Somalia

Unquiet Americans: The folly of U.S. meddling in the Horn of Africa.

aminamire — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 11:08:40 +0000

Unquiet Americans: The folly of
U.S. meddling in the Horn of Africa. By Alex P. KelloggThe dissolution of Somalia into further violence thanks to Ethiopia’s invasion of it in the last few weeks is a horrific development for
East Africa. It’s devastating to the perception of the
United States abroad as well. Ethiopia said that, beyond a concern for the integrity of its borders, tacit U.S. support led it to invade
Somalia. That support became even more explicit when the United States tried to capture Fazul Mohammed and two other alleged high level al-Qaeda terrorists Monday with military strikes in southern
Somalia. A State Department spokesperson told The New York Times that the Bush administration, in the Times‘s paraphrase, “was concerned about reports that the Islamists were using child soldiers and abusing Ethiopian prisoners of war.” Thus the
U.S. backing. It ought

not require spelling out that the use of child soldiers and abuse of prisoners of war in Africa have never been much of a concern to the
United States. In fact, Ethiopia’s relationship with the
United States is a strategic marriage of convenience.

The opportunity to eliminate an alleged al-Qaeda stronghold in a failed state was enough to garner
U.S. support. Likewise, any excuse — especially U.S. backing — was enough for the Ethiopians to escalate their low-level fighting with
Somalia. But the Islamic courts that took power there last year enjoyed the support of most Somalis, for ousting the powerful warlords from cities such as the former capital of Mogadishu and the strategic southernport of
Kismayu. For the Islamists to be driven out at the hands of the United States and
Ethiopia merely escalates the stakes and the prospects for violence. (The direct
U.S. air strike only does so more.) The question is thus: why the U.S. support for
Ethiopia’s action now, and for what purpose?

Somalia‘s last functioning government, a socialist dictatorship led by Mohamed Siad Barre, was overthrown in 1991 by warlords who later turned on each other. After years of violence, the Islamists that the United States and
Ethiopia are now opposing emerged in 2000. They eventually coalesced seven months ago into a government-like entity that

ruled most of southern
Somalia by Koranic law. The United States says it’s after Mohammed and other terrorists tied to the bombing of two U.S. embassies in
East Africa in 1998 — terrorists who are integral to the Islamists’ leadership and who also have large price tags on their heads. But assisting the Ethiopians with driving out the Islamists is a mistake. The Islamists will likely revive their fighting as an insurgency, while the interim Somali government that formed from abroad years ago with the backing of the United Nations is going to garner little support, now that it has ridden in on Ethiopia’s coattails with
U.S. backing.

That new Somali government was officially installed in power by
Ethiopia just before the start of the new year. It is, at best, a work in progress. The government is made up mostly of prominent political refugees from the nation, and its organization is suspect. Officials from different political factions have fought often in the past and so many voices have demanded inclusion that arguably no legitimate leadership exists. Ethiopians, for their part, are widely disliked in Somalia, on grounds of religious difference (Christian versus Muslim), historic battles between the two ancient nation states dating back thousands of years, and Ethiopia’s more recent cross-border proxy battles there with its northern foe, Eritrea. The new Somali government’s association with
Ethiopia is therefore a worst-case template for stability. Iraq and Afghanistan have made it abundantly clear that the
United States can easily fail at stabilizing nations. Yet Somalia provides one of the best examples of
U.S. ineptitude at these efforts. The desert landscape is often described by outsiders as a virtual no man’s land, though Somalis have a distinctive culture and collective sense of self that dates back

to Pharaonic
Egypt. Roughly eight million Somalis speak the same language and share the same ethnicity. The brief colonization of much of Somalia by the British and then the Italians sparked one of the fiercest resistance efforts in all of
Africa. The northern edges of the country, less divided along the blood lines and clan ties that wracked the south with violence, have established two government-like arrangements with virtually no outside support (the unacknowledged nation of
Somaliland and the burgeoning state of Puntland).

