[Article] 1,000 dead in Somalia clashes

Victor

While not enthusiastic about the Islamic Courts, at least they were able to put order on the streets (things like pavement cafes have actually been opening over the last few months) by banishing the warlords and their fickle power.

This has the potential of ending up as a 5-way war between the government (backed by Ethiopia), the Islamic Courts (backed by Eritrea and most countries in the Middle East), the warlords (backed by the Americans) and Ethiopia and Eritrea (backed by Israel).

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1226/somalia.html

1,000 dead in Somalia clashes

26 December 2006 22:11

At least 1,000 people have been killed in fighting between Ethiopian troops backing the Somali government and Islamist forces in Somalia.

At a press conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi confirmed that his country's military intervention in the neighbouring nation of Somalia had left a further 3,000 wounded.

In June, the Islamic Court Union seized the capital Mogadishu and then extended its control over south and central Somalia.
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The weak transitional Somali government currently holds only one major town, Baidoa, in the southern central region.

Somali government forces only began to advance on the powerful Islamist movement after Ethiopian warplanes bombed Mogadishu airport in order to cut supply lines.

Ethiopia has justified its intervention on the grounds that the Islamists represent a direct threat to its own security and sovereignty.

Boston

Are the various parties actually backed by who you claim? I find it hard to believe the warlords are backed by the Americans after what happened to the americans in the 90's

Manic Moran

Don't know about the Warlords, but the US is certainly supporting the Ethiopians and Baidoan Somalis.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/12/26/us.somalia.ap/index.html

NTM

Victor

LiouVille wrote:

Are the various parties actually backed by who you claim?

Sorry, I probably overstated when I said "backed by". The American objective has been to avoid a new Afghanistan under the Taliban-like (non-)state equivocal about hosting militants and importantly in the straits - pirates. My enemy's enemy is my [strike]friend[/strike] useful tool.

LiouVille wrote:

I find it hard to believe the warlords are backed by the Americans after what happened to the americans in the 90's

I suspect there are different people at the top now.

Another story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6210695.stm

DadaKopf

The US sees Somalia as a strategic theatre in the 'War on Terror'. Its porous borders and proximity to Saudi Arabia makes is a particularly important asset. Last I knew, the US was slowly removing its military presence in Saudi Arabia and building a base in Eritrea. This may not have happened, but the US is scouting around for a Horn of Africa base. It's therefore wise to maintain good relations with Ethiopia. Added to this, the US is establishing itself in the region as a counter-power to China, whose embassy in Nairobi is the largest in Africa. Chinese state-owned companies and migrant workers are spreading throughout the continent, particularly Sudan, but also Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Togo etc. In-between Sudan and Somalia is Chad, among other countries, whose borders are so porous, and territories so huge, that known Islamist terrorist groups hide out and train there. It's believed that the group responsible for the Madrid bombings, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, resided in Chad prior to the attack. So, theoretically, Saharan region will become one huge dustbowl of war in the next few years.

The conflict in Somalia has been brewing for months now, but it's only been publicly admitted now. Who knows whether it has the chance of turning into an ethnic cleansing/genocide situation. Let's hope not. Either way, local power struggles are, as it was during the Cold War, fusing with struggles between the emerging superpowers.

Sad, sad situation.

Manic Moran

The US hasn't had a base in Saudi since 2003.

NTM

Judt

It's the old proxy war doctrine, except with Islamic types (we can't pin them down to a nation, but for the top 5 sponsors you can take an educated guess) replacing the Soviet Union. Unfortunately there's no real stable governments in Africa, and one has to remember that it has a large Muslim population - almost all of North Africa is an Islamic majority area, something which is more important today than it was before.

Unfortunately it will be hobbled nations having a go at one another - the not so amusing South Park analogy of a "cripple fight", and the people who lose out will be the Africans fighting and dying in the war and wars to come.

jank

Manic Moran wrote:

The US hasn't had a base in Saudi since 2003.

NTM

No troups in SA for the last 3 years!?

i find that hard to believe

Victor

jank wrote:

No troups in SA for the last 3 years!? i find that hard to believe

They made it quite public in 2003 that they no longer needed bases in Saudi Arabia, because Iraq no longer posed a threat (in reality Iraq ceased to pose any threat around 1994).

