Somali PR Contains Blackwater Leak

[Jacaylbaro]

Abdulkareem Jama says his country has no need for mercenaries. Yet with few soldiers and policemen of its own, Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) clearly needs all the outside help it can get.

 

African Union (AU) forces guard the presidential palace, Villa Somalia, and the airport from al-Shabab. European Union (EU) officials busy themselves training Somali recruits in Kenya and Uganda. TFG officials have encouraged periodic U.S. air-strikes on high-profile militants, and an international flotilla patrols Somalia’s horn for pirates.

 

Though none of these external forces qualifies strictly as mercenaries - each possesses its own security concerns - all of them seek to gain from Somalia's crisis. Having supplied 6,000 of the 8,000 AU troops in Somalia, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni deftly exploited the Kampala bombings to promote his own regional ambitions, and relies on his Western necessity to buffer criticism of his domestic rule. With negligible sympathy for Somalia’s plight, the EU and Asian states vigorously patrol shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden to protect their profits.

 

Foreign investors envision fields of oil platforms.

 

And beyond preventing another al-Qaeda safe haven (too late for that), America still entertains hopes of militarizing the region through a semi-stable Somalia. Blackhawk Down compromised the region to U.S. operations and while Washington isn’t eager to deploy ground forces, General David Petraeus has indicated the general direction of U.S. policy with his 2009 Special Forces directive. Securing the Bab-el-Mandeb is a key goal for developed nations going into the 21st century.

 

TFG officials such as Jama, Somalia’s information minister, understand these quid pro quos and concede them to maintain political and financial support.

 

Furthermore, the present center of controversy has little to do with real mercenaries. Reports of Saracen International training local anti-piracy forces surfaced in November under a veil of secrecy, generating legitimate concerns over Somalia's arms embargoes and an improper chain of command. Supposedly a resurrection of Executive Outcomes, a security firm populated by South African special forces, Saracen’s Uganda subsidiary was implicated in a 2002 UN Security Council report for training DRC rebels who later went on a criminal spree.

 

But so far one “fact” has remained consistent: Somalis are being recruited into the force. Whether the United Arab Emirates or Saracen funds and trains these forces is largely irrelevant so long as they’re mostly local. Somalia has ample room for “mercenaries.”

 

It’s Blackwater that Jama has no use for.

 

“At this point, our collective thinking is that this is not a good thing,” he said after the company’s founder, Erik Prince, surfaced in connection to Saracen. “We don’t want to have anything to do with Blackwater. We need help, but we don’t want mercenaries.”

 

Abdulhakim Mohamoud Haji Faqi, Somalia’s defense minister, added, “We will not accept any mercenaries.”

 

As noted in our previous post, the TFG has spent the last three months setting itself up for a city-wide campaign in Mogadishu. New Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed streamlined Somalia’s cabinet to 18 members while picking what is considered Somalia’s most competent executive branch since 1991. A power-rift in al-Shabab’s leadership allowed for modest gains in the capital, which TFG and AU officials crafted into propaganda by declaring 60% control of Mogadishu.

 

Hoping to land another 4,000 AU troops before the TFG’s mandate expires at the end of August, Somalia’s new government intends to secure an extension by seizing the entire capital. For that it needs the population’s support, and it has managed to gradually win them over. But Blackwater could flood the TFG's counterinsurgency.

 

So tainted is the name - Jama listed some of its crimes in Iraq - that the mere specter of Prince jeopardizes both land and sea operations.

 

“Piracy can only be solved on land,” goes the frequent criticism from TFG and AU officials, starving Somalis, and international observers (including ourselves). And 2010’s statistics bolster a logical conclusion. Despite vigorous patrolling and evolving counter-measures such as laser blinders, pirates captured a record 1,016 hostages in 2010 and currently hold 32 vessels and 746 crew members, according to a recent report by the International Maritime Bureau. Eight hostages died and 13 were wounded, up from four dead and 10 wounded in 2009.

 

 

 

Read More: http://hadalzone.blogspot.com/2011/01/somali-pr-contains-blackwater-leak.html