Black Hawk Down II: Return to Mogadishu
By
Ndubisi Obiorah
An
attack on Somalia by the US appears to be imminent allegedly to fish out pro-Al-Quaeda
Islamic extremists in that country. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1877000/1877878.stm
Several
thousands of Somali women, children and men were killed in the battle in central
Mogadishu in 1993, that ensued when US Special Forces tried to capture the
Somali warlord, Mohammed Aideed. The
battle was the kernel of the last year's hit movie, 'Black Hawk Down' but as is
usual with Hollywood agitprop, it does not depict the deaths of the thousands of
Somali civilians who were killed in the cross-fire between Aideed's militiamen
and the US commandos. Worse still, the movie does not attempt to convey or
explain to the American people, the political background to the battle,
especially how the US forces, which were originally sent to Somalia in late 1992
to support humanitarian relief efforts, got sucked into the Somali civil war and
came to be perceived by some of the Somali people as siding with Aideed's
opponents. Indeed, when the US forces initially arrived, Aideed made a point of
being seen in the streets of Mogadishu with senior US military officers and
quietly let it be known to the Somali people that the Americans had come to
install him in power because his son, Hussein Aideed was a US marine!
The
US government has the duty and right to protect its citizens including hunting
down and capturing the extremists who attacked the US on 9/11 and their allies.
However, as we saw in Afghanistan, where local warlords deliberately misled the
US forces into attacking their local rivals by labelling them as Al-Quada
elements, many in Africa fear that the US is about to be sucked into a long
running regional conflict in the Horn of Africa as a result of disinformation
provided by parties maneuvering to have US firepower deployed against their
opponents. The US government is not famous for possessing accurate information
about African history and politics, which makes this danger all the more real.
While
it is true that local Somali Islamic extremists with links to Al-Quaeda as well
as foreign Al-Quaeda elements were present in parts of Somalia from the early
1990s, the UN, humanitarian NGOs and Western journalists on the ground in
Somalia have confirmed that, as of present,
the Al-Quaeda elements and their local alllies have long since fled
Somalia in the aftermath after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade
Centre and the US reprisals against the AL-Quaeda/Taliban alliance in
Afghanistan. The reports of a
current Al-Quaeda presence in Somalia appear to be disseminated to US
intelligence officers and fuelled by Somalia's neighbours in an attempt to get
the US to intervene on their side in their respective conflicts with Somalia.
There
are long running frontier disputes between Somalia and 3 of its neighbours,
Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia, especially over the status of ethnic Somalis in
those countries. Somalia does not recognize the colonial frontiers created by
Italy, Britain, France and Ethiopia in the latter part of the 19th century and
considers parts of Kenya and Ethiopia as well as the whole of Djibouti to be
Somali national territory. In turn, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti accuse Somalia
of harbouring 'Greater Somalia' ambitions, seeking territorial aggrandizement
and of sponsoring armed secessionist groups within their territories.
Somalia
claims the entire territory of the state of Djibouti, a former French colony on
the Red Sea coast, on the grounds that the entire population of Djibouti is
composed of Somali clans who were forcibly separated from their kith and kin by
French imperialist annexation in the 19th century.
Somalia
claims the Ogaden region of Ethiopia which is largely inhabited by ethnic
Somalis as part of its national territory. In 1977, Somalia went to war with
Ethiopia over the Ogaden; the conflict swiftly acquired Cold War dimensions with
the US and Soviet Union which had hitherto backed Ethiopia and Somalia
respectively, switching clients. The war ended in stalmate and there have been
sporadic border clashes and incursions ever since by both countries.
Somalia
lays claim to territory presently held by Kenya which abuts the Somali-Kenyan
frontier and which is inhabited predominantly by ethnic Somalis. There are
sporadic clashes on the Kenya-Somali border and 'Wild West' conditions prevail
on that frontier, driven by organized criminal networks which operate lucrative
smuggling and cattle rustling rings.
Ethnic
Somalis in Ethiopia and Kenya have long complained of being treated like
second-class citizens and of violations of their human rights. The ethnic Somali
regions of Kenya and Ethiopia abutting their frontiers with Somalia have
effectively been under 'emergency rule' for decades and gross human rights
violations against ethnic Somalis have been committed by the Kenyan and
Ethiopian security forces while allegedly hunting down 'Greater Somalia'
secessionists or members of organized criminal networks.
As
can be seen, all three countries, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have excellent
motives for encouraging the US to attack Somalia. African observers note that
one of the reasons why Somalia still has no central government since 1990 is
that some of the various Somali factions and warlords are financed by and allied
to one or the other of its neighbours in the Horn of Africa or in the Arabian
peninsula across the Red Sea. From a realist perspective, Kenya, Ethiopia and
Djibouti have every incentive for preferring Somalia to remain as a failed state
with no central government which could revive Somali nationalist sentiments for
'Greater Somalia' re-unification. It would serve their interests to incite a US
attack on Somalia which would weaken and devastate the country even further
thereby making the prospect of Somali national resurgence an even more remote
possibility. Furthermore, none of
Somalia's neighbours countries has a truly democratic government and their
leaders have good reason to seek to divert public attention in their respective
countries from local political and economic problems by stoking up tensions in
the Horn of Africa, thereby compelling their citizens to line up behind the
flag.
At
the present time, US and European naval and air units are operating surveillance
missions over Somalia and its coastline from Kenya. However, recent reports
indicate that combat units are about to be deployed to Kenya as a staging post
for an attack on Somalia.
18 American soldiers lost their lives in a needless battle in Mogadishu in 1993 which could have been avoided if the US had a better knowledge of the history and politics of Somalia and thus the local US commanders could have avoided getting sucked into local conflicts. There is a real prospect, indeed a clear and present danger of the US getting sucked into the regional conflicts between Somalia and her neighbours. Some Somalis believe that the US government does know full well that there are no Al-Quaeda elements in the country today and that the proposed attack is simply American vengeance [as conceived by ultra-right-wing militarist elements within the US government] for the humiliation of the US Special Forces by Mohammed Aideed's militiamen in 'Black Hawk Down I' in 1993.