The “Ir-Reconciliation Conference” and TFG’s Bililqo of the Bakaraha Market

[rudy-Diiriye]

July 15th, 2007 by Amina Mire

The “Ir-Reconciliation Conference” and TFG’s Bililqo[1]of the Bakaraha Market “According to BBC News today, Wednesday 11 July 2007, an international delegation led by the European representative for Somalia visited Mogadishu. Under pressure from the United States, the international community seems poised to support the holding of a so-called reconciliation conference by the Ethiopian foisted and dictated TFG entity in Somalia”.

The delegation included representative(s) of the United Nations who were reported carrying handbag (s) containing cash in US$ not only for financing that bogus conference, but also possibly to bribe people for their participation” [2]

As the above passage by Jama Mohamed Ghalib succinctly registers, tomorrow, the 15 July 2007, a sham conference will open in Ethiopia’s occupied Mogadishu supposedly to discuss and debate conflicts among the Somali people. But this sham spectacle is taking place under the brutal foreign military occupation of Somalia by Zinawi’s Tigre army; the same army which is currently looting local businesses in Mogadishu’s biggest market the Bakarah, mass raping Somali women, killing and maiming unnamed civilians with impunity.

 

So why are the leaders of the United Nations [uN], European Union[EU], the Contact Group for Somalia, African Union[AU] are willing to support this shameful spectacle and the concomitant criminal takeover of Somalia?

To understand this requires that we trace the genealogy of layers of corruption and deceitful which support the making of the ‘Ir-reconciliation’ spectacle in Mogadishu. This gathering is nothing more than an occasion for some well connected corporations and individuals to make a fortune in a highly orchestrated looting scam.

 

For the people of Somalia, nothing good will come out of this willful exercise in inhumanity, greed and collective self-deception. I start my enquiry into the making of the upcoming sham Somali reconciliation conference to a de facto group called Contact Group for Somalia.[3]

 

The Contact Group for Somalia was created on June 2006 by the Bush administration, few days after Somali warlords supported by the Bush administration were defeated by the Union of Islamic Courts. As a result, the Contact Group for Somalia has not been a product of United Nations or the Somali people. Rather it is the brainchild of the US State Department. Like many other Bush’s unilateral initiatives, other nations were selected to join the Contact Group for Somalia as partners.

 

“The formation of a “Somalia Contact Group” was announced yesterday by the State Department, which had long expressed concern inside the administration that a policy largely restricted to counter-terrorism priorities might prove counterproductive. On Wednesday, the administration indicated that it was open to discussions with the Islamists as long as they were prepared to seek a peaceful resolution and pledged not to allow Somalia to become an al-Qaeda haven”.The goal of the group’s meeting, to be held in New York, is “to promote concerted action and coordination to support the Somalia transitional federal institutions, and so we are going to be working with other interested states and international organizations on this matter,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “We think it’s the right time.”[4]

 

It is pertinent to know that UN has no say in the formation of the Contact Group for Somalia. The time of its formation, it is clear that UN had no idea about the formation of this organization.

 

“A United Nations spokesman said yesterday that Washington had provided few details on the

initiative but that the proposed timing coincides with the return from Somalia of Francois Lonseny Fall, the U.N. representative who met with different factions this week.Representatives from the European Union — which also expressed interest this week in talks with the Islamists — are expected to attend. The U.S. delegation is to be headed by the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi E. Frazer”.[5]

 

Thus, Contact Group for Somalia was first hatched in the State Department and internationalized to give it veil of legitimacy.

 

“Washington now hopes that a new multinational contact group can shepherd an accommodation between the Islamists and the transition government.”[6]

 

It is clear that the Contact Group for Somalia has been neither a ‘shepherd of peace’ nor a bridge for Somali ‘reconciliation.’ Indeed, the CGS has not been an honest broker of peace but naked partisan and a mouthpiece of Bush administration’s geopolitical agenda in Somalia. By giving its seal of approval the US sponsored formation of the Contact Group for Somalia, the submission of a dossier on Somalia to the UN by the Somali Monitoring Group must be read with caution.

 

This particularly so for the formation of US sponsored de facto CGS suggests that the UN has abnegated its duty to the United Nations. Thus, in the making of the CGS, the UN role had been reduced to that of UN Inc@ US State Department. It is in this climate of political corruption that the production and the submission of the UN Security Council’s highly alarmist and spurious report issued a month after the formation of the CGS by the UN Somali Monitoring Group lacks credibility.

 

“Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia pursuant to Security Council resolution 1676,November 2006 Published November 2006″

 

“This UN report states that in July, 2006 Somali Islamic militants supported Hezbollah’s effortsin its war against Israel. In return, Lebanon reportedly provided weapons and training to theSomalis, with the help of Syria and Iran. It adds that Iran attempted to exchange arms for uranium. Finally, it details the “rampant arms flows” and military supplies to Somali Islamists from various African and Middle Eastern nations. The report’s sources are unclear and doubts have been raised as to the report’s credibility”[7]

 

The SMG claimed, without evidence, that UIC poses a clear and presents danger to international security. One of the outlandish claims made by SMG report is the allegation that the UIC sent fighters to Lebanon in support of Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon during last summer’s fighting between Hezbollah and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon. The Somali Monitoring Group for Somalia did not provide any empirical evidence corroborating this powerful allegation. Yet, it was willing to spin spurious allegations as facts and submit them to the Security Council.[8]

 

Most Somalis saw the Union of Islamic Courts as a force for peace, security and national rebuilding and reconciliation. So why, without a shred of evidence, the Contact Group for Somalia was willing to paint them as “terrorists” and a “threat to world peace”? Noticeable absent from the report by the SMG made no reference to the need to protect the territorial integrity of Somalia or safeguard the security of the people of Somalia. In fact, SMG sought to fault the Union of Islamic Courts for its nationalistic defense of the territorial integrity of Somalia.

