Tag Archives: Somalia

links that I liked

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Taking a break from Collier and Hoeffler and Crawford Young (and into my third cup of tea for the night) I came across the following links…

William Easterly has his usual skepticism when it comes to practitioner-certainty in the field of Economics. How I wish I had time to read the two books he is banging on about in the New York Review of Books.

This result of a World Bank funded project is sort of long-ish, but I liked because one of the authors is a fellow student at the department – and because it touches on something that I care about. I can’t wait for the time I shall be doing similar fieldwork…

And Texas in Africa has a piece on Somalia that is asking the right questions. Is it time for the US and the rest of the world to call Al Shabab to the negotiating table? May be not.

links that I liked

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The East African, my favorited regional weekly, this week has a few interesting pieces. Of course there are the regulars – Wanyeki and Charles Onyango-Obbo.  There was also this one that mentioned in passing Kenya’s insouciant approach to threats to its territorial integrity.

Wronging rights has a thing on some crazy Chechen and a tiger.

And please read AfricanLoft, if you haven’t yet today.

the au should get serious on somalia

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The international community has neglected the people of Somalia for almost two decades. Throughout this period the country has been ruled by a bunch of thuggish clan-based warlords. Nobody really knows the exact death toll of the mess the country descended into after the ouster of strongman Siad Barre in the early 1990s. The only time the country came close to be governed by one central government was when Islamists under the Islamic Courts Union ruled large swathes of the country for most of 2006. However, the ICU’s links with Al Qaeda earned them the wrath of the US, which asked Ethiopia to invade and chase away the Islamists.

Now the country has an interim government that spends most of its time dodging militants and shifting from town to town. Somalia’s troubles are rapidly being transferred to the wider Eastern African region. Already the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya is stretched to three times its capacity, putting enormous strain on the Kenyan government and relief agencies. Piracy off the Somali coast is yet another direct result of the anarchy within Somalia. And perhaps most worrisome of all, the threat of terrorist attacks on capitals in the region –  by al-Shabab – is causing many security agents in the region sleepless nights.

It is time the African Union took the Somali peace initiative more seriously. For starters it should urge Eritrea to stop funding the Islamists and then step up its own peacekeeping operations in the country (by sending in more troops). After security – or some semblance of security – has been restored then it should aggressively pursue a pragmatic solution to the country’s conflicts, even if it means splitting it into two like those in Somaliland will most likely want.

Somalia, the forgotten

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Oxfam, the UK-based aid agency, has declared that Somalia is Africa’s worst crisis. According to reports 3.2 million malnourished Somalis are in urgent need of food aid. Meanwhile, the fighting between government forces and Islamists rages on. Roadside bombings have become commonplace.

Somalia has not had a functional government since 1991. Warlordism has been the order of the day since then, especially after the botched UN (US) intervention in 1993 after which the international community pretty much turned its back on Somalis. In recent months Islamist terrorism and piracy off the coast of Somalia have earned the struggling millions in the country some international attention. But the 4,300 man African Union force in the country is not enough to restore peace and stability – let alone prop up the weak and largely illegitimate transitional government of Somalia.

May be it is time that regional governments considered talking to the Islamists. A BBC report shows that they control most of the South of the country and so perhaps the AU can be persuade them to stop the killing and go easy on human rights (in any case Saudi Arabia’s brand of Sharia is not that different, it still forbids women to do just about anything outside the house) in exchange for some aid or guaranteed security against US drone attacks, for now. Anything for peace and stability at this point.

It is sad that all of the international community’s attention has been focused on Darfur and the Congo, at the expense of Somalia. The AU leadership (and especially South African President, Jacob Zuma) should take the plight of Somalis more seriously and initiate the beginning of the end of the disaster in their country.

somalia: may be we should give the Islamists a try?

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Before the US decided to use Ethiopia to invade Somalia, the southern portion of the failed state – including the capital Mogadishu – was largely run by a group calling itself the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU was into strict Sharia Law, something that did not go well with most of the secular warlords (who were simply out to make a profit from the chaos that is Somalia) and most of the West (read the US). Financed to some extent by Eritrea, (to Ethiopia’s chagrin) the ICU called for a Jihad against the Ethiopian government for colluding with the infidel Americans. Ethiopia’s involvement in Somalia was partly motivated by the Islamist group’s support of the cause for the liberation of the Ogaden, a region of Ethiopia inhabited by ethnic Somalis and which has been the poster-child for irredentist dreams of Somali governments and warlords alike.

And so when the ICU seemed to be gaining too much power than the Ethiopians and Americans would have liked, a decision was made to take them out. It also emerged that the ICU was sympathetic to terrorist elements – inluding the plotters of the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya (more than 200 Kenyans were killed in the attack in Nairobi) and Tanzania. Beginning in July of 2006 Ethiopian troops started moving into Somalia to take out the Islamists – and for some time they succeeded, even enabling the installation of the Somali transitional government in the sleepy town of Baidoa.

