed to appreciate that political genealogy is a product of dictatorship rather than Somali tradition and therefore they were unable to distinguish between the appearances of genealogy from its instrumentalist use by the elite who were eager to raid public resources and monopolize power.

    Funders have not been keen to know other feasible explanation of Somalia’s catastrophe and they have been most skeptical about any Somali civic project. In essence, they do not want to be bothered with more complex analysis of the problem despite the fact that they have spent significant amount of money and energy on the matter. The author came across the prevailing attitude of the funders and their advisors. In one instance a group of European and American staff gathered for dinner in a fancy club in Eldoret and laid out what they considered to be the road map for the conference as well as the key items to be negotiated. The most critical decision of the funders was the conviction that the conference will produce a clan-based federal system. Two Somali scholars present were not even asked what they thought about the idea as the hosts assumed general agreement. Such a belief in federalism logically followed an earlier decision they made which dealt with the identity of the delegates invited to the conference. Although IGAD and the funders agreed that clan identity was the principal yardstick used to select delegates, this instrument was adjusted to reflect political loyalty to the dominant warlords. Consequently, delegates were ultimately selected by the warlords and the TNG from loyalists who ostensibly represented their clansmen. This meant that warlords and other members of the political elite used clan identity as a Trojan horse in selecting their supporters by creating the illusion of representational inclusivity of clans. Unfortunately, the so-called international democrats who funded the operation failed to recognize this contradiction and its social implications.  Most Somalis who watched the process realized the farcical show the operation was, but hoped those entrusted with national responsibility will somehow miraculously give up their sectarian agenda and metamorphosize into conscientious leaders. This wishful thinking soon withered away and the reconciliation hoax fell apart.

    In the midst of this stalemate, an unexpected Somali force came to the fore and changed the political landscape of the country for a while. The Union of Islamic Courts took control of most parts of Southern Somalia in 2006 until they were defeated by the American sanctioned invading Ethiopian forces in December. Despite their setback, the Courts left behind a legacy of legitimacy that is in sharp contrast to the illegitimacy of the Ethiopian backed TFG. Those members of the international community who either endorsed the Ethiopian invasion or supported the TFG have been scrambling to find a way to fabricate legitimacy for the regime and continue to down-play the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia. The United States and the European Union, despite their differential stances on the Ethiopian intervention, share the idea that a government of national unity can be an instrument for reconciliation and legitimacy for the TFG. Neither the EU nor the USA has articulated how a genuine reconciliation process could be possible in the presence of the Ethiopian occupation force and sectarian TFG militias and the carnage  in Mogadishu.

    The idea of reconciliation and a coalition government sounds appealing on its face value but a closer examination of the proposed process almost guarantees that it will replicate the enterprise that created the TFG which lacked popular support.  First, the TFG reconciliation proposal is an ill-drafted document that is at best vague on many of the key issues. Second, the selection of delegates to the reconciliation conference will be done by the leadership of the TFG. Such a scheme will be a mirror image of what transpired in the Kenya-based conference where the warlords selected their clients to create the TFG. It also appears doubtful, just as was the case in Kenya, that any of the major donors is prepared to demand that non-TFG stakeholders freely choose their representatives to the reconciliation conference.  Third, the TFG leader announced that delegates to the conference will number 3000 individuals. This unwieldy congregation is inspired by the TFG and donor idea that the Somali conflict is clan based and therefore the widest representation of all genealogical groups is necessary. Fourth, the TFG’s reconciliation document does not directly state what the nature of the Somali conflict is and who exactly the combatants are that need to be reconciled. It fleetingly refers to its military victory without specifying who it defeated and who might need to be brought into the reconciliation process. It also completely avoids the fact that the TFG needs to be reconciled with the majority of the Somali people who have consistently rejected it. Fifth, the TFG’s tribalist reconciliation strategy contradicts its claim that important lessons can be learned from reconciliation processes in Rwanda and South Africa. Ironically, Rwanda and South Africa have rejected the ethnic explanation of their conflict and the TFG does not seem to understand this. Finally, in addition to all of the above problems, the horrors on the population by the Ethiopian forces in the last few weeks have turned the entire proposition into a grotesque parody. It is no longer a viable option.

