George Galloway stands up against US and UK support of Ethopia's intervention into Somalia

Warlords Next Door?

Channel 4 Video Documentary

Dispatches reveals how key politicians at the heart of the vicious fighting in Somalia - described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis - enjoy incredibly close links to Britain. They have British or EU passports, their families live here and they commute between Somalia and homes in English cities. British taxpayers are financing them in the name of democracy - yet in Somalia they are linked to allegations of mass murder, torture, extortion and corruption.

Part 1

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Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Our Government’s Dirty Little Secrets.

House of Commons debates - Wednesday, 11 June 2008 -

By George Galloway

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn .—[Ms Diana R. Johnson.]

Mr. Galloway: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This Adjournment debate was scheduled to begin at 7 pm and last for half an hour. I have spoken for 10 minutes, and the country—or at least those interested enough to watch on parliamentary television—will not hear the Minister reply.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood. The Adjournment debate is now starting, which means that he has so far had bonus time. This is one of the procedures, as far as the House is concerned, we have to go through.

Mr. Galloway: That is truly magnificent, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I have plenty to say. Perhaps I will be able to quote Amnesty International in more detail in the time that I did not think that I would have available.

This policy is not only morally bankrupt, it is politically disastrous. Afghanistan is the perfect example, but the Ethiopian Government preside over a country where famine and mass starvation stalk the land. They are being helped militarily to invade, occupy and threaten their neighbours. What can that conceivably do for our standing in Africa, or for our credibility when we lecture the Governments of Sudan or Zimbabwe?

It would be bad enough if our difficulties in that respect were confined to Africa, but the problem is much worse. The Somalians are the tallest people on earth, but they are virtually invisible, politically, on the international stage and in this country. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of Somalians here, either because they have European Union passports or because they are refugees from the very fighting that we initiated and are now fuelling. Increasingly, young Somalis are furious, bitter and angry. They nurse their wrath as they watch—on Somali television or other Muslim channels—the carnage being wrought in their country.

Two million people in Somalia are living as refugees, out of a population of 11 million. That is almost a fifth of the total: to scale it up, in our country that would amount to 12 million people. There are another 1 million Somali refugees in neighbouring countries, and God knows how many hundreds of thousands are scattered across the EU.

In their bitter exile, the sons—and may be the daughters too—of those Somali families are being brought up bitter and furious at the role played by the west in the problems that they see on their televisions screens. We have spent hours this afternoon trying to deal with the problem of terrorism, but we cannot see how that connects with the way that we constantly infuriate young Muslim boys and girls with the double standards and injustices of our policy towards their countries and the countries from which their parents come.

We cannot see the connection between the growth of extremism and our actions. The Government are always looking for a cleric or an organisation to ban or to blame for the radicalisation of Muslim youth in Britain. But those young people do not need a cleric or an organisation to radicalise them: they just have to watch the news and see what our Government are doing in Muslim countries such as Somalia.

I know that the Minister has seen Channel 4’s “Dispatches” programme. She will not claim otherwise, even though she is answering a debate on human rights in Somalia. I hope that she will do a better job than Lord Malloch-Brown did when it comes to explaining how are taxes are being used. Among other things, that tax money could be used to help starving people in Ethiopia. It could be used to keep our pensioners warm in winter or to keep some post offices open.

I see that the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is Under-Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister responsible for closing post offices, is standing by your Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that that counts as being in the House and that it is therefore in order for me to refer to him.

The British tax money that I have mentioned could have been used for a better purpose, but instead it is being spent on the security forces in Somalia, which Amnesty International, as well as Channel 4, accuses of widespread abuses of human rights—of torture, murder, disappearances, kidnapping, extortion and grand larceny. Why are we allowing the Interior Minister of Somalia to travel back and forth into our country unmolested when he is accused by aid agencies of purloining international aid—desperately needed emergency aid for hungry people—for himself and for political purposes for his political clan? Why are the Government not stopping him at the border and questioning him about where the money went that was put into Somalia and has disappeared?

Aid agencies will not now, by and large, set foot in Somalia, so catastrophic has the situation there become. I ask the Minister why we are supporting the President, the Interior Minister and the chief of police in Somalia, and allowing them to come and go freely without answering the charges that are being made against them? When will the Government at least condemn the human rights abuses in Somalia? Amnesty has voluminously recorded them, but not a squeak has come from the Government, which has never done roaring at Sudan or Zimbabwe. Why? Because we are deeply complicit in that. Indeed, we are paying for it; we are paying for the security services that are committing these crimes in Somalia.

The Government might think that because most Somalis in Britain do not, for one reason or another, have votes, they can be ignored—that tall as they are, they can be disregarded. However, the truth is that the Somali community in Britain’s loathing of the actions of our Government is a ticking time bomb in Britain. I, if not the Minister, am constantly exposed in my constituency, and in Birmingham and Leicester and other places, to the anger of these young Somalis. There is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope that the Minister will announce today that, in the wake of the Channel 4 revelations, she will investigate the allegations properly, and that she will report her findings to the House.