They do have bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Yemen(?) and Kenya. They have use of French bases in Dijibouti and no doubt the British ones in Oman, on top of Israeli, Egyptian and Turkish bases.

mike65

About 6 months back so anti-US type was prattling on about how Somalia was not slipping into the clutches of the Islamic Courts doctrine and that the US was creating fuss over nothing by suggesting it. I wish I could remember who said it (it was a Fisk-type).

Some blogging background

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/002804.html

Mike.

Victor

I think the distinction was being made between an emerging civic society that happened to be based on the Islamic Courts (sponsored by of all people, mobile phone companies sick of the extortion from the warlords - there is no landline system left in Somalia) and immediately saying that "just like that" it would turn into Afghanistan circa 2001 - the implication was Islamic civic society equated September 11. While there are strong parallel between the two, the cultures are quite different.

mike65

I dunno if the IC has ambitions for Afganistan 2 but Somalia is known as a bolt-hole for Al-Qaeda types, one may help the other or indeed one may get taken over by the other. Either way its going to be busy in the Horn of Africa
for the foreseeable future.

Mike.

fly_agaric

Victor wrote:

I think the distinction was being made between an emerging civic society that happened to be based on the Islamic Courts (sponsored by of all people, mobile phone companies sick of the extortion from the warlords - there is no landline system left in Somalia) and immediately saying that "just like that" it would turn into Afghanistan circa 2001 - the implication was Islamic civic society equated September 11. While there are strong parallel between the two, the cultures are quite different.

But why would Ethiopia act as it is if that is the case?
Why does the prospect of these Islamic Courts People running Somalia scare them so badly that they've done what they have done (earlier, sent in troops to protect the "government" and stop the Islamic Courts' crowd from taking over the whole country - now going on the attack)?
I'd very much doubt Ethiopia are just following the directions of the US in this tbh.

mike65

Maybe Ethiopia is acting to protect itself against the threat of radical Islam as about one third of its population is muslim.

Mike.

Victor

A large proportion of the population of Somalia are ethnic Ethiopians. Darned imperialist Europeans drawing lines that didn't coincide with tribal boundaries.

The Corinthian

Victor wrote:

A large proportion of the population of Somalia are ethnic Ethiopians. Darned imperialist Europeans drawing lines that didn't coincide with tribal boundaries.

Actually it's more the other way around - many in the eastern region of Ethiopia are ethnic Somalis. As for borders, Ethiopia's borders were largely self-derived due to her ability to historically remain largely independent, apart from a very, very brief colonial period.

InFront

I think this is an instance where the UN are going to get off their ass and start manipulating some people. Somalia, like Afghanistan, has for way too long been the political football - turned hot potato that everybody was reluctant to deal with. Given the ongoing, and worsening, situation there, and what ee know about international political mistakes of indecision concerning these regions in the past, Somalia desperately needs decisive UN intervention now.

Barre's fall, at which point the UN didn't failed utterly in a decent strategy for peackeeping in the region, has left blood on the hands of the International Community. When Somalia came to the UN for assistance, what did they get? Those self-congratulatory 1992 UN Resolutions with a failure to back up peacekeeping measures with a security force. Attempting to force political reconciliation without credible security measures was always destined to fail. Furthermore, the UN blocked the prospect of any strong political leadership force (in a smiliar manner to how the USA acted in Afghanistan with spreading their support too widely) between either the local militia or the "civilian" institutions, neither of whom could come to prominence.
However, if there is anyone more culpable as the UN in this it is America and Bush the elder (Tweedledum). They gladly took on Somalia to their agenda, yet would not take on a disarming mandate, and didn't want the UN disarming Somalia with a peacekeeping force with UNITAF until it had become too late. And anyway even when the US Peacekeepers came it was "to help the starving to be fed" or words to that effect - they had zero political direction in Somalia whatever.

The irony here is that the reason why the first Bush Administration failed to put any strong peackeeping incentive in Somalia (or its twin, Afghanistan) is that it feared a lethal and expensive peacekeeping operation. Whatever about Somalia, the real irony of that is borne out by that way of thinking on Afghanistan and the current ramifications for Iraq!
It is simply an erronous judgement to make, to abandon the responsibility of the international community on grounds of the complexity or the local nature of the conflict or the potential expense of such a peacekeeping mission. And it is one which the international community and Bush the Junior (Tweedledee) must be careful to avoid again.

Boston

Your rant made little, to no, sense

Manic Moran

InFront wrote:

They gladly took on Somalia to their agenda, yet would not take on a disarming mandate, and didn't want the UN disarming Somalia with a peacekeeping force with UNITAF until it had become too late.