Lack of understanding has long plagued outsiders’ involvement in this country, including that of the
United States. The film Black Hawk Down did little to contextualize the violent attacks on U.S. soldiers in 1993 that soon led to
U.S. withdrawal from the country. (Several of their bodies were drug through the gravel and rock of
Mogadishu.) The movie failed to mention the killing of four foreign journalists by Somali mobs, which occurred in part due to the somewhat misguided
U.S. attacks that preceded it. The four journalists worked for Reuters’
East Africa office, where I worked several years later. In October 1998, I was one of two Reuters journalists to return to the country for the first time since those deaths. Any journalist in East Africa then could tell you: the hundreds of Somalis mistakenly killed during a
U.S. manhunt conducted early in Operation Rescue helped to foment and escalate the violence there that year.

In 2002, I reported on the similarly misguided U.S. policy of engagement with Eritrea,
Ethiopia’s northern neighbor. That situation turned out pretty badly for that nation, which has a more repressive government than ever before thanks in part to the
U.S. turning a largely blind eye to its totalitarianism. Now, with the escalation of violence in Somalia, it’s clear that if the
United States had any legitimacy among everyday Muslims left, the situation there should squelch it.

After approximately a week of onslaught, the headlines already read by the start of the new year that the Islamists in
Somalia faced defeat and capture. But surely Iraq has shown definitively — if
Afghanistan hadn’t — that early military “success” against militant Islamic fighters (who seem to “melt away” into the broader population) typically leads to an entrenched insurgency. Ethiopia’s President Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has already told MPs in his country that he hopes to get out of
Somalia in a few weeks, while the once foreign-based interim Somali government — which, until now, had no control over the country — says the Ethiopians might need to stay for months at least. No one in
East Africa wants another cross border conflict or outright war, especially not the ordinary people who suffer the brunt of the violence. At the moment, there are at least five conflicts killing thousands in
East Africa. The mass murder in Darfur has crossed over to into Chad; Uganda’s government battles northern rebels that seek respite in

southern Sudan; the Democratic Republic of Congo’s instability spills over into Rwanda and Burundi, which have their own stark ethnic divisions; and now, there’s the Ethiopian invasion of
Somalia. If the United States wants to boost its support in East Africa and the rest of the planet, it might pay more attention to, say, the genocide in
Darfur. But there’s nothing the world needs less right now than
U.S. fomented violence — particularly in the name of battling Islamic fundamentalists.

Alex P. Kellogg writes for The Detroit Free Press.

http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=12377

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL: Jendayi E. Frazier’s Bully Pulpit

aminamire — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:36:25 +0000

Sophia Tesfamariam

December 11, 2006

“…A government which needs foreign support to enforce obedience from its own citizens is one which ought not to exist; and the assistance given to it by foreigners is hardly ever anything but the sympathy of one despotism with another…” – John Stuart Mill

Resolution 1725 on Somalia has all the markings of US strong arm tactics, double standards, domination and manipulation. The resolution authorizes a regional force from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union (AU) to protect the weak Transitional National Government in Baidoa and provide training for its forces. It also authorizes partial lifting of the Somalia Arms Embargo of 1992. It is the result of a vitriolic and aggressive defamation campaign by the US State Department and Meles Zenawi, the deceptive leader of the genocidal vote rigging minority regime in Ethiopia, against the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

The Security Council (SC) says that it determined “that the situation in Somalia constituted a threat to international peace and security”. It made this erroneous determination of the situation in Somalia based on:

1. The discredited 21 November 2006 report of the Somalia Monitoring Group.

2. Hysteria, hype and half cocked analysis by the US State Department.

3. Self serving assessment by the weak Transitional National Government and its ally in Ethiopia, the flip flopping deceptive street smart Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

This is yet another example of the Security Council’s bias and inconsistency in its treatment of issues relating to the region. The Security Council failed to take in to account the positive developments in today’s Somalia, which can hardly be considered a threat to international peace and security, except in the Islam phobic minds of Meles Zenawi, the deceptive Prime Minister of Ethiopia and his the latest ‘Zenawiphile’, Jendayi E. Frazier, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. This lopsided, unwarranted Resolution will increase tensions in Somalia and the situation will surely spiral out of control and out of Somalia. Therein lays the real threat to international peace and security.

Contrary to the picture that is being painted of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) by the minority regime in Ethiopia and its handlers, the UIC has been welcomed by the Somali people and many regional actors, because it has been able to restore peace and security in Somalia after 15 years of chaos and anarchy. The UIC which has the support of the Somali people is best poised to bring stability and reconciliation amongst the many Somali factional interests. The Somali people are also united in their rejection of Ethiopian or any other intervention in Somalia, which they fear will destabilize their country.

