NASSIR Posted January 5, 2007 Long and brilliant piece --------------------------- The TFG’s Victory over the UIC in Somalia: Triumph or New Menace for the Nation? A Critique on Professor Samatar’s Interview with the BBC By: Abdalla A. Hirad Thursday, January 04, 2007 In a rather lengthy interview with the BBC, Somali Service’s Yonis Ali Nur—on January 1, 2007—Professor Ahmed Ismail Samatar, Dean of the prestigious Macalister College of Saint Paul, Minnesota, predicted 2007 to be “a very difficult year for Somalia”. Asked what makes him come to this conclusion, the Professor simply cited that Ethiopia’s “occupation” of Somalia and its installation of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has been a recipe for disaster. “It is not as if two persons [nationals] have jockeyed for power, so that one of them finally won”, Samatar said in words to the effect. He further asserted that the Islamists ouster by the TFG, backed by Ethiopian forces, was not yet a forgone conclusion, and that there would be a resistance to what he called the “Ethiopian invasion/occupation” of Somalia. What is not clear still is whether the Professor had recorded his interview before the fall of Kismayo into the TFG flank, which might partly explain the genesis and rationale of his daring conclusion. But Professor Samatar is not alone in this view. Many highly educated Somalis share, and have, indeed, maintained this point of view. Those include Professor Ali Abdurahman Hersi, Dr. Ali Khalif Galaydh, Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar, Ahmed’s brother, and many other scholars, academia, politicians and, naturally, clerics of the new Islamist breed. They all share this view because of their unwavering support for the Islamists who controlled Mogadishu for the last six months. Yes, indeed—I hasten to add—voices such as that of Professor Samatar and similar ones may have some merit to them from a nationalistic point of view, just in case Ethiopia has something up its sleeve, beyond just installing the internationally recognized TFG into power. But the view of Professor Samatar, et al, is strange in that it does not elucidate why they support the Islamists in a rational sense; or explain why the installation of the TFG is such a dangerous eventuality in their doom view of the world. That is, anything beyond the traditional Somali hostility and bias towards Ethiopia; and, yes, their obvious hate for the “warlords”. Are they consumed by so much hate that they cannot stand those other Somalis—so-called warlords—to hold power in the country? In the case of the Samatar brothers, one might wish to read their article[ii], “Somalia’s worrisome leadership: what is next?” of October 20, 2004, written immediately after the election of President Yusuf by the Transitional Federal Parliament, in Nairobi, the Capital of Kenya, in which the two brothers may have registered their deep-rooted dislike—to say the least—of Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf, the man. Dr. Ali Abdurahman Hersi had also called him a dictator in an article he had written at the time. Dr. Ali Khalif Galaydh had campaigned so much against him and later helped organized a caucus of opposition, including Colonel Yusuf’s former rival in Puntland—Jama Ali Jama—and many others. Those interventions and criticism were anything but constructive in that very embryonic juncture of the TFG—the result of which might have given voice to the opposition from within the Cabinet, the Parliament and from without, all within the first month of the TFG’s inception. Still, other educated Somalis have taken a different look of the current situation. Speaking of the triumph of the TFG and its efforts to gain control, backed by Ethiopian forces, Omarfaruk Osman[iii], in his article, “Ethiopia’s incursion of Somalia; a blessing in disguise”, says: “For Somalia, it could potentially be the end of an era and the beginning of another. A quick change of direction and realism has just unfolded before the eyes of the nation’s many stakeholders.” One might also wish to read: “Somalia’s Horrific Saga Acquires New Actors”, by Abdurahman Waberi[iv], posted in Hiiraan.com. However, the mood of the average Somali has best captured in the catchy title of a poem written, on the occasion, by Mahamud Siad Togane[v] a nationally renowned poet (in the English Language), a professor and an intellectual, carried in his article, “Liberation, yes! Occupation, no!” dated, December 31, 2006, posted in WardheerNews.com. But, for a most balanced analysis, including the pros and cons of both sides of the argument of these recent events as they unfold into the annals of history, one may wish to read Musa Yuusuf’s[vi] article, “tactical retreat or the demise of the UIC?” dated, January 02, 2007, posted in WardheerNews.com. It would appear to most critics that the BBC Somali Service, traditionally ever so unfair towards the TFG, had given a free ride to the Professor by having not invited anyone with the opposite view; but the broadcaster, Yonis Ali Nur, gave the professor a challenge so intense that should deserve the admiration of all. The Professor, though, like most of the people in his camp, has failed to see the other side of the coin in the conflict. The question this raises for me is: although one would except such a one-sided view of the situation from politicians and their supporters in this