Somalia is a failed State: The Economist.

[SummerRain]

Somalia is still a failed state


Friday, August 17, 2007

Even hope is in short supply as violence flares in Mogadishu




WHO was behind the murder in the past week of two prominent journalists in Mogadishu, Somalia’s wretched capital city? Ali Imam Sharmake, the director of the country’s respected HornAfrik Radio, was killed while returning home from the funeral of a colleague, Mahad Ahmed Elmi, head of the city’s Capital Voice Radio. Mr Elmi, also a popular presenter, had been shot dead earlier the same day by unknown attackers. Mr Sharmake's jeep was blown up by a remote-controlled landmine—the cowardly assailants watching from a nearby alley. The double killing was a miserable reminder in the rubble-strewn city of how far Somalia has to travel if it is ever to become a normal country.

Both men had been defiant in the face of threats, providing balanced reporting on the tense local situation. The Somali government said the killings were “obviously” the work of Islamist insurgents and quickly picked up two men it says were responsible. The suspects were also accused of trying to murder a Reuters correspondent. Were Islamists behind it all? The device that shredded Mr Sharmake was apparently of a type used by Islamist fighters in the city, but no one really knows. Life in Somalia, for journalists and other civilians alike, remains perilous and miserable.

The killings in Mogadishu are not going away. This week alone at least 30 people have been murdered and 60 seriously injured, most of them civilians. In one incident a grenade was thrown at police from a crowd. In the chaos that followed somebody, perhaps a policeman, let fly with a gun and several others were killed or injured. Elsewhere there were also bombings, mortars, attempted suicide attacks and sniper fire.

Life grinds on, but insecurity keeps down an already feeble economy. Unlike Iraq, Somalia has no oil revenues (although some, including Chinese firms, are rumoured now to be looking) or Pentagon job schemes to keep poverty at bay. Some 1.5m Somalis, about 20% of the population, are thought to need humanitarian aid. An estimated 3,000 civilians flee Mogadishu each week, most of them to disease-ridden camps at the edge of the city. The World Food Programme says that since June insecurity has made proper distributions of food impossible. Even the sea is unsafe: some food shipments have been intercepted by pirates.

Mogadishu, in any case, remains too dangerous for non-Somalis to visit. So most outsiders with an interest in helping the country do their talking in Nairobi, the capital of next-door Kenya. The Somali government wants to create a Green Zone for foreign visitors, but that would not be likely to have much impact given the world’s indifference. America backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December, in order to bring down an Islamist group that had control of Mogadishu and much of the south of the country. The Americans have promised Somalia more cash and appointed a new envoy, based in Nairobi. But this seems to be little more than window-dressing. America’s main interest is not in creating regional stability but in catching a few suspected al-Qaeda operatives, who may or may not be in Somalia.

America is not alone in its clumsiness. A report issued this week by Human Rights Watch, an NGO, blamed the Somali government and Ethiopia for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in fighting in Mogadishu earlier this year. The shelling of neighbourhoods, occasionally with phosphorous bombs, and summary executions of civilians, caused 400,000 people to flee the city. Oddly, the report made little of the Islamist insurgents, whose fighters took cover in the neighbourhoods. Ethiopia, in particular, was bitter in its denial of the report's findings, calling it “factually and morally repugnant”.

But Ethiopia was meant to be gone from Somalia in February, to be replaced with peacekeepers from the African Union. The fact that it is still the main occupying force reflects the listlessness of the AU operation. So far, of 8,000 peacekeepers promised by the AU only 1,600 Ugandan troops have arrived. Meanwhile, the Islamist insurgents are evidently as determined as ever, remaining a threat to Somalis and, perhaps, to their neighbours as well.

Source: Economist.com, Aug 17, 2007


http://www.hiiraan.com/news2/2007/aug/s ... state.aspx

[galia]

Somalia is not a failed state its simply an occupied country

[Somaliweyn]

''shelling of neighbourhoods, occasionally with phosphorous bombs,''



It is true that Ethiopians used chemical weapons like phosphorus bombs and probably some nerve gas.

As the last Human Rights report said, they used phosphorus bombs when they were in stalemate against the mogadishu fighters.


A Murasade guy lost 2 of his brothers during the April fighting, he himself fled to Cairo and told that the Ethiopians used in one of their last assaults some chemical weapons like nerve gas.

In the beginning I thought it was an exaggeration, but after reading the report of HMR, I started to believe him, since after all they used phosphorus and other heavy weapons to break the stalemate.

But fortunately anno August 2007, the daily attacks continue after the heavy fighting in April/March.

[Somali2003]

A familiar theme of the Western Press! When the country was invaded and occupied, they would write that Somalia have become a terrorist haven. Like they did before, every bad thing that happens in Somalia is blamed on Somalis.

Hypocrites are always hypocrites.

[galia]

Resistance must continue we must bog down the ethiopans in somalia so they don't have a chance to attack eritrea or maybe somaliland in the future, they must learn fighting somalis is a big mistake, and they will regret, we will bring down the Tigre regime and forever make dem regret comming inside somalia.


Well said somali2003, walahi ur exactly right the devil behind the mess in the Horn of africa is the white man himslef, he is the one that funnels money to meles.

[Somaliweyn]

''they don't have a chance to attack eritrea or maybe somaliland in the future''

You mean Somalia.

[SummerRain]

Hypocrisy indeed!.

Of late, its reported to me by sources back home, that the Ethiopian forces have been taking away patients, wounded and some in life and death circumstances from hospitals. The whereabouts of these patients are unknown, which is definitely a violations of humanitarian sanctuaries such as hospitals. Similiar events take place daily in civilian homes as well. Civilians are disappearing out of nowhere and are taken to unknown places. These so called "govt officials" are also going into people's homes and killing husbands, fathers, sons, brothers infront of their female relations and children. Inevitably, this always creates a violent outburst from resisting movement who on their part attack the TFG/Ethiopian forces. Its really a chaotic situation there, and I dont know how much the creation of the "GREEN ZONE" will make the situation any different. These people are willing to die for this fight, and where there is a will, there is a way.

[Alluring]

Somalia is not a failed state, but a failed ideology. Southern Somalia lack education, and they've brainwashed for the past 17 years (primarily the children). Somaliland actually think they aren't Somali and believe that political hegemony works, they have to have the brains of elephants. Caade Muuse in Puntland stealing and probably other illicit acts.

[galia]

Somali people need to understand that the cancer of somalia is not cos of Mj's rather it is because of ethiopia, they are the root and the cause of all our evil and our problems.

At the end of the day the Mjs are our brothers and they live amongst us, and are related to us, they are not to blame but ethiopia is where the blame is.

If i was not for ethiopia the warlords would have run out of bullets abt 10 yrs ago.

If it were not for ethiopia we would have had islamic goverment by now and our children would have been off the streets and in the classrooms.