Eye-Opener Academic Paper: Somalia: A New Front Against Terrorism

[Abu-Salman]

Who should we trust, Christian or Atheist Somalis whose limited intellectual abilities make them allergic to anything remotely Islamic, one one hand or brilliant, neutral and erudite academicians with recognized experience in many relevant spheres and who, most crucially, do not busy themselve with lobbying in Washington for ruthless, genocidal dictatorships, in the other?

 

 

Fellow Somalis, I let you be the judges through this excerpt of "Somalia: A New Front Against Terrorism", by Roland Marchal; a must read which burst the balloon of prejudices inflated here day in, day out.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

 

Analysis of the American-Ethiopian intervention argues in favor of a series of political decisions that will probably never be considered since they require the international community to display some measure of self-reflection and realism.

 

The first thing to be done is a modification in the regional framework.The Algiers Agreement must be enacted. The Ethiopian regime can no longer claim the role of regional police officer as an excuse to imprison its parliamentary opposition and sometimes physically eliminate its opponents who take refuge in neighboring countries. By the same token, Eritrea can no longer play the regional spoiler as it has done with diligence since 2002. Its behavior can only be explained by the ambiguity of its relations with Washington.We should note Jendayi Frazer’s silence concerning Eritrean influence in the Islamic Courts: suddenly criticizing the most secular state in Africa when attempting to condemn radical Islam might be confusing.

 

The European Union cannot accept the current TFG and Ethiopian blackmail passing through Washington: pick us or chaos, an African force that we control or the return of al-Qaeda. An African or UN force with no concomitant political process is doomed to fail. We can see the frightening results in Darfur and there is no need to submit the African Union with its American pressures and institutional solidarities (like the IGAD and others) to a further major failure. Instead of discussing the composition of a military force, it would be better to establish a political context where it makes sense.

 

The countries of Europe must convince themselves that a realistic solution is not one that rubber stamps Ethiopian wishes. Ethiopia has benefited from the lack of security on its southern border: it has been promoted to the status of strategic ally with Washington for that very reason. If the region were normalized, the Ethiopian regime would appear as the fading authoritarian government that it is. By bowing to American and Ethiopian interpretations, Europeans would establish the framework for a lasting crisis.

 

But what political process is needed? At present, if nothing is done, we run the risk of seeing the people responsible for the failure of the Islamic Courts return as leaders of an armed opposition to the occupation. This would bode ill for Somalia’s future. We need to deal a new hand. That means organizing a new reconciliation conference where the TFG would be reduced to its component elements without particular support or recognition from the international community and where the different Islamic organizations excluded in 2002 and the other groups already represented in 2002 would be full participants.

 

Political dialogue without exclusivity, dialogue that does not take a shape dictated by a foreign occupying force is now the only, albeit difficult, way to prevent the return of war and a new front between the United States and the Jihadists.

 

 

 

 

 

Research Fellow CNRS/CERI

marchal@ceri-sciences-po.org

 

Roland Marchal holds his first degrees both in Mathematics and Social Sciences from the University of Strasbourg and the higher from the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHEES/School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences) and University Paris VI. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the quarterly Politique Africaine.

[Abu-Salman]

Another excerpt:

 

 

[...]As noted above, Hasan Dahir first appeared to be an extremist. However, to use two examples that are usually at the heart of American diplomacy, he is the one who proposed including women in the advisory council and he participated in a civil ceremony for World AIDS Day. It is always possible to distinguish the moderates and radicals at a given instant over a given problem but these divisions are not permanent and do not apply to every major question. Finally, there is the idea that the United States purposefully heightened the divisions for an American-made fitna: instead of encouraging dialogue, the American position prevented it.[...]

 

After creating the conditions for the crisis, the United States is now turning to the Europeans to manage a situation for which the Americans are responsible and to finance the African force that is supposed to stabilize Somalia. As neo-conservative Robert Kagan put it in 2001, “superpowers don’t do windows.” It is also revealing to see Washington call for an African force in Somalia at the same time as it criticizes the failure of African Union soldiers in Darfur. But with the administration living out the final days of its reign, contradictions are not its concern[...]

[Abu-Salman]

Endnotes

 

 

1 Prejudices are hard to erase, and not only in the West. The Muslim community in Ethiopia is the largest religious community in the country but it is not a majority. The Ethiopian regime is secular, as reflected by its leaders, Marxist-Leninists from Tigray who converted to free trade policies in the early 1990's.

 

2 “Africa: U.S. Official Sees 'Credible and Capable' Force As Key to Peace in Somalia” at http://allafrica.com/stories/200701180980.html.

 

3 Full of errors and incredibly biased for those who know Somali politicians and businessmen, a book from the period demonstrated this idea: Medhane Tadesse, Al-Ittihad. Political Islam and Black Economy in Somalia, Addis Ababa: Meag Press, 2002.

 

4 More than five years later, no proof of these accusations has even been given despite the seizure of the company’s assets in Dubai. Its director was able to return to Mogadishu as a free man in 2003 and played an important role in the Islamic Courts.

