Somali “Leaders” Squabble as Militants Gain Momentum
By J. Peter Pham, Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia
Last week, the “prime minister” of the internationally-recognized but otherwise utterly ineffective interim government of Somalia resigned. In itself a not altogether negative development, the departure of Ali Mohamed Gedi should bring that much closer the end of the tragic farce that has been, by most counts, the fourteenth attempt at a national government for the war-torn territory since the collapse of the brutal dictatorship of Muhammad Siyad Barre in early 1991. For now, however, the regime’s “president,” Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, clings tenaciously to his illusory “power”: immediately after forcing Gedi’s ouster, he appointed a non-entity by the name of Salim Aliyo Ibro as “acting prime minister.” And, and for reasons best known to the denizens of Foggy Bottom, the United States Department of State seems willing to indulge these fantasies, sending out department spokesman Sean McCormack to make an anodyne declaration:
We understand that the decision of Ali Mohamed Gedi to resign as Prime Minister of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was made in the spirit of continued dialogue and national reconciliation among all Somali stakeholders.
We call on the Transitional Federal Government to use this opportunity to engage with key Somali stakeholders, particularly those in Mogadishu, in a consultative process leading to the appointment of a new Prime Minister. We urge all Somali stakeholders to renew their efforts towards political dialogue and to remain focused on resuming the process outlined by the Transitional Federal Charter. Successful dialogue and reconciliation is critical to ensuring free and fair elections in 2009 and establishing lasting peace and stability in Somalia.
The problem with Assistant Secretary McCormack’s statement is that it bears no relation to reality.
First, the TFG has never been a government. It is, at best, an unrepresentative group of warlords with meager prospects until they rebranded themselves as a “government.” As I noted in my testimony last month before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health:
Since its creation at an internationally-funded kaffeeklatsch outside Somalia, the TFG has proven itself to be, at best, a notional entity whose day-to-day physical survival is – aside from generous U.S. and other international aid flows – due entirely to the continuing presence of the Ethiopian intervention force which rescued it last December from certain collapse in the face of an assault by the forces of the ICU, which at the time controlled Mogadishu as well as most of Somalia and were threatening to overrun the provincial outback of Baidoa, the only town which the interim “government” even had the pretense of running. And, if it were not bad enough that the TFG is dominated by fellow members of “President” Abdullahi Yusuf’s Majeerteen sub-clan of the Darod clan from northeastern Puntland – a make-up that renders the would-be regime utterly unpalatable to the powerful Hawiye clan which predominates in Mogadishu – its ham-fisted style – documented in the August 13, 2007, report by Human Rights Watch covering the first four months of the year, as well as independent reporting by a number of journalists and non-governmental organization representatives, including some who have paid with their liberty or even their lives – has driven potential constituents en masse into the arms of its opponents, who are increasingly embracing a broad spectrum ranging from Islamists with foreign ties to alienated members of marginalized clans.
And, as the opposition to it coalesces, rather than examining the reasons for the dissatisfaction – including its failure reach out to leaders of other clans and moderate Islamists as well as its corruption and lack of transparency – the TFG has lashed out against independent voices that should be pillars of any attempt at nation-building, including the members of the press, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and other exponents of civil society. Instead, labeling these groups as “Hawiye terrorists,” it has sidelined them where it has not shut them down and arrested or killed their leadership.
Second, Ali Mohamed Gedi, who, as I previously disclosed in this column, is a ne’er do well who owed his exalted position in life to the fact that his father was once employed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as a glorified valet, most certainly did not leave the political scene out of any high-minded “spirit of continued dialogue and national reconciliation among all Somali stakeholders.” The “prime minister” had been at odds with the “president” for months over the spoils to be had by exploiting the only advantage the TFG really had, its status as an internationally-recognized entity, and the resources which could be had by trading on that commodity. Much to the chagrin of Abdullahi Yusuf and his friends, Gedi tried to consolidate his power by dismissing cabinet ministers not loyal to him personally and seeking control over the aid funds from various international sources, including the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union, as well as various Arab countries. Although the TFG is far from transparent, he apparently had some success. The cabinet – which, it should be recalled, actually does not have any real governing to do given the situation on the ground – was whittled down from over ninety ministers to just over thirty. And Gedi seems to have acquired some control over finances: he has gone, in little over two years, from being in literal flight from debt collectors to being the owner of an immense villa in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Tensions between the “president” and the “prime minister” came out in the open, however, over an oil deal which, as I reported here in August, the former had signed without the latter. When Gedi tried to bring that deal as well as others in the offing with a number of Chinese state-owned oil companies as well as several smaller independent Western enterprises under the TFG’s umbrella – so to have better access to the potential revenue flows – Abdullahi Yusuf began a series of machinations aimed at bringing about a no-confidence vote against the “prime minister” before the interim authority’s rump parliament. Matters finally came to a head in late September when the TFG’s own chief justice, Yusuf Ali Harun, was taken from his home in Baidoa (the provincial town where most of the “government” camps out given the insecurity in the putative capital of Mogadishu) by security officials and dragged along with another judge to a Mogadishu prison on orders of “Justice Minister and Attorney-General” Abdullahi Dahir Barre after the pair had the temerity to criticize the regime’s misappropriation of United Nations Development Programme funds for legal reform. Gedi then tried to sack the justice minister and his deputy who, in turn, refused to accept their dismissals saying that they were answerable only to “President” Abdullahi Yusuf.
