Somalia Why the new American 'blueprint' is dangerous for Africa
http://www.africasia.com/services/opinions/opinions.php?ID=1157&title=duodu

Under the Neem Tree:
by Cameron Duodu - February 2007

It is important for the AU not to be fooled into sending troops to Somalia, because such
a peacekeeping force will ultimately legitimise the American/Ethiopian invasion.

According to The New York Times of 13 January 2007, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December (see p24 of this issue of NA) constitutes a "new blueprint" by which the US military wishes, in future, to conduct "proxy wars" through "surrogates".

Meanwhile, Ethiopia has been protesting to the high heavens against anyone who observes that it went into Somalia in collaboration with the US to attain objectives laid down by the US. Ethiopia claims it invaded Somalia in pursuit of its own "self-defence". In a letter to the British daily, The Guardian, on 9 January 2007, in reply to an article I wrote for the paper entitled, "America's New Puppet", the Ethiopian ambassador to London, Mr Berhanu Kebede, said (inter alia):
"Cameron Duodu seems to have sympathy for Ethiopia in that he feels it should not be drawn into a protracted war with terrorist extremists and al-Qaida collaborators. Ethiopia went into Somalia for reasons of self-defence. Is Mr Duodu aware that Ethiopia tried on eight occasions to have a dialogue with the Union of Islamic Courts, which had declared a jihad against Ethiopia. While we appreciate the long-standing partnership that we have had with the US, it should be clearly understood that Ethiopia acted to protect its national sovereignty, peace and stability."

Unfortunately for the Ethiopian ambassador, his insistence that Ethiopia went into Somalia for reasons of self-defence is not borne out by the facts. On 13 January 2007, The Guardian reported that General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces from the Middle East through Afghanistan, arrived in Addis Ababa on 4 December to meet the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. Officially, the trip was a courtesy call to an ally. Three weeks later, however, Ethiopian forces crossed into Somalia. The US followed up by launching air strikes in Somalia against so-called "suspected al-Qaida operatives" believed to be hiding among the fleeing Islamist fighters.

"The meeting [between Gen Abizaid and Zenawi] was just the final handshake," said a former intelligence officer familiar with the region. Washington and Addis Ababa may deny it, but the American air strikes exposed close intelligence and military cooperation between Ethiopia and America, fuelled by mutual concern about the rise of Islamists in the chaos of Somalia.

Pentagon officials and intelligence analysts even say a small number of US Special Forces were on the ground before Ethiopia's intervention, in an operation planned since last summer, soon after the Islamic Courts Union took control of Mogadishu. Press reports have said US Special Forces also accompanied the Ethiopian troops crossing into Somalia.

"The main cause of delay was the weather," said Mark Schroeder, Africa analyst at the intelligence consulting firm, Stratfor. The critical turning point was the end of the rainy season. "While Ethiopia could move small numbers of troops and trucks as a limited intervention into Somalia, they needed to wait until the ground dried up," Schroeder added.

"Once they moved in, the [Ethiopian] troops were accompanied by US Special Forces, [emphasis added]," analysts say. For America, the relationship with Ethiopia provides an extra pair of eyes in a region that it fears could become an arena for al-Qaida. "The Ethiopians are the primary suppliers of intelligence," said one analyst. However, he said, it was almost inconceivable that the US would not have sent its Special Forces into Somalia ahead of the Ethiopian intervention. In return, the US is believed to have provided the Ethiopians with arms, fuel and other logistical support for a much larger intervention than it has previously mounted in Somalia.

"[The US] has also made available satellite information and intelligence from friendly Somali clans," a former intelligence officer said. "America's renewed interest in the Horn of Africa dates to November 2002 when the US military established its joint taskforce in Djibouti, now the base for 1,800 troops, including Special Operations Forces. The under-the-radar approach was necessitated by the State Department's opposition to any type of military intervention in Somalia. Until the middle of last year, diplomats remained hopeful of negotiations between the Somali government and the Islamic Courts Union. By last June, when the Islamists seized Mogadishu, the Pentagon appeared to have won that bureaucratic struggle."

The interpretation put on the Ethiopian action by US officials deflates - if it needed any deflation - the claims made by the Ethiopian ambassador to London that Ethiopia acted in its self-defence. American officials who talked to The New York Times told the paper that:
"Military operations in Somalia by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian Army as a surrogate force [emphasis added] to root out operatives for al-Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe.

