The grave error of invading Somalia

[Jabhad]

The grave error of invading Somalia

By K. Sewenet

 

The triumph of a war is in its permanence and not in winning battles. The successes of the Ethiopian TPLF government army in Somalia have been given much publicity in the international media. Ethiopian government media (the only available print and electronic press in the country) have now been beating their chests for the last two weeks. Officials of the ruling party have unashamedly been basking in their ‘glory’ for dispersing the non-existent threatening Jihadist army – which was the pretext for Ethiopian rulers to invade Somalia. But how can one justify the defeat of a Jihadist army which ‘threatened’ the whole of horn of Africa by at best 10 thousand (one twentieth of the regular Ethiopian armed forces) within a week without a serious fight? The answer is straight forward and not that complicated. There never was a threatening Jihadist army lurking in Somalia to destabilize Ethiopia.

 

 

Today, when the dust of the invasion is about to settle, the reality is starting to heat home for the invaders and their backers. The hostility of the Somalian population towards the Ethiopian army is widely reported to take its turn for the worst. Demonstrations and shootings against the presence of the army have already started. It is almost a certainty now that the longer the Ethiopian army stays in Somalian soil, the harsher the violent opposition would grow. Meles Zenawi would inevitably order his troops out, not out of trying to ease tensions but necessity. What then? What would be the fate of the transitional government or Somalia in general? Would the Islamists start appearing again? If it comes to this chaos, what then was the purpose of the invasion? The current scramble by the Americans to somehow assemble an African peace force to replace Ethiopian forces will have no better chance as it will most likely to be viewed by Somalians as another American outsourcing of the war on terrorism.

 

But this would not matter as the objective of the invaders was never to seek solutions to the intricate problems of Somalia. The invaders’ (TPLF’s Ethiopia backed by USA) motive was sinister and political and never to create stability in Somalia. For a modestly intelligent observer, it would not be a difficult to see through the driving force behind the invasion of Meles Zenawi. The dictator needed a coup to break an underling but intense popular opposition to his rule in Ethiopia. After he massacred hundreds of protestors in June and October 2005 following his blatant ballot rigging of the last general elections, his minority ethnically based government has survived via brutal measures and suppression of basic human rights. He has ample track record of diversion and manipulating domestic and international opinion throughout his fifteen rules. Note the following:

 

- The Ethiopian - Eritrea border conflict in 1998 started when a revolt within TPLF high ranking members threatened Meles’s power

- The intense escalation of the border raw between Ethiopia and Eritrea during the fake investigations of the irregularities of the vote counting process in June and July 2005

- Bringing forward the decision on the trial of Megestu Hailemariam (the previous Ethiopian sadist ruler) at a time when he was about to invade Somalia

- And the biggest of all is the invasion of Somalia - a sovereign African neighbouring country – against the fundamental principles of African Union, in contravention of UN charter, and before even the ink of the Security Council resolution of December 6th has dried.

 

The Americans motive in the Somalia conflict is more to do with their domestic politics in light of the utter failure of the Iraq campaign of the last three years. The million dollar question for the bush administration is no longer of winning the war in Iraq but how best to loose it. Consequently American public opinion against the gung-ho, shoot them, smoke them out etc foreign policy has translated into the democrats taking over both houses of congress. Hence, an opportunity in the poorest corner of the world presented itself to the White House at the eleventh hour to salvage a trickle of respect to the so called global war on terrorism. If the US through a third country, with no direct American involvement, manages to successfully invade a ‘potential heaven’ of Jihadists, then it was expected that a solution through invasion and military deployment actually produce a result after all. Thus a scenario similar to the pre Iraq invasion was created, a Jihadist threat exaggerated with unsubstantiated claims of an Al-qahida infested UIC (Union of Islamic Council) prior to the Somalian invasion. It would not be considered in the realm of scepticism to suspect that the Somalian invasion took place just before the new American congress was to be sworn in.

 

Ethiopia and Somalia have a history of conflict. Apart from fighting two wars at a cost of tens of thousands of people and destruction of property worth hundreds of millions of dollars, successive governments of the two countries have based their mutual policies on hatred and suspicion. It is therefore either madness or irresponsible to even contemplate the invasion of one by the other for the good of the latter. The Somalians - whether moderate or Islamic - do not want to see Ethiopian soldiers in their territory under any currently conceivable pretext. The bogus claim by Meles Zenawi and the Americans that the Ethiopian army was invited by the transitional Somalian government is just ridiculous. First, there has never been recognition by Somalians that the so called transitional government has the right to invite anyone in the name of the nation. A body composed of notorious warlords and constituted by Ethiopia, Kenya and US in a Nairobi hotel few years back and which was later limited to a town called Baidowa, can hardly be morally capable of inviting an army – and an Ethiopian army at that.