Third, there are no “efforts towards political dialogue” going on, much less any real prospects of elections, fair or otherwise, in 2009. If anything, as I last reported in late September, the situation continues to degenerate. At that time, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had reported that some 400,000 people, almost quarter of Mogadishu’s population, has fled the city in the preceding four months. In the last three days of October alone, another 100,000 fled for their lives as the various insurgent forces battling the TFG took advantage of the political infighting to score additional gains and to rally members of Gedi’s sub-clan in Mogadishu to join their Hawiye clansmen against the regime and its Ethiopian backers.
Why should anyone care? In a column nearly eight months ago, I predicted that the anti-TFG resistance was “repeating almost step-by-step the tactical and strategic evolution of the Iraqi insurgency” – complete with suicide bombings, a tactic unknown in Somalia until last year. Spearheading the attacks is al-Shabaab (“the Youth”), an extremist group which emerged within the military forces of the erstwhile Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and which was originally led by Adan Hashi ‘Ayro, an al-Qaeda-trained kinsman and protégé of ICU shura council head Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys, whom I profiled last year. While there are reports of a split among the Islamists – rumors tell of a rift between ‘Ayro and former ICU defense chief Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siyad, a.k.a. “Indha’adde,” over who should command in Mogadishu – that has not stopped them from being remarkably effective in recent weeks.
In separate attacks on October 5, the Islamist militants killed a deputy attorney-general, Abdulkadir Sheikh Mohamed, a.k.a. “Ayatollah,” and a military intelligence official, General Ahmed Jila’ow Addow. Ayatollah met his end when a grenade was tossed into his car as it drove through Bakara market in Mogadishu, while Addow was gunned down in an ambush.
On October 10, al-Shabaab took credit (via an internet posting) for another attack, this time a suicide bombing of a military installation in Baidoa:
Praised be God, the most merciful, the most compassionate. Our brother Ahmed Hussein Ahmed used a vehicle to carry out an attack against the largest military base in Baidoa…[which] blew up a building, killing and wounding hundreds of soldiers, destroying six trucks, and [causing] major damage to the Hotel Bakin, where the prime minister was [staying.]
On October 17, Abdi Miney, the TFG’s district commissioner for Yaqshid, an important quarter of Mogadishu, was killed along with two bodyguards when al-Shabaab detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) under his vehicle. The explosion was so powerful that it propelled the wreckage of the battered vehicle some 400 meters off the paved road. Miney, who has only been on the job less than a month, was the third incumbent in a row to be killed by the militants.
On October 19, unknown assailants murdered Bashir Nur Gedi, the acting chairman of Shabelle Media Network, the largest independent journalistic outlet in Somalia, outside his home in Mogadishu. He was the eighth journalist killed since the beginning of the year.
On October 23, three Ugandan soldiers were injured in mortar attacks by insurgents. The three are part of the 1,600-strong contingent that is the only part of the promised African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) peacekeeping force to have actually deployed, the Nigerian, Ghanaian, Burundian, and other units being “no shows.” (And, as I have repeatedly noted, even if the entire authorized force materialized, it remains beyond delusional to think that a modest contingent of 8,000 Africans can succeed where the infinitely more robust UNITAF and UNOSOM II forces, with their 37,000 and 28,000 personnel respectively, failed barely a decade ago). The following day, October 24, another Ugandan peacekeeper was wounded in a grenade attack.