I am talking in my speech tonight about not only the current British Government’s foreign policy towards the horn of Africa and Afghanistan, but about previous Governments’ foreign policies, too. I remember being on the Opposition Benches and accusing the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, of having opened the gates to the barbarians by her support for the so-called mujaheddin in Afghanistan so many years ago. The policy that our Governments have followed of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” has proved to be fatally flawed everywhere that it has been tried, and it is now being tried all over again in Somalia.

Many Somalis will be watching our debate this evening—word is out about it in the Somali community, and it is being shown on Universal TV and other Somali channels. For their sake, I hope that the Minister will come clean about the dreadful problems that exist, and I also hope that she will say some words to the Ethiopian Government.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having secured this debate. I apologise for having arrived late for it; I was caught somewhat unawares as it began early. What is best for Somalia and its people is, of course, security. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Ethiopian Government are providing security in Somalia at present, and that they want to withdraw from Somalia at the earliest possible moment? Will he also join me in encouraging the United Nations, the African Union Mission in Somalia—AMISOM—and the African Union to ensure that troops are put back into Somalia in order to give Somalis that security, which they need? Ethiopian troops want to return to Addis Ababa.

Mr. Galloway: I do not accept that at all, and it seems that I know the Ethiopian Government rather better than the hon. Gentleman does. As I explained before he came in, I knew them when they were pro-Albanian Maoist guerrillas in the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front. I knew all the leaders—they are now the Government Ministers—and I know that they have no intention of withdrawing from Somalia unless they are forced to do so. They want to occupy Somalia because they have been paid to do so by the Government of the United States and our own Government. The Ethiopian Government are doing a job for what they imagine to be the western part of the international community. I see the Minister for closing post offices laughing. His constituency contains many Somalis, as does mine, and I hope that the camera caught him laughing.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jim Fitzpatrick): I apologise for intervening on the hon. Gentleman, but I must point out that I did not laugh at anything that he has been saying so far.

Mr. Galloway: I shall not go further down that track. Perhaps the camera caught the verisimilitude.

The truth is that the Ethiopian Government are carrying out a service for the people who give them weapons, for the people who give them money and for the people who give them diplomatic and political support. They are having a beano in the Ethiopian embassy next week. Perhaps the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) will go to it; he will certainly get an invitation in the post following his intervention. The Ethiopian Government are having a beano in the Ethiopian embassy in London to celebrate the 17th anniversary of their coming to power, and it is going to be a very grand event.

That event comes at a time when the Ethiopian Government’s own people are starving to death. Their children are starving to death—120,000 children have a month to live—they are invading and occupying their neighbouring countries and nobody says boo about it. In fact, far from saying boo, people are saying, “Here’s some more military and financial aid to do it.” That is because the Government of President Bush, who are utterly discredited and on their way out, with virtually nowhere to go except Downing street on Sunday for one last photo call, regard the defeat of the former Islamic Government in Somalia as part of their war on terror.

That is what this is all about. Ethiopia is playing the role of hammer in the horn of Africa for the policy of the United States and its war on terror. That is what Ethiopia is doing, so it will not withdraw until a new American Government, hopefully with a Kenyan-affiliated President, tell them that actually this policy is deeply flawed. The puppet regime of British citizens imposed on Somalia by the Ethiopian invasion would not last five minutes if the Ethiopian forces withdrew—that regime would have to withdraw with them. So, any Government who come to power in Somalia in the future will be filled with hatred of Britain and the United States.

That is the problem that we keep making everywhere; we intervene either to prop up tyrants or to support tyrants because we do not like the tyrants that they are fighting against, and we generate still more problems for ourselves. We wonder why that is, and we agonisingly debate anti-terrorism laws. We wonder why so many people in the Muslim world want to hurt us. We wonder why so many young people in the Muslim world are so bitter and angry about us that they want to hurt us. Is it any wonder? Can it be any wonder to any sane person? I beg the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to believe me when I say that it is because of the kinds of policies that I have described. I talk to Somalis all the time, and I know that the rage the Somali community both in Britain and around the world feels about Britain and America’s role in their country generates terrorists. As the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), who saved the Government’s bacon earlier this evening, is in his place and as we spent so many hours discussing anti-terrorism, let me spell it out: we are making new terrorists in Britain with our policy towards Somalia, with our double standards and with our hypocrisy.

Mark Pritchard: While the Government of Ethiopia are not perfect—indeed, there are Governments closer to home who are not perfect—it is right that human rights abuses by the Somali security services are fully investigated. Nevertheless, does the hon. Gentleman accept that if Ethiopian troops withdrew, it would create a security vacuum in which terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, would create mayhem in the horn of Africa, which is a key strategic location, and that would come back to haunt us?

