Jabhad Posted January 3, 2007 Somalia: Ethiopian Victory in Somalia is Deceptive New Vision (Kampala) OPINION December 30, 2006 Posted to the web January 2, 2007 Kintu Nyago Kampala ETHIOPIA'S intervention in Somalia is a timely reminder of the need to create a functional Eastern African political federation to prevent perennial conflicts in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa regions. This invasion was triggered by parochial national Ethiopian, Somali and Eritirean rivalries that could have been checked by a regional political union. Somalia's stateless condition has created an arena that fosters regional instability. Unfortunately, Ethiopia, under Meles Zenawi, has had a vested interest in having either a weak puppet regime in Mogadishu or a stateless Somalia, to the extent that in the past, with the blessing of Washington, they supported the emergence of criminal Somali warlords, who wreaked havoc on the people. However, the chickens came home to roost for the Zenawi regime, with the emergence of the Somali Islamic Courts. Similar to the Taliban in Afganistan, they defeated the warlords and established order in those areas they took control of. The Islamic Courts created stability, which has led to their gaining widespread support. The regime that Ethiopia is installing in Mogadishu, headed by Abdullahi Yusuf, lacks the required political support in Somalia. Indeed it would not even last a day - despite all the support it has from the African Union and Washington - the moment Addis Ababa withdraws its troops. Though disunited, the Somalis are a highly nationalistic lot when it comes to protecting their identity and country from foreign intrusion. Unless some creative political arrangement is devised to accommodate the Islamic Courts and other legitimate Somali political actors, the Zenawi administration is likely to be faced with its Waterloo, through a protracted Somali guerrilla war. We should also bear in mind that Zenawi embarked on the Somali invasion to divert domestic attention from internal questions of his regime's legitimacy. The said Somali guerrilla resistance is most likely going to adopt a jihadist radical Islamic orientation, which unfortunately would affect the broader Eastern African region. Uganda's intervention in Somalia should only be based on a multilateral approach, one moreover, that seeks to create a Somali government of national unity. Time is of the essence and creative diplomacy is called for. Short of this, Ethiopia's current deceptive victory is likely to create further instability in Somalia that would directly spill over into Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia. It may also trigger off another hot war between Asmara and Addis Ababa. The medium- to long-term solution to these destructive wars lies in the creation of a broad and viable East African political federation. As events illustrate, this is a necessity for our region. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jabhad Posted January 3, 2007 Somalia: a playground of foreign patrons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Sadat Mahamed Yusuf drgeesh@hotmail.com Somalia is a country with heavy social build up and very primitive tribal devotions which is almost revengeful. Offensive nomads who feel that they have immediate knowledge for everything and rule of the law is a hostile which is customary attained from a 14 century way of imposing wills of authoritarian to others. Tribes in Somalia has a chief which is well known to the rules of giving evidence unfairly and appears hostile to any other tribe. Sometimes amongst his own clansmen the chiefs would not either demonstrate corrections not would they preserve peace. Rather they prefer war for their own advantage those socio-cultural and socio-economic linkage between kinship in Somalia are mostly primitive. Although individuals own their camels, they must pay per person for the compensation of the killed person from outside tribes or between them and also defend the pasturelands for grazing and wells for watering their animals. The poets say their words to erect the starting points, which lack ending points. Nevertheless, the progress of a society is evolutionary. During the civil war Somalia witnessed one of the most vengeful war between the tribes. It was the era of the tribes fighting between them after that free for all war ended the balance between the tribes came into effect, although the enlarged civil war in Somalia, brought many changes like social order, social behavior. It changed religion doctrines from Sufism to al-Wahabism, the ways of chiefdoms where maintained showing some split between a single tribesmen while we witness faction leader, the political wing of a given tribe the changes from those factions now had formed alliances with other function united with common aims and interests. This means precedent creating methods during any reconciliation conference, when a faction has felt threatened, and usually those alliances disintegrate after the conference failed to produce an agreement. We would not expect for ever national strongman which can bring the country under his controls. We know the contradictions and strife on the ground were created the fair play of the warlords wracked by infighting between them. Victory will not emerge or a degree of order will not restored by the ruthless warlords. They never agreed and will not agree on anything. After ten years of warlords rule in pursuing each other, where they imposed a deathly peace in Somalia. President of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Gele, proposed a peace conference. When the Arab world supported Gele’s initiatives, they eventually produced an interim government after the fall of Mohamed Said. That government did not work. Why? It’s not easy to answer considering the turmoil in the country and clan rivalries, and other destabilizing factors. For example Ethiopia is heavily in favor of the warlords because there is balance between them and obsessed with countering the existence of the interim government. The latest explosion was the ongoing conference in Nairobi after Djibouti ambassador withdrew and accused certain circles without naming are undermining the initiatives to settle Somali disputes. Because of Ethiopian hardliners’ offer for the conference, it dampened the conference’s hopes to unify the interim government and the warlords. Rather it split the interim government on one hand, and the warlords on the other. Then some key warlords and the interim president withdrew from the conference after more than a year of negotiation in Nairobi, Kenya. Every body knows that the bedrock principle of Ethiopian policy towards Somalia is not even to create a puppet government. Nevertheless Ethiopia’s romantic hopes are likely to meet frustration and spreading the fire to the peace and stabilized cities of Ethiopia, while fire is inherited by ash only it would be better for that country to devote her energies to something more realistic and more accurate than wasting efforts to let the ungovernable not to be governed. -- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