On October 25, two TFG soldiers were killed and four others seriously wounded when their vehicle was attacked by militants in Baladweyn, in central Somalia.
On October 26, more than a dozen Somali civilians were seriously wounded when a bomb was detonated inside a neighborhood movie theatre which was packed with young men watching a “Bollywood” film. During their rule of Mogadishu last year the ICU had banned such entertainments.
Last weekend, as intense battles were being fought between the Ethiopian forces protecting it and insurgents in Mogadishu itself, the TFG and its hangers-on seemed impervious to the ruin around them, preoccupied as they are with, in the words of one prominent Somali businessman who contacted me, “squabbling over the spoils of war, much like robbers fighting over the loot they have stolen.” Unfortunately, both for the welfare of the Somali people and for the security interest of the United States and its allies, it is precisely this type of infighting that not only encourages radicals like those in al-Shabaab and other components of the Eritrean-sponsored “Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia” (ALS) insurgency to press their advantage, but lulls ordinary folk into accepting the claims of the radical militants that only their brand of Islamism can provide security and stability in place of the TFG’s illegitimate politics and venal corruption. Rather than continuing to humor the tired actors in this failed production, it is high time that the U.S. nudges the international community to bring the curtain down on this farce before it turns into tragedy.
______________________ J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.
Dr. Pham is the author of over two hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).
In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies. He is also a frequent contributor to National Review Online’s military blog, The Tank.
Ethiopian Review sources are reporting that the Woyanne junta cut telephone services to Badme and other nearby towns in the past few days and moved all civilian government employees to Mekele over the weekend. The reason for cutting telephone services is to keep military movements in the area secret, according to ER sources. Eye witnesses also informed Ethiopian Review that hundreds of buses filled with soldiers are heading to the border. Yesterday, over 50 buses carrying new recruits left the city of Nazreth (Adama), according to residents.
Meanwhile, the American embassy in Addis Ababa has issued this warning to U.S. citizens:
In light of the recent increase in tensions along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa strongly advises American citizens to exercise caution when traveling to areas along Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea. The U.S. Embassy continues to restrict all travel of Embassy personnel to this region and recommends that American citizens residing in Ethiopia follow similar guidelines.
U.S. Embassy personnel have been advised to remain 60 miles from the Ethiopia-Eritrea border in the area east of Adigrat (Ethiopia) to Bure (Ethiopia), and the Djiboutian border; and 30 miles from the Ethiopia-Eritrea border in the area west of Adigrat to the Ethiopia-Sudan border, with the exception of the town of Axum.
American citizens who must travel in these areas are encouraged to avoid travel between urban areas at night, and to return to well secured locations in developed urban areas before nightfall. Travel into rural and undeveloped areas in close proximity to the above areas should be executed only when essential and with extreme care.
For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs internet website at http://travel.state.gov/, where the current Worldwide Caution, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings can be found. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada, or, for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8 AM to 8 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. Federal Holidays.)
The U.S. Embassy is located at Entoto Avenue, P.O. Box 1014, in Addis Ababa. American citizens with questions or concerns may telephone the Consular Section at 251-11-124-2424; emergency after-hours telephone: 251-11-124-2400; consular fax: 251-11-124-2435; website: http://addisababa.usembassy.gov/.
WILKES-BARRE – A Luzerne County jury Wednesday evening decided Shafi Brmaji knew the 52 pounds of the rare drug he was lugging from New York City to Michigan was illegal.
The jury deliberated for about three hours in finding Brmaji, 43, guilty of possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.
The issue of the two-day trial was whether Brmaji knew the rare drug, called “khat,” contained substances outlawed in Pennsylvania.
The term “khat” does not appear on the state’s list of illegal drugs.
But the khat contains cathinone and cathine, which are on the list.
Brmaji, along with his attorney, Nanda Palissery, told the jury he had no clue khat contained those substances.
But Assistant District Attorney Frank McCabe and state Trooper Louis Rossi argued Brmaji knew he was carrying an illegal drug back to his clothing store to sell.
It was the county’s first case involving the drug.
Khat is a natural stimulant from plants grown in Africa and Arabia. The leaves are typically chewed like tobacco and produce a mild cocaine- or amphetamine-like euphoria that is much less potent than either substance.
But Brmaji, an Ethiopian who has lived in the U.S. for 15 years, testified Wednesday he used it for making tea.
