The Occupation of Somalia by Ethiopia is The Only Way the Thuggish Warlords Can Stay

[rudy-Diiriye]

The Occupation of Somalia by Ethiopia is The Only Way the Thuggish Warlords Can Stay in Power! On July 16, 2006, a day after the opening and an abrupt closing of the sham clanizing session hosted by criminal warlords of TGF and Tigre regime of Meles Zinawi and financed by the Bush/Cheney neocon regime of the US, the “smooth talking” warlord-cum prime minister and a trained veterinarian, Ali Mohamed Gedi made an absurd, nonetheless, revealing statement that there is no legal basis which can prevent Ethiopia’s army currently occupying Somalia becoming part of any new AU “peacekeeping force in Somalia. [1]

 

This is false for the occupation army of Meles Zinawi cannot be re-branded as “peacekeepers” in Somalia. Zinawi’s Tigre army is in Somalia as an occupation force and cannot be a force for peace . Gedi’s statement shows that TFG has no political legitimacy within Somali society. The only way the TFG can stay in power is if protected by foreign occupation forces. So, here I reproduce a portion of an essay in which I have delineated the extent to which the warlord regime of Yusuf and Gedi depend wholly on the foreign forces to stay in power. [1]

 

Thus, ending the occupation of Somalia entails the end of the world regime of TFG.

Currently, European nations [EU] and Arab and Muslim nations are hoping that there will be enough African Union troops willing to serve as peacekeepers in Somalia so that Ethiopian occupation may came to an end. However, by backing the US sponsorship of Ethiopia’s invasion, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) are in clear violation of Security Council resolutions 1724, 1725 and 1744 and UN Charter. This is because Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia violates the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia. [1]

 

As a result, AU defense of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, ironically to “protect” Ethiopia’s national sovereignty, AU forces currently in Somalia, as wells as those who may arrive at a later date are, by logical extension, part of Ethiopia’s occupation forces in Somalia and will remain to be so even if Ethiopia’s soldiers eventually leave Somalia.

This is one of the reasons why the current US administration prefers a long term Ethiopian occupation of Somalia. [2]

 

Indeed, from the standpoint of the Bush administration, this has to be the case for the two simple reasons: there are no enough African nations willing to send their soldiers to act as mercenary force to prop up the warlords of the transitional government. However, without the protection of foreign forces, the criminal warlord regime of TFG cannot last a day.

 

The numbers simply do not add up for any meaningful AU peace keeping forces in Somalia which does not include the current Ethiopian troops inside Somalia as an occupying army. This is because seven months into the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia, only 1600 hundred soldiers from Uganda have arrived. In order to overcome this problem, the Bush administration is currently working a thinly disguised strategy designed at conflating concepts of occupation and peacekeeping to keep the thuggish warlord regime in power as U.S puppet regime.

 

Thus, by mixing and blending much larger Ethiopia’s occupation troops with few thousands troops as peacekeepers from AU nations, the Bush administration is hoping to turn the current illegal Ethiopia’s occupation of Somalia as legitimate and permanent. The strategy is based, purely, on the geopolitical interests of the U.S. This policy’s objective is clear from the Bush administration’s opposition to Ethiopia’s troop withdrawal from Somalia. . [3]

 

However, any hint that AU peacekeeping forces in Somalia are the same as Ethiopian occupation troops, will, most certainly, secure the failure of AU peacekeeping mission. In addition, this wrongheaded policy will lead to more violence and more bloodshed. It is plainly clear to many of us that the Bush administration cannot impose on the Somali citizens the rule of ruthless thuggish warlords even if they are US “friendly” puppet regime.

 

“The US and the African Union have warned Ethiopia not to withdraw its troops from Somalia before peacekeepers are deployed to replace them. AU commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare says it would be a “catastrophe” if Ethiopia pulled out too soon. US Africa envoy Jendayi Frazer said it would probably be several months before the full peacekeeping force arrived. Ethiopia’s prime minister says he wants to withdraw all his troops, after they helped oust Islamists. Up to a third of the population fled recent fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, and badly need aid.” [4]

 

It is clear from the current death and destruction taking place in Ethiopia’s occupied Somalia, how the Zinawi’s Tigre troops currently looting local Somali businesses , raping Somali women and killing unarmed civilians with impunity can serve the role of peacekeepers. In fact it is clear that Zinawi, and other IGAD members have been the major force of instability for Somali society, while Union of Islamic Counts has been a force for peace, national rebuilding and national reconciliation in Somalia.