The US never attempted a disarming. It took the sensible position that it was a practical impossibility to disarm the nation and shed no tears that the UNITAF mandade didn't require it.

NTM

InFront

"Your rant made little, to no, sense"

monosyllabic:
Bush the son now sees the same scrape as his Dad faced more than ten years from now. He should not screw it up like his Dad, and the U N would do well to learn from past lack of balls in terms of their task to bring peace to the state; they failed to do this in all the years that have gone by since the coup.

There you go.

InFront

Manic Moran wrote:

The US never attempted a disarming. It took the sensible position that it was a practical impossibility to disarm the nation and shed no tears that the UNITAF mandade didn't require it.

NTM

But where did I say they had disarmed Somalia or attempted to? The point is simply that their unwillingness to effectively engage in peacekeeping there, and their indecision on enforcing peace, has led to the escalation of the conflict in Somalia. They left the place in a mess and then just walked away from it all.

Sand

But where did I say they had disarmed Somalia or attempted to? The point is simply that their unwillingness to effectively engage in peacekeeping there, and their indecision on enforcing peace, has led to the escalation of the conflict in Somalia. They left the place in a mess and then just walked away from it all.

As I understand it the US position was consistent in refusing UN requests to make attempts to disarm militias, and advising against the UN attempting to disarm them itself [which came after the US handed over to the UN, having protected the aid convoys and broadly stabilised the region].

The UN did attempt to disarm the militias and it played out pretty much as expected. Violence escalated, culminiating in the deaths of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers [another 44 wounded] in fighting with the clans they were attempting to disarm, particularly Aideeds.

In support of the UN, the US [Clinton] then sent in a seperate force to deal with Aideed and attempt to win the war the UN had begun with the clans. A half dozen raids later [which included an embarrassing episode where they attacked the UN and took UN representitives prisoner], Black Hawk Down occured and the US withdrew for a second and final time.

The UN by this time was in well over its head with casualties mounting, and with the US gone and the "international community" leaving with them it too was forced to withdraw having failed to win the war it started when it attempted to disarm the clans.

A lot of mistakes were made in Somalia [the Canadians helped community relations by beating to death a kid who stole into their camp, the Italians were nominally part of the UN mission but clearly were in on their own agenda and basically ceased co-operation with other parts of the force, a US soldier shot some guy who stole his sunglasses and tried to claim self defence, etc, etc], but the US refusing to attempt to disarm militias wasnt one of them as near as I can make out. The aim of disarming Somalia was simply far too ambitious.

Boston

Your post makes no sense, not because you used "big words", but rather because you can't actually structure you thoughts in to sentences.

Bush the son now sees the same scrape as his Dad faced more than ten years from now.

I mean look at that, no punctuation, and the ideas are all muddled. Like how has his dad faced something that will happen ten years from now. What the hell are you on about.

Maybe you should put a little more thought into your posts.

fly_agaric

InFront, the UN's effectiveness depends on the will of the nations that comprise it. You admitted trying to fix Somalia looked to be a pretty bloody and expensive job back then. To that I would add thankless. What's different now? Who do you think is going to do it? Ireland...LOL:D

I'm being very cynical here, but for peacekeeping or enforcing to work well, most of the people concerned will actually have to want peace, won't they?

InFront

LiouVille wrote:

I mean look at that, no punctuation, and the ideas are all muddled. Like how has his dad faced something that will happen ten years from now. What the hell are you on about.

Maybe you should put a little more thought into your posts.

LiouVille, ten years from now does not automatically refer to ten years from now into the future.
Given that most people know GWB's father was also a President, I assumed you should understand that "over ten years from now" meant over ten years "ago". And if you want to debate the issue go ahead, but all you've done so far is dismissively questioned other people's contributions without adding anything yourself.

Originally posted by fly_agaric
InFront, the UN's effectiveness depends on the will of the nations that comprise it. You admitted trying to fix Somalia looked to be a pretty bloody and expensive job back then. To that I would add thankless. What's different now? Who do you think is going to do it? Ireland...

