Somalia: What the News Failed to Report

[Abu-Salman]

Somalia: What the News Failed to Report

 

 

by Ramzi Baroud

 

 

The people of Somalia are enduring yet another round of suffering as Ethiopian forces wreck havoc in the capital, Mogadishu. Apparently in response to an attack on one of its units, and the dragging of a soldier’s mutilated body through the city’s streets, an Ethiopian mortar reportedly exploded in Mogadishu’s Bakara market on November 9, killing eight civilians. A number of Somalis were also found dead the following day, some believed to have been rounded up by Ethiopian forces the night before.

 

Nearly 50 civilians have reportedly been killed and 100 wounded in the two-day fighting spree between fighters loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts and government forces and their Ethiopian allies. A report, issued by Human Rights Watch, chastised both Ethiopian troops and ‘insurgents’ for the bloodletting. Peter Takirambudde, the watchdog’s Africa director, was quoted as saying, ‘The international community should condemn these attacks and hold combatants accountable for violations of humanitarian law - including mutilating captured combatants and executing detainees.’ Of course, one cannot realistically expect the international community to take on a constructive involvement in the conflict. Various members of this ‘community’ have already played a most destructive role in Somalia’s 16-year-old civil war, which fragmented a nation that had long struggled to achieve a sense of sovereignty and national cohesion

 

 

To dismiss the war in Somalia as yet another protracted conflict between warlords and insurgents would indeed be unjust because the country’s history has consistently been marred by colonial greed and unwarranted foreign interventions. These gave rise to various proxy governments, militias and local middlemen, working in the interests of those obsessed with the geopolitical importance of the Horn of Africa.

 

 

Colonial powers came to appreciate the strategic location of Somalia after the Berlin Conference, which initiated the ‘Scramble for Africa’. The arrival of Britain, France and Italy into Somali lands began in the late 19th century and quickly the area disintegrated into British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. Both countries sought expand their control, enlisting locals to fight the very wars aimed at their own subjugation.

 

World War II brought immense devastation to the Somali people, who, out of desperation, coercion or promises of post-war independence, fought on behalf of the warring European powers. Somalia was mandated by the UN as an Italian protectorate in 1949 and achieved independence a decade later in 1960. However, the colonial powers never fully conceded their interests in the country and the Cold War actually invited new players to the scene, including the United States, the Soviet Union and Cuba.

 

 

One residue of the colonial legacy involved the Oga-den province of Somalia, which the British empire had granted to the Ethiopian government. The region became the stage of two major wars between Ethiopia and Somalia between 1964 and 1977. Many Somalis still regard Ethiopia as an occupying power and view the policies of Addis Ababa as a continuation of the country’s history of foreign intervention.

 

 

The civil war of 1991, largely a result of foreign intervention, clan and tribal loyalties, and lack of internal cohesion, further disfigured Somalia. As stranded civilians became deprived of aid, Somalia was hit by a devastating famine that yielded a humanitarian disaster. The famine served as a pretext for foreign intervention, this time as part of international ‘humanitarian’ missions, starting in December 1992, which also included US troops. The endeavour came to a tragic end in October 1993, when more than 1,000 Somalis and 18 US troops were killed in Mogadishu. Following a hurried US withdrawal, the mainstream media rationalized that the West could not help those who refuse to help themselves; another disfiguration of the fact that the interest of the Somali people was hardly ever a concern for these colonial philanthropists. Since then, the importance of Somalia was relegated in international news media into just another mindless conflict, with no rational context and no end in sight.

 

 

The truth, however, is that colonial interest in the Horn of Africa has never waned.

 

 

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 provided an impetus for US involvement in the strategic region; only one month after the attacks, Paul Wolfowitz met with various power players in Ethiopia and Somalia, alleging that al-Qaeda terrorists might be using Ras Kamboni and other Somali territories as escape routes. A year later, the US established the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) to ‘monitor’ developments and to train local militaries in ‘counterterrorism’.

 

The US contingent was hardly neutral in the ongoing conflict.Reportedly, US troops were involved in aiding Ethiopian forces that entered Somalia in December 2006, citing efforts to track down al-Qaeda suspects. The Ethiopian occupation was justified as a response to a call by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), whose legitimacy is questioned. TGF, seen largely as a pro-Ethiopian entity, had been rapidly losing its control over parts of Somalia to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which came to prominence in January 2006, taking over the capital and eventually bringing long-sought stability to much of the country. Their attempts engage the US and other Western powers in dialogue failed, however, as a US-backed Ethiopia moved into Somalia in December 2006. On January 7, 2007, the US directly entered the conflict, launching airstrikes using AC-130 gunship. Civilian causalities were reported, but the US refused to accept responsibility for them..

 

 

The last intervention devastated the country’s chances of unity.

 

 

It now stands divided between the transitional government, Ethiopia (both backed by the UN, the US and the African Union) and the Islamic courts (allegedly backed by Eritrea and some Arab Gulf governments). Recently, the UN ruled out any chances for an international peacekeeping force, and the few African countries who promised troops are yet to deliver (with the exception of Uganda).

 

 

This situation leaves Somalia once more under the mercy of foreign powers and self-serving internal forces, foreshadowing yet more bloodshed. Our informed support is essential now because the Somali people have suffered enough. Their plight is urgent and it deserves a much deeper understanding, alongside immediate attention.

 

 

-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.n t) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

[stoit]

This was a good read indeed. Where does the fault then lie ? It is evident that to everybody self interest comes first and it would be very naive of us to expect any help from the international community or anyone else for that matter. When their interest conflicts with your interest you cant expect them in all honesty to leave theirs aside and come to your aid.

 

It is in the interest of ethiopia and many others to make and keep somalia weak and even maybe to do away with it altogether and assimilate the people but only among the lower ranks and appropriate their land.

 

Somalia is being taken away from the somalis like one takes a candy from a baby.

 

Is it then not those who must have worked towards cohesion ,whose overriding interest would have been to this purpose, who are the babies. Not only are they painfully naive bordering on ********* that they cannot see beyond their noses, they also lack the will to change their ways .

 

The only viable soution to this problem that i honesty can think of is for a change of tacktics. Having been given two options ..

 

1,

 

Support the TGF and have a real chance of ethiopians rethreat back to ethiopaia and eventually complete autonomy and rule by more favourable leaders or

 

2,

 

Rebel without a strategy and unity against a government that is a puppet- backed and used by foreign forces that are really not accountable to anybody as to what they can do or how much funds they can allocate to whatever captures their fancy.

 

If those were the options ,i would choose the former without hesitation.

 

Those stationed in asmara cannot unite the citizens , they will not even lead a proper oposition and will not partake in any armed struggle and yet order for one. They are deluded by the tastes of forbiden fruits that they think is theirs for the grabbing and that that comes with an african idea of a government office and they therefore reason that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Only they are mistaken for that is the very same reasons why we suffer so much already and i dont think that any future leader will ever be able to get away with it anymore. The younger generations have also been bitten and poisoned by the deadly snake we call tribalism and will all stagger to their graves because of it ,those that will follow will all be home free and they will learn to shut the door on tribalism when they reason..

 

We are all sleeping dogs here and we need to wake up from this trance and support according to strategy and not purely on emotions.

 

The TGF is bad but it is not all to blame and it can work for us for now. All we need to do is learn to affect change by conventional methords if and when merely saying no, protesting or using force force wont work.

 

How many times must we bang our heads on the wall in the hope that it may give way next time and let us through, when using the door would do the trick just fine and with our heads intact.