The "war on terror" and the Worst Humanitarian Crisis in Africa

By Sadia Ali

Approximately three months ago, Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), pressured out Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi. Surprisingly, this political re-arrangement of deckchairs generated much noisy headlines.

Meanwhile the real story—the great unfolding humanitarian disaster--continued unnoticed.

For the Somali people, the Ethiopian invasion of December of 2006 could not have started at a worse time. Defeating the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and propping up the TFG; this was Ethiopia's immediate rationale for violating Somalia. The larger goal? Forging a partnership between Washington and Addis Ababa in order to execute "war on terror"…

A year later, this mission has not been accomplished. Instead, the "war on terror" has become the terror of war being visited on the Somali people.

Admittedly a handful of Somalis have benefited from the invasion, specifically the dozens of warlords previously driven out of Mogadishu by the UIC. These warlords, the instigators of Somalia's current civil conflict, were reinstalled in their fiefdoms riding on the backs of Ethiopia's invading tanks. As a result, the reviled check points and road blocks used to bully cash out of unarmed civilians were reintroduced in Southern Somalia, particularly Mogadishu.

To keep the invasion and Africa's worst humanitarian catastrophe going, heavy and modern weapons, including airplanes were used. One was a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship that attacked and killed Somali villagers and countless livestock in the hunt for three foreign men suspected for the bombing of 1998 American embassies in Africa, who yet remain at large.

Among those caught in the chaos were visiting Somalis from the Diaspora. In the period between June and December 2006, Somali technocrats returned to their native country to partake the rebuilding in the six month period of peace and stability that was established under the rule of the UIC. The Diaspora arrived with the intention to give back to the land and the people they left behind and contribute to rebuilding their lives.

Unfortunately, an extraordinary rendition programs were the gratitude they received; in that, the TFG, Kenya, Ethiopia and US all being implicated. Young men as young as 12 years of age were taken out of their homes in the dead of the night, blindfolded and taken into unknown destinations.
Fleeing refugees of mostly women and children did meet a similar fate. Unfortunately, these refugees had no where to escape, as Kenya decided to close its borders and deny them entry. This paved the way to the current nightmare scenario: 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs,) mostly children and women, without any provision or protection from the UN or other humanitarian agencies or NGOs.

In order to create a safe haven for the displaced refugees, the international community must demand the neighboring countries to open their borders. It is all too often that the casualties of war are those that are unmentioned. The innocent men, women and children, caught in the middle, left with no way out.

The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, said border security measures should not impair the ability of deserving Somali civilians to enter Kenya to seek safety and protection as refugees. The neighboring Nations have humanitarian responsibility to safeguard these refugees.

On October 30, 2007, 40 international NGOs have released a joint statement ominously warning against a gathering cloud of humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia urging the international community to respond to this man-made calamity as the Ethiopian forces and militias loyal to the (TFG) callously prevent the delivery, and bluntly stating that "there is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in South Central Somalia".

Meanwhile, Ethiopian forces continue their shelling of Mogadishu neighborhoods and killing, according to Elman Human Rights group, 7000 civilians mostly women, children, and elderly between January and November of 2007.

"In Shell-Shocked, Human Rights Watch's August 2007 report of our investigation of the March-April hostilities, we documented many of the most serious patterns of abuse by Ethiopian troops, such as indiscriminate attacks on civilians, summary executions and repeated targeting of hospitals," wrote Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, in an open letter to Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.

However, the international media by and large remain morally selective in what they show to the world.

Somali caricaturist, Amin Amir (AminArts.com,) depicts this morally selectivity on his December 12, 2007 cartoon. The powerful imagery shows a representative of the international media zooming his camera on a severely malnourished child standing in the middle of a killing field where many bodies are on the ground and Ethiopian fighter jets are flying overhead and dropping missiles. The child retorts: I don't need your coverage; it is these atrocities – pointing to the dead-- that you need to be telling the world.