But now the Ethiopians have decided to pull out and the Islamists are back. As soon as Ethiopia withdrew, the ICU overran Baidoa and vowed to reinstate Sharia Law. This latest turn of events proves that the ICU is not a mere rag-tag group of bandits. They seem to mean serious business and perhaps it is time the international community took them seriously. Yes they have supported terrorists, but that can be changed by a stroke of a pen on a cheque book. They support the terrorists because the terrorists fund them. I am sure they can be co-opted into the global force for good in exchange for their restoration of order in Somalia.

And about Sharia Law, why should the US and the rest of the international community complain so much while it is the norm in Arabia and the gulf? What makes it different when the Somalis do it? I am all for respect for human rights and all, but I think it is imperative that global do-gooders (and all of us who believe in sensible liberalism) realize that justice is political and therefore should be pursued with regard to the particularities of the societies involved. A realistic approach to Somalia ought to allow the Islamic Courts to be if they can guarantee order and some semblance of  a state in exchange for some cash and a promise not to fund or harbour terrorists. America and Ethiopia must accept the fact that the ICU has some street credibility among Somalis. This is no time for ideological struggles. Somalis have suffered enough.

a few stories that highlight just how bad things are for some people

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The BBC reports that women in Niger have a 1 in 7 chance of dying during childbirth. The report also mentioned that more than half of maternal deaths in poor countries occur in Africa. I have talked about this in the past but it still is saddening to see such statistics and know that there are real people, real human beings behind them. IRIN also has a slightly positive story on maternal mortality in Somalia.

Turning to the bizzare, The Economist reports that albinos in East Africa are facing constant threat of death in the hands of crazies out to harvest their body parts – to be used by witches. This is the 21st century? How do people still believe in things like this? The Economist may have hyped it a bit, but the mere fact that such crazy things are still happening in communities in East Africa is shocking, and quite frankly embarrassing for Africa. I think it is time governments stopped pretending that people don’t do such weird things and go ahead and outlaw certain practices – like witchcraft and the like. Of course this may be a problem if some law-makers believe in that stuff too. And I would not be surprised if it turned out that some do because we are led by a brood of half-baked adults without a scintilla of statesmanship but full of superstitious and anachronistic nonesense that they present as “traditions.”

And lastly, a positive story from Malawi. The authorities tthere have adopted the use of mobile phones to assist in data collection. This discovery might help improve the standards of data collection across Africa, a continent where planning has been seriously hampered because of unreliable data collection and record-keeping.

africa continues to be myopic and ready for the picking

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So I keep reading stories about foreign governments like China, the Gulf States and South Korea that are planning on buying millions of acres of Africa’s arable land in order to provide food security for their citizens. From what I gather, most African governments are eager to sell 100 year leases in order to make a quick buck and then for 100 years condemn their countrymen and women to being near-slaves to foreigners in their own countries. How more stupid can our leaders get?

As a continent, Africa is the most food insecure place on the planet. Millions depend on food aid, even in supposedly more developed countries like Ghana, Kenya and Senegal. Some countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and nearly all of the Francophone Sahel have never known food security for decades. They have been permanent recipients of aid from the US and the World Food Program. It makes you wonder why it is not these governments making deals with their fellow African countries to guarantee the continent some food security.

Food production is what propelled human civilization. Mesopotamia, the Indus-Gangetic Valley, the Nile Valley, were all organised with an aim of improving food production so as to free up talent for other more meaningful human endeavors. Africa, nearly 12,000 years later, still cannot afford to feed its own people. It is not a question of land or water. The great lakes regions can feed the entire continent and still have a surplus. With the exception of the South West African countries and the Sahelian states, all of Sub-Saharan African countries ought to be food-secure. The fact that they are not is simply and squarely because of poor leadership.

And now these same inadequate leaders want to sell the land to foreigners. I am assuming that when foreign governments buy land they’ll treat it like they do with their embassies – provide their own security and run the show by their own rules. I wonder how different this will be from an outright recolonization of the African continent by more developed and better run countries.

We are still in the woods. And we are screwed for the foreseeable future. Like it is not even funny anymore. Our Mugabes, Obiangs and Zenawis continue to fail us big time. How hard can it be to run a country? Like seriously.

this is total bull, and we should not be scared by it

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I just read a BBC piece that the Islamist terrorists in Somalia are threatening to attack Kenya if it goes ahead with plans to train about 10,000 Somali soldiers. Really? Seriously? Are we supposed to be scared by this?

