^^^^ It seems like every other day one of you falls out of the closet. You've had your 2 minutes in here, why don't you hop along and troll somewhere else?

^^^^ Actually these passports are garbage. The government that made them is garbage and the puppet boss of that government is the ultimate filthy garbage.

^^^^^ Death is hardly a punishment for these animals. The greater imbeciles are those who cheer for this fool. It's one thing, however foolish, to wish the TFG would restore Somalia and an entirely a different (brainless) thing to cheer for this unprecedented halfwit.

Women and children in Mogadishu are especially vulnerable Somalis describe their lives in and around the capital, Mogadishu, amidst violence between insurgents and government troops backed by Ethiopian forces. Mother-of-two Faduma, 22, has lived in a camp for displaced people in central Mogadishu since she fled south from Baidoa seven years ago. "I actually returned to Baidoa in April this year when there was heavy fighting here in Mogadishu but I came back recently because my husband was hit in his face by a stray bullet and so I had to look after him. We have a lot problems - no food, no medicine and we can't just walk to go and find these things. We don't feel safe. There are children sick in our houses. When the children get sick we have no medical facility to go to so we just recite the Koran - or we use a traditional burning method where you give a small burn on a different part of the body depending on what sort of sickness the baby has. Or we try herbal medicine. There are a few hospitals near our camp but they don't accept us because we don't have money. Rape They only take the most serious cases, like the wounded or gunshots. A DISPLACED LIFE My own child died of diarrhoea. In the last year though it has been a little better and fewer children have died from diarrhoea but it will get worse when the rains start. There is a lot of rape. One woman in our camp was gang raped. Some men came in from outside, took her baby from her and gave the baby to the father, and then three men raped her. I even heard of a 70-year-old woman who was bound and raped by a man with a knife when she was walking to the tailor. It is terrible. We don't know of any treatment; we can't go anywhere for help. After midnight During the fighting, six months ago, there was an increase in the number of rapes. But since the transitional federal government said no-one could walk around at night the number of cases has decreased. This is because it is not so easy anymore to enter our camp after dark. We don't go out because of security. We don't even go to the toilet at night. We now take bedpans into our shelters because if you walk to the latrines at night you will surely be raped after midnight. The main problem with the camp though is that it doesn't have gates and so anyone can just come in and out. Just be kind In our camp none of the husbands have divorced their wives after being raped because everyone knows it is not the woman's fault. AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY Ethiopia should pull out its troops before it is too late, they are part of the problem not part of the solution Mustafa, Leicester She will be ok, people don't look badly on her. There are not those sorts of problems here because sometimes women are even raped in front of her father, husband, family and baby and they cannot stop it. The biggest problem is that she doesn't wake up the next day. She just lies down and doesn't wake up. We live in a small area - roughly a space of four metres by four metres and in this space there are three to four families. When a woman is raped everyone is aware because you can hear the woman screaming. So we go to her afterwards but there is little we can do. We don't have guns, you can just be kind. Published: 2007/11/14 00:24:45 GMT © BBC MMVII Source

BBC NEWS Somalis describe their lives in and around the capital, Mogadishu, amidst violence between insurgents and government troops backed by Ethiopian forces. Yusuf, 35, fled Mogadishu last month to the town of Galcayo. Words cannot explain what it was like. To move around Mogadishu was getting more and more difficult day by day. From my house there is only one way to pass and it is incredibly dangerous. I used to try and do everything in the morning: look for food or get credit for my mobile phone. The mornings are generally a little quieter - there is little shooting and shelling first thing in the morning. But by 1600 local time there is no movement and by the time it is dark we sit and listen to the gunshots and mortars. Terrible feeling I have even heard of people not being able to bring their sick and injured to the hospital in the evening. My mother told me of a woman who died because she went into labour one evening and could not get to the hospital; she died during the night. I had lived in Mogadishu all my life, my three children were born there and I was married there, my life is there. I finally left with my mother; we were the last to leave. I had sent my wife and children away in March to stay with relatives. It was when the shelling and the fighting in Mogadishu became too much of a risk for them. I thought they would at least be safe in Galcayo; there was little I could do to protect them in Mogadishu; this is a terrible feeling for a father. I stayed behind to look after our house and try to keep working but it is impossible and I needed to take my mother away. Running for my life I am scared. A DISPLACED LIFE Mogadishu has had trouble in the past, but now, in these past months, I have never seen fighting like this. I don't know how to describe it but I feel like I am running for my life. Everyone is leaving, if you are lucky enough to have money and somewhere to go you leave Mogadishu; if not you try to find somewhere safer within Mogadishu, but really there is nowhere safe. The journey between Mogadishu and Galcayo also has its dangers. I have seen checkpoints throughout my life, in a way I am used to them, but now it is unlike anything else I have seen. Lawless I tried to count the checkpoints on the way here but there are too many. I managed to count 86 over 300km, but I forgot to count the ones as we were leaving Mogadishu because I was too busy watching and looking around and worrying about getting out safely. The journey itself took six days with all of these new checkpoints. Generally there is a system: the driver pays a fee of about one million Somali shillings ($55) for the entire bus and we then pass. However, these days, we don't know who these people are. AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY Ethiopia should pull out its troops before it is too late, they are part of the problem not part of the solution Mustafa, Leicester It is lawless and the system has gone. Half-way through our journey we came to a checkpoint where the money was not enough and they took everything, our mobile phones, our clothes, and our money - everything from everyone. After that the journey became so much harder, because we had nothing to give at the other checkpoints. At one point we were kept overnight at a checkpoint because they refused to believe we had been robbed of everything. Eventually they realised we really had nothing to give and they let us pass the following morning. Now I am here with nothing but the clothes I wear. I am not sure what will happen now but I am here now and I am with my family and we are alive. Story from BBC NEWS: Published: 2007/11/13 09:18:54 GMT © BBC MMVII Source