Mr. Galloway: I said in this House when it was recalled a few days after the atrocity of 9/11 that if we handled it the wrong way we would make 10,000 new bin Ladens. We have handled it the wrong way, and we have made 10,000 new bin Ladens. The problem of al-Qaeda in Somalia has been made worse by the western intervention and the Ethiopian invasion. Far more people have been recruited to a narrow, fundamentalist, separatist, violent Islamism by our policy than ever would have been if that policy had never been formed.

The hon. Gentleman obviously has not read the Amnesty International document. The Ethiopian forces are not providing security: they are providing mass murder and terror in occupied Somalia. The refugee camps are full with 2 million people. No one can walk on the streets of Mogadishu. Channel 4’s reporters were almost killed making their programme. Some of the team on the same vehicle with them were shot dead live on television—

Mark Pritchard: By Somalis.

Mr. Galloway: I do not know if they were shot by Somalis or Ethiopians. The point is that the country has been plunged into utter lawlessness, and to pretend that the Ethiopian Government are providing security is completely ridiculous. The words Somalia and security should not even be mentioned in the same sentence.

There may be a need for African Union forces or Arab League forces. This conflict will go on and I hope that the Minister will not claim that the deal reached this week is any kind of solution to the problem. The people who are doing the fighting are not involved in the deal. It is like a peace process in the north of Ireland that excluded the people who were doing the fighting. That is what has happened in relation to Somalia in the past few days.

I am grateful for the extra time that I had for this debate, and I apologise for my churlish point of order, which turned out to be entirely misconceived. I hope for some answers from the Minister this evening.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Meg Munn): I welcome the opportunity to reply to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) in this debate. I see this as an excellent chance to highlight how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seeks to address a number of issues relating to Somalia.

As my noble Friend Lord Malloch-Brown, the Minister for Africa, said in his statement this afternoon, we congratulate the Somali transitional federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia on reaching agreement on the cessation of violence. That agreement was signed by both parties in Djibouti on Monday and witnessed by members of the international community. I wish to thank the UN Secretary-General’s special representative, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, on his continued efforts to mediate in the talks between the parties which resulted in the agreement. This is a positive step and we look forward to all parties fulfilling their commitment to cease armed confrontation. We are committed to working with the UN to support this process.

Human rights issues in Somalia are longstanding and complex. They cannot be attributed to any one cause, and there are no easy or obvious solutions. Somalia is not like other countries. Serious violence, lack of governance structures and the deteriorating humanitarian situation have been ongoing for 17 years. Many in Somali society have been brutalised by years of violence. It is therefore often individuals, not answerable to any particular group or commander, who carry out abuses on their own initiative. That makes it even more difficult to prevent further abuses and to bring those responsible to justice.

Given that complexity and the insecurity in Somalia, there is little opportunity to monitor the situation reliably or gather and verify facts or allegations. Reporting is often biased and may be exaggerated to exert influence on the international community. The only sustainable way to address human rights in the long term is to engage in effective state building, concentrating on developing institutions, parliamentary accountability, an inclusive security sector and delivery of basic services. Short-term fixes that do not focus on state building will mean we return to the issue year after year, prolonging the suffering of the Somali people.

Reports of incidents and accusations of human rights abuses by Ethiopian troops are difficult to corroborate and have been categorically denied by the Ethiopian Government. Ethiopian troops in Somalia are carrying out a role that security providers in Somalia do not have the capacity for. Many critics forget that fighting between militias went on for 15 years before Ethiopia intervened, at the invitation of Somalia’s transitional federal Government.

African Union member nations have not yet committed to contributing sufficient troops to allow for full deployment of the African Union mission in Somalia, which currently has only 2,400 of the 8,000 troops mandated. Further planning for a possible UN mission was called for by UN Security Council resolution 1814, although that is unlikely to be mandated soon. Evidence from other Ethiopian peacekeeping deployments indicates that they make a positive contribution to missions. Ethiopian troops are likely to form the largest contingent of the UN-African Union mission in Darfur.

We regularly engage with human rights organisations, listen to their views and appreciate their efforts to gather information and evidence on human rights. We and they fully acknowledge that allegations of abuse are made against all parties to the conflict in Somalia. We sponsored an Arria meeting at the United Nations in New York on 31 March to enable Governments and the non-governmental organisation community freely to discuss human rights and humanitarian issues and to exchange views on how to achieve progress in Somalia.

The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow might be interested to know that in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), I said:

“We unreservedly condemn all proven incidents of human rights abuse and expect those responsible to face justice.”—[ Official Report, 3 June 2008; Vol. 476, c. 832W.]

My noble Friend the Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown, raised the issue of human rights in Somalia with the Ethiopian Prime Minister in late January 2008. Our ambassador to Ethiopia regularly raises the issue of respect for human rights in Somalia at senior levels of the Ethiopian Government. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials in London and at the UN have also raised the issue with their Ethiopian counterparts.