camp, which I will discuss a little later, one feels that it was unbecoming of the Professor(s) to have totally shut himself to reason and objective analysis and has failed to consider, at least, likely scenarios, if there were any he might have contemplated, before he concluded his argument, upfront, by blaming the TFG and the Ethiopians in all eventualities—lock, barrel and stock. One question I ask in this paper is, therefore, why? Is there not another point of view? Generally speaking, Muse Yusuf (ibid) has summed up the line of thinking of the Professor’s camp, which is basically what any man in the Somali street would argue to justify the objectives of the onslaught of the Islamists. Muse, among other things, captures the Islamists argument as follows: “With their rise to power, supporters of the UIC heralded a new era for Somalis, “kacdoon” a popular revolution, which will unify all Somalis through the application of Shari’a to save Somalis from self-destruction that they had been inflicting on themselves for a long time. It was a new chapter in the Somali history, in which a new national identity based on Islam would be created thus eradicating the divisive clan identity and its politics of divide and rule.” Or, is it? I ask! Not only is this a very idealistic view of the reality; but it fails to respond to the situation of realpolitik in which the Somali nation finds itself engulfed at this juncture, in both domestic and international terms; mainly because of its own making, first; and because of the strategic interests of regional and international powers that be, second. And, compared to Somalia under the current circumstances, even tiny, winy, next door Djibouti has been a power—let alone Ethiopia and the United States. Hence, the paper will dig beyond the rhetoric we heard from the Professor and attempt to answer the above question by providing a perspective of conflict analysis and the history of the political contention between the two main groups of clan elite who have been jockeying for power in the country throughout the post Barre period as this has related to the chronology of efforts at resolving the Somali crisis by the international community together with their reliant Somali political elite. In the process, the paper will highlight how the two major political groupings have been faring in response to the initiatives of the international community and, in effect, the political interaction between the two groups. In the end, the paper will also explain how both the TFG and the Islamists in the contention between them have been but a product of those processes. Also, the paper will hopefully highlight how individuals like the Samatar brothers and other highly educated Somalis have become stuck with one side of the conflict; therefore, currently defending the Islamists to the teeth. Ever since Barre’s junta toppled the postcolonial government of the sixties on October 21, 1969, there have been two major clan elite grouping jockeying for national power and control in Somalia. I call the one group the Assemblists because of their reliance on assembling clan elite as their main methodology for gaining power and as a source of political legitimacy, in addition to seeking international recognition and exploiting clan differences. They were later coined and have been more commonly known as the “Manifesto” group among the Somali populace. Traditionally, they have less often resorted to seeking power through the barrel of the gun than their rivals—the militarists, which is the other group. Indeed, the era of militarism in Somalia started with Barre’s coup. As Barre’s regime tightened its dictatorial grip on the nation, already, in the early seventies, the former civilian politicians had been planning a resistance against the regime. Over the years, through the seventies and the eighties, those politicians organized clan based military fronts in the hope that those would finally unite to topple Barre’s regime to bring them (the civilians) back to power. Clan after clan, or subclans thereof, had trickled to form their fronts, so that by 1989 there was little support for the regime beyond the Marreehan subclan of the ******s, the sub-lineage of President Barre, if at all. However, to the surprise of the civilian politicians, power was not returning into their hands. In many cases, those leaders of the military fronts left their clan politicians high and dry and sought to organize a militarist coalition to take the power into their hands rather than return it into the hands of the civilians. Several attempts were made at forging such a coalition between these military fronts over the years, while Barre was still in power. The latest attempt was the so-called “Mustaxiil Pact” of October 1989—Mustaxiil, a location in Ethiopia—between General Aideed’s USC front, Gess’-Gabyow’s SPM front, and the SNM of the North, which although lead by civilians from the beginning had been using military methods to topple Barre’s regime and gain power as part of that coalition. The fact that the SSDF (Abdullahi Yusuf’s military front of the day) had already crumbled and its leader already in Jail in Ethiopia had not helped and might have been one reason why the Mustaxiil Pact never materialized for all practical purposes. In the meantime, the civilian politicians worried that they might miss the opportunity of regaining power to the