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On 27 December 2006,
only three days after the Ethiopian
government officially admitted for the first
time that it has troops in Somalia, Prime
Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, made a
self-congratulatory statement and proposed a
toast to Ethiopian supporters. He said: “About
half of our mission is done, and the rest
shouldn't take long.”
On
7 January 2007, Jack Kelly, a
columinst of Post Gazzete, was impressed how
Eithopia had dealt with Islamic fighters and
wrote an article entitled The Eithiopian
Example. In it, he observed: “It's
hard to win a war if you quit fighting in
the middle. That's the lesson we should
learn from Ethiopia's New Year's message to
us [Americans].” He went on to say:
“Ethiopia won in short order because it
unapologetically used force against vicious
killers who understand only force. They
killed the people they needed to kill
without worrying overmuch about collateral
damage, and not at all about world opinion.”
On
16 January 2007, the
editorial of Los Angeles Times told its
readers: “ETHIOPIA
HAS DONE its fellow Africans a good turn by
ousting the increasingly radical Islamic
Courts Union regime in Somalia.” The paper
used capital letters for the first part of
the sentence to emphasize the victory.
On 18 January 2007,
J Pham, director of the
Nelson Institute for International and
Public Affairs, wrote an article entitled
Somalia May Save the War on Terrorism. In
it, he noted: “Even if the final chapter
will not be written for some time, it is
nonetheless possible to already draw one
significant conclusion: recent developments
in Somalia may prove to be salutary
reminders which save America's war on
terrorism.”
On 28 January 2007,
the editorial of Washington Times joined the
celebration party: “Ethiopia's intervention
in Somalia, and the subsequent routing of
the Islamist militias that had held power
since last summer in Mogadishu, created what
has correctly been called a window of
opportunity to end 15 years of clan-based
strife in Somalia.”
On 22 February 2007,
Ambassador Vicki Huddleston told the Council
on Foreign Relations in Washington: “many
warned that if Ethiopia intervened on behalf
of the transitional government it would fuel
a wider war.
Wrong or right! Let us see
who has been proven wrong. Three months on,
Mogadishu is now spinning out of control.
Somalis, Ethiopian troops,
and others are dying in Somalia. People are
fleeing from the city. The government is
finding the capital too dengerous to
operate.
Suspected Al-Qaeda operators
believed responsible for bombing U.S.
embassies in East Africa in 1998 are yet to
be held accountable. In fact, the risk of
attracting freelance Jihadists to Somalia is
now greater than any other time. That
endangers both Somalia and U.S. interests in
the wider region of Horn of Africa.
On 19 March 2007, Dr
Michael Weistein of Power and Interest News
Report, made a grim reality assessment and
concluded: “the country would continue to
experience a devolutionary cycle and drift
back to a state of political fragmentation
in which power would disperse to regional
and local clans and warlords, and the
internationally recognized Transitional
Federal Government (T.F.G.) would prove
unable to restore security and gain
legitimacy as a unifying central authority.”
On 22 March 2007,
according to UN News Centre, the United
Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reported:
“More than 40,000 people reportedly fled
Somalia’s strife-torn capital, Mogadishu,
last month and growing insecurity has
restricted the mobility and access of
humanitarian agencies to respond adequately
to the situation in the city.”
On 23 March 2007,
People’s Daily Online stated: “Washington
say the latest deterioration of security in
Somalia, which culminated on the killing of
at least 20 people on Wednesday, including
several Ethiopian soldiers, whose bodies
were also dragged in the streets before they
were burnt, was a result of a security
vacuum.”
On 23 March 2007,
Voice of America said: “Violence
Increased this Week in
Somalia's Capital, Mogadishu
[as]
a plane carrying people aiding the
peacekeeping force crashed on Friday.”
The foregoing discussion
shows that at
the beginning of this year, Eithiopian
supporters believed invading Somalia could
transform the ineffctual Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) into a viable
government and Somalia would be the first
country that the American’s war on terror
could claim as a success. Time is proving
that Eithiopian supporters have celebrated
prematurely.
Throughout Somalia’s troubled
history solution imposed by outsiders has
never worked. On 6 January 2007, Peter Biles,
a BBC correspondent, showed a remarkable
insight into the Somali affairs: “Ethiopia
has quietly meddled in Somalia for years,
and now the visible presence of the
Ethiopians is both provocative and
dangerous. Foreign forces are not welcome.”
Three months on, Peter got it right and
those who celebrated prematurely got it
wrong.
Mohamed Mukhtar
London
Email:
mohamed323@hotmail.com |