The SC said that it was “acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter”. In order to take action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, Article 39 of the UN Charter requires the SC to:

“…determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security…”

Surely Ethiopia’s and Washington’s Islamophobic fears of “the formation of an Islamic State” is not the type of threat to peace and security contemplated by Article 39, is it? Would it have considered the formation of a fundamentalist Christian State just as equally threatening? I doubt that. Meles Zenawi, who has been described as “the most dangerous political arsonist in the Horn- a masterful post 9/11 Terror-preneur who will exploit any opportunity to gain an economic or a political edge”, is the only threat to peace and security in the region and Resolution 1725 gives him the green light to scuttle any future prospects for meaningful dialogue between the TNG and the UIC and peace and stability in Somalia.

Article 40 of the UN Charter is very clear in what the Security Council must do before it recommends the use of force. It says:

“…in order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

The SC has not issued a single call to Ethiopia to stop its violations against Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Instead of addressing the culprit, Ethiopia, which is aggravating the situation in Somalia, the SC decided to violate the inherent right to self defense and self determination of the people of Somalia, which is protected under the UN Charter. This Resolution lacks neutrality; it is pro-TNG and anti-UIC. It subordinates the rights of the Somali people to that of the TNG. It seeks to maintain an unstable status quo.

Resolution 1725 is as incoherent as the US policy on Somalia that is behind it. The Security Council begins by saying:

“… that the Transitional Federal Charter and Institutions offer the only route to achieving peace and stability in Somalia…Emphasized the need for continued credible dialogue between the Transitional Federal Institutions and the Union of Islamic Courts…”

The Transitional Federal Government of the Somali Republic was formed by an interim parliament formed in Kenya in 2004. The interim parliament chose Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as the transitional President of Somalia and Ali Mohammed Ghedi as its Prime Minister in November 2004 and remained in exile in Nairobi until July 2005. It met inside Somalia for the first time on 26 February 2006. It has not been able to bring peace and stability to Somalia. The Transitional Federal Government is the fifteenth attempt to create a formal state; a clear indication that external prescriptions have not worked for Somalia, and will not in the future.

On 6 June 2006, the UIC after a two month long battle against the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) took over Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Mogadishu ‘s air and seaports were re-opened for the first time since 1995. The United States which was providing support to various warring clan factions inside Somalia for over two years, undermining the authority of the TNG, found itself on the losing side. Suddenly today, it belatedly decided to recognize the TNG and “prop it up”. The UIC has gradually expanded its control of Central and Southern Somalia, with little or no resistance, and has been able to stabilize areas under its control. Resolution 1725 seeks to arrest that expansion.

The Security Council which had turned a blind eye for the last 15 years as chaos and anarchy prevailed in Somalia and remained silent as the Somali Arms Embargo was openly violated, adopted a Resolution that denies the people of Somalia their right to self determination, rights which are protected under Article 1 of the UN Charter. Article 1 of the UN Charter states the purpose of the United Nations as being:

“…To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…”

Resolution 1725 is unjust, unwarranted, ill-advised, and provocative and it violates Somalia’s right to defend its sovereignty from Ethiopian aggression and the Somali people’s right to self determination. When the Security Council acts on matters affecting peace and security, it must do so within the confines of both the UN Charter and the inherent rights of its member states. Security Council resolutions may coexist with Somalia’s inherent right to self-defense, but they cannot abridge or trump that right. In my humble opinion, while Security Council resolutions are generally considered binding under international law, in this case the Security Council is violating its own principles and mandates. The U.N. Charter says that resolutions are valid as long as they are consistent with “the principles of justice and international law”. Resolution 1725 is not.

On the issue of dialogue between the TNG and the UIC, the Security Council urged:

“…the Transitional Federal Institutions and the Union of Islamic Courts to fulfill commitments they have made, resume without delay peace talks on the basis of the agreements reached in Khartoum, and adhere to agreements reached in their dialogue, and states its intention to consider taking measures against those that seek to prevent or block a peaceful dialogue process, overthrow the Transitional Federal Institutions by force, or take action that further threatens regional stability…”

I for one would be curious to see what type of measures the SC would contemplate taking against the people of Somalia. The expansion of the UIC to areas beyond its current control does not signal trouble for Somalia or the Region, and is being welcomed by the people of Somalia. The developments since June 2006 have been very positive and Somalia is enjoying some semblance of stability and normalcy for the first time in 15 years. Instead of interfering in the internal affairs of Somalia, the Security Council ought to rein in the belligerent aggressive minority regime in Ethiopia, who remains the primary menace to the Horn, and leave the Somali people to come up with their own solutions to their problems. What happens to the TNG is best left to the people of Somalia. It is not up to Meles or Jendayi, it is up to the people of Somalia.