 

The Bush administration is thus again poking the wounds of others through its foreign policy of intervention where it is either unwarranted or not required. At a time when America is at a loss to find a respectable exit from its invasion of Iraq, it has now financed and supported the invasion of Somalia by Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopian forces. Different place, different forces but exactly the same thread of argument and principle underpins US Horn of Africa policy – force, punitive military action, war and invasion at the cost of everything else to defeat Islamist extremists.

 

Few crucial points of Somalian crisis:

 

- Meles Zenawi – who rules Ethiopia by sheer strength of his army and security forces – and a cunning manupilation of the fear of the Bush administration for Islamist extremists, will do anything to prolong his rule over the overwhelming opposition supporter majority people of the country. Meles has time and again shown no regard to the national strategic interest of his country in his rule of fifteen years. Starting from his support for Eritrean secessionists to rob his country – Ethiopia – access to the sea, to the inclusion of a constitutional guarantee for any nationality in the country to succeed if it so wishes. He has increasingly become a dictator who does not hesitate to kill, imprison and torture his own people especially after the May 2005 general elections when it was widely believed that he rigged the ballot. Meles, it seems, has been aching to seek a diversion and an opportunity to strengthen his rule. He has indeed been playing crucial role in exacerbating the somalian crises over the last few years by militarily supporting one warlord over the other. Since the advent of the United Islamist Courts (UIS) and their gaining support among the Somalian population, the ever vigilant Meles has been eyeing an opportunity to deflate his internal crisis. A distant observer might be baffled by Meles’s retention of power if he so dictatorial. The key to his longevity lies in his ruthless policy of dividing the population into ethnic enclaves similar to that of the Bantustans of South African in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century.

- Since 1991, Somalian warlords have been acting like European raiders of the middle ages. They perpetuated and survived through looting and seeking clan allegiances by establishing small fiefdoms. When in 2005/06 businessmen and largely moderates came together and established the UIC, their main objective was to establish law and order and defeat the anarchy of the warlords. They used Islam as a conduit to establish their rules. Now, the fact that they used Islam as a unifying and rallying factor is not a problem by itself. In fact religion by in large has been used by western powers at time of crisis at different times in history. It is still is used in a different context but towards the same end in USA. The role of the powerful evangelist movement and extraction of selected Christian credo by the Bush administration are a case in point. The problem arises when the religious fervours are forced on others. While the UIC contains Islamist extremist elements, either the American or Meles has not been able to substantiate their claim that they (Islamist extremists) pose a potential danger to overtake UIC let alone Somalia and the region. The strength of the UIC has also been exaggerated by Meles and the Americans for obvious reasons. The biggest arsenal they have is short range rocket launchers and heavy pick up mounted artillery. Their army is a rug tag collection of poorly trained regulars and volunteers. They were big enough to defeat the warlords but nowhere near capable to challenge a reasonably trained army. Hence, the ease of the Ethiopian army success in pushing the UIC forces back to the environs of Mogadishu. The crux of this crisis is not the initial victory of the Ethiopian army. But what comes after that.

- The outgoing Bush Administration’s ambassador to UN Security Council sponsored a resolution early in December 2006, which specifically forbid Ethiopian and other bordering countries not to be militarily involved in Somalia. And on Tuesday December 27, 2006 the US confirmed its support to Meles for the invasion of Somalia. This is beyond double standard. It is an outright manipulation of and contempt for the international community. In the invasion of Somalia, no American force is and likely not to be involved and it is taking place in the poorest region of the world – two conditions for America to adventure into a repeat of its failed Iraq policy, because it is likely not to attract global attention and American people would not care where American lives are not at risk. While the above statement may seem cynical, only a single superpower can get away with it through ‘pragmatic’ diplomacy (read power politics).

 

Somalia has become an illustration where the fear of extremist Islam forces (whether real or imaginary) has gone way beyond reality into the realm of overwhelming the entire foreign policy direction of a country. It has been repeatedly said by scholars and astute observers that unless the root causes– namely poverty, lack of democracy, the rule of law, good governance and legitimacy are faced up head on, the US and the international community are likely to expound the problems in Somalia, Ethiopia and the whole Horn region by either tacitly supporting dictators or being indifferent. Somalia’s problem can only be solved by dialogue among Somalis themselves and not by foreign intervention. Meles Zenawi can not sustain his invasion. Apart from diverting attention from his internal crisis, he has no military objective but feed the dogs of war in Somalia.