(Associated Press) MOGADISHU, Somalia – Masked fighters occupied a key business district and residential neighbourhood in the Somali capital Saturday, saying they had forced Ethiopian Woyanne troops to withdraw and urging locals to return home.
Some 100,000 people have fled the 20-square-kilometer (8-square-mile) residential area surrounding Sodonka Road, a busy business area in southern Mogadishu, amid fighting in the last month between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia’s shaky, transitional government.
The Ethiopians Woyannes gave no reason for their departure Saturday, though they had been under pressure from rights groups to vacate civilian houses.
‘We are the ones who forced the Ethiopians Woyannes to withdraw from the residential areas,’ one fighter told The Associated Press, giving his name only as Ahmed for fear of reprisals.
Another said ‘the fighters were not insurgents or Shabab,’ referring to the armed wing of an Islamic Courts group that briefly took power in parts of Somalia last year. ‘We are mujahedeen,’ he told journalists at a hastily assembled news conference.
3 thoughts on “Somalis kick out Woyanne from a key Mogadishu neighbourhood”
I hope this article will help you Mr. Ilias Kifile , Abebe Belew and Mirchaw Sineshaw how to work for CUD in order to distroy TPLF instead of each other this is not my article I found it from Ethiopiafirst and I just thought it will help people like you.
How Not To Mobilize The Diaspora
By: Dessalegn Asfaw
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A few weeks ago, Ethiopian-Americans in Seattle managed to raise $65,000 in support of the pro-democracy Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP). Seven years ago, Eritrean-Americans in Seattle , in a single day, raised over $1,000,000 for the Eritrean government’s war effort against Ethiopia.
This stark comparison is not entirely fair. The Eritrean nationalist cause has certain galvanizing properties – it is virtually ethnic-based and has a strong sense of ‘minority alienation’ – that explain why Eritreans, though far smaller in number than Ethiopians, have always worked together more effectively for their cause. Today’s movement for democracy in Ethiopia does not have these properties. Nevertheless, such comparisons serve as a reminder of what it takes for social movement to hope to succeed, and that the Ethiopian democracy movement has yet a long way to go in this regard.
Most would agree that the vast majority of Ethiopians in the diaspora, even the most disaffected and apolitical, lament the lack of freedom and democracy in Ethiopia . Yet, getting the ordinary diasporan to move beyond lamentation and into active civic participation has always been a struggle. This problem is not confined to politically-related causes; it is but one manifestation of a larger problem – the general lack of social capital and civil society in Ethiopian society both at home and in the diaspora. The participation rate of diasporans in voluntary organizations and civic institutions, be it a community association, a children’s language school, a charity, a church, a chamber of commerce, a think tank, etc. – is relatively low compared with that of other immigrant groups. When asked to participate, suspicion and cynicism reign: ‘Who is behind this; how is this going to help me; who is the money going to; how do I know it won’t be stolen; it isn’t going to do any good anyway!’ Most of us in the diaspora have heard and uttered such sentiments. Those who have been actively involved in civic society and have tried to canvas for volunteers or to raise funds are intimately familiar with the civic malaise in the Ethiopian diaspora.
Perhaps the most positive outcome of the 2005 CUDP phenomenon was the way it mobilized the diaspora into civic participation to an extent never seen before. Folks who for years or decades had lived in civic dormancy suddenly awoke. Diasporans moved, however gingerly, from guilt-ridden inaction to timid participation. People started lobbying their local politicians. Fund raising activity, though modest, reached an all-time high. Some CUDP supporters in the U.S. even entertained moving into the big leagues of civic advocacy by hiring a lobbying firm.
Then came the diaspora CUDP supporters’ row that began in early 2006, followed by the current conflict amongst the CUDP executive. The resulting public relations disaster has firmly returned the diaspora to cynicism and inaction. Today, ask a random Ethiopian diasporan if he would be willing to donate money for the pro-democracy cause, and the answer would be no. ‘Aren’t they still fighting amongst each other?’ he would ask. Many have become utterly pessimistic about the prospects of good leadership and democracy in Ethiopia . ‘How could these leaders we have trusted so much do this?’ is a common refrain that I am sure most of us continue to hear. The flame that shone in the diaspora, though not fully extinguished, has been dimmed to a flicker.
This development should not have come as a surprise. Decades of experience illustrate that the Ethiopian diaspora is a delicate and fickle resource. It is difficult enough to get diasporans to support a common cause even under the best of circumstances. But if the image of cause is tarnished by the slightest hint of conflict or negative public relations, then mobilizing the diaspora grassroots becomes nearly impossible.