As for dialogue between the UIC and the beleaguered TNG, personally, I believe the TNG has lost its credibility and integrity, thus its legitimacy in Somalia for failing the people of Somalia since its formation in 2004, its inability to consolidate its power and provide the stability and security its people have long been yearning. Today, the TNG is worse. It has betrayed their cause by aligning itself with the minority regime in Ethiopia against the people of Somalia. Some in the TNG leadership have vilified and maligned the UIC, and unashamedly justified (and even invited) Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia, against the expressed wishes of the majority of the Somali people.

Unbelievable as it seems, the Prime Minister of Somalia’s Transitional National Government, Ali Mohammad Ghedi, in a move which brings to question his allegiance to the people of Somalia, and jeopardizing any future prospects for dialogue with the UIC, joined the anti-UIC bandwagon and openly called for the pre-emptive invasion of Somalia by Meles Zenawi’s forces, thereby threatening regional stability. Voice of America reported on 26 September 2006 that:

“… Somalia’s Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi says his country is in the grip of a radical Islamic movement that is dominated by terrorists…”

But that was not all, at a Press Conference held in Addis Ababa on 5 December 2006, knowing full well that the TNG has been unable to assert itself beyond Baidoa, undermining the Somali peoples’ right to self determination, compromising Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and selfishly endangering the lives of innocent young Ethiopians who would be used as cannon fodder and minesweepers in Meles Zenawi’s aggressive war against Somalia, Ghedi said:

“…the Transitional Government is in a position to protect the people of Somalia from any enemy especially the terrorists who have transferred their forces from elsewhere to our country to destabilize the country and the Horn of Africa as well…Terrorism is a global issue. But, the so-called UIC with their allies in Mogadishu clearly targeted the country and people of Ethiopia. Therefore, it is the duty of the government of Ethiopia to protect the interests of its people and country. That cannot be compromised. That is our decision…”

Ghedi does not sound like a leader who is concerned about jeopardizing the peace and security of Somalia. On the contrary, he seems to be inviting instability. Whatever agenda Ghedi is advancing… it has nothing to do with the welfare of the Somali people, and it certainly is not about fighting terrorism. Ghedi knows the TNG is not in any position to “protect the people of Somalia from any enemy” especially when it is Meles who is their enemy and Ghedi himself is “sleeping with the enemy”.

According to Resolution 1725, the IGAD regional force would:

“…train the Transitional Federal Institutions’ security forces to enable them to provide their own security and to help facilitate the re-establishment of national security forces of Somalia…”

Conspicuously absent in Resolution 1725 is a call for Ethiopia to remove its forces that are in Somalia supposedly to “provide training for Somali forces”. Resolution 1725, in addition to Meles Zenawi’s declaration of war against Somalia, exacerbates an already tenuous, complex and intractable situation.

In my opinion, this Resolution on Somalia exceeds the Security Council’s authority, which, contrary to popular opinion, is not unlimited. The SC, once again compromising its credibility and integrity, has chosen to act in contravention of the purposes and principles of the United Nations, when it adopted Resolution 1725, which is not only diversionary and distractive, but also blatantly hypocritical and duplicitous. It will not preserve peace and security in the Horn of Africa; it will ignite a vicious fratricidal war and compound the suffering of the people in the region. It is a selfish, cruel and unjust Resolution.

Finally, the decision by the US State Department to take this unwarranted approach to the situation in Somalia is akin to “kicking a beehive to stop the bees from producing honey”, It is not the UIC that is a threat to international peace and security, but rather, the threat that will come from the crisis that Meles Zenawi and Jendayi E. Frazier have created and escalated in the Horn of Africa.

The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!

Children being forced to fight in Somalia — UNHCR

aminamire — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 11:08:58 +0000

Alertnet

GENEVA, Dec 30 (Reuters) – Children as young as 12 are being recruited to fight in the conflict between Somali government forces and rival Islamists, the United Nations refugee agency said on Saturday.