Ethiopia has told us that it intends to withdraw from Somalia and that it has reduced force numbers by more than half since late February 2007. The Ethiopian Government are extremely positive about the newly signed peace agreement, which includes a strategy for their withdrawal from Somalia. Until Ethiopia withdraws its troops completely, we urge them to use only appropriate force, adhere to international humanitarian law and respect human rights. However, for Ethiopia to withdraw from Somalia before an effective alternative force has been established would risk creating a dangerous security vacuum. Somalis would suffer the most from such a development.

The UK is a leading contributor to world efforts to rebuild the Somali state. We support the efforts of the UN Secretary General’s special representative for Somalia to engage with civil society and to help bring about social and political reconciliation that will lead to greater respect for human rights and religious freedoms for all Somalis. Through helping to shape UN Security Council policy, and our membership of the EU and the international contact group, we press for greater focus on human rights in Somalia. We asked the UN to enhance its capacity to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Somalia and 11 Jun 2008 : Column 434
Council resolution 1814, unanimously adopted on 15 May, and the EU General Assembly and External Relations Council conclusions, adopted on 26 May, support the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including the independent expert for Somalia, and encourage them to undertake a fact-finding and assessment mission to Somalia to address the human rights situation.

We co-chair the donors group and are the second largest bilateral humanitarian and development donor. We are also the second largest bilateral donor, after the US, for the African Union mission to Somalia. We are a key donor to the UN Development Programme effort to develop a full justice system, including improving the police force and the judiciary and penal systems to an internationally acceptable standard. I understand that the hon. Gentleman thought that that issue was a matter for the Department for International Development, but I can confirm that it is a policy area of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

We value human rights highly. No other states are as active as the UK on human rights issues in Somalia. We urge other states to join our efforts and encourage international human rights organisations to concentrate their advocacy activities on pressing other less active states for support, too.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Seven o’clock.

Original article posted here.

The CIA's African follies

Dyer: CIA behind Somalia's bloody occupation by Ethiopian troops

Gwynne Dyer

On Friday, it will be is exactly a year since Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, fell to Ethiopian troops and the occupation has been one of the most brutal on record. The resistance started at once, and Ethiopian counter-insurgency tactics are not gentle.

As early as last April, Germany's ambassador to Somalia, Walter Lindner, wrote a public letter condemning the indiscriminate use of air strikes and heavy artillery in densely populated parts of Mogadishu, the systematic rape of women and even the bombing of hospitals. By now, the Ethiopian army's attempts to terrorize the residents of Mogadishu into submission have driven 600,000 of them - 60 percent of the population - to flee the city.

The Ethiopians and their local allies indignantly deny these figures, but they come from the United Nations aid coordinator for Somalia, Eric Laroche, and the makeshift camps along the roads leading away from Mogadishu are there for all to see. It is, says Laroche, the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa, worse even than Darfur. But "since it is in Somalia, no one cares."

You will notice that some of the phrases used above do not appear in the agency reports about Somalia. The wire services do not talk about an Ethiopian occupation of Somalia, and they refer to the local Somali collaborators as the "transitional federal government," or TGF. This is mainly in deference to the United States, which organized and backed the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

The curse of Somalia is the clan system. It is the main point of reference for most Somalis, and it really became a crippling burden when long-ruling dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. In the pre-independence days and the early years afterwards, the clans were able to unite against their Italian and British colonial rulers, but in 1991 they had to create a new government without an external enemy. They couldn't do it.

As the clans fought it out in the streets, the whole infrastructure of an organized state collapsed. By 1992 American and United Nations forces arrived to help the millions of famine-stricken refugees, but they were only drawn into the inter-clan fighting as well, and by 1994 they had all withdrawn, leaving Somalia to anarchy and civil war for the next decade. But in fact most of the country was fairly stable under the control of one clan or another, with only the Mogadishu area still a battleground between rival clan warlords.

This did not greatly inconvenience the United States, which developed a keen interest in the politics of the region after the atrocities of 9/11. At first the U.S. just made deals with the various warlords to ensure that no jihadi fanatics created a base there. But it got more upset when an organization called the Union of Islamic Courts chased all the warlords out of Mogadishu in 2006 and gave the capital its first taste of peace and good government since 1991.

The UIC was actually created by prominent merchants from the locally dominant Hawiye clan who wanted a safe environment in which to do business. The "Islamic" aspect of it was mainly there to provide a rallying point that other clans could identify with, though that obviously also attracted a certain number of earnest and bearded young men. Some of them, unfortunately, favored a rhetorical style that triggers a knee-jerk reaction in jittery post-9/11 Americans.

The people of Mogadishu, enjoying their first taste of normality in 15 years, overwhelmingly supported the UIC, but the United States decided it must be overthrown. To do the job, Washington turned to its close ally Ethiopia, Somalia's perennial enemy. The Ethiopians, who have no interest in a stable and strong Somalia, were happy to oblige - and for diplomatic cover, the U.S. could use the "transitional federal government" of Somalia.

The TFG had been created in Kenya in 2004 under UN auspices. Each of the major clans (Hawiye, Darod, Dir and Rahanweyn) appointed 61 members to a "parliament" while all the minor clans shared 31 members between them. The "parliament" then chose a president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. It was the 14th attempt since the overthrow of Siad Barre to create a Somali government.

