Somalia will not forget this latest catastrophe

By Richard Dowden, The Independent, 11 January 2007

A weak, divided Somalia suits the Ethiopians if they cannot have a strong government they control

Washington's idea was so simple. The men who planned the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were said to be hiding in Somalia. The country had no government and was falling under an Islamic movement. It must be an al-Qa’ida base. So help the neighbouring Ethiopians to invade, crush the nascent Islamic government, kill the al-Qa’ida operatives and install a government.

Two problems solved in one: avenge the embassy bombings and the deaths of the American soldiers in the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident. Secondly, bring government, peace and stability to Somalia, lawless since 1991. “Somalia's first piece of potentially good news in two devastating decades,” wrote one columnist. The realities of Somalia were ignored.

The rise of the Union of Islamic Courts was the result of America's previous attempt to get the alleged al-Qa’ida operatives responsible for the embassy bombings. Early last year the CIA paid local warlords to get them. This united Somalis as nothing else has for decades. In their fury at American support for the hated warlords, they rose and drove out the warlords.

After years of bloodshed and oppression at the hands of warring politicians, religion unsurprisingly provided the unifying bonds of solidarity, values and a common cause. For a while, southern Somalia had something it had not enjoyed for decades: security. Somali businessmen, fed up with having their goods stolen or “taxed” by warlords, backed the Courts with money. Business boomed across the country. As one Somali friend said: “We could walk down the street using a mobile phone without fear of it being stolen, we could go to the market without fear of attack or rape, people respected each other.”

The Courts were a popular uprising, the first viable movement to cut across clan rivalry and unite Somalis since 1991. Personal freedoms were an issue, however. Fundamentalists—influenced by Saudi Wahabists, whose Islam is at odds with Somalia's more tolerant Sufi tradition - tried to enforce Sharia law and codes of behaviour and dress.

The Americans and British claim fundamentalists represented the leadership of the Courts. This is nonsense. Somalis, renowned for their strong-willed individualism would have sorted this out for themselves. If there is one lesson from Somalia since independence in 1960, it is that Somalis will be governed only by consent. No one tells them what they can or cannot watch on TV.

The militants in the Courts made further mistakes. Some of the leaders called for the reunification of Somalia—threatening Somaliland, the self-governing north which declared its independence in 1991 and now has a democratic government. They also called for the reunification of Somalis which would mean invading Djibouti, northern Kenya and much of eastern Ethiopia.

Some of the fundamentalist leaders protected the three men—none of them Somali—who are accused by Washington of masterminding the embassy bombings. And they gave refuge to dissident Ethiopian movements.

Militant fighters charged westwards to Baidoa where the would-be Somali government was holed up in a tiny enclave. This gave the Ethiopians a pretext to attack. A Christian mountain empire but surrounded by Muslims who also make up half its population, Ethiopia has always feared its Muslim neighbours. Ethiopia blamed rebellion at home on Islamic fundamentalism. Its interests matched the American idea so on Christmas Eve the Ethiopian army marched eastwards.

The Islamic fighters armed with AK47s and rocket launchers were no match for the Ethiopian tanks, gunships and bombers. The Courts militias soon fled. (There was no sign of the sophisticated anti-tank and Sam missiles they were reported to possess). They ran south-east and were cornered, trapped between the sea, patrolled by the US Fifth Fleet, the southern border, patrolled by the Kenyan army, and the advancing Ethiopians. Just as it looked as if the last remnant would be captured, American AC 130s poured fire from the sky killing large numbers of people.

Why did they kill rather than capture? Why the Americans, when the Ethiopians seemed to be doing the job so well? Perhaps politically, on the eve of President Bush's statement on Iraq, the Americans needed to show the world they could still hit and kill.

The Ethiopians are trying to install the internationally accepted government. But anyone who has watched Somalia over the years will see how Ethiopia has undermined or destroyed every other attempt to establish a national government. A weak, divided Somalia suits the Ethiopians if they cannot have a strong but Ethiopian-controlled government. And that is exactly what President Abdullahi Yusuf, an old ally of Ethiopia, represents.

One of Somalia's nastiest warlords, Yusuf has made a pact with the country's age-old enemy. Under him the Ethiopians handpicked a government and paraded it before the international community which, desperate to fill the vacuum that Somalia seemed to represent, was happy to endorse without looking too closely at its members. Think Oswald Mosley being installed by the Germans as president of Britain in 1940 and you get close to the feeling Yusuf's government inspires in Somalia today.

The Ethiopians may leave soon. If their imposed government does not work, they are happy enough to let Somalia revert to warlord chaos. Americans, too, have accomplished their mission, perhaps killing the “Most Wanted Terrorists”, though we will have to wait to see who is in the rubble. And what of Somalia? Somalis will not forget this catastrophe. Once again, America may have created the very thing it thought it was destroying.