William Spindler, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), said between 55,000 and 60,000 people have been uprooted by the recent military escalation.

“What is most worrying is that there have been reports of some of the displaced being recruited to take part in the fighting. In some cases, children as young as 12 have been recruited,” Spindler said.

Camps in the Beder, Barrawe and Manomofa regions have all seen recruitment take place — sometimes by force — with both sides of the conflict targeting the displaced, he said. “

These are very vulnerable people. They have been chased away from their homes and are now being forcibly recruited,” Spindler said.

Some 164 refugees crossed into North Eastern Kenya from Southern Somalia on Friday, mainly women and children from the Kisimayo area who feared for their lives, Spindler said. Still, he said overall refugee numbers remain lower than some had predicted. “The number of people crossing into Kenya is relatively small, given the fighting,” Spindler said, noting that recent flooding may have hampered movement out of Somalia. Islamic forces could also have stopped some people from crossing the border.

There are around 170,000 Somali refugees already in Kenya, following 15 years of civil conflict in Somalia and a series of natural disasters across the Horn of Africa, including severe droughts and floods. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that hundreds of people may have been killed in the recent upsurge in fighting, which it called the heaviest in a decade in Somalia.

The War on Terror Hits Africa

aminamire — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:35:57 +0000

Bush Does Somali

By NICK DEARDEN

Counterpunch | Dec 30-31 2006

“The president is not going to allow Somalia to become a safe haven for terrorists.”

US spokesperson, May 2006

Once again the Horn of Africa is being drawn into a global power game likely to increase the suffering of its peoples. Ethiopia’s attack on Somalia, backed by a nod from George W Bush, is the clearest sign yet that the region in high on the US’s agenda in its all-consuming “war on terror”.

But Ethiopia and Somalia aren’t new to global power politics. For decades brutal dictators have received massive support to play the pawns of the US, and previously also the Soviet Union.

Cold War

Throughout the Cold War Ethiopia and Somalia were used as proxies, receiving billions of dollars worth of weapons while famines and wars raged throughout the region. US support of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia from the Second World War until 1974, ensured US access to the vitally important spy base at Kagnew, while next door the Soviet’s backed Siad Barre’s ‘Marxist’ regime in Somalia.

On the back of US aid, Ethiopia developed one of the largest armies in Africa, which it used to devastate Eritrean society in an attempt to maintain control of the region. As Haile Selassie’s policies became increasingly unpopular, most especially when he ignored the famine of the early 1970s (as 100,000 peasants were known to have died, one of his Minister’s is quoted as saying “If we could save the peasants only by confessing our failure to the world, it is better that they die”), this very army overthrew his rule, and Major Mengistu quickly took control of the ruling military committee, known as the Derg.

Ultimately, Mengistu preferred a relationship with the Soviets, more in line with his proclaimed ideology and thought more likely to provide the weapons he needed to keep himself in power. Seeing Ethiopia as a far more important prize than Somalia, the Soviet Union did indeed outbid the US, sending $9 billion in military hardware before Mengistu was ousted in 1991. Soviet aid allowed Mengistu to unleash a terror on political opponents, as well as many ordinary civilians, and increased the war drive against the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, massacring thousands of civilians in Eritrea. Despite some embarrassment, Soviet support even continued throughout the famine of the mid-80s, which killed at least 1 million people, as Mengistu spent $55million celebrating the anniversary of his revolution.

To add to the murky politics, Mengistu also received a little help from Israel, who bribed him to allow the deportation of Ethiopian Jews that it needed to bolster the Jewish population of Israel. Shortly after the deal, Israeli-made cluster bombs started falling on Eritrean towns. While condemning Soviet aid to Mengistu, the US, needless to say, didn’t mention Israeli aid.

Across the border, the US supported Somalia, albeit with less fanfare, not wanting to upset a potential future relationship with Ethiopia. As early as 1977, the US promised to find allies who would be able to supply Somalia the military assistance that it would need to attack Ethiopia’s Ogaden region. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan all rushed in with the required aid.

In 1980, the US signed an arms deal which allowed it access to Somali bases. Under Regan, the US supplied more than $680million to Said Barre, at least $195 million of which was intended for military use (the figure increases dramatically when related aid is counted), despite Congressional obstacles. Barre spent around 1/5 of his country’s income on arms, while he faced the lowest literacy rate in the world (12%).