The TFG set up in the town of Baidoa in early 2006, and promptly went to war with the Union of Islamic Courts that controlled the capital. Since it had only about 5,000 soldiers of its own, the TFG depended from the start on far larger numbers of Ethiopian troops to do the actual fighting. Large numbers of government members resigned as it became clear that the TFG had fallen into the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Ethiopians, but a force of about 20,000 Ethiopian troops (with some U.S. air support) fought its way into Mogadishu a year ago.

With the occupation of Mogadishu, the interval of peace ended, and the past year's fighting has driven more than half the city's population into flight. The TFG has been permanently discredited by its link to the hated Ethiopians, but it will probably take more years of war to end the occupation, and a lot more Somalis will die. All because they called it the Union of Islamic Courts.

If only they had called it the Union of Buddhist Courts. Or Protestant Courts. Anything but the "I" word.

GWYNNE DYER is a London-based independent journalist.

Original article posted here.

Why Weazl hates being right . . .

Weazl knew this was going to happen FOUR MONTHS AGO

Somalia faces aid crisis, says UN

Many of those displaced in the fighting are women and children

The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster in Somalia, as fighting continues between insurgents and government-backed Ethiopian forces.

More than 200,000 people have fled their homes amid ongoing clashes in the capital, Mogadishu, the UN said.

Aid workers say the city is inhabited only by fighters and men protecting the remains of their property.

At least 20 people have been killed in the latest clashes, with artillery being used in residential areas.

The clashes made it hard to deliver aid to the displaced, the UN says.

Most people lacked food and water and hundreds had already died from cholera and diarrhoea, UN humanitarian co-ordinator Eric Laroche said.

"It is time that we get access to the people in Mogadishu," he said.

'Aid blocked'

The renewed fighting in Mogadishu comes after at least 20 people were killed on Thursday after an Ethiopian convoy was mined 20km from Mogadishu on the southern road to Afgooye.

Eyewitnesses said there had also been a big explosion at an Ethiopian army complex south of the city.

Eyewitnesses say a troop carrier was mined in the attack

Correspondents say it is not known what triggered the fighting in the city on Thursday morning.

"Six consecutive missiles hit... There are many wounded," said Hassan Ibrahim, as he drove a minibus full of the wounded to a hospital.

The shelling was centred around the central presidential palace, the former defence ministry and a former secondary school in the north.

An eyewitness who saw the explosion at the Ethiopian army base told the BBC Somali service the rising debris and smoke looked like a "flying mountain".

He said people fleeing the area told him that after the blast Ethiopian troops started firing at people passing by; bodies are reported to be strewn along the street.

The insurgents are believed to be a mixture of Islamist fighters and militiamen from the Hawiye clan - the largest in Mogadishu.

Ethiopia helped government forces oust Islamists from Mogadishu last December but violence has intensified after the relative calm when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) ran the city.

BBC East Africa correspondent Adam Mynott says the displaced are living scattered across southern and central Somalia in appalling conditions.

There are also claims that the transitional government has blocked aid from getting to some of those who need it.

Somalia has not had an effective national government for 16 years.

Last month, more than 1,000 people were killed in the heaviest fighting sine 1991.

The Ethiopian troops have started to withdraw, to be replaced by an African Union peacekeeping force.

But only 1,200 troops, of the 8,000 the AU says it needs, have been deployed.

Original article posted here.

When you can never have enough enemies

Somalia : another war "Made in USA "

Global Research, January 10, 2007

INTERVIEW OF MOHAMED HASSAN

This is not a war between Ethiopia and Somalia . This is a war of the USA against all the peoples of the Horn of Africa.

Analysis by Mohamed Hassan

To understand what is happening in the Horn of Africa, the nature of the TPLF-regime of Zenawi Meles in Ethiopia that sent its troops into Somalia last month must first be explained.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was created in 1975. In its first manifesto it said its main objective was to create the Independent republic of Tigray. This is a narrow nationalist and racist approach that makes language the first factor to unite or divide people. There was opposition to this narrow vision within the TPLF itself as well as within the other organisations and fronts that fought against the Mengistu regime, the dictatorship of that time.

The mainstream idea was that Tigray was part of Ethiopia and there was no reason to claim independence for Tigray. The main objective for the liberation struggle in Ethiopia was to create a new Ethiopia based on equality of nationalities and brotherly relations with all neighboring countries. After 50 years of war this very rich region inhabited by poor people desired a new start and the beginning of a developing economy.

Zenawi Meles is a great demagogue and a liar. He uses Marxism-Leninism today and tomorrow he will use Buddhism. The day after he will read a few books and be the champion of Hinduism against Buddhism. He hid his narrow Tigray-nationalist agenda of TPLF and created the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray to gain control of the TPLF and eliminate all opposition against his narrow racist ideology within it.