 

“Somalia’s recent agonies are a direct consequence of the American-backed invasion by Ethiopia four months ago to topple Mogadishu’s Islamic Courts Union and install the weak and largely secular transitional federal government”. [5]

 

But the Bush administration sponsorship of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia has nothing to do with the security of the people of Somalia. Ethiopia’s army is in Somalia as mercenary tribal army of Tirge Christian tribe of Ethiopia and also to meet Bush’s geopolitical agenda in Somalia. What is shocking is that Bush administration’s criminal takeover of Somalia has the full support of the international community. It is on the bases of these layered crimes against the people and the nation of Somalia that, on 29 May 2007, Ethiopia foreign minister[ a Tigre tribalist], Seum Mesfin, revealed to the international media, in occupied Mogadishu, that Ethiopian troops will remain in Somalia so that “Islamic elements will not disturb either the Somali government or the Somalia population.”[6]

 

It is clear that this Tigre provocation against the nation and people of Somalia indicated both grave dangers ahead and an ultimate victory for the people of Somalia. The Grave dangers are clear from the daily looting, raping and maiming of the innocent people. It is good news because Somali people are openly and vigorously resisting the colonial takeover of their country by the Tigre Christian tribe of Ethiopia and the neocon regime of the Bush administration. And as since, all other colonial enterprises, the current Tigre colonial occupation will face an utter defeat, and the thuggish warlords of the TFG will go with the departing occupying army.

 

Still, against all the signs they will, Iwant to pose the question: will European Union and Canada support the Bush administration’s crime against the people and the nation of Somalia? This question is pertinent since the Bush administration has shown its immense capacity to ignore international law, the UN, EU conventions when these rules conflict with U.S. political or economic objectives. For example, right after the US sponsored Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, in clear violation of UN arms embargo against Somalia, the Bush administration covertly helped Ethiopia purchase new tanks and other military hardware from North Korea.[7]

These tanks and other weapons are being used to kill, maim and terrorize the citizens of Somalia

”Ethiopian tanks in Somalia. Ethiopia bought much of its military equipment from the former Soviet Union and relies on North Korean parts.” (Michael Kamber: The New York Times)[8]

 

For the Somalis currently living inside brutal occupation of Zinawi and the criminal warlord regime of Yusuf and Gedi, the message is clear. Somalis have been and will resist the foreign occupation of their country. Many Somalis have paid with their blood for the liberation of their country. It is also clear to the people of Somalia that the 6 June 2007 press release by US mouthpiece, the Contact Group for Somalia seeks to give false legitimacy to Meles Zinawi’s Tigre Christian takeover of Somalia and in the name of serving greater Christian enterprise of the Bush administration’s war on the Muslim world.[9]

 

After their recent London meeting, the real power behind the CGS, the assistant US secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, went out of her way to blame the current death and destruction Zinawi’s Tigre troops and militia loyal to the thuggish warlords of Yusuf and Gedi are wrecking in Somalia on Eritrea. She claimed, without providing a shred of evidence to back her hysterical assertions, that Eritrea was, harbouring “extremist elements” linked to violent Islamist groups. In fact, Ms Frazer seems to want to place the entire US sponored Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia and concomitant death and destruction Zinawi’s Tigre army is wrecking on the people of Somalia as Eritrea’s fault! There is no hint in Ms Frazer’s accusing tone that it is Meles Zinawi and warlord regime of Yusuf and Gedi supported by her regime, and not Eritrea, which are stalking, maiming, raping, looting and humiliating the people of Somalia on daily basis.

 

Accordingly, despite widespread intimidations, maiming, arrests, closing down of media outlets in areas of Somalia under the control of the Ethiopian army and the Warlords, Ms Frazer portrays Ethiopia as innocent victim of wreckers and spoilers of peace such as Eritrea, the victims themselves and members of the Somalia Diaspora community. The bottom line is this: The criminal warlord regime of the TFG is protected by the Ethiopia’s leader, Meles Zinaw, his menacing, looting, raping tribal Tirge troops and by the Bush administration.

 

However, Zinawi is a dictator who is hated by the majority of the Ethiopian people. By fighting a war with Somalia, in the name of Ethiopia, he is hoping to prolong his inevitable political demise. Given Zinawi’s record of gross and widespread human rights abuses in Ethiopia, the Bush administration is taking advantage of Zinawi’s capacity for ruthlessness to pacify the Somali population in the service of the new US puppet regime of transitional federal government. But, with the rate at which Zinawi and the warlords are wrecking unmitigated death and destruction in Somalia and no Al Qaida terror camps, or terrorists in Somalia, the Bush administration is running out of lies to justify the carnage that is in Somalia.

 

For the people of Somalia, the message is clear. They will and must resist the noe-colonial takeover of their country by Zinawi’s Tigre Christian tribe of Ethiopia supported by the Christian right regime of the Bush administration and mercenary forces of transnational corporations and the brutal dictatorial regime in China.

VITORY SHALL BE THIERS!