A failed state that threatens the region

[Caano Geel]

Somalia

A failed state that threatens the region

Apr 4th 2007 | NAIROBI

From The Economist print edition

 

No one, it seems, can stop Somalia's capital from imploding again

 

THE surgeons in the Medina hospital in Mogadishu are used to dressing gunshot wounds, but they had seen nothing as intense as last week's fighting. Islamist insurgents exchanged small-arms and artillery fire with Ethiopian and government troops, killing up to 400 people, most of them civilians. Casualties piled up in the hospital's corridors and corpses rotted in the sandy streets beyond, unclaimed until a lull in the fighting allowed for shallow graves to be dug where people fell.

 

Somalia's capital, it seems, is in danger of slipping back into a state of bloody anarchy. About 47,000 people have fled the city during the fighting and more have been queuing up to leave, by minibus, donkey or on foot. And all this comes only three months after the Ethiopian-backed government had supposedly claimed back control of the city from the Islamist militias that they said they had defeated in a swift campaign last December.

 

Now the picture looks very different. Remnants of the Islamist fighters have regrouped. Together with disaffected fighters from the powerful ****** clan, which is used to controlling much of the capital, they threaten a proper insurgency.

 

Furthermore, as many had predicted, the continuing presence of Ethiopian soldiers in the capital is exacerbating the conflict. Indeed, far from leaving, as they had started to do, the Ethiopians have called for reinforcements. Not that this is entirely their fault. The African Union (AU) had promised to fly in 8,000 peacekeeping troops to replace the Ethiopians to enforce a fragile ceasefire, but only 1,200 or so Ugandans have actually arrived in Mogadishu, where they have been restricted to protecting the airport and other installations. Nigeria and others have promised troops but not yet sent them.

 

That has left the Ethiopians to do most of the fighting on behalf of the government, with covert assistance from America. Ethiopian soldiers had done a mostly impressive job of policing Mogadishu with little incident for three months. But they are seen as invaders by most Somalis and will remain unpopular, and thus targets, whatever they do. The same goes for the Americans. They have backed the government and the Ethiopians as a way of rooting out suspected al-Qaeda men who had operated on the fringes of the Union of Islamic Courts, the Somali Islamists whose brief reign had brought a modicum of order until they were pushed out.

 

A further complication is the Eritrean backing of the ousted Islamist militias. Eritrea has supplied arms to them and might be doing so again. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president, visited Eritrea this week to ask it not to get involved, but was rebuffed. Eritrea sees the mayhem in Somalia as a chance to make life as hard as possible for its Ethiopian neighbour and mortal enemy. Eritrea says it opposes “any foreign involvement” in Somalia—except, of course, its own.

 

The international contact group on Somalia, a body set up to try to resolve the Somali crisis, including representatives from America and the European Union, held talks in Egypt this week but produced little new. Somalia's government was urged again to reach out to moderate Islamists, but nobody knows what to do about the remaining Islamist fighters, who seem intent on jihad. Some diplomats in the region think it inevitable that, despairing of any solution, the outside world will just cast Somalia adrift. Many in Mogadishu think that their city already has been.

 

What more could be done? A properly enforced arms embargo may have a calming effect. But the immediate challenge is to prevent Mogadishu sliding back into a war economy, where men with guns profit from instability. The signs are not good. Food prices are up by 50%. Extortion at gunpoint is back.

 

More importantly, deals will have to be done with the ****** clan elders to try to detach them from the Islamist fighters, thus reducing the opposition to the government. The Union of Islamic Courts made themselves popular with people in Mogadishu last year by imposing enough order to allow people to get on with their normal business again. Now, for instance, the ****** traders complain of a threefold increase in duty applied to staple goods arriving at Mogadishu's port. Settling issues like this could make the ****** leaders, and the gunmen they control, readier to negotiate.

 

If that were to happen, there may be a small chance of an accommodation between the ****** and the government. The alternative is dire. It took 15 years and 14 attempts to deliver Somalia the relative peace that the country enjoyed in the first three months of this year. If the country fails again, it could stay failed for a very long time.

[Che -Guevara]

Somalia is just another syptom of a disease that plagues the horn. The region is going to implode if the rights of the horn nations continue to be violated while their masses are subjected to abject poverty.

 

 

Somalia is already lost cause. The conflict sees no end even if there is withdrawal of all foriegn forces. Ethiopia is ticking time. The entire nation's resources are being directed to the Tigray state while the rest of Ethiopia lingers in poverty and hunger. And Eriterea has turned into police state where young high school kids become unwilling conscripts.

 

All in all, this is recipe for unimaginable disaster.

[Fabregas]

You mean: A failed state that the region threatens?