In the eighties when the struggle against the Mengistu dictatorship became stronger he also created the EPRDFF which was a larger front of different organisations representing different nationalities living in Ethiopia , under the leadership of the TPLF. Meles pretended to unite Ethiopian nationalities in the struggle for the liberation of Ethiopia, but all the time its real objective was the creation of a greater Tigray, that controls the other nationalities and regions in Ethiopia.

Once the Mengistu-regime fell, a transitional government was formed. The EPLF (Eritrean People Liberation Front) from te neighboring country Eritrea that was occupied by Ethiopia, convinced all the other organisations who were members of this government that it was better to give military control of the country to the army of TPLF. When Zenawi saw that in the regional elections of 1992 the Omore liberation front won they began eliminating its members from the government and the OLF left the government. Instead of following a policy of integration of the different nationalities, Zenawi followed a policy of "divide and rule" against all the other nationalities in Ethiopia

Today Zenawi's unbelievably narrow and reactionary dream of "a greater Tigray" has become reality. The population of Tigray is only 6% of the Ethiopian population (76 million) and Tigray is a poor region, situated at 800 km from the capital Addis Ababa. But it is Tigray-people who control 99% of public services and 98% of trade.

All opposition and protest is brutally repressed and the rule of the TPLF/EPRDF is maintained by narrow racist nationalist policies that divide the different Ethiopian nationalities.

In reality this is a very dangerous situation first of all for the Tigray people itself. I know many people from Tigray who have lived their whole lives in Addis Ababa and who flee the country, because they fell themselves more and more hated each day by their neighbors of whom the overwhelming majority are non Tigray.

At the same time the regime is very weak and depends completely on the support of the USA .

The May 2005 elections were a big defeat for the EPRDF. The official results published a month after the elections put the EPRDF in a minority position of 45%. The EU observers confirmed the defeat of the EPRDF. However the official election committee did an "investigation" and finally gave 60% to the EPRDF. The leaders of the main opposition parties were put in jail and many people were killed.

In the past year, the opposition inside Ethiopia has become more radical. In August 2006, a group of high-ranking officers led by General Kamal Galchuu joined the Oromo Liberation Front. In the Orome area a real intifadah started up and a few months ago, the OLF launched an appeal to all opposition groups to join the united front ADF (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom).

The USA is pleased with the situation because this way it has a puppet that completely depends on its financial, political and military support. The Ethiopian state is becoming more and more a CIA-led state that is very isolated.

The conflict with Eritrea.

In fact the military capacity of the EPRDF in the eighties was relatively weak. It was its close relationship with the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) that was militarily strong that made victory over the dictator Mengisthu in 1991 possible. It was the troops of the EPLF that liberated the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. But the EPLF was a liberation movement of a neighboring country, Eritrea, that had been occupied by Ethiopia since 1952 and was annexed in 1962. And the objective of the EPRF was to liberate Eritrea from the Ethiopian occupation. So it formed a close alliance with the EPRDF/TPLF to topple the Ethiopian government. Once this was done, the EPLF took over the administration of Eritrea and organized in Eritrea a referendum in 1993 where more then 98% of Eritreans voted for independence. While in Ethiopia a transitional government was formed led by EPRDF/TPLF.

The EPLF held on to its ideals of a liberation movement that wanted to develop its country for the interest of its people. So it followed a policy based upon self-reliance, mobilising the population, installing national structures, refusing outside interference via Western NGOs and controlling foreign trade. The EPLF also followed a policy based on national integration and cohabitation of the 9 Eritrean nationalities and the two religions (Christian and Muslim).

This was just the opposite of the policy Zenawi followed in Ethiopia that was based on privatisation, foreign donors and the policy of International institutions such as the IMF and the WB. Confronted with this difference, Eritrea decided in 1997 to stop using the Ethiopian pound and chose to have its own currency, the Nakfa.

From then on, there were many provocative acts and killings of Eritrean officers and soldiers at the border that triggered off a war, which lasted from 1998 to 2000. It was a catastrophic war; on the Ethiopian side 135.000 soldiers died. In fact the Ethiopians lost the war and were forced to accept the Algiers agreement in 2000.

The agreement included three phases: 1. A commission of the International Court in The Hague would decide on the territorial dispute and the exact location of the border. 2. Another commission of the International Court would decide on the claims of the two parties for confiscation or damage to property of citizens thate were confiscated by the other side. 3. Finally a commission of the African Union would decide on the question which country started the war and should have the responsibility to compensate for the immense damage that was caused by the war. The two first commissions have already concluded in favor of the Eritrean position and claims. It is almost certain that the third commission will condemn Ethiopia, because the Ethiopian government accused Eritrea of starting the war by an air-attack against the city of Adi-Grat and occupying the village Badima. This story of Eritrean jets bombing this city was a lie; once the commission examines this story, the truth will be crystal clear. What is more: the first commission already decided that Badima was Eritrean territory.

So there is a sword of Damocles hanging above the government of Zenawi Meles. Until now the African Union, under pressure from the USA, postponed the foundation of the third commission. But sooner or later, this third commission will be formed.