militarists, attempted to organize themselves into a domestic movement pressuring the already week Barre’s regime by applying international diplomatic and economic pressure, by producing a political “Manifesto” taking Barre to task and calling for his resignation so as to effect a peaceful transfer of power, in their thinking, ahead of the then imminent approach of the military fronts. And that is how the name “Manifesto” was coined to them. President Barre, though, the wizard he was, double-crossed them and let the ball rolling at his own pace, hoping that he would play these civilians against their militarist off-shoots. By the time Barre’s regime fell in January 1991, the country fell into the hands of the military fronts—the south into the hands of the USC and the SPM, the current Puntland regions into the hand of the SSDF and the North West (“Somaliland”) into the hands of the then SNM. Barre’s forces, though, continued to struggle within each of those areas for a few more months. The political contention bared open between the two sides when, towards the last week before his flight, Barre tried to share the power with the “Manifesto” by asking Omar Arteh Ghalib of the North to form a government, which he hoped would also probably give him and the members of his regime a safe passage. But the Militarist wing of the USC (under General Aideed’s leadership) refused to endorse the plan. Then the “Manifesto” wing of the USC declared Ali Mahdi Mohamed, a former member of the civilian parliament, as the President of the Republic, immediately after the flight of Barre from the Capital—in fact on the same day. Ali Mahdi again asked Omar Arteh to form the government, as his Prime Minister. Again, the Militarist wing of the USC had opposed the scheme. Then, later, the Government of Djibouti, assisted by Egypt and Italy, held the first two reconciliation Conferences—so-called Djibouti I and Djibouti II—in June and July, 1991, and, again, declared Ali Mahdi Mohamed and Omar Arteh Ghalib, both of them former politicians from the sixties, as President and prime Minister, successively. One might wish to learn, though that, immediately after Barre’s ouster, the Italian government had already commissioned some of the members of this group of former civilian politicians, led by Omar Moallin, as I was told, including Abdurizaq Hagi Hussein, Osman Ahmed Roble, Abdulqadir Mohamed Adan (Zoppe), Osman Ahmed Roble and Yusuf Mohamed (Muro)—a total of six of them—to intervene as wise men and peace makers, according to my source[vii] in early 1991.What is more, present at the Djibouti Conferences were a former President of the Republic, Adan Abdulla Osman, two former Prime Ministers, the late Mohamed Ibrahim Egal and Abdurizak Haji Hussein, as well as others including, Sh. Mukhtar, the Last Speaker to the House of Parliament before Barre’s Coup. However, the militarists, feeling the sting, repudiated the arrangement. Aideed’s faction of the USC, the SNM controlling the North at the time (which had already declared the secession), Abdullahi Yusuf’s military wing of the SSDF (he released from Ethiopian prison a year or so later) and Barre’s forces, to some extent (still active in the South) all opposed Ali Mahidi-Omar Arteh’s government of 1991. This resulted in a military confrontation between the forces of the two groups, and in some cases, within each grouping. The military contention was laid bare, in earnest, in the fight for the Capital between Ali Mahdi’s forces and Aideed’s forces in the fall of 1991, among other fights, which had brought about the launching of Operation Restore Hope by the US government in the winter of 1991. It remained so for a while that the country was divided into pockets of clan territories, the greater part, in effect, controlled by the militarists. In the meantime, the “Manifesto” launched a diplomatic offensive in an attempt to install its government from the top, and the militarists went about trying to forge an alliance between them, like the “Manifesto”, to be able to countervail their claim of international recognition. The “Manifesto” would later organize into what was, at some point called, the Group of 12. With the militarists still in control of the land, but failing to forge their alliance, and the “Manifesto” failing to impose a government from the top to shake the militarists out of power domestically, many reconciliation Conferences by Ethiopia, Egypt, the Yemen Republic had also failed to produce results whereby there remained a political impasse between the two groups for a while—that is until 2000, when the government of Djibouti intervened, again, to single handedly install the National Transitional Government (TNG) of Abdiqassim-Galaydh, which essentially was a “Manifesto” government—the fruits of a new attempt by the Djibouti government to pick it up from where it had failed in 1991. Although cleverly masterminded by the government of Djibouti—an account of this and the contention between the groupings was discussed by this author in an earlier article[viii], to produce the TNG—the scheme had several pitfalls and impediments to it. (1) The militarist leaders, “the warlords”, who still controlled all the regions in the south and, of course “Somaliland” had declined to attend the Conferences, probably, a priori, doubting Djibouti fairness and sincerity. (2) As if to confirm the militarist’s suspicions, the