More than 170,000 flee Mogadishu fighting in two weeks: UN 17 hours ago MOGADISHU (AFP) — More than 170,000 people have fled fighting in Somalia's capital in the past two weeks, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday, worsening a humanitarian crisis already facing the country. With near-daily clashes between Ethiopia-Somali forces and Islamist rebels, the UNHCR said it was doling out its last stocks from Mogadishu to the displaced, but warned of tough conditions as host areas struggle with the influx. Some 90,000 people have fled to Afgooye, 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of Mogadishu, which has already taken in some 150,000 displaced people since the beginning of the year. In the Afgooye area, "people can no longer find space for shelter around the town itself," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva. "Many families are simply living under trees. Although several NGOs are trucking water to the sites, it's not enough to meet demand," he added. Traders stayed away from the volatile Bakara market, where forces have been searching for weapons. Government troops patrolled strategic positions in the city, but insurgents stayed out of sight, an AFP reporter said. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed urged Mogadishu residents to join the fight against rebels or risk getting caught in the ensuing crossfire. "People in neighbourhoods must also fight the Shabab and chase them away. Otherwise they are the ones who suffer in crackdowns," he said, referring to the radical armed wing of the main Somali Islamist movement. Dozens of people, mainly civilians, have been killed and at least 170,000 displaced in some of the worst fighting since April, when Ethiopian troops swept aside the Islamists who had briefly governed much of the country, including Mogadishu. Witnesses said Ethiopian forces indiscriminately shot civilians in a bid to clamp down on insurgents. "When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers," Yusuf told reporters, but the UN special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said such impunity was "unacceptable". Ould-Abdallah raised the prospect of retribution for alleged war crimes that have long been ignored. "People perpetuating crimes and violence are not being challenged before the International Criminal Court," he said. "I think the time has come to see what international justice can do to help Somalis," he told a press conference in Nairobi, where he became the first top UN envoy to make such a call for trials before the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. The recent clashes have worsened the humanitarian crisis that has dogged the nation for 16 years, with areas just outside the city struggling to cope with the latest influx of displaced people. The Shabelle region -- Somalia's breadbasket -- has suffered its worst crop in 13 years, putting the lives of nearly a million on the edge of starvation. Aid workers have also said that the few who remained in the worst-affected areas of Mogadishu are beyond the reach of the relief net and face dire conditions. Dampening peace prospects, Yusuf said future peace talks, if any, would exclude Islamists, some of whose elements have been accused of terrorism. "I will hold dialogue and consultations and reach peace deals with any group that will denounce violence." In Mogadishu, government forces yanked two more radio stations off the air, a day after shutting Radio Shabelle, one of the largest broadcasters in the capital. The government said stations that "exaggerate the (security) situation" will be shut. Ould-Abdallah condemned the closure, saying: "This is the kind of thing that should be avoided." The International Federation of Journalists said the move was "appalling" and demanded the channels be reopened "immediately and unconditionally." Bloody clan bickering and power struggles that intensified after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre have scuppered many bids to stabilise Somalia. Source

Mr. Yussuf says that while Mogadishu has been suffering from insurgent attacks, the situation in Somalia today is the best since 1991, when the central government collapsed. What an imbecile.

By Derek Kilner Nairobi 13 November 2007 Government authorities in Somalia on Tuesday ordered two more radio stations off the air, a day after shutting the popular Radio Shabelle station. The closures follow a surge in violence in Mogadishu as Ethiopian troops backing the government battle Islamist-led insurgents. Derek Kilner has more from VOA's East Africa Bureau in Nairobi. Radio station journalists look for cover inside the building as Somali government forces besieged the radio station (File Photo - 18 Sep 2007) Radio station journalists look for cover inside the building as Somali government forces besieged the radio station (File Photo - 18 Sep 2007) The closure of Radio Simba and Radio Banadir on Tuesday, and of Radio Shabelle a day earlier, has prompted outcries from local and international press groups. Leonard Vincent of the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders, says the closures are illegal and represent a troubling development in the government's relations with the media. "They are more worrying because no explanation has been given. Before we had the feeling that there was some kind of grip of civilian authorities on the situation and now they don't even bother to give any kind of legal aspect to the closure of radio stations. Closing down a radio station like that with no explanation with the force of weapons is something completely illegal and against all treaties and conventions signed by the Transitional Federal Government," said Vincent. Somali authorities have accused the stations of favoring insurgents in their coverage, a charge the stations deny. Ethiopian troops regained control of Mogadishu from armed Islamists in January, but have been battling ever since to defeat what has developed into an Iraq-style insurgency. The fighting in the capital has intensified in recent weeks, with Ethiopian troops launching a new offensive. The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday that more than 170,000 people have fled Mogadishu in the past two weeks. Estimates of the number people killed range from 60 to over 80. At a news conference in Nairobi on Tuesday, Somali interim President Abdullahi Yusuf blamed recent attacks on Islamist insurgents, including the Shabbab, a militant Somali youth group with ties to the Al-Qaida terror network. He also played down the severity of the situation. Mr. Yussuf says that while Mogadishu has been suffering from insurgent attacks, the situation in Somalia today is the best since 1991, when the central government collapsed. A message on Radio Shabelle's website says the government has not indicated when the station will be allowed to resume broadcasting. Source