I agree with you of course, but back in 1992 the Americans were in a particularly strong position (within the UN) to enforce peacekeeping in Somalia, and despite the leanings of the security council at that time, they decided not to take on this role save for the humanitarian (dinner serving) objective.
You are right, Somalia is bloody, expensive and thankless work. But the Americans especially are implicated in that situation. During the cold war era, Somalia had strategic importance to America and the US/ Soviet rivalry caused turmoil in that country. They propped up the Barre regime in battles against the local militia with their Etheopian (Soviet) ammo. The miltary aid and financial backup exacerbated domestic conflicts there.
However, when the Cold War ended and Americans realised that whether Barre or the miliatia won the conflict, Somalia would still be mates with the USA, poor Somalia became just another part of boring old Africa, the American Congress walked away and left it to Hell. And look what happened: aid to the region fell and civil war escalated. Not even a professional warmongerer could intentionally create such a disaster.

Now, the son of the president who failed in his responsibilities towards that country has to re-examine the situation and decide what he is going to do to clear up the mess that they created and abandoned in the first place. It isn;t a matter of receiving thanks, it is about saying sorry and fixing their mess. They need to face up to what they got Somalia into, and the UN needs to wake up as well.

Boston

InFront wrote:

LiouVille, ten years from now does not automatically refer to ten years from now into the future.
Given that most people know GWB's father was also a President, I assumed you should understand that "over ten years from now" meant over ten years "ago". And if you want to debate the issue go ahead, but all you've done so far is dismissively questioned other people's contributions without adding anything yourself.

Time is linear, moving forward not backwards. From now is commonly and pretty much exclusively used, with repect to time, to indicate a point in the future. Also most people know that GWB's father was not president ten years ago(Notice how I specify a point in the past). Clinton was. I'm still waiting for you to explain your orginal post. How can I rebuff your post when it's complete fiction?

InFront

It actually says "more than ten years", not "ten years", read it correctly. In another post I used the words "over ten years".

I've contributed my opinion and backed it up. Liouville, I dont know who you are, or why you have a problem with my opinion, but I think Ive put it forward in a pretty straightforward manner. If you want an argument there are always people in the thunderdome for that, personally I'm here for the political stuff. Take it or leave it.

Edit: ps: just noticed something you said... actually: time is not linear, it is curved...

fly_agaric

InFront wrote:

Not even a professional warmongerer could intentionally create such a disaster.

I think I disagree with that a bit. Anyway, the Somalis themselves do bear some of the blame for what has happened to their country. It is not all the fault of warring superpowers.

InFront wrote:

Now, the son of the president who failed in his responsibilities towards that country has to re-examine the situation and decide what he is going to do to clear up the mess that they created and abandoned in the first place. It isn;t a matter of receiving thanks, it is about saying sorry and fixing their mess. They need to face up to what they got Somalia into, and the UN needs to wake up as well.

But...what good can the US do here really. Their army is quite busy at the moment. Anyway, any US force, maybe even one just associated with them or "the West", would be another fresh carcass for Jihadi-types from around the world to batten on. Or it might provoke an insurgency in Somalia - a new "Iraq" in Africa. I wonder, is the US military very popular with your average Somali? Given the incompetence with which Iraq was handled, I don't think I'd have much confidence in a US or US-led/Western force repairing Somalia and winning over what could be a very hostile population - even if they are there at the behest of the UN rather than waging preemptive war and setting themselves up as occupiers. Good intentions paving a road to hell and all that...
Perhaps the US could provide alot of money and equipment to the UN but who would, or could, provide troops for this? The answer is noone.

Try for a moment to imagine the reaction here if some of our politicians decided they wanted to answer Mr Moon's (er... that probably should be Mr Ban LOL!) hypothetical call for troops for a mercy mission to save the Somalis/Ethiopians!

InFront

But...what good can the US do here really. Their army is quite busy at the moment.

Anyway, any US force, maybe even one just associated with them or "the West", would be another fresh carcass for Jihadi-types from around the world to batten on.

True, the US is quite busy at the moment, but there is no reason why innocent Somalis should have to just accept that and suffer the brutality that goes on there.

It is not the case that all of their available defense commitments are in Iraq (though a considerable portion of their defense budget is). I'm not particularly expecting it to happen per se, but I think that it ought to: The US ought to be doing something by providing financial and humanitarian and peacekeeping aid to Somalia and furthermore to the United Nations. The New York Times reported during the Civil War in the early 1990s that "Somalia burns and the world looks on". The answer is not to repeat our "do nothing" stance on this issue. If this were in Europe what would we do?
How can the international community (or we as members of it) allow this international apathy to continue right to the present day?

The reason why the United Nations themselves, in my opinion, are not acting appropriately is simply because this is happening in Africa.