"Military officials said the strike by an American gunship on terrorism suspects in southern Somalia . showed that even with the departure of Donald H. Rumsfeld from the Pentagon, Special Operations troops intended to take advantage of the directive given to them by Rumsfeld in the weeks after the 11 September attacks.

"American officials said the recent military operations have been carried out by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command, which directs the military's most secretive and elite units, like the Army's Delta Force. The State Department and Pentagon took control of Somalia policy in the summer, after a failed effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to use Somali warlords as proxies to hunt down the al-Qaeda suspects."

Now, it is true that Ethiopians and Somalis have not been the best of friends during their existence as neighbours. But so many countries signed the Charter of the United Nations, and that of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, now the African Union) precisely to create international instruments under which enemies can live in peace with each another.

There are procedures for protesting against hostile acts committed by one nation against another. The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia may have spewed threatening words against Ethiopia, but Ethiopia should have complained to countries that have some influence over the UIC. That Ethiopia resorted to invasion, when it is the African country entrusted with the custody, in its national vaults, of the original OAU Charter, is a gross betrayal of everything the AU stands for.

Doesn't Ethiopia realise that by invading Somalia with the military collaboration of the US, it is giving respectability to the action of a country that is such a law unto itself that it deceived the UN with barefaced lies, and tried to hoodwink the UN into allowing it to invade Iraq, and when the UN refused to authorise such an invasion, went ahead and invaded Iraq all the same?

For an African leader to ignore this and go marching into its neighbour's territory in the company of a country that knows no self-restraint, is beyond belief. Has Meles Zenawi forgotten that the US action in Iraq has gone down in history as being the same as what the Italians did, when they invaded Ethiopia in 1935?

People say that Zenawi invaded Somalia to divert attention at home from the consequences of last year's "election-rigging" in Ethiopia, and the high number of protestors killed by the Ethiopian army in Addis Ababa and elsewhere in the country. Zenawi should ask Mengistu Haile Mariam whether one can ever be absolved from killing peaceful protesters. After all, Zenawi's courts have just sentenced Mengistu to life imprisonment, in absentia, for crimes he committed against the Ethiopian people more than two decades ago.

It is important for the AU not to be fooled into sending troops to Somalia, because such a peacekeeping force will ultimately legitimise the American/Ethiopian invasion. Of course, it is necessary to restore peace and order to Somalia. But the AU must recognise that most Somalis would regard an AU-enforced peace as military intervention on the side of a government licking the boots of Ethiopia and the US. Peace under such a regime will not last. And, indeed, already, the "Somali government" is facing attacks by the supporters of the very Islamists who are supposed to have been "defeated".

What the AU must do is to recommence the process of genuine negotiations between the Somali factions that took place in Kenya and Sudan, and which very nearly produced a government acceptable to a majority of Somalis, until the CIA began to sabotage the negotiations.

~Now You Know. What Now?
http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/theblacklist
~Be a Conversation for Being Free.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/wo...fDjtDu7rjZlo5A

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 5 — European diplomats said Thursday that they were investigating whether Ethiopian and Somali government forces committed war crimes last week during heavy fighting in Somalia’s capital that killed more than 300 civilians.

The fighting, some of the bloodiest in Somalia in the past 15 years, pitted Ethiopian and Somali forces against bands of insurgents and reduced blocks of buildings in Mogadishu, the capital, to smoldering rubble. Many Mogadishu residents have complained to human rights groups, saying that the government used excessive force and indiscriminately shelled their neighborhoods.

On Thursday, Eric Van der Linden, chief of the European Commission’s delegation to Kenya, said that he had appointed a team to look into several war crime allegations stemming from the civilian casualties. “These are hefty accusations,� Mr. Van der Linden said. “We are examining them very prudently.�

In an e-mail to Mr. Van der Linden marked “urgent,� a security adviser to the commission wrote that there are “strong grounds� to believe that Ethiopian and Somali troops had intentionally attacked civilian areas and that Ugandan peacekeepers, who arrived in the country last month, were complicit for standing by. The e-mail was provided by someone who thought that the issue should become public and its authenticity was confirmed by commission officials.

Ethiopian, Somali and Ugandan officials denied Thursday that their soldiers had done anything wrong.