The very risky war against Somalia

The extremely fragile position of the Meles-regime can explain its offensive to attack Somalia last December. Indeed, by attacking Somalia under pretext of attacking "the allies and even members of Al Qaeda" Zenawi wants to position himself as a friend of the U.S. and Bush's strong man in the Horn of Africa in the US global war against Islamic terror. But this is a very risky operation.

First of all, Ethiopia and Somalia have had a long history of animosity and wars. For the Somalis the Ethiopian invasion is an aggression of an archenemy. It could be compared to a military intervention by Germany in Belgium or France. Somalis are one people, have one language and one religion. The only factor that is dividing them is the clans. Confronted with a foreign occupation force, however, they can unite and deal heavy blows. It was the Americans themselves who experienced this in 1993. At that moment they had sent 30.000 marines to the country in a military operation called "Restore Hope". But soon they had to withdraw because of their losses and the fact that the dead corpses of American soldiers were dragged through the streets in front of the cameras.

Second, the Somali people are tired of the chaos and destruction of 16 years of a warlord regime. However it is just the same warlords who have been protected and brought to power again in Mogadishu by the Ethiopian army. The warlords were hated before by all Somalis for their corruption. Now they will be despised as traitors and stooges for the number one enemy of the Somali people, Ethiopia.

Third, The overwhelming majority of Somalis saw the Islamic Courts as a stabilizing factor. This support of the Islamic Courts was not a support for international terrorists. Most jihadists do not speak Somali and few speak Arabic. They stand out too much with their different eating habits and clothing. When the population helped the Islamic Courts to defeat the warlords in a few weeks time and then to liberate practically the whole country in six months, it was because they were tired of the anarchy, the pillage of the warlords. You must know that since 1991, 3 million Somalis have left the country and the Somali diaspora are often modern secular people who try to help their country in spite of the warlords' corruption. And they are very ingenious at doing that. For example, in spite of all the chaos, Somalia is one of the only African countries where every village has good telephone communication facilities. There is an informal banking system (1 billion $ a year). There are five private airways and so on. A large number of Diaspora Somalis were willing to return to Somalia, and rebuild the country, once peace and security were ensured. When Somali businessmen went to the American embassy in Nairobi to invite them to come to Somalia and see for themselves that there were no Al Qaeda members in the Islamic Courts, the Americans refused. They will never forget nor forgive the USA and their puppet Ethiopia for bringing Somalia back to the reign of terror and chaos of the warlords. And in their eyes it is crystal clear that the talk about Al Qaeda's presence in Somalia is nothing else then the excuse, the lie that must justify the war. Just like the lies about the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam used to justify the aggression against Iraq .

Fourth, all Somalis are aware of the fact that in the sixteen years of anarchic rule by the warlords, there was never any initiative of the "International Community" to intervene in Somalia. However, just when the Islamic courts brought order and stability, they saw in November last year the UN Security council under the instigation of the USA vote the resolution 1752 that opened the door for the Ethiopian intervention that brought back the terror and anarchy they had just chased away. So the only way the common Somali can see this invasion is that of an aggression against the Somali people and nation.

Fifth, The invading soldiers of Zenawi in Somalia are largely from his Tigray Christian tribe. These soldiers do not speak the Somali language; once deep inside Somalia, they will be exposed to attacks by the locals. But also in Ethiopia itself, Zenawi needs these men back as soon as possible because he needs them to confront the growing revolt in his own country. It is true; the Americans are negotiating with Uganda and Nigeria to deliver 8000 troops to replace the Ethiopian army. But who will pay for this operation and will these poor governments take the risk of being sucked into the swamp of a guerilla war? Certainly the different neighboring countries such as Kenya and Uganda take high risks because there are many Somali refugees living in Kenya who will not forget nor forgive a Kenyan engagement on the side of Ethiopia.. The Ugandan economy largely depends on the Kenyan harbor of Mombassa, but 30 km of this harbor there is a city Lamui where Somalis are in the majority... So it may well be that Zenawi's troops will be forced to stay too long in Somalia and that they will be sucked into a swamp that will be fatal for the TPLF/regime.

What is the role of the Americans in this war?

The Zenawi regime is a rogue force used in the hands of American imperialism in the region. Since Antony Lake, Clinton's national security advisor, indicated Ethiopia as one of the four countries (the others were Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt) that are decisive for the defense of American interests in Africa, the government of Zenawi has had all the support it needed.

The Ethiopian army is at present being reformed as a local mercenary force in the service of the Americans that can be used against any country in the region. On one of the American army's websites, Stars and Stripes (http://www.estripes.com/), one could read on 30 December the testimony of one of the sixty American instructors who are training Ethiopian soldiers. Sgt. 1st Class Bill Flippo is an instructor based at Camp Hurso near in the city of Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. He says; "I feel that what I'm doing now is really helping to fight the war on terror," Flippo said. "The knowledge we are giving to these soldiers is what they will use if they go and fight in Somalia, Eritrea or wherever."