Of course the US claimed its relationship had a moderating impact on Somalia. Human Rights Watch disagreed, claiming that 50,000 of Barre’s own civilians were killed and half a million displaced in the late 1980s. Other organisations detailed his carpet bombing of urban areas and the fact that in the month before he was ousted alone January 1991 20,000 people were killed.
When asked to justify the continued supply of arms to Somalia during this period, one Defense Department official said “What is the sense of having this program if we’re not going to give them the military support when it counts most?”

For the US and the Soviet Union, local suffering counted for no more than did the proclaimed ideology of their proxy dictators. The important thing was the global edge that arming such countries could bring to their overall game.

Humanitarian Intervention?

While the Cold War wound down, and as Siad Barre was ousted from power, the US initiated a ‘humanitarian intervention’ to clean up the mess left in Somalia (with no mention of the role of US support in creating this situation), which included a raging famine and rampant warlordism. The result of the 1992/3 UN-backed ‘Operation Restore Hope’ was disastrous. It is estimated that between 6,000 and 10,000 Somalis died before President Clinton terminated the operation after 18 American soldiers were killed. But few questioned the pure movies of Bush Senior’s Administration.

One of those who did was Stephen Shalom. Writing in the early 1990s, he detailed how the US military establishment was desperately searching for a post-Cold War justification for its continued budget levels and the central position the military played in US policy-making. Military power was vital to the US’s continued pole position in the world, but how to justify it? The ‘war on drugs’ was tried in Latin America, ‘sovereignty and justice’ in Iraq/ Kuwait, and ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Somalia.

These justifications served for the down times, but ultimately the attack on the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 solved the problem. The war on terror has begun.

The War on Terror

Like the Cold War, the war on terror is an all-encompassing analysis of world affairs if a situation looks similar, incorporate it into the bigger game. That’s why the Ethiopian government has referred to the Somali Islamic Courts, the group which has until recently been de facto ruling Somalia, as a “terrorist group” they want to be part of the game. In an interview with the Washington Post, Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister and former head of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front said on 14 December 2006:

“It does surprise me that intelligent people in the 21st century could claim that if you respond to the terrorists with force, you spawn terrorism, but if you appease them, you somehow tame them.”

Bush Junior himself couldn’t have put it better (no, really).

Meles puts up with no nonsense at home either. When opposition groups protested at his re-election in November 2005, government forces opened fire. 197 people, including 6 police officers, were killed, and thousands have been arrested, including 100 opposition leaders, journalists and relief workers. Impeccable credentials for a key player in the war on terror.

All of this plays extraordinarily well in Washington. The US Administration has stated that the Islamic Courts is “controlled by Al-Qaeda cell individuals”. To this end the US funded the very warlords that threw its troops out of Somalia a decade earlier in Operation Restore Hope. In January 2006, an International Crisis Group expert reported that between $100,000 and $150,000 was being funneled by the US to warlord proxies in Kenya every month, effectively breaching the UN embargo on arms to Somalia. The money was sent through a Pentagon force which has been based in Djibouti since shortly after September 11, 2001. In Somalia, this is accompanied by some familiar sights and sounds unidentified surveillance flights and abductions of suspected terrorists.

The real tragedy is that the situation in Somalia, as in so many other places, is actually more complex than the US or its Ethiopian proxy would like to admit. Since 1991 there has been no stable government. In 2004 Kenya, worried by the impact that a politicised brand of Islam in Somalia would have on its own Muslim minority, helped get agreement from various warlords to establish a Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The TRG, itself made up of some very unsavory characters, initially pretended to ‘run’ Somalia from Kenya, and until very recently they actually controlled almost none of the country. Nonetheless it has received international backing, containing as it does so many of the warring factions and tribes.

The Islamic Courts does not have international recognition, but does have popular support and, until recently, controlled most of the country. Verdicts on the Islamic Courts differ markedly within Somalia many praise the stability that it has brought after so many years of chaos and violence, but it also appears to be taking an increasingly hardline position in terms of internal law and order. However, the International Crisis Group wrote in 2005 that “Islamist extremism has failed to take a broader hold in Somalia because of Somali resistance not foreign counter-terrorism efforts.” In fact, religious forms of justice are widely seen as the only way to rise above warlord violence.

