Xudeedi Posted March 22, 2007 Editorial: Savagery in Somalia 22 March 2007 THE brutal fighting that took place yesterday in their capital, Mogadishu, no doubt sent cold shivers through Somalis who long only for the return of peace. The fighting is a wake-up call to rival faction leaders that the country once again finds itself on the threshold of another decade of violence and terror. The barbaric mutilation and burning of two dead uniformed soldiers — it is still not clear if they were Somali or Ethiopian — was horrifically reminiscent of the treatment meted out to the dead crew of the US Blackhawk helicopter in 1993 when Washington sought to intervene decisively in the bitter battles between the warlords. Such savagery is unacceptable. It is, however, the consequence of years of anarchy in which the rule of gun and drug-crazed thugs have triumphed over the values of a poor but civilized society. The ouster of the short-lived Islamic Courts government by the interim Somali government backed by the Ethiopian military offered the country a new start. It was always inevitable that Islamist fighters, once they had recovered from their overthrow, would begin a guerrilla campaign. This need not, however, have been a serious challenge to the interim government. While the Islamic Courts had brought peace at last, for which every Somali was grateful, their disorganization and their increasingly proscriptive measures rapidly led to their loss of popularity. Source: Arabnews.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