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2007 4:04 MECCA TIME, 1:04 GMT The UN says 173,000 people have fled the fighting in Mogadishu in just the past two weeks [AFP] The UN says the humanitarian crisis in Somalia is now the worst in Africa. John Holmes, the UN humanitarian affairs chief, said civilians were increasingly bearing the brunt of the fighting between government forces backed by Ethiopia and fighters loyal to the Islamic Courts group. "I appeal to all those with guns, whether government, insurgent or Ethiopian troops, to refrain from indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks affecting civilians," he said. More residents fled Mogadishu on Monday, adding to a growing humanitarian crisis as government forces backed by Ethiopian tanks stepped up efforts to crush fighters loyal to the Islamic Courts group. Forced to flee At least 70 people have been killed in more than a week of fighting that has driven tens of thousands of Somalis from their homes, residents and aid workers say. Somalis are fleeing the fighting any way they can [AFP] The United Nations refugee agency estimates that 173,000 people have fled the fighting in the capital Mogadishu in just the past two weeks alone, bringing the total number of displaced people in Somalia to 850,000. Hawa Amed, a 40-year-old mother of eight, said she had wanted to stay in her house deep in the sprawling Bakara Market, where allied Somali-Ethiopian troops were hunting for fighters and their hidden arms caches over the weekend. "But after two policemen were killed outside on Sunday, we had to run," she told Reuters as she left the city on foot, her youngest child strapped to her back. "We are now heading to Madina District ... we don't know how we will survive." Hospitals overwhelmed Not only are refugees overwhelming areas outside Mogadishu, wounded civilians are overflowing the local hospitals. Returning from a visit to Mogadishu, European Commission officials said some 5,000 Somalis had been treated for war-related injuries in hospitals there since the start of the year, and that about a third of those were women and children. Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow said in a city where few things worked apart from weapons, it was the lack of healthcare that was most appalling. The under-equipped and under-staffed Madina hospital, one of only three offering help to Mogadishu's sick and wounded, dozens of patients arrive daily. A typical day for the surgical staff has them working round the clock to remove bullets, fix ripped intestines and perform amputations. Relatives of patients have to help perform duties such as feeding and wheeling them between operating theatres and wards. Space is also at a premium and patients are released early and the corridors are used as extra sleeping space to cope. Ethiopian and Somali government troops have been battling Islamic Courts fighters in the Horn of Africa nation since Addis Ababa helped the interim administration rout them in January following a two-week war. 'When elephants fight' About 1,600 Ugandan peacekeepers were deployed in Mogadishu in March as the vanguard of a proposed 8,000-strong African Union force. No other nation has so far sent troops, although a similar number of Burundians are due to arrive this month. Pascale Lund, the senior Red Cross official in Somalia, appealed to both sides of the conflict to "respect the international humanitarian law". But Somalia's president says civilian casualties in Mogadishu are unavoidable. "When two elephants fight, the grass gets damaged. We are not the cause of these deaths. It is being caused by those who attack the government. [ilaahay meel baas kaa tuur] "I urge the public to ask the militias fighting the government not to wage attacks from where they live," Abdullahi Yusuf said. Radio stations shut down The government also appeared to wage war on the media on Tuesday, storming two radio stations in Mogadishu and ordering them off the air. Workers fled Radio Banadir and Simba Radio when heavily-armed troops entered their compound on Tuesday. Mustafa Haji, chief editor of Simba Radio, said: "They said the order to close the radio station will affect all independent stations in Mogadishu." Ali Muhamed Aden, deputy director of Radio Banadir, said: "They terrorised the employees... All the reporters panicked and ran." The move came a day after Shabelle Radio was shut down and two of its senior staff briefly detained. Shabelle said on its website that it had received no explanation for its closure or been told how long it would last. It said it was the eighth time this year that the government had shut it down. "There has been pressure, intimidation and death threats to the journalists from the government and other people," it said. Eight local reporters have been killed while doing their jobs in Somalia this year. The authorities accused Shabelle and other Somali news organisations of supporting the Islamic Courts fighters earlier this year. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

^^^^^ Don't drag the "people" into this atheer. Do you dispute that the elites and administrations of Somaliland and Djibout are aiding and abetting Ethiopia in its slaughter of civilians in Muqdisho and in Somali-Galbeed? It's hardly a secret that the elites of Puntland (for whatever reason, though likely for monetery or clan purposes) have placed all their eggs in the TFG/Ethiopia basket. But that the other two entities I mentioned earlier benefit economically and politically from allowing land-locked Ethiopia access to their ports is seldom mentioned. Ethiopia does not manufacture any weapons nor does it refine any fuel. It stands to reason then that both of these pass through and are allowed by these administrations. This is hardly unprecedented though. Turkey is the supply route for US troops in Iraq. Qatar and Kuwait provide bases for US troops and so on... It's easy and very tempting to look down on Puntlanders when others are engaged in the same collaborative enterprise. Talk about the pot calling the kettle dabodhilif.

^^^^ I actually like Patrick and Sponge Bob. There's no way they would support the TFG. No way!