It was in this context that Ethiopia had secretly stationed at least 8,000 troops in Somalia from the Transitional Federal Government capital in Baidoa. In October 2006, the Islamic Courts issued a threat to Ethiopia to leave Somalia, and Ethiopia, with backing from the US, decided it was time to invade properly, conducting air raids and most recently entering the capital Mogidishu, as the Islamic Courts withdrew. The Ethiopian government made its intentions clear “we are going to use any appropriate means to destabilise the anti-Ethiopian forces in Somalia”.

Ethiopia appears to have won, for now, with the warlords in the Transitional Federal Government installed as Somalia’s de facto, as well as de jure, government. Ethiopia claims 1-2,000 have been killed with 4-5,000 wounded while tens of thousands risk being displaced. Martial law has been declared to attempt to rein in the chaos that has returned to the streets of Mogadishu. Even more worrying is what this means for the future of the region, where the war on terror is now firmly implanted, with all the international repercussions that entails.

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government is highly unstable, unpopular and broke, while the Islamic Courts is likely to re-start an insurgency. Countries throughout the Horn of Africa are also effected. Eritrea supports the Islamic Courts while Kenya supports the Transitional Federal Government both are religiously mixed countries. Religious and ethnic divisions in Sudan are well known. Both ‘sides’ have been radicalised and are calling on international support. The Guardian newspaper describes the dangerous situation aptly:

“Washington has viewed Somalia’s domestic complexities and their intertwined regional repercussions through the distorting prism of the “war on terror”. the stage is set for a wider, partly proxy conflict, in which a fully fledged Somali war joins the daily horrors from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Nick Dearden is an independent activist based in London. He can be reached at: nickdearden2002@yahoo.co.uk

Sources:

Michela Wrong, ‘I Didn’t Do It for You’, Harper Perennial, 2005

The Guardian, ‘From Bad to Worse’, December 27, 2006

Stephen R Shalom, ‘Gravy Train: Feeding the Pentagon by Feeding Somalia’, November 1993

Washington Post, ‘Interview With Meles Zenawi’, December 14, 2006

Kramer & Hultman, ‘Somalia: Tangled Ties of the Past Shaped U.S.-Somali Relations’

Africa News Service, January 3, 1993

John Prendergast, ‘Our Failure in Somalia’, The Washington Post, June 7, 2006

International Crisis Group, ‘Somalia’s Islamists’, Africa Report N°100, December 12, 2005

Alec Russell & Mike Pflanz, ‘US in secret alliance with Somali war lords fighting Islamic militia’, the Daily Telegraph, May 18, 2005

In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war

aminamire — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 08:17:53 +0000

by Salim Lone
Tribune Media Services

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

NAIROBIUndeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country.

As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea. General John Abizaid, the current U.S. military chief of the Iraq war, was in Ethiopia this month, and President Hu Jintao of China visited Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia earlier this year to pursue oil and trade agreements.

The U.S. instigation of war between Ethiopia and Somalia, two of world’s poorest countries already struggling with massive humanitarian disasters, is reckless in the extreme. Unlike in the run-up to Iraq, independent experts, including from the European Union, were united in warning that this war could destabilize the whole region even if America succeeds in its goal of toppling the Islamic Courts.

An insurgency by Somalis, millions of whom live in Kenya and Ethiopia, will surely ensue, and attract thousands of new anti-U.S. militants and terrorists.

With so much of the world convulsed by crisis, little attention has been paid to this unfolding disaster in the Horn. The UN Security Council, however, did take up the issue, and in another craven act which will further cement its reputation as an anti-Muslim body, bowed to American and British pressure to authorize a regional peacekeeping force to enter Somalia to protect the transitional government, which is fighting the Islamic Courts.

The new UN resolution states that the world body acted to “restore peace and stability.” But as all major international news organizations have reported, this year Somalia finally experienced its first respite from 16 years of utter lawlessness and terror at the hands of the marauding warlords who drove out UN peacekeepers in 1993, when 18 American soldiers were killed.

Since 1993, there had been no Security Council interest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia, but as peace and order took hold, a multilateral force was suddenly deemed necessary — because it was the Islamic Courts Union that had brought about this stability. Astonishingly, the Islamists had succeeded in defeating the warlords primarily through rallying people to their side by creating law and order through the application of Shariah law, which Somalis universally practice.