 

It is clear from the content of SMG report that Ethiopia, Uganda and IGAD were and are openly meddling in the international affairs of Somalia. Ethiopia is a historical enemy of Somalia. At present, Uganda and Ethiopia, two key members of IGAD, are part of occupation forces in Somalia. On 26 December 2006, six moths after the SMG submitted the spurious alarmist report in question to the Security Council, the Bush administration had sponsored Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia.

 

The Bush administration has shown its immense capacity to ignore international law, the UN and EU conventions when these rules conflict with U.S. political or economic objectives. Ironically, despite the SMG’s effort to reinforce a total weapons embargo against Somalia, the Bush administration covertly helped Ethiopia purchase new tanks and other military hardware from North Korea. These tanks and other weapons are being used to kill, maim and terrorize the citizens of Somalia.[9]

One of the clearest signs of layers of interlocking of criminality, complicity, duplicity, deceit that led to the 26 December 2006 Bush administration’s sponsorship of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, is the sudden return of widespread looting and the murky enterprise of sea pirates operating off the Indian Ocean Coast of the break away province of Puntland.

 

Thus, it is not accident that Abdullahi Yusuf, Hassan Abshir and other leading warlords currently overseeing both the upcoming “national Ir-reconciliation conference” in Mogadishu and the looting of Mogadishu’s largest market the Bakaraha, are closely associated with Meles Zinawi, China’s hunger for oil, the Bush administration and Puntland the home of pirates.

 

One of the many lingering unanswered questions is that the US has overwhelming sea, air and land military presence in Somalia. In addition to US special forces, there are number of US based “security firms[nice way of saying private armies] operating inside Somalia in the name of hunting elusive Al Qaida terrorists. Yet, the US military has been unable or unwilling to intervene the Pirates of Puntland.

 

Unlike the elusive Al Qaida terrorists supposedly “hiding” among the Somali population, the Puntland pirates are equipped with global positioning technologies, speed boats and heavy weapons. It is not clear how Puntland pirates have managed to successfully evade US aerial, land and navel surveillance operating deep inside the waters, land and air spaces of Somalia. Nevertheless, there is an emerging pattern which shows a clear collusion among US-China oil and security firms, Somali warlords, Meles Zinawi, China and United States.[10]

 

“The Chinese state oil giant, CNOOC, has won permission to search for oil in parts of Somalia, underlining China’s willingness to brave Africa’s most volatile regions in its hunt for natural resources. Somalia has been a no-go area for US oil companies since it descended into anarchy in the early 1990s. This year the capital, Mogadishu, has seen its worst violence in 16 years as insurgents seek to topple a fragile interim government”.[11]

 

The use of mercenary armies financed by the US and China are essential to the various levels of looting of Somalia.

 

“Dyncorp is not the only U.S. security company working in Africa. Northrop Grumman Corp. (nyse: NOC - news - people ) has a similar contracts, worth up to $75 million, to support the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program, which aims to train 40,000 African peacekeepers over five years. KBR Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. (nyse: HAL - news - people ), provides services to at least three bases in Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia used by the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa”.

 

“The contracts come at a time when the Pentagon wants to develop closer relationships and provide greater military assistance to Africa. ….In 2005 the Somali government signed a $50 million contract with New York-based TopCat Marine Security to help create a coast guard to protect its coast and shipping from pirates. The State Department blocked TopCat from deploying because of a U.N. arms embargo, Hassan Abshir Farah, Somalia’s marine resources minister said. Farah said his government was now discussing a deal with the Chinese government and Chinese marine security firms”.[12]

 

It is pertinent to stress that in 1995 Somalia did not have an effective federal government and that Hassan Abshir Farah is at ones a key members of Puntland’s fiefdom, a former head of Siyad Barre’s notorious security apparatus [NSS][13]and the current security minister of the criminal regime in Mogadishu.[14]

 

It is in this context that the sham US sponsored conference, which will open tomorrow in Ethiopian/Uganda, US/warlord occupied Mogadishu and the looting of Mogadishu’s biggest commercial nerve centre, Bakaraha by militia loyal to TFG and Zinawi’s Tigre displays the interlocking system of criminality and depravity.

 

Inside the conference hall, and away from crude looting and the concomitant suffering of the people of Somalia, members of the Somali Contact Group, and UN, EU will distribute blood money to various figures. Naturally, some of the loot will trickle down to variously hand picked clan leaders, warlords, spies, and plain charlatans! For ordinary Somalis, nothing good will come out this shameful spectacle. The message is clear. Somalis will struggle for the liberation of their country and victory will be theirs!

 

By Amina Mire (Faculty), Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Carleton University, Ottawa Canada. Email: amina_mire@carleton.ca

 

Notes:

 

[1]

Bililiqo refers to a culture of widespread and normalized looting, which began with the 1991 collapse of central authority in Somalia. The rise of the culture of Bililiqo and the rise of criminal warlords, which the current TFG is the an stark example are linked. They both mark the collapse of law and order in Somali society.