new government was manned by too many Barre’s former technocrats, Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, the President, and Ali Khalif Galaydh, among others, and was supported by members of the former civilian politicians, most of whom had participated in the initial planning of the Conference, and a large community of supporting Islamists and businessmen allied to Abdiqassim Salad Hassan. One should note that these militarists had initially fought Barres regime. So, a government comprising Barre’s technocrats in addition to the civilians of old and the Islamists was a disaster in their thinking. (3) Because of the Islamists’ influence, Ethiopia and the West, led by the US government of the day, were naturally averted to support the new arrangement. (4) Perhaps most drastic among the impediments was the fact that the government of Djibouti alienated all the governments of the region (the IGAD countries, under whose mandate it was holding the Conference, included) and interested others from elsewhere, not even sparing its old allies, in this case—Egypt and Italy—by not allowing them to even help fund the Conference, let alone contribute in any other substantive way. Even, some high officials of the UN’s Political Department, in New York, were complaining that Djibouti was keeping them in dark. That position of the government of Djibouti might have heightened the suspicions of many and propelled the rampant rumors of those days that Al-Qaeda could have been helping the fledgling and poor government of tiny Djibouti to single-handedly shoulder the exorbitant expenses of a 5-month-long Conference It was only after the installation of the TNG, that the militarists succeeded to forge their first ever alliance, when they took Baidoa as their capital and started a diplomatic and propaganda offensive by literally creating a dissident shadow government from the distance, until the international community finally intervened again—by the Secretary General of the United Nations declaring that there was need for the resumption of reconciliation efforts in Somalia in early September of 2001—when all of a sudden the Representative of the Secretary General visited the dissident warlords in Baidoa to register their grievances on behalf of the international community for the first time, since the culmination of the third Djibouti-sponsored Conference. The result was the IGAD sponsored Conference (2002 -2004), hosted by the government of Kenya in Eldoret, later culminating in Embagathi, and supported by the UN and all the concerned regional Groups of the world. It took two years to conclude the Conference, mainly because of a rift between a “Manifesto” alliance—led by Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, the former President of the TNG, and supported by Djibouti, Egypt and Eritrea—and the militarist alliance, led by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the main remnant of the older militarists, also openly supported by Ethiopia among others from the region and the wider world. As we know now, the militarists turned out to be victors after two years of intense deliberations contrived only by the patience of the international community—a processes in which a Djibouti-Eritrea-Egypt alliance and its Somali client the “Manifesto”—now including the Islamists— fought to the teeth against Ethiopia and its client, the militarists, a.k.a., the “warlords”. But then, no sooner than Abdullahi Yusuf was elected and the Cabinet nominated, even endorsed by the Parliament, that the opposition within declared the arrangement unacceptable and even already called for the impeachment of Abdullahi Yusuf. The threat was made by no less than the person of the Speaker to the Parliament himself, and even before the government moved back into Somalia The Mogadishu warlords, allies of Yusuf until then, one would expect, perhaps afraid to lose their feudal spoils in Mogadishu and partly clannish in their agenda, gave a political fulcrum to the opposition in Mogadishu, denying the new government to take seat in the Capital. It is note worthy that the Samatars, ever so close to the Djibouti initiative of 2000, as consultants mainly because of their close kin relations with the President of Djibouti—Ismail Omar Ghelleh, being a close cousin—now had a stake in what has happened to Abdiqasim’s TNG and had probably a hatchet to bury with the opposition, i.e., the “warlords”. Like wise Dr. Ali Khalif Galaydh and Dr. Ali Abdurahman Hersi, who have both openly supported the Islamists; had been members of the TNG’s Cabinet, a product of the Djibouti initiative of 2000. The “Manifesto”, including many more dignitaries, from the previous civilian governments, now close to the Samatar’s under the tutelage of the government of Djibouti, and many who relate to the cause of the “Manifesto” through kin and kith affiliation, support the Islamists. Whether by design or by default, the “Manifesto” , ever so weak, fortunately, when it comes to the use of military muscle, seem to have relied on the Islamists as their foot soldiers in their new contention to oust the TFG, this time around. The idea may not have been to support the Islamists to rise to power, but support them good enough to force a new process of reconciliation convened by the international community, once again, in the hope they might take their chance again. It is not surprising that