Many observers note that the invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia was not only encouraged, and protected by the USA , but even paid by USA-money. And after the first successes, American military participated directly with the Ethiopian army in the hunt for leaders of the Islamic courts.

What are the American interests in the region?

There is the presence of oil and gas reserves. Since 1986, four big oil transnational corporations received permission for the first time from the Somalian president Siad Barre to search for oil. And they found important reserves. But most of all : Somalia has a very strategic location. It has a coast of 3300km. This is the largest coastline in Africa. One part of this coastline is just in front of the most important region in the world for the moment, the Middle East. Another part of the coastline faces the Indian Ocean. You must know that before the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century, there was considerable traffic between India and Africa that passed by harbors on this coast. 10% of the words of the Somali language are words of Indian origin.

The Emir of the Indian State of Kudjrad had bodyguards that came from the Horn of Africa. In the Somali harbors there were also Somali who spoke Chinese. They were called "Abanas". They were translators between the Chinese and businessmen from the African hinterland.

This century the historical wheel is turning again towards the emerging countries of China and India . Chalmers Johnson, author and president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, cites Javed Burki, a former vice-president of the World Bank's China Department who predicts that by 2025 China will probably have a GDP of $25 trillion in terms of purchasing power parity and will have become the world's largest economy followed by the US at $ 20 trillion. (http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2259)

This year we also saw important efforts from China to increase its trade with Africa . China urgently needs oil and other minerals for its rapidly developing economy. And Africa can respond to that need. So the Horn of Africa has become a very strategic place for the next twenty years.

Since the Bush-government cannot control the whole world, they prefer a policy of deliberately destabilizing the whole region for many years, rather than letting it become a wealthy region that can play a key-role in the increasing trade relations between Africa and the new emerging economies of Asia .

There are Somalis living in different neighboring countries such as Ethiopia , Kenya , Djibouti . Somali nationalism has ignited and this war will extend into places like Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya, known until now mostly as a safari destination for Western tourists.

The peoples of the region are becoming mature. They see what is happening and their first reaction is that of horror. If the Bush agenda of destabilizing and genocide continues, anti-imperialist feelings will increase and people will unite to defend their homes and countries.

Mohamed Hassan is the son of a member of the resistance against the regime of emperor Haile Selasie. He is an indepdent writer on Middle Eastern and African politics.

Original article posted here.

African Puppets, dying for a Moron

In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war


Salim Lone Tribune Media Services
NAIROBI: Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country.

As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea. General John Abizaid, the current U.S. military chief of the Iraq war, was in Ethiopia this month, and President Hu Jintao of China visited Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia earlier this year to pursue oil and trade agreements.

The U.S. instigation of war between Ethiopia and Somalia, two of world's poorest countries already struggling with massive humanitarian disasters, is reckless in the extreme. Unlike in the run-up to Iraq, independent experts, including from the European Union, were united in warning that this war could destabilize the whole region even if America succeeds in its goal of toppling the Islamic Courts.

An insurgency by Somalis, millions of whom live in Kenya and Ethiopia, will surely ensue, and attract thousands of new anti-U.S. militants and terrorists.

With so much of the world convulsed by crisis, little attention has been paid to this unfolding disaster in the Horn. The UN Security Council, however, did take up the issue, and in another craven act which will further cement its reputation as an anti-Muslim body, bowed to American and British pressure to authorize a regional peacekeeping force to enter Somalia to protect the transitional government, which is fighting the Islamic Courts.

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The new UN resolution states that the world body acted to "restore peace and stability." But as all major international news organizations have reported, this year Somalia finally experienced its first respite from 16 years of utter lawlessness and terror at the hands of the marauding warlords who drove out UN peacekeepers in 1993, when 18 American soldiers were killed.

Since 1993, there had been no Security Council interest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia, but as peace and order took hold, a multilateral force was suddenly deemed necessary — because it was the Islamic Courts Union that had brought about this stability. Astonishingly, the Islamists had succeeded in defeating the warlords primarily through rallying people to their side by creating law and order through the application of Shariah law, which Somalis universally practice.

The transitional government, on the other hand, is dominated by the warlords and terrorists who drove out American forces in 1993. Organized in Kenya by U.S. regional allies, it is so completely devoid of internal support that it has turned to Somalia's arch- enemy, Ethiopia, for assistance.

If this war continues, it will affect the whole region, do serious harm to U.S. interests and threaten Kenya, the only island of stability in this corner of Africa.

Ethiopia is at even greater risk, as a dictatorship with little popular support and beset also by two large internal revolts, by the Ogadenis and Oromos. It is also mired in a conflict with Eritrea, which has denied it secure access to seaports.

The best antidote to terrorism in Somalia is stability, which the Islamic Courts have provided. The Islamists have strong public support, which has grown in the face of U.S. and Ethiopian interventions. As in other Muslim-Western conflicts, the world needs to engage with the Islamists to secure peace.

Original article posted here.