 

5 Intergovenmental Authority on Development, whose members include Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.

 

6 An opponent of Mohamed Siyad Barre as early as 1979, Abdullahi Yusuf is a member of the *****ten/***** clan and was president of Puntland (northeast of Somalia where his clan lives).

 

7 The only published record comes from the reports of the International Crisis Group during this period: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1232&l=1.

 

8 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/cjtf-hoa.htm.

 

9 Ali Mohamed Geedi belongs to the Warsengeli/*****/Abgal. He is a close relative to a powerful faction leader, Mohamed Dhere, based in Jowhar north of Mogadishu and comes from the same sub-clan as Bashir Rage with whom American missionaries stay when visiting the Somali capital.

 

10 Roland Marchal, “Somalia” in Andreas Mehler, Henning Melber, Klass van Walraven, eds., Africa Yearbook: Politics, Economy and Society South of the Sahara in 2005, Leiden & Boston, Brill, 2006. The other TFG faction was practically thrown out of Kenya in June and took up residence in Jowhar.

 

11 A further example to counter those who hold the simplistic view that the clan is the basic unit of analysis in Somali politics.

 

12 Craig Timberg, “Mistaken entry into clan dispute led to US black eyes on Somalia”, Washington Post, July 2, 2006.

 

13 He was rewarded since he and his associates gained around ten seats on the advisory council of the Islamic Courts. Proof that Somali Islamism is not immune to economic reality.

 

14 Interviews Dhuusa Maareeb, July 2006; Mogadishu, September 2006.

 

15 Roland Marchal, "Mogadiscio dans la guerre civile : rêves d’Etat ", Paris, Les Etudes du CERI, N° 69, 2000.

 

16 At the risk of shocking common understanding, a large portion of its members are more sociological Muslims or apolitical religious personalities instead of Osama Bin Laden disciples. Their true weakness was not religious devotion but the inability to work together.

 

17 Described as one of the most radical leaders by the international media, Hasan Dahir was not viewed the same way by the people of Mogadishu. International opinion is based on his presence on an American list of leaders of terrorist organizations and not on the concrete choices he made in 2006. Another blind spot in the international perspective.

 

18 Martin Fletcher, “Battle-scarred nation is at peace with itself… but still facing war”, The Times (London), December 16, 2006.

 

19 Roland Marchal, “Islamic political dynamics in the Somali civil war” in Alex de Waal (ed.), Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa, London: Hurst and Co., 2004.

 

20 Many militia members worked for the factions before June 2006 and hoped to demonstrate their “return” to Islam through this religious radicalism.

 

21 Early in the war, Skikh Janagow was nominated to convince the Mogadishu clans to choose the Courts over a powerful faction leader, Mohamed Quanyere.

 

22 Read their three latest reports, which are full of mistakes and fabrications but contributed to naming the UIT as a branch of al-Qaeda: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/Somalia/SomaliaSelEng.htm

 

23 One would be surprised to see how many *********, Bantus and *** in the most radical Islamist movements. The same type of positioning took place in Puntland: the Islamists mostly come from small coastal clans that are more in sync with Persian Gulf Islam but marginalized in regional clan politics because of their small numbers and their inability to summon a significant militia force.

 

24 We should distinguish the Italian special envoy who was the only one during this crisis who constantly tried to bring the parties together. But the other Europeans were often absent: the French became partially involved in August, the British wavered between their analysis and their alliance with Washington, the Norwegians were fitfully active and the others did not show up.

 

25 The relative conversion of the armed opposition groups in Ethiopia to Islam is undeniable even though its reality in the field is less concrete. Hostility to a regime that continues to claim its national representation when it only encompasses a small clique from an ethnic minority has led to numerous ideological shifts, especially when the opposition in Parliament has paid such a heavy price for being opponents of the regime. But rather than question the local reasons that caused these changes, the Ethiopian government has skillfully played the international terrorism card. As for the Europeans, they are politely silent.

 

26 Unable to enact the decision of the International Court of Justice concerning the border between these two countries, the international community has allowed the conflict to persist in Ethiopia without getting involved.

 

27 While there are obviously no public documents that would allow us to answer this question, reading the reports of the experts delegated by the United Nations Security Council can give us a good idea of the manipulations possible.

 

28 Marc Lazaretti and Marc Lacey, “Efforts by CIA Fail in Somalia, Officials Charge,” The New York Times, June 8, 2006.

 

29 Agence France Presse, "Somalie: Al-Qaïda a pris le contrôle des tribunaux islamistes, selon Washington", December 15, 2006.

 

30 Interview December 2006.

 

31 Karen de Young, “US Sees Growing Threats in Somalia”, The Washington Post, December 18, 2006.

 

32 Peter Beinart, “Return of the Nixon doctrine”, Time Magazine, January 5, 2007. Vance Serchuk, “Ethiopia versus the Islamists”, The Weekly Standard, January 15, 2007.