some quarters are calling for resumed reconciliations in a situation where the other party to the current conflict (the Islamists) exists no more! Hence, a picture is depicted whereby the “Manifesto” is using an old form of demagoguery in their rhetoric against Ethiopia to bring down the TFG which had replaced their TNG the last time around. For those who doubt the theory that the Group has been manipulating the Islamists, may wish to consider the following facts. Abdiqassim is definitely the self-styled leader of the “Manifesto”. His connection with the Mogadishu’s UIC is undoubted and is definitely telling if not confirming of this theory. Even the heightened propaganda against Ethiopia was resumed under Abdiqassim and Ali Galaydh’s TNG, long after the tension had cooled between the two peoples, and ever since PM Zenawi took office in Ethiopia in 1991—and since there was no government in Somalia, any way. It was unfortunate that the first ever government of Somalia had exploited history of negative relations between the two countries like the previous governments before them. It is not as if the Islamists had suddenly started exploiting the old hostilities between the two nations on their own. Rather, it has been a “Manifesto” trade mark ever since Abdiqassim took its leadership with support from the government of Djibouti, mainly to signify the then political rift between Ethiopia and the Government of Djibouti, widened by Djibouti’s masterminding of the Arta Conference and alienating Ethiopia and the rest of the international community. Whether that was a demand made by the Islamists of the TNG in exchange for support has not been clear. That is why Ethiopia cannot, rightly or wrongly, afford to let it go for the TFG to fail, to be replaced by the Islamists and their cohorts—the “Manifesto” agents. But, here again, the Islamists which the “Manifesto” have, more recently, so much relied upon domestically, have become their major impediment on the international front In terms of motto, the “Manifesto” has departed from a naive assumption that the militarists, having caused political and social havoc during the years of President Barre, resulting in the current break-down, had no right or the clout to run the State, any more. On the contrary, the militarists were departing from a perspective that Barre’s corrupt and clannish system had spoiled the military rule in Somalia, and that the new situation was an opportunity for them to regroup after their ouster of Barre’s regime to show the better side of the great institution—the military—so much loved and adored by the masses, before Barre’s coup. But then, at that point, save for some political differences, most of them were trying to rally behind General Aideed. Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf may have naturally inherited this position among the military ranks, or so he wishes. By way of solutions, the assumption has been that, after the failure of the initial attempts of the international community to implement the romantic “bottom-up” approach, the world had succumbed to the Somali elite’s “top-down” approach. That change in approach has given way to a more practical maxim that reconciliation can only come by a truce and an agreement between those who control the “land(s)”—in all cases, the “warlords”—as the regional fiefdoms have come to be sarcastically called. That particular framework of thinking and the fact that the militarists have had the natural loyalty of their respective clans as strongmen—who were able to protect them against other hostile clans, as it were—have given the warlords the upper hand throughout, latest in the Emabagathi Conference and in all the previous encounters. Except—that is, one must admit—in those couple of occasions when the government of Djibouti had deviously intervened on their behalf of the “Manifesto”. The government of Djibouti has been trying to outsmart all the odds despite the facts in principle and in practice. For me, both the “Manifesto” and the militarists have been faces of the same coin. Neither of them makes the material to save Somalia from its misery or have had homegrown solutions to the Somali crisis—both being a product of the same postcolonial political elite. If one of them has excelled in using military muscle and the other in masterminding clan differences they seem to have, lately, been interchanging, sometimes swapping, skills and capacities in a process of shifting alliances. They both have been seeking solutions from without Somalia. Both have been using clan differences. Both have been seeking international sponsorship to help them each win against the other side and attain the power in the country, at any cost. It is just that the “Manifesto” has lost the game in this latest round, and, to the militarists, again, and have currently been supporting or using the support of the Islamists to regain power. In the process they happen to have the support of the Arab and, to some extent, the Islamic world, which basically see things through the prism of Egypt who has traditionally fought for influence with Somalia against Ethiopia because of its Nile related interest. To a lesser extent, the government of Djibouti who has business interests in Mogadishu, as deserved by the few corrupt tycoons who run the show in the tiny country, has also been very active in supporting the alliance of the “Manifesto” and