This reality makes it easy for anyone to play the role of spoiler. Even the most minor and peripheral parties can play spoiler by muddying the reputation of a given civic cause. Consider the current policy of the Ethiopian government to pressurize diaspora civic institutions by aggressively creating competing hollow parallel organizations, knowing that this will help cause divisions and infighting in existing institutions. The government has little diaspora support and little hope of increasing its support, but yet effectively plays role of spoiler. A spoiler does not gain support or resources at the expense of his opponent – he only manages to decrease the whole pie! We see this happening in the current CUDP conflict, with certain CUDP support leaders persisting in defaming their colleagues, in essence defaming CUDP, knowing they have no hope of gaining mass support. To state the obvious – the CUDP conflict is a classic lose-lose situation. If CUDP supporters in North America were to split into two or three groups, their combined strength and resources would add up to a tiny fraction of the strength and resources they would had had they been unified.
Knowing this, how could the protagonists in the current CUDP conflict let it escalate out of control? There are three possible reasons. First, perhaps they think that the pro-democracy movement can be sustained without harnessing significant support, both in terms of advocacy and fund raising, from the diaspora grassroots. Maybe they think that the political climate in Ethiopia is so conducive to fund raising and campaigning that there is no need to lobby donor regimes to pressure the Ethiopian government! Surely, neither the leadership of the CUDP support groups nor the CUDP executive are so naive.
Second, perhaps they think that there can actually be a winner in the CUDP conflict and that the winner will then be able to mobilize the diaspora grassroots. This would demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of the Ethiopian diaspora and of the Ethiopian public. As I have demonstrated above and as confirmed by recent history, the diaspora has difficulties supporting even the most pristine organizations, let alone those tainted by conflict. The fact that the CUDP delegation, just out of prison, with as compelling a story as one can get, will be leaving North America with under a million dollars is telling.
Finally, perhaps CUDP conflict participants do indeed understand that the diaspora is important yet fragile, but are more interested in fighting their little fratricidal battles than in fighting for democracy in Ethiopia. Certainly, their behaviour seems to indicate as much. Not only supporters at large, but leading members of CUDP support groups have engaged in shockingly vindictive and vitriolic rhetoric against each other. They continue to expend their meager resources towards perpetuating rather than resolving their conflict. These combatants in the CUDP conflict are proving to be no less an impediment to democracy in Ethiopia than the current government.
How can the brief civic awakening that took place in 2005 be resurrected? How can the diaspora be re-mobilized? How can the diaspora be encouraged towards more civic participation? The answers to these questions are difficult and any successes are likely to take place in the long run, but here are two necessary conditions for there to be progress. First, the CUDP executive and support leadership must stop the bleeding, put an end to their infighting, and instead devote their resources towards repairing CUDP’s severely tarnished public image. Second, there needs to be a lot of work in nurturing and cultivating a strong civic culture in the diaspora. CUDP, given its popularity and its message of democracy, which goes hand in hand with strong civil society, has a major role to play. But it can only play this role once it has rehabilitated its image and shown itself to be an example of a harmonious and effective institution. The larger role must be played by members of the diaspora themselves. There needs to be a greater awareness and sensitization of the importance of civil society for the Ethiopian diaspora in their everyday lives. Only a society with a proven capacity for civic organization can expect to foster strong political organizations. It is fair to say that only when the diaspora can boast a variety of strong voluntary organizations and civic institutions can it hope to have a significant and positive collective impact on democracy and development in Ethiopia.
Dessalegn Asfaw
[email protected]
Woyane has failed to learn from history.it is realy sad that they forgot their roots.there is a time to be Hero and to be down.in human history there no one dictator who stayed for eternity.we tell for woyane and his followers to leave ethiopian and somalian ppl as soon as possible.if not the conseqence will be unimaginable
*****************IT IS NOT LATE*****************************
we will win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My worry is Woyanne will leave somalia soon. that is the worst news for me. It may be the best news for somalia. why? becasue I know if woyanne stays longer like another 6 months in Somalia, then that will be the last time we hear in somalia. thousands of new fighters and groups are joining the shabab and with the insurgency in oagden getting ever stronger, i just can’t believe woyanne will survive this. this is not wishful thinking. i have deep knowledge about both those areas. bane yehunibaach! just pray woyanne stays more time. everyday i get news of young Somali’s going back from nairobi to join the fight. by the way, the most possible song in Somalia now is:
” ninkii dhoof ku yimid baa geeridu dhibaysa” ( death must be worrying for some one who is not in his home-land)
” wakhtigii dhamaayo wuu dhaqaaqi doonaa” (Time is up and he will surely be kicked out).