The current Somali nightmare was exacerbated by the systematic assassination of Somali independent media groups who are not pro TFG and the Ethiopian occupation. And the silence of the international community on this matter is deeply disturbing and sadly deafening.
This year alone, eight Somali journalists were killed- their crimes being to have simply dared reporting the reality on the grounds of Mogadishu. The TFG & Ethiopian forces are terrorizing Somali reporters creating an uncomfortable environment of terror and coercion.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund, one-quarter of the refugees around Afgooye are younger than age of five. Sick children and pregnant women often are turned away at checkpoints, and trucks carrying food and other humanitarian aid are routinely charged $500 each for passing through.

"Things are now getting absolutely worse," said Christian Balslev-Olesen, the UNICEF representative for Somalia. "There is a dirtiness to this war. Children are a real target."
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Sadia Ali Aden is a mother, writer, and voice for justice and equality who lives in Virginia

Kenyan elections

The results of the Kenyan elections, the closest in the country's history, will come out tomorrow. I've been following it closely but I don't have time to write much about it. Luckily Kenyan bloggers are doing a great job covering it. These are probably the best three sources:
Kenyan Pundit: Ory's coverage is the best and the most insightful out there. GV has a good coverage as well. Finally, Aljazeera English has probably the best coverage in MSM and most of their reports are on Youtube.

Photo: Gun and Money in Somalia

This is amazing photo was taken by Giovanni Gallio in Somalia. The photo shows a man in a car counting money with a gun by his side; it tells a whole story specially that it was taken in somalia.

Moving ...

I'll be going back to work tomorrow after having almost two weeks off. I thought I would get to write more and basically get to do more of things like gym-ing, reading, photography and household chores; i think it has been fifty-fifty (no blogging but I got to do almost if thing else).

But the big news is that this blog will be moved, when time permits, to a new location: http://awarsame.com/blog. I'm still working on the theme, something I don't really like to fiddle around, and that would take me couple more days. When it's ready, this blog will be automatically routed to the new location but for now stay tunned.

Bhutto's murder

Yesterday Benazir Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi, it's a shocking news and one of those things you remember where you were at the time (I received the news from a friend through twitter while having a late lunch). The news sent shock waves through Pakistan, making an already dangerous political atmosphere even more charged. Bhutto became the youngest prime minister, and first female, not only in Pakistan but in the Muslim world. She also fled Pakistan twice on charges of corruption, mostly directed towards her husband; she always denied them, but the charges never went away.

The barbaric nature of her murder shows how deeply violent Pakistan has become; the government blames Alqaeda and Taliban, that was expected!. But it couldn't have been the government; this was a huge blow to Parvez Musharraf who wanted the elections to go ahead peacefully, to gain some legitimacy, and Bhutto was the most suitable candidate to rebuild his image in the West. But now that she's gone, he's stuck with his arch-rival Nawaz Sharif.

No one knows how things will turn out in Pakistan after the elections now that the government has decided not to postpone them, but the political turmoil is set to continue as long as Musharraf is in control.

Who cares?

A useless news item - circled red - is placed right at the top, why? It might matter to a Brits but the rest of the world doesn't give a shit! Talk about messed up editorial priority.

A Japanese Youtube user has posted an Aljazeera Arabic news clip with the title アルジャジーラの美人キャスタ, I don't speak Japanese but thanks to Google Translation this what it apparently meant "Al-Jazeera's beauty castor".

Daniel Pipes on Aljazeera

Daniel Pipes was on Aljazeera's debate program "The Opposite Direction". Pipes is a vocal opponent of Aljazeera and frequently appears in this programs as well.

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Latest on Somalia

Somali president Abdullah Yusuf has been rushed to hospital in Nairobi, he's 'seriously ill'.

The new prime minister Nur Hussein has named his cabinet, only few ministers were changed. One of the new faces is the new foreign minister who's from Australia, I came into contact with him briefly. The big change was that some of these minister are not in the parliament, before the government was constrained to appoint only parliamentarians.

UN envoy says the international community has done little to help the internally displaced Somalis (estimated at over 1million).