the Islamists. What should be perplexing to most people is that the “Manifesto” which had often demagogically emphasized the maxim “A bad State is better than the lack of a State” when the TNG was in place, have now been ever so adamantly criticizing the TFG for being a “week government”, as did Professor Samatar continually repeat throughout the interview over the BBC, where he repeatedly used the Somali word, “fadhiid”. It is also my considered view that there is no alternative force to come to the rescue of Somalia—at least not yet. I can understand that some have—I regret to say: perhaps, naively—come to believe that the advent of Islamism represented a new breed of politicians carrying a new solution for Somalia. It is note worthy also—perhaps, to my shame, the view being very scantily held—that any such new breed, hoped to emerge from the “civil society” has also been in part obliterated, if not totally emasculated by the two groupings of the political elite. The militarists have done so more openly than the “Manifesto” which has incorporated them into their flank. Imagine those many new emerging so-called “civil society Groups”, all of them having members coalescing with the current “Manifesto” or unwittingly affiliated to them—including one, the National Civic Forum (NCF), based in Nairobi, members of which include the Samatars, General Jama Mohamed Ghalib (definitely a former member of the Islamist delegation to Khartoum)—all of them supported by Djibouti, Egypt or by the European Union, which extends its arm of support through the government of Italy—a former colonial master—desperately fumbling for reinstating its old influence with Somalia, regardless of the type of leadership, to pacify its phantom pains. Thus, one continues to hear the cries for reconciliation from the EU, even after the defeat of the Islamists. Does not that, for all practical purposes, mean “reconciliation” to accommodate the “Manifesto’s” demands, a cause already lost for them both on the ground and in the international diplomatic corridors; in as far as the Embagathi process was concerned? Do not they know the “Manifesto” already has enough representation in the TFG? But, if the word “Civic” in the name of the National Civic Forum” is any indication, then, there may have been a political organization of civilians in the making, to replace the “Manifesto” in its transitional sense—someday. It has been also interesting that NCF was christened at the same time as the commencement of the Eldoret Conference in Nairobi, not far away from the venue of the Conference. The inception of the organization in itself has been a good initiative, if to inherit the waning legacy of civilian politics in Somalia. But the crocodile tears spilt over an attenuated nation by delaying the effectiveness of the little semblance of authority that has been forged by the whole wide world is mystifying! Therefore, the decries of those otherwise respectable gentry of knowledge, wisdom and high places in Somali society has neither been about Islam, nor about respect for the sovereignty of Somalia--not even about the Islamist ideology, as they are claiming. It has been and remains to be about power for their camp—the “Manifesto”. The question I raise is: cannot they wait until the end of the 5-year mandate, which will end in two years, any way? Can’t they wait for the expected elections, at the end of this term as demanded by the Charter upon which the federal arrangement is based? Why can’t they wait to prove the influence of the Islamists, which they often champion in their rhetoric, on the ballot, which will—I pray to God--come in less than two years into the future? Don’t they respect what other countries call due process, which is the result of what they exhaustively negotiated during the Emabagathi process? Regarding the Ethiopian intervention, the author had predicted something similar to what happened in the last two weeks, in one of the future scenarios in a previous article[ix]--within a rather longer timeframe (two years)—but had feared the worse than what has so far transpired. In terms of the results of a likely war scenario between the two sides—which has already happened between the TFG and the Islamists—the author had put forth his prediction and preference, in an earlier article[x], entitled, “Somalia: the Penultimate Contention for Power”, dated October 10, 2006, as follows: “It is either that Mogadishu falls or that Baidoa falls for either of the two sides to win. If Baidoa falls it means that the people of the south of Somalia and especially those of Baidoa prefer the Islamists to the TFG. If, however, Mogadishu falls—which, again, is more unlikely than the opposite—the people of Somalia, and especially the ******, prefer the TFG to the CIC. But the two results are also significantly different in one other way. If Mogadishu falls, there is a shred of a chance that Somalia may pull out of the civil war sooner, God and the ****** populace permitting! If, however, Baidoa falls, Somalia can only sink deeper into a more drastic civil war than ever before, without hope for reconciliation anytime soon, if at all.” By: Abdalla A. Hirad MHirad@aol.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Liqaye Posted January 5, 2007 the T.F.G did not win it is the I.C.U that failed the rest is just details. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