"One learning child. One connected child. One laptop at a time. The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege. Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. " This is no toy laptop: "The XO laptop runs on Linux, a free and open-source operating system. OLPC’s commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms. The children—and their teachers—have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content. There’s even a button located on the keyboard that allows children to view the programming behind certain applications. The XO laptop’s revolutionary interface, Sugar, also promotes sharing and learning." More...

^^^^ They could, for sure, change the dynamics of the situation but they won't. They also have a few things in common: they're both imbeciles, they're both thieves and, make no mistake about it, they're both puppets of Zenawi. They are criminals and they're wanted but I am trying to put the most wanted criminals on this list. Riyaale is closer to making the list before Cadde does for his Laas Caanood fiasco.

Puntland does not have more dabodhilifs than any other region in Somalia. The stooge administration of Cadde Muse no more speaks for Puntlanders or represents them than that of Abdillahi Yussuf does for Somalis.

Originally posted by Faarax-Brawn: Economic Left/Right: -2.12 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.56 We're politically related FB. Come to think of it, most Somalilanders who took this survey are in the second quadrant. Hmmm. And except for Fatboy (the statistical anomaly ), we're all in the 2nd or 3rd quadrant, the left side of center. Interesting indeed. Naxar, you are what you are atheer. This questionnaire is probably meaningless though it shouldn't be dismissed entirely.

^^^^ Libaax rejects the TFG and all that it stands for. He also categorically condemns the massacres occurring in Muqdisho every day. P.S. He may have a (small) tattoo of Yey but he's working on having that surgically removed.

^^^^ Chavista is my nickname at work. You are indeed a Chavista and Yey is el Diablo. LOL. Naxar, come on atheer. I'm stunned you would be this close to anarchy. Your views should put you comfortably in the fascist column. Still, you show some independence in thought compared to your fellow TFG supporters. May be there's hope for you if you stop listening to what daddy or auntie say about atheero Yey. Seriously though, do some more reading and find out why you scored this high on the anarchism axis. Read Peter Kropotkin. You will feel at home.

Originally posted by Naxar Nugaaleed: Economic Left/Right: -2.62 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21 For someone who supports the wretched TFG and constantly screams "dowlad diid", you ended up being the biggest dowlad diid of all. LOL Perhaps you lied on the questionnaire? Or you lie on this forum? May be even you don't know what anarchism stands for. Find out what anarchy means, atheer. You're not half as bad as I thought if that score of yours is of any accuracy. Anarchism: 1. a doctrine urging the abolition of government or governmental restraint as the indispensable condition for full social and political liberty. 2. the methods or practices of anarchists, as the use of violence to undermine government. LOOOOL. This is too much. Nomadique: OMG. Can you be any more leftist than you are? Now I know why I love you so. You'll have moved closer to the center when you get to my age. Ah the idealist 20's.