A war crimes case is about the last thing Somalia’s transitional government needs. Ever since it took control of Mogadishu in late December, the transitional government has struggled to pacify the city and win popular support.

Many Western diplomats had expressed hope that this transitional government, Somalia’s 14th, would end the seemingly interminable chaos that has enveloped the country since the central government collapsed in 1991. But so far, the government has failed to deliver the same level of stability that an Islamist administration brought during its brief reign last year. It was overthrown by Ethiopian-led forces, with covert American help.

Mogadishu has become so dangerous — again — that many residents say they are now doubting whether the government will be able to hold a major reconciliation conference scheduled for mid-April. The Ethiopian military struck a truce with insurgents on Sunday, though, and the past three days have been quiet, giving beleaguered residents a chance to bury their dead.

The European Commission has no authority to prosecute war crimes and would have to refer any findings to the International Criminal Court. But commission officials said they were investigating the accusations because the commission has provided money and technical assistance to the transitional government and the peacekeeping mission here there.

A Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic considerations predicted that even if there were compelling evidence of war crimes, the case would probably never get to court.

Another Western official, speaking anonymously for similar reasons, said, “At the end of the day, no one is going to want to further undermine the transitional government.�

Diplomats, and analysts from Somali and international organizations predicted Thursday that the American government would resist the European effort because Ethiopia is a close American ally, valued as bulwark against Islamic militants in the Horn of Africa.

In the past week, human rights groups have been urging someone to look into the civilian casualties issue. The Somali Diaspora Network, an American-based advocacy group, accused the transitional government and Ethiopian forces of “collective punishment� and genocide.

The Somali Disapora Network said that Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the transitional president, warned in a recent radio interview that “any place from which a bullet is fired we will bombard it regardless of whoever is there.�

Several of the analysts said that they believed Ethiopian forces overreacted in last week’s fighting. One analyst who works closely with Somali issues said Ethiopian soldiers may have panicked after they were surrounded by insurgents in Mogadishu’s main stadium and commanders responded by carpet-bombing the entire neighborhood.

Ethiopian officials denied this.

“Our forces have been praised for not attacking civilians and nothing in recent days has changed,� said Zemedkun Tekle, spokesman for the Ethiopian government.

Abdirizak Adam Hassan, chief of staff for Somalia’s transitional president, did not deny that many civilians had been killed. “Unfortunately, this is what happens when you fight in a city,� he said.

But, he said, the government was simply trying to defend itself.

“For a good two months, these insurgents have been attacking our government compounds, planting land mines in the road, assassinating people,� he said. “Our job is to protect the people, not kill them.�

Killing hundreds of civilians is not an overreaction, it's a war crime.

Gotta love the Americans and their verbal propaganda, they go into Iraw create a civil war, killing hundredsof thousandsand it's still just sectarian violence

They invade Somalia using the ethiopians and TFG puppets, and when the local people resist against the invaders, they're labelled "insurgents". And the world looks away, while America commits crimes and tramples on every Muslim and anti-americannations sovereignty.

Family email reveals the new terror in Somalia

Ayan, a Somali living in London received the following email from her mother last weekend.

It catalogues the growing destruction and violence unleashed on Somalia by the US-backed Ethiopian forces and their Somali allies:

“We have lived in Mogadishu for 60 years and we have never known fighting on the scale of what we have suffered in the last week.

“The Ethiopian troops have been using tanks and missiles to demolish whole parts of the city which they say are held by Al Qaida supporters.

“But these areas are ones which refused to support the Ethiopian invasion, and do not want the warlords to return.

“There is shelling all the time. It is completely indiscriminate. They are just destroying homes and shops.

“This is a time of great fear.

“Queues of people are fleeing. Some have cars but many are on foot.

“Dad did not like it when the United Islamic Courts ran the city – because they did not want people to watch football and because your brother got in trouble for chewing khat. But now he wants them back.

“We have suffered so many wars. Is it not time for peace?�

lSudan Ali Ahmed, chair of the Elman Human Rights Organisation in Somalia, spoke out against the bloodshed on Monday.

“In the last four days we have registered 381 deaths and 565 people wounded,� he said.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees noted that, “Some 56,000 people fled Mogadishu in March, with most (47,000) leaving the city since 21 March.