He never had any intention to sell the khat, he said.
And he never knew it contained the illegal substances, he said.
Rossi found the drugs, a scale, and $3,000 cash after stopping Brmaji for traveling 75 mph in a 65 mph zone on Interstate 80 in Sugarloaf Township.
He said he went to New York City to buy clothing for his store.
He ended up with no clothes on this trip. But he came upon the khat inside a grocery store.
He bought so much because he used it all the time in Ethiopia but has been unable to find it in the U.S.
And the scale police found was to weigh luggage, he said.
It was the second time Brmaji faced a trial in the case. A jury in May 2006 deadlocked on the charges.
McCabe and Rossi said the case would have been much simpler had the drug been marijuana or cocaine. They believe the rarity of the drug made prosecution and jury deliberations much more difficult.
Court of Common Pleas Judge Chester Muroski allowed Brmaji to stay free pending his sentencing in January.
McCabe said he is unsure on what type of sentence Brmaji faces because he is unsure what category the drug will fall into.
________________________
David Weiss, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7397.
MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali insurgents dragged the bodies of dead Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu on Thursday in the latest outbreak of fighting that has sent thousands fleeing the capital.
Witnesses said at least three Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers, who are backing the interim Somali government, were killed during battles in the Sqa Holaha neighbourhood in northern Mogadishu.
“I saw three Ethiopian Woyanne troops killed by insurgents. Crowds of people were chanting ‘God is great’ and dragging their bodies on the ground,” resident Deqo Ali told Reuters.
Images of dead Americans dragged through the streets by joyous Somalis deeply shocked U.S. public opinion, precipitating American withdrawal and contributing to the ending of the U.N. peacekeeping operation in 1995.
Ethiopian Woyanne corpses were also dragged through Mogadishu in March, during offensives against insurgent strongholds in which hundreds died.
Fighting in Mogadishu this year has sent hundreds of thousands fleeing the city and made aid delivery next to impossible in the capital.
Hundreds of residents burned tyres and poured into the streets of southern Mogadishu on Wednesday to protest against the Ethiopian Woyannes, who helped the government seize the lawless capital last year and are essential to retaining control.
In the south-central town of Baidoa, where the Somali parliament still sits, the United Nations country head urged legislators on Thursday to move quickly to stem the humanitarian crisis.
“I want to be clear here today that 1.5 million Somalis are in need of emergency aid. And the number of people that have been displaced goes up 850,000,” U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Eric Laroche told parliament.
“We have to be able to help them and we have a problem reaching them.”
Parliament’s main order of business will be approving a new prime minister to succeed Ali Mohamed Gedi, who resigned last week after a feud with the president.
President Abdullahi Yusuf told parliament, which has approved a legal change allowing non-legislators to serve as prime minister and cabinet ministers, that he would work quickly to find a replacement.
“We now have a challenge to nominate a prime minister, which I promise I will do by consulting with you,” Yusuf said. Neither he nor his allies have said whom they are considering.
Diplomats say the legal change has widened the pool of qualified leaders from beyond the parliament, which counts among its members many illiterate warlords and clan leaders.
They hope the interim government will be able to bring in qualified leaders from the Somali diaspora.
The feud between Yusuf and Gedi has stalled progress by the government, the 14th attempt at imposing central rule since the 1991 overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the Horn of Africa country into anarchy in 1991.
ETHIOPIAN-AMERICANS and FRIENDS of ETHIOPIA in OKLAHOMA For H.R. 2003
Protest rally on Tue. Nov. 13, outside Senator Inhofe’s Oklahoma City office, 1900 NW Expressway Suite 1210, Oklahoma City, OK 73118. TIME: 10:00A.M.
In its most recent human rights report on Ethiopia (April 5, 2007), the U.S. State Department concluded:
The [Ethiopian] government’s human rights record remained poor in many areas. Human rights abuses reported during the year included the following: unlawful killings; beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees and opposition supporters by security forces; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly of those suspected of sympathizing with or being members of the opposition; detention of thousands without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of the press; arrest, detention, and harassment of journalists for publishing articles critical of the government; restrictions on freedom of assembly and of association; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children; female genital mutilation; exploitation of children for economic and sexual purposes; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities and against religious and ethnic minorities; and government interference in union activities.