by Naomi Klein In less than two years, the lease on the largest and most important US military base in Latin America will run out. The base is in Manta, Ecuador, and Rafael Correa, the country’s leftist president, has pronounced that he will renew the lease “on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami–an Ecuadorean base. If there is no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.” Since an Ecuadorean military outpost in South Beach is a long shot, it is very likely that the Manta base, which serves as a staging area for the “war on drugs,” will soon shut down. Correa’s defiant stand is not, as some have claimed, about anti-Americanism. Rather, it is part of a broad range of measures being taken by Latin American governments to make the continent less vulnerable to externally provoked crises and shocks. This is a crucial development because for the past thirty-five years in Latin America, such shocks from outside have served to create the political conditions required to justify the imposition of “shock therapy”–the constellation of corporate-friendly “emergency” economic measures like large-scale privatizations and deep cuts to social spending that debilitate the state in the name of free markets. In one of his most influential essays, the late economist Milton Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism’s core tactical nostrum, what I call the shock doctrine. He observed that “only a crisis–actual or perceived–produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” Latin America has always been the prime laboratory for this doctrine. Friedman first learned how to exploit a large-scale crisis in the mid-1970s, when he advised Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Not only were Chileans in a state of shock following Pinochet’s violent overthrow of Socialist President Salvador Allende; the country was also reeling from severe hyperinflation. Friedman advised Pinochet to impose a rapid-fire transformation of the economy–tax cuts, free trade, privatized services, cuts to social spending and deregulation. It was the most extreme capitalist makeover ever attempted, and it became known as a Chicago School revolution, since so many of Pinochet’s top aides and ministers had studied under Friedman at the University of Chicago. A similar process was under way in Uruguay and Brazil, also with the help of University of Chicago graduates and professors, and a few years later, in Argentina. These economic shock therapy programs were facilitated by far less metaphorical shocks–performed in the region’s many torture cells, often by US-trained soldiers and police, and directed against those activists who were deemed most likely to stand in the way of the economic revolution. In the 1980s and ’90s, as dictatorships gave way to fragile democracies, Latin America did not escape the shock doctrine. Instead, new shocks prepared the ground for another round of shock therapy–the “debt shock” of the early ’80s, followed by a wave of hyperinflation as well as sudden drops in the prices of commodities on which economies depended. In Latin America today, however, new crises are being repelled and old shocks are wearing off–a combination of trends that is making the continent not only more resilient in the face of change but also a model for a future far more resistant to the shock doctrine. When Milton Friedman died last year, the global quest for unfettered capitalism he helped launch in Chile three decades earlier found itself in disarray. The obituaries heaped praise on him, but many were imbued with a sense of fear that Friedman’s death marked the end of an era. In Canada’s National Post, Terence Corcoran, one of Friedman’s most devoted disciples, wondered whether the global movement the economist had inspired could carry on. “As the last great lion of free market economics, Friedman leaves a void…. There is no one alive today of equal stature. Will the principles Friedman fought for and articulated survive over the long term without a new generation of solid, charismatic and able intellectual leadership? Hard to say.” It certainly seemed unlikely. Friedman’s intellectual heirs in the United States–the think-tank neocons who used the crisis of September 11 to launch a booming economy in privatized warfare and “homeland security”–were at the lowest point in their history. The movement’s political pinnacle had been the Republicans’ takeover of the US Congress in 1994; just nine days before Friedman’s death, they lost it again to a Democratic majority. The three key issues that contributed to the Republican defeat in the 2006 midterm elections were political corruption, the mismanagement of the Iraq War and the perception, best articulated by Jim Webb, a winning Democratic candidate for the US Senate, that the country had drifted “toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the nineteenth century.” Nowhere, however, was the economic project in deeper crisis than where it had started: Latin America. Washington has always regarded democratic socialism as a greater challenge than totalitarian Communism, which was easy to vilify and made for a handy enemy. In the 1960s and ’70s, the favored tactic for dealing with the inconvenient popularity of economic nationalism and democratic socialism was to try to equate them with Stalinism, deliberately blurring the clear differences between the worldviews. A stark example of this strategy comes from the early days of the Chicago crusade, deep inside the declassified Chile documents. Despite the CIA-funded propaganda campaign painting Allende as a Soviet-style dictator, Washington’s real concerns about the Allende victory were relayed by Henry Kissinger in a 1970 memo to Nixon: “The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on–and even precedent value for–other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it.” In other words, Allende needed to be taken out before his democratic third way spread. But the dream Allende represented was never defeated. It was temporarily silenced, pushed under the surface by fear. Which is why, as Latin America now emerges from its decades of shock, the old ideas are bubbling back up–along with the “imitative spread” Kissinger so feared. By 2001 the shift had become impossible to ignore. In the mid-’70s, Argentina’s legendary investigative journalist Rodolfo Walsh had regarded the ascendancy of Chicago School economics under junta rule as a setback, not a lasting defeat, for the left. The terror tactics used by the military had put his country into a state of shock, but Walsh knew that shock, by its very nature, is a temporary state. Before he was gunned down by Argentine security agents on the streets of Buenos Aires in 1977, Walsh estimated that it would take twenty to thirty years until the effects of the terror receded and Argentines regained their footing, courage and confidence, ready once again to fight for economic and social equality. It was in 2001, twenty-four years later, that Argentina erupted in protest against IMF-prescribed austerity measures and then proceeded to force out five presidents in only three weeks. “The dictatorship just ended!” people declared at the time. They meant that it had taken seventeen years of democracy for the legacy of terror to fade–just as Walsh had predicted. In the years since, that renewed courage has spread to other former shock labs in the region. And as people shed the collective fear that was first instilled with tanks and cattle prods, with sudden flights of capital and brutal cutbacks, many are demanding more democracy and more control over markets. These demands represent the greatest threat to Friedman’s legacy because they challenge his central claim: that capitalism and freedom are part of the same indivisible project. The staunchest opponents of neoliberal economics in Latin America have been winning election after election. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, running on a platform of “Twenty-First-Century Socialism,” was re-elected in 2006 for a third term with 63 percent of the vote. Despite attempts by the Bush Administration to paint Venezuela as a pseudo-democracy, a poll that year found 57 percent of Venezuelans happy with the state of their democracy, an approval rating on the continent second only to Uruguay’s, where the left-wing coalition party Frente Amplio had been elected to government and where a series of referendums had blocked major privatizations. In other words, in the two Latin American states where voting had resulted in real challenges to the Washington Consensus, citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives. Ever since the Argentine collapse in 2001, opposition to privatization has become the defining issue of the continent, able to make governments and break them; by late 2006, it was practically creating a domino effect. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was re-elected as president of Brazil largely because he turned the vote into a referendum on privatization. His opponent, from the party responsible for Brazil’s major sell-offs in the ’90s, resorted to dressing up like a socialist NASCAR driver, wearing a jacket and baseball hat covered in logos from the public companies that had not yet been sold. Voters weren’t persuaded, and Lula got 61 percent of the vote. Shortly afterward in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, former head of the Sandinistas, made the country’s frequent blackouts the center of his winning campaign; the sale of the national electricity company to the Spanish firm Unión Fenosa after Hurricane Mitch, he asserted, was the source of the problem. “Who brought Unión Fenosa to this country?” he bellowed. “The government of the rich did, those who are in the service of barbarian capitalism.” In November 2006, Ecuador’s presidential elections turned into a similar ideological battleground. Rafael Correa, a 43-year-old left-wing economist, won the vote against Álvaro Noboa, a banana tycoon and one of the richest men in the country. With Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as his official campaign song, Correa called for the country “to overcome all the fallacies of neoliberalism.” When he won, the new president of Ecuador declared himself “no fan of Milton Friedman.” By then, Bolivian President Evo Morales was already approaching the end of his first year in office. After sending in the army to take back the gas fields from “plunder” by multinationals, he moved on to nationalize parts of the mining sector. That year in Chile, under the leadership of President Michelle Bachelet–who had been a prisoner under Pinochet–high school students staged a wave of militant protests against the two-tiered educational system introduced by the Chicago Boys. The country’s copper miners soon followed with strikes of their own. In December 2006, a month after Friedman’s death, Latin America’s leaders gathered for a historic summit in Bolivia, held in the city of Cochabamba, where a popular uprising against water privatization had forced Bechtel out of the country several years earlier. Morales began the proceedings with a vow to close “the open veins of Latin America.” It was a reference to Eduardo Galeano’s book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, a lyrical accounting of the violent plunder that had turned a rich continent into a poor one. The book was published in 1971, two years before Allende was overthrown for daring to try to close those open veins by nationalizing his country’s copper mines. That event ushered in a new era of furious pillage, during which the structures built by the continent’s developmentalist movements were sacked, stripped and sold off. Today Latin Americans are picking up the project that was so brutally interrupted all those years ago. Many of the policies cropping up are familiar: nationalization of key sectors of the economy, land reform, major investments in education, literacy and healthcare. These are not revolutionary ideas, but in their unapologetic vision of a government that helps reach for equality, they are certainly a rebuke to Friedman’s 1975 assertion in a letter to Pinochet that “the major error, in my opinion, was…to believe that it is possible to do good with other people’s