    Genuine Route to Reconciliation
     
    The only alternative that had the potential of bringing desperately needed legitimacy to the TFG institutions and peace to the country was the expulsion of Ethiopia’s illegal occupation of the country, and by bringing onboard genuine representative of the country’s most legitimate stakeholders: the Islamic courts and their followers, and members of civil society groups. Mogadishu’s “killing fields” has blown asunder the chances that the TFG will gain legitimacy through reconciliation. Ethiopia’s heinous assault on the Somali capital has literally killed the TFG. Despite the demise of the TFG Somalis must come together and reconcile to restore their dignity and independence. Such a gathering must be held soon and should involve 30 delegates whose integrity and love for the Somali people are beyond the shadow of doubt. These individuals must produce a national charter based on the 1960 constitution and nominate a small cabinet that will be a caretaker government for two years. The delegates who nominate the caretaker cabinet will not be able to appoint themselves nor will the cabinet be able to extend its mandate or be eligible for the first post-caretaker dispensation. The only way this will succeed is if the Somali people who have moved by the horrors visited on them by the Ethiopian regime and their Somali supplicants enthusiastically support this effort.   

    Members of the international community who have been implicated in the events of the past four years, particularly those of the last eight months, and who have been shamelessly silent about Ethiopian atrocities must drop their disingenuous practice and earnestly support genuine reconciliation via this new departure.

    The principal task of the caretaker administration is to organize a genuine political reconciliation focused on the creation of just system and responsible government. Second, they will organize an independent constitutional commission that will produce a genuine Somali charter to be voted on by the people before the two years term is over. For this strategy to work and to secure the peace and common citizenship, a program of institution building should commence immediately.

    This will require an honest international community serious about democracy taking the lead in re-building the administrative institutions of the government. The international community which is bound to pay for a significant amount of the cost of building this establishment could do the following in tandem with the Somali driven political reconciliation process. Given that an effective public service is essential for good governance and justice, a select group of old retired but skilled Somalis and relatively younger professionals who are employed in international institutions, overseas universities, and local institutions can be paired with a small number of expatriate technicians to work on this project. None of the Somalis deployed in this manner will be eligible for political office in the period immediately after the transition. The purpose of this constraint on the professionals is to ensure that they do not use this responsibility as a political platform for their own ends. Establishing a functioning public management system that will be handed over to the post-caretaker government must operate with a high degree of professional autonomy as that is an essential prerequisite for accountable government. Without such a development, the reconciliation process is unlikely to be sustainable beyond this period.  Will members of the international community who have sanctioned the warlords, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the carnage in Mogadishu have the moral courage to undertake this effort? All the signals point in the wrong direction!  Therefore, Somali patriots with skills and means must put their resources together to jumpstart this venture.

    In a nut-shell, Abdullahi Yusuf has shown his true colors with his tribalist ranting   and the TFG has died with the carnage in Mogadishu. It is now or never for Somali patriots to stand-up.

[Jray]

Eritrea, Ethiopia: UN worried
09/05/2007 07:28  - (SA) 

Geneva - The Security Council huddled behind closed doors on Tuesday to review a report by UN chief Ban Ki-moon voicing "deep concern" over growing tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The 15-member council was considering adopting a non-binding statement on the volatile situation exacerbated by the failure of the two Horn of Africa neighbours to implement an international ruling on a festering border dispute.

Ban said: "I am deeply concerned by the impasse in the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace process.

"The situation is exacerbated by hostile public statements, a volatile military and security situation in and around the temporary security zone and the parties' involvement in other complex regional issues (a reference to Somalia)."

Ban also noted "no progress has been made" toward implementing the ruling by the UN-appointed Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission on the demarcation of the border.

In November, the panel told Eritrea and Ethiopia to resolve their dispute within a year or face the UN taking the matter out of their hands.

'Withdraw troops'

The UN secretary general said: "The international community would welcome an indication by the government of Ethiopia of its readiness to extend full co-operation to the boundary commission, so that the demarcation of the border can proceed without further delay or preconditions."

The stalemate has left the status of the 1 000km frontier unclear more than six years after a peace deal ended the border war.

On January 30, the Security Council passed Resolution 1741 enjoining the Ethiopian government to accept the border with Eritrea demarcated in 2002.

It also called on Eritrea to withdraw its troops from the buffer zone and to lift unconditionally restrictions it had imposed on operations of UNMEE, the UN force monitoring the border dispute.

The boundary commission had awarded the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea. Ethiopia, however, insisted the ruling be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.

Troops back 'weak government'

Resolution 1741 also extended the mandate of UNMEE for six months, to July 31, and reduced its strength from 2 300 to 1 700, including 230 military observers.

Meanwhile in Somalia, Ethiopian troops are backing the country's weak government in their battle against Islamist insurgents and clan fighters.

Addis Ababa blames Eritrea for supporting the Somali Islamist insurgents.