The transitional government, on the other hand, is dominated by the warlords and terrorists who drove out American forces in 1993. Organized in Kenya by U.S. regional allies, it is so completely devoid of internal support that it has turned to Somalia’s arch- enemy, Ethiopia, for assistance.

If this war continues, it will affect the whole region, do serious harm to U.S. interests and threaten Kenya, the only island of stability in this corner of Africa.

Ethiopia is at even greater risk, as a dictatorship with little popular support and beset also by two large internal revolts, by the Ogadenis and Oromos. It is also mired in a conflict with Eritrea, which has denied it secure access to seaports.

The best antidote to terrorism in Somalia is stability, which the Islamic Courts have provided. The Islamists have strong public support, which has grown in the face of U.S. and Ethiopian interventions. As in other Muslim-Western conflicts, the world needs to engage with the Islamists to secure peace.

From bad to worse – Guardian Leader

aminamire — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 08:14:35 +0000

Leader
Wednesday December 27, 2006
The Guardian

Somalia has impinged on the consciousness of sated westerners over Christmas because Ethiopia’s intervention has now added a dangerous new dimension to an already protracted crisis. But the fact is that this desperately poor country in the Horn of Africa has been living with chronic conflict and insecurity for 16 long years. This latest grave escalation owes much to international neglect, errors and disarray.

Ethiopian troops, tacitly backed by the US, had been operating unofficially in Somalia for several months. Addis Ababa has now openly sent its tanks and planes across the border as the beleaguered and largely powerless UN-backed transitional government in Baidoa was facing defeat by the Somali Council of Islamic Courts. The SCIC has brought a semblance of authority to the swathes of the country it controls, having strengthened its position enormously by capturing Mogadishu in June. As the Taliban once did in Afghanistan, it provides stable government of a sort through rough, ready and uneven application of Sharia law.

The travails of this byword for a failed state go back to 1991 when the socialist regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was overthrown by local warlords. UN intervention to end the ensuing chaos brought US Marines storming photogenically ashore unopposed – only to be withdrawn in attacks immortalised in the film Blackhawk Down. The UN’s departure augured badly for peacekeeping in the post-cold war era. Somalia was written off with a geopolitical shrug and a closing of donors’ chequebooks.

Its return to the headlines in recent months has been heavily coloured by post-9/11 realities. Washington has viewed Somalia’s domestic complexities and their intertwined regional repercussions through the distorting prism of the “war on terror”, playing up evidence of al-Qaida connections and funding the warlords fighting the SCIC, in breach of a UN embargo. The Bush administration’s nods and winks to Ethiopia can be compared to its encouragement of Israel’s war against the Lebanese Hizbullah this summer. In the view of the International Crisis Group, it has given a green light for Ethiopia’s policy of “containment by intervention”. And Ethiopia and Somalia are of course historic rivals, as are Ethiopia and Eritrea, which stands credibly accused of funnelling weapons and fighters to the Somali rebels. Talk by Meles Zenawi’s Christian-led Ethiopian regime of ‘fighting international terror’ dovetails alarmingly with a demonological Islamist world view that is fortified by some hard-core jihadis. Kenya worries about its own Muslim minority. So the stage is set for a wider, partly proxy conflict, in which a fully fledged Somali war joins the daily horrors from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not for the first time, soldiers have moved more decisively than diplomats, with the African Union and UN talking feebly about sending in peacekeepers even as they struggle with the larger crisis of Darfur. Kofi Annan warned of dire consequences in a valedictory speech before Christmas. UN agencies gloomily predict disaster for efforts to supply food and aid to 1.4m people who are already suffering from the effects of the worst floods in 50 years.

It is hardly fanciful to recall that the failure to deal with Abyssinia in the 1930s was a death blow for the League of Nations. In today’s Horn of Africa, Somalia is a bitter reminder that neglected problems are more likely to worsen than fade away. Ethiopia is hoping for a speedy victory: Mr Zenawi was sounding triumphant yesterday. But this could turn out to mean another long and costly trial for ordinary Somalis. The right course is to press for an immediate ceasefire and power-sharing talks between what passes for the Somali government and the SCIC rebels. International mediation could help provide security guarantees to Ethiopia, which should withdraw its forces at once. Anything else would to be to court disaster for a country that has already suffered enough.