money.” Though clearly drawing on a long rebellious history, Latin America’s contemporary movements are not direct replicas of their predecessors. Of all the differences, the most striking is an acute awareness of the need for protection from the shocks that worked in the past–the coups, the foreign shock therapists, the US-trained torturers, as well as the debt shocks and currency collapses. Latin America’s mass movements, which have powered the wave of election victories for left-wing candidates, are learning how to build shock absorbers into their organizing models. They are, for example, less centralized than in the ’60s, making it harder to demobilize whole movements by eliminating a few leaders. Despite the overwhelming cult of personality surrounding Chávez, and his controversial moves to centralize power at the state level, the progressive networks in Venezuela are at the same time highly decentralized, with power dispersed at the grassroots and community levels, through thousands of neighborhood councils and co-ops. In Bolivia, the indigenous people’s movements that put Morales in office function similarly and have made it clear that Morales does not have their unconditional support: the barrios will back him as long as he stays true to his democratic mandate, and not a moment longer. This kind of network approach is what allowed Chávez to survive the 2002 coup attempt: when their revolution was threatened, his supporters poured down from the shantytowns surrounding Caracas to demand his reinstatement, a kind of popular mobilization that did not happen during the coups of the ’70s. Latin America’s new leaders are also taking bold measures to block any future US-backed coups that could attempt to undermine their democratic victories. Chávez has let it be known that if an extremist right-wing element in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz province makes good on its threats against Morales’s government, Venezuelan troops will help defend Bolivia’s democracy. Meanwhile, the governments of Venezuela, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia have all announced that they will no longer send students to the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)–the infamous police and military training center in Fort Benning, Georgia, where so many of the continent’s notorious killers learned the latest in “counterterrorism” techniques, then promptly directed them against farmers in El Salvador and auto workers in Argentina. Ecuador, in addition to closing the US military base, also looks set to cut its ties with the school. It’s hard to overstate the importance of these developments. If the US military loses its bases and training programs, its power to inflict shocks on the continent will be greatly eroded. The new leaders in Latin America are also becoming better prepared for the kinds of shocks produced by volatile markets. One of the most destabilizing forces of recent decades has been the speed with which capital can pick up and move, or how a sudden drop in commodity prices can devastate an entire agricultural sector. But in much of Latin America these shocks have already happened, leaving behind ghostly industrial suburbs and huge stretches of fallow farmland. The task of the region’s new left, therefore, has become a matter of taking the detritus of globalization and putting it back to work. In Brazil, the phenomenon is best seen in the million and a half farmers of the Landless Peoples Movement (MST), who have formed hundreds of cooperatives to reclaim unused land. In Argentina, it is clearest in the movement of “recovered companies,” 200 bankrupt businesses that have been resuscitated by their workers, who have turned them into democratically run cooperatives. For the cooperatives, there is no fear of facing an economic shock of investors leaving, because the investors have already left. Chávez has made the cooperatives in Venezuela a top political priority, giving them first refusal on government contracts and offering them economic incentives to trade with one another. By 2006 there were roughly 100,000 cooperatives in the country, employing more than 700,000 workers. Many are pieces of state infrastructure–toll booths, highway maintenance, health clinics–handed over to the communities to run. It’s a reverse of the logic of government outsourcing: rather than auctioning off pieces of the state to large corporations and losing democratic control, the people who use the resources are given the power to manage them, creating, at least in theory, both jobs and more responsive public services. Chávez’s many critics have derided these initiatives as handouts and unfair subsidies, of course. Yet in an era when Halliburton treats the US government as its personal ATM for six years, withdraws upward of $20 billion in Iraq contracts alone, refuses to hire local workers either on the Gulf Coast or in Iraq, then expresses its gratitude to US taxpayers by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai (with all the attendant tax and legal benefits), Chávez’s direct subsidies to regular people look significantly less radical. Latin America’s most significant protection from future shocks (and therefore from the shock doctrine) flows from the continent’s emerging independence from Washington’s financial institutions, the result of greater integration among regional governments. The Bolivian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is the continent’s retort to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the now-buried corporatist dream of a free-trade zone stretching from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Though ALBA is still in its early stages, Emir Sader, a Brazil-based sociologist, describes its promise as “a perfect example of genuinely fair trade: each country provides what it is best placed to produce, in return for what it most needs, independent of global market prices.” So Bolivia provides gas at stable discounted prices; Venezuela offers heavily subsidized oil to poorer countries and shares expertise in developing reserves; and Cuba sends thousands of doctors to deliver free healthcare all over the continent, while training students from other countries at its medical schools. This is a very different model from the kind of academic exchange that began at the University of Chicago in the mid-’50s, when hundreds of Latin American students learned a single rigid ideology and were sent home to impose it with uniformity across the continent. The major benefit is that ALBA is essentially a barter system in which countries decide for themselves what any given commodity or service is worth rather than letting traders in New York, Chicago or London set the prices for them. That makes trade less vulnerable to the kind of sudden price fluctuations that have hurt Latin American economies before. Surrounded by turbulent financial waters, Latin America is creating a zone of relative economic calm and predictability, a feat presumed impossible in the globalization era. When one country does face a financial shortfall, this increased integration means that it does not necessarily need to turn to the IMF or the US Treasury for a bailout. That’s fortunate because the 2006 US National Security Strategy makes it clear that for Washington, the shock doctrine is still very much alive: “If crises occur, the IMF’s response must reinforce each country’s responsibility for its own economic choices,” the document states. “A refocused IMF will strengthen market institutions and market discipline over financial decisions.” This kind of “market discipline” can only be enforced if governments actually go to Washington for help. As former IMF deputy managing director Stanley Fischer explained during the Asian financial crisis, the lender can help only if it is asked, “but when [a country is] out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” That is no longer the case. Thanks to high oil prices, Venezuela has emerged as a major lender to other developing countries, allowing them to do an end run around Washington. Even more significant, this December will mark the launch of a regional alternative to the Washington financial institutions, a “Bank of the South” that will make loans to member countries and promote economic integration among them. Now that they can turn elsewhere for help, governments throughout the region are shunning the IMF, with dramatic consequences. Brazil, so long shackled to Washington by its enormous debt, is refusing to enter into a new agreement with the fund. Venezuela is considering withdrawing from the IMF and the World Bank, and even Argentina, Washington’s former “model pupil,” has been part of the trend. In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Néstor Kirchner (since succeeded by his wife, Christina) said that the country’s foreign creditors had told him, “‘You must have an agreement with the International Fund to be able to pay the debt.’ We say to them, ‘Sirs, we are sovereign. We want to pay the debt, but no way in hell are we going to make an agreement again with the IMF.’” As a result, the IMF, supremely powerful in the 1980s and ’90s, is no longer a force on the continent. In 2005 Latin America made up 80 percent of the IMF’s total lending portfolio; the continent now represents just 1 percent–a sea change in only two years. The transformation reaches beyond Latin America. In just three years, the IMF’s worldwide lending portfolio had shrunk from $81 billion to $11.8 billion, with almost all of that going to Turkey. The IMF, a pariah in countries where it has treated crises as profit-making opportunities, is withering away. The World Bank faces an equally precarious future. In April Correa revealed that he had suspended all loans from the Bank and declared the institution’s representative in Ecuador persona non grata–an extraordinary step. Two years earlier, Correa explained, the World Bank had used a $100 million loan to defeat economic legislation that would have redistributed oil revenues to the country’s poor. “Ecuador is a sovereign country, and we will not stand for extortion from this international bureaucracy,” he said. Meanwhile, Evo Morales announced that Bolivia would quit the World Bank’s arbitration court, the body that allows multinational corporations to sue national governments for measures that cost them profits. “The governments of Latin America, and I think the world, never win the cases. The multinationals always win,” Morales said. When Paul Wolfowitz was forced to resign as president of the World Bank in May, it was clear that the institution needed to take desperate measures to rescue itself from its profound crisis of credibility. In the midst of the Wolfowitz affair, the Financial Times reported that when World Bank managers dispensed advice in the developing world, “they were now laughed at.” Add the collapse of the World Trade Organization talks in 2006 (prompting declarations that “globalization is dead”), and it appears that the three main institutions responsible for imposing the Chicago School ideology under the guise of economic inevitability are at risk of extinction. It stands to reason that the revolt against neoliberalism would be in its most advanced stage in Latin America. As inhabitants of the first shock lab, Latin Americans have had the most time to recover their bearings, to understand how shock politics work. This understanding is crucial for a new politics adapted to our shocking times. Any strategy based on exploiting the window of opportunity opened by a traumatic shock– the central tenet of the shock doctrine–relies heavily on the element of surprise. A state of shock is, by definition, a moment when there is a gap between fast-moving events and the information that exists to explain them. Yet as soon as we have a new narrative that offers a perspective on the shocking events, we become reoriented and the world begins to make sense again. Once the mechanics of the shock doctrine are deeply and collectively understood, whole communities become harder to take by surprise, more difficult to confuse–shock-resistant. Naomi Klein is the author of many books, including her most recent, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Visit Naomi’s website at nologo.org. Source