We have not yet seen the fruits of terrorist activities (that even as far back as 3 years ago the UN were telling us about) of Al Qaeda in Somalia, and various other terrorist groups, but we surely will. Even the bombing of the Nairobi embassy a few years ago was linked to Somalian terrorist networks... are the Americans learning nothing?

But the most frustrating thing about the Somali conflict, something that is applicable here more so than most anywhere, except maybe Afghanistan, is the utter unnecessary nature of the whole thing. The way the US armed the nation, and, as victors of the Cold war, failed to address the ongoing ramifications of their huff with the Soviet puppetry in Africa is inexcusable.

Even the most basic of initiatives, such as the Ancient sea trading routes across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, which provides the backbone of Somalia's illegal arms trade has not been given any international presence. And it's not as if there is even a ("real") government in place that they would be offending, the Somali's are literally "home alone". The rule of law disappeared with the government. If this were Ireland, we would be up in arms (no pun intended) over failure of the UN to intervene on rival, warring, unauthorised militant factions here.

How can the UN, understanding its portion of the blame for the current situation (and given its power on the security council and further broadly within the UN, and its culpability in Somalia, the USA) sit back and do nothing? The mind boggles...

Somalia has been left to fester in this mess. And maybe one day they will be blamed, like the Taliban in Afghanistan was, for fostering terrorists. Not only have the USA/ UN learned nothing whatever from their failures towards Somalia in the past, the USA has learned nothing from Afghanistan also. If they had, and they with the UN, acted now, perhaps the many innocent Afghan lives at the hands of that army might not have been so much in vain. Currently the only US action is to undermine the fledgling "government" (though what they govern is nothing) by forging relationships with warlords to gather intelligence and pursue suspects inside Somalia, and are letting the Ethiopians away with their illegal warmongering.

I wonder, is the US military very popular with your average Somali?

I'm talking about a diplomacy efforts and a UN presence there being supported, and being pushed on by the US. Maybe that means sending some American soldiers there, maybe it doesn't. It certainly means contributing financially and diplomatically to securing a resolution. I mean only 0.5% of the UN Peacekeeping population are American anyway. If the UN can go into Golan heights and Lebanon, as they do, why not Somalia? They are shirking responsibility, as are the USA.

Perhaps the US could provide alot of money and equipment to the UN but who would, or could, provide troops for this? The answer is noone.

I disagree, in 1992 the USA were the ones on the security council who were pushing against sending peacekeepers into the Somalia, I see no reason to think why that position has changed. If the UN Peacekeepers were somehow inapporopriate because of the nature of the conflict, perhaps the NRF maybe? I dont know if I entirely agree with that myself, but I don't think the answer is simply to let them at each other, that's what got us into this mess in the first place. I mean peacekeepers are currently in Ethiopia right next door as it stands, isn't there something very wrong that they, or the international community, are not in Somalia?

Try for a moment to imagine the reaction here if some of our politicians decided they wanted to answer Mr Moon's hypothetical call for troops for a mercy mission to save the Somalis/Ethiopians!

It wouldn't be the first time Irish peacekeepers have had to clean up the mess caused by bigger nations. I really think the Somalians (culpable as its militants are) are not going to be able to resolve this situation alone. The country can hardly feed itself let alone protect its most vulnerable citizens.

DadaKopf

1,000 dead in Somalia, 4 million dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a genocide in Sudan.

I wonder about people's interests sometimes. With the speed that this thread has grown, I wonder whether this is not so much about people's concern for lives in Africa as it is because the war is ticking all the sexy boxes: (A) Rise of Islamism/Al Qaeda/'Green Peril' fear(mongering) and (B) the US 'War on Terror/how much we all hate GWB/America-bashing national passtime.

I haven't seen nearly as much concern about DRC, a little more on Sudan (though this is mostly UN-bashing), but mostly these Africa discussions are narcissistic, self-serving bull****. Are people concerned about the people of Africa, or more interested in using people's suffering simply as a way to reconfirm their prejudices? What I mean is: why not the same level of discussion about Africa's World War (Congo)?

And to the person who said "Africa has no stable democracies": what about Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Lesotho, Kenya, Ethiopia, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique? What are your criteria for stable government?

The Corinthian

DadaKopf wrote:

And to the person who said "Africa has no stable democracies": what about Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Lesotho, Kenya, Ethiopia, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique? What are your criteria for stable government?

Ethiopia is a stable democracy? What on Earth are you smoking?