Human Rights Bill in Congress
On October 2, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously and with full bipartisan support passed H.R. 2003 (“Ethiopia Freedom and Accountability Act of 2007). This bill urges the government of Ethiopia to release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the country and prosecute individuals who have committed gross human rights violations. Additionally, it provides financial support to strengthen human rights and civil society groups and build democratic institutions including a court system free of political interference and an elections system that is free from fraud and political manipulation. The bill is currently in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Inhofe has placed a “hold” on the bill in the Senate preventing consideration by the full Senate. He says the “bill is misguided and takes the wrong approach by placing demands on a friend and ally that has made obvious advancements in democracy and human rights.” He further claims that the bill will “derail progress Ethiopia has made in furtherance of democracy and supporting human rights.”
Ethiopia Human Rights Bill Advances American Foreign Policy in the Horn of Africa
H.R. 2003 advances U.S. foreign policy in the Horn of Africa in several ways: 1) support he growth of democratic institutions by helping establish a free and competitive electoral process, independent judicial institutions and democratic civil liberties, 2) bolster all existing counter-terrorism efforts and allow the continuing delivery to Ethiopia of peacekeeping and security assistance, 3) allows delivery of all humanitarian assistance and food aid programs to Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Americans Protest Senator Inhofe’s Hold on Human Rights Bill
Ethiopians in Oklahoma and the United States strongly protest Senator Inhofe’s “hold” on H.R. 2003.
We believe Senator Inhofe’s “hold” on the bill will result in the continued detention of thousands of political prisoners in Ethiopia, prevent the prosecution of human rights violators, undermine the growth of democratic institutions and civil liberties.
______________________
For Immediate Release
November 08, 2007
Contact Person:
Mr. Muluneh Zeleke, Spokesperson
Tel #: 405-314-4560
ETHIOPIAN-AMERICANS and FRIENDS of ETHIOPIA in OKLAHOMA For H.R. 2003
Protest rally on Tue. Nov. 13, outside Senator Inhofe’s Oklahoma City office, 1900 NW Expressway Suite 1210, Oklahoma City, OK 73118. TIME: 10:00A.M.
In its most recent human rights report on Ethiopia (April 5, 2007), the U.S. State Department concluded:
The [Ethiopian] government’s human rights record remained poor in many areas. Human rights abuses reported during the year included the following: unlawful killings; beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees and opposition supporters by security forces; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly of those suspected of sympathizing with or being members of the opposition; detention of thousands without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of the press; arrest, detention, and harassment of journalists for publishing articles critical of the government; restrictions on freedom of assembly and of association; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children; female genital mutilation; exploitation of children for economic and sexual purposes; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities and against religious and ethnic minorities; and government interference in union activities.
Human Rights Bill in Congress
On October 2, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously and with full bipartisan support passed H.R. 2003 (“Ethiopia Freedom and Accountability Act of 2007). This bill urges the government of Ethiopia to release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the country and prosecute individuals who have committed gross human rights violations. Additionally, it provides financial support to strengthen human rights and civil society groups and build democratic institutions including a court system free of political interference and an elections system that is free from fraud and political manipulation. The bill is currently in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Inhofe has placed a “hold” on the bill in the Senate preventing consideration by the full Senate. He says the “bill is misguided and takes the wrong approach by placing demands on a friend and ally that has made obvious advancements in democracy and human rights.” He further claims that the bill will “derail progress Ethiopia has made in furtherance of democracy and supporting human rights.”
Ethiopia Human Rights Bill Advances American Foreign Policy in the Horn of Africa
H.R. 2003 advances U.S. foreign policy in the Horn of Africa in several ways: 1) support he growth of democratic institutions by helping establish a free and competitive electoral process, independent judicial institutions and democratic civil liberties, 2) bolster all existing counter-terrorism efforts and allow the continuing delivery to Ethiopia of peacekeeping and security assistance, 3) allows delivery of all humanitarian assistance and food aid programs to Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Americans Protest Senator Inhofe’s Hold on Human Rights Bill
Ethiopians in Oklahoma and the United States strongly protest Senator Inhofe’s “hold” on H.R. 2003.
We believe Senator Inhofe’s “hold” on the bill will result in the continued detention of thousands of political prisoners in Ethiopia, prevent the prosecution of human rights violators, undermine the growth of democratic institutions and civil liberties.
______________________
For Immediate Release
November 08, 2007
Contact Person:
Mr. Muluneh Zeleke, Spokesperson
Tel #: 405-314-4560