11 November 2007 The Ethiopians in Somalia have discovered to their cost the same harsh reality confronting the Americans in Iraq: it is easy for a well-equipped and trained army to defeat in short order an inferior enemy. What follows, however, is frustration and humiliation as that enemy regroups and begins a guerrilla war against the occupying power. Regular troops may be able to score isolated victories against insurgents but since the timing of attacks is generally of the insurgents’ choosing, it is hard, if not impossible, to strike a decisive blow against them. This feeds the frustration of occupying troops which then turns to anger when their own casualties are subjected to degrading treatment by the insurgents. The mutilation of the corpse of an Ethiopian soldier which was then dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by Union of Islamic Courts supporters was an all too successful provocation. Ethiopian tank and mortar fire, allegedly aimed at insurgent positions, caused carnage among civilians, bringing to at least 60 the death toll since renewed violence gripped the city on Thursday. Both the Ethiopians along with the rudimentary Somalia government forces they support and the insurgents are accused of appalling behavior by Human Rights Watch which has called for all the perpetrators to be brought to justice. There is presently little chance of that happening. Somalia is returning to chaos and no one, least of all the country’s government, seems to know what to do about it. The answer is nonetheless clear. The Ethiopians, like the Americans in Iraq, thought they came as liberators. In fact, they quickly became part of the problem they had allegedly come to solve. This is even truer in this particular case since Ethiopia originally said that its troops would leave in a fortnight. That promised departure long ago faded into the past and now the continued presence of Ethiopian soldiers on Somali soil causes offense to even moderate Somalis who would themselves have nothing to do with the Union of Islamic Courts. Given the historic rivalries between the two countries, Ethiopia’s continued military deployment in Somalia is a provocation rather than a way to peace. The response of its soldiers to the appalling treatment of the fallen in no way wins Somali hearts and minds. It ought instead to draw a line under Ethiopia’s intervention. Whatever Addis Ababa’s friends in Washington may think, now is surely the time to leave. Some political leverage might be possible if Ethiopia’s withdrawal were tied to a peace conference at which all parties, the rival warlords and the Union of Islamic Courts were present. Past efforts to find agreements do not bode well for any deal, but in the final analysis, this conflict is a Somali affair. The country’s neighbors, including Ethiopia, have no legitimate role except supportiveness. Somalia must in the end succeed — or perhaps fail — on its own terms. Outside interference cannot help and indeed has been a major cause of the present chaotic conflict. Source