Somalia has been a mess since Siad Barre was deposed in the early 90s. Thugs and war lords have made normal life impossible for millions of Somali from all walks of life. For well over a decade the country has not had a functional government. While I opposed the Somali invasion to ged rid of the Islamic Courts union government, I think that that is all water under the bridge now. And quite frankly in retrospect that might have been a good idea. There is heavy Western investment in Kenya and the last thing we needed was a government that pals around with terrorists, to borrow from that now famous Alaskan.

Training these soldiers, is a good idea. It is time Somalia had a government to impose peace and stability. Due to the rampant clanism in the country, democracy will not work. At least not in the short term. The best thing to do is have a functional government that is moderately legitimate and have it use all human-rights-respecting means to quell the violence and bring some order and civility to Somali life.

Now, these thugs might carry out their threat and kill Kenyans. And I would find it hard to justify sacrificing Kenyan lives on behalf of Somalis – or vise versa. But sometimes we have to stand up for what is right. Kenya should not feel threatened by pirates and common thugs with kalashnikovs. We are stronger and braver than that. I say let’s go ahead and train these Somalis and if these thugs attack us we shall take it to them. We can do it.

these somali pirates must be stopped now

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As I whined about the resignation of Mbeki and the ineluctable ascendance of one Jacob Zuma to the most powerful position on the continent, the story of Somali pirates seizing a ship with militray cargo destined for Kenya made me even more worried. 33 tanks, among other military hardware, were on the Ukranian ship that was hijacked by pirates from Somalia while on international waters off the coast of the failed state in the horn of Africa.

These developments raise a very serious question. For how long will the world sit back and watch as a few greedy men with guns terrorize an entire country, killing innocent women and children and depriving them of a decent livelihood? So far the consensus has been that as long as the mess is confined within Somalia then everyone (save for Ethiopia and the CIA) would pretend that nothing is going on. But now there is an overflow. Tired of the boredom of pillaging within their borders the rag-tag bandits of Somalia have decided to extend their activities to the sea, routinely hijacking ships for ransome and booty. They need to be stopped.

These 21st century pirates need to be stopped not just in the sea but also within the borders of Somalia. It is imperative that countries within the wider East African region come up with a plan of solving Somalia’s problem once and for all instead of merely containing it, as seems to be the policy of the regional military powerhouse Ethiopia and the United States. Somalis are people too – just like the Kenyans or Ivorians who elicited much international sucpport in their times of crises – and need to be allowed to have an existence worthy of human beings. The last eighteen years have shown us that Somalis, on their own, cannot rid themselves of the dystopia that they’ve made of their country. The international community should – in a Rousseauian sense – impose peace and set in motion a more transparent re-education on government and institutions instead of the current puppet government arrangement. Sounds too optimistic to you? To the gainsayers I say it can be done. It can be done because the vast majority of Somalis want it to be done. An international intervention will not be an Iraq, not even a Somalia-’93.

chadian rebels finally routed

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Chad, like most of central Africa, is a sad story. After days of fighting, reports indicate that the government of Idriss Deby – possibly with some help from the French – has managed to to repel rebels from the capital and gain “total control.” The question is, for how long? This was the second time in a few years that the rebels had marched into the capital and threatened to topple Deby. This was also a confirmation that the government of Chad remains weak and unable to provide security, let alone development programmes, for its own people.

The story of Chad is a story that is repeated many times on the continent of Africa. You always have very weak governments that are unable to provide the most basic of public goods to their people but that are propped up by the West- the French being the number one culprits here. The French were friends with Bokassa and Mobutu, among other francophone-African dictators who brought much suffering to their own people while maintaining strong ties to Paris and having frequent state visits to the Elysee. The opposition to these weak governments is also just as weak. The many rebels movements fighting silly wars of greed devoid of any ideological significance are too weak to win. Instead they put their countrymen through wars of attrition that keep them forever stagnant in pre-modern subsistence existence. The same applies for Political opposition parties. Think of Zimbabwe. Everyone wants Mugabe out, except Tsvangirai and Mutambara – the two men who have refused to join forces within the MDC in order to unseat Bob.

More than two decades after Achebe wrote about it in Nigeria, the trouble with Africa still remains simply and squarely a problem of leadership. There is nothing inherently wrong with Africa or the African people. The only strange thing about Africa is its ability to keep churning out more Mobutus, Bokassas and Amins and very few Mandelas.

Going back to Chad…… may be it is a good thing that Deby is still president. However, deep down I think that that Africans should think hard about their many weak and unviable states. The DRC, Somalia and many states in the Sahel some to mind. If these countries cannot get their act together they should be left to the mercy of “evolution of states” so that in the end we can have states that are viable and able to provide for their people and not kleptocracies that only benefit their leaders’ kinsmen and a few multinational corporations.