Originally posted by NGONGE: ^^ Thought the photo I put was worth a thousand words. Let me look again.... Ok, so he's not on the battlefield now, is that it? Clearly you haven't read the Art of War. Here's a refresher: All warfare is based on deception. According as circumstances are favorable one should modify one's plans. when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

Originally posted by NGONGE: There was a time when he sounded sincere if a little naive. Now though, he's either a half-wit or a shameless opportunist. Por qué?

(-3.88, -1.33)

NEVER FORGIVE OR FOTGET ABOUT ETHIOPIA'S SAVAGE KILLINGS IN SOMALIA TODAY! NEVER FORGET THE TRAITOR INA YEY (Abdullahi Yussuf). Solidarity with the freedom fighters of Mogadishu! We solute the fallen heroes! BBC NEWS Dozens die in Mogadishu reprisals More than 70 people have died and more than 200 have been wounded in battles in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. A BBC correspondent says Ethiopian forces are engaged in reprisal attacks after soldiers' bodies were dragged through the streets on Thursday. An adviser to Ethiopia's leader told the BBC that Ethiopia believed it still had a chance of bringing stability. His comments come after the UN head said deploying UN peacekeeping troops to Somalia was not realistic or viable. Fighting between Islamist-led insurgents and elements of the Ethiopian army for control of Mogadishu has intensified during the past two weeks, prompting thousands of citizens to flee the city. Shelling The dragging of mutilated bodies of Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu has provoked a fierce and furious reaction. As you can see there is nothing they left for us, and most of those who died, died due to injuries they sustained and no medical assistance Saido Ali Asoble, Mogadishu resident On Friday, Ethiopian soldiers were reported to have fired cannon shells into an area of the south of the city where insurgent militia men are thought to be based. The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says most of the dead are civilians, killed by shells fired into markets and residential areas. Doctors say hospitals are overflowing with badly injured people. People are trying to escape the violence. "As you can see there is nothing they left for us, and most of those who died, died due to injuries they sustained and no medical assistance," Saido Ali Asoble told Reuters news agency. "Ethiopian troops are allowing us to leave our houses to go to safe areas," she said. Another woman blamed the Ethiopian troops for the problems. "They killed every person they saw in the area and we have now decided to flee the capital," Asha Guled said. The insurgents are loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts which was expelled from Somalia after briefly controlling much of central and southern parts of the country. The transitional government ousted the UIC with the help of Ethiopian troops. 'Committed' On the question of UN peacekeeping troops, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the international community could consider other options, including a multi-national force or what he calls a "coalition of the willing". The African Union (AU) did agree to send 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia this year but only 1,600 Ugandan troops have actually made it. We believe the situation is improving and there is a big chance of stabilising Mogadishu Bereket Simon, adviser to Ethiopia's PM The AU only wanted to be there for six months before being replaced by the UN. Diplomats say it is hard to imagine which countries will want to contribute troops given how dangerous and chaotic Somalia is. Few governments have forgotten the images of US troops being dragged through the streets by Somali militiamen back in 1993. However, Bereket Simon, special adviser to the Ethiopian prime minister, said Ethiopia was committed to staying in Somalia. "We believe the situation is improving and there is a big chance of stabilising Mogadishu," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. BBC Africa analyst Mary Harpers says that with Mr Ban describing as unviable the idea of deploying a UN force in the country, Ethiopia has little choice but to remain. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7087736.stm Published: 2007/11/09 17:46:08 GMT © BBC MMVII

Originally posted by Gediid: I dont quite understand the point you are making Caamir.You are just reaffirming what we have known all along that the Northern politicians wanted independence from the British followed by union with the South.The documents above clearly state that. Not everyone comprehends what is clearly stated.