Medeshi Sept 5 , 2008Somalia
Hunger and terror
Sep 4th 2008 NAIROBI
Hunger and terror
Sep 4th 2008 NAIROBI
From The Economist print edition
There has been no pause in the country’s relentless downward spiral
IT HAS been a long, dreadful summer for Somalia. The UN says that 3.2m Somalis (out of about 8m) now need aid just to stay alive: a 77% rise on last year. A sixth of Somali infants are at risk of starving to death. Due to what aid organisations call “intolerable insecurity”, almost all international charity workers have left. Offshore, Somali pirates are as bold as ever. They are holding around ten vessels, including three large tankers with 130 crewmen captured this week.
Foreign governments still wrangle over Africa’s worst humanitarian and political crisis. UN people working for a deal between Islamist insurgents and the weak Somali government want 8,000 peacekeeping troops to replace the few thousand beleaguered African Union and Ethiopian soldiers. But more senior people in the UN’s peacekeeping office, already failing to get enough troops into Darfur, rule that out. A multinational force would be the next best thing, but who would pay? Mooted Saudi cash has not materialised
Optimists point out that Somalia’s transitional government has at least not collapsed altogether. The prime minister, Nur Adde Hussein, survived a vote of no confidence from the parliament this week. The president, Abdullahi Yusuf, is apparently no longer standing in the way of national reconciliation. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, whose forces invaded Somalia with American backing in 2006, has hinted he may withdraw them. Hardline Islamists of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) have joined with the more moderate Islamists of the Islamic Courts Union at peace negotiations in Djibouti. The rump of the ARS, led by the former Somali army colonel, Hassan Dahir Aweys, says it will sign a ceasefire only if the Ethiopians go.
Even then, the Islamic Courts’ former military wing, known as the Shabab (meaning Youth), would fight on. Its men have been radicalised by the insurgency and have grown in confidence (or fatalism) since being classified as a terrorist group by the American administration. One of its commanders, Mukhtar Robow, wants to merge it with al-Qaeda. Together with local clan factions, the Shabab took control of the southern port of Kismayo on August 24th. A video released on jihadist websites shows Saleh Ali Nabhan, an al-Qaeda man believed to responsible for the bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and now sheltered by the Shabab, appealing for African Muslims to fight a holy war in Somalia. Foreign fighters are unlikely to sway a new battle for Mogadishu, the capital. But a flow of Somalis into al-Qaeda would be bad news for global counter-terrorists.
There has been no pause in the country’s relentless downward spiral
IT HAS been a long, dreadful summer for Somalia. The UN says that 3.2m Somalis (out of about 8m) now need aid just to stay alive: a 77% rise on last year. A sixth of Somali infants are at risk of starving to death. Due to what aid organisations call “intolerable insecurity”, almost all international charity workers have left. Offshore, Somali pirates are as bold as ever. They are holding around ten vessels, including three large tankers with 130 crewmen captured this week.
Foreign governments still wrangle over Africa’s worst humanitarian and political crisis. UN people working for a deal between Islamist insurgents and the weak Somali government want 8,000 peacekeeping troops to replace the few thousand beleaguered African Union and Ethiopian soldiers. But more senior people in the UN’s peacekeeping office, already failing to get enough troops into Darfur, rule that out. A multinational force would be the next best thing, but who would pay? Mooted Saudi cash has not materialised
Optimists point out that Somalia’s transitional government has at least not collapsed altogether. The prime minister, Nur Adde Hussein, survived a vote of no confidence from the parliament this week. The president, Abdullahi Yusuf, is apparently no longer standing in the way of national reconciliation. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, whose forces invaded Somalia with American backing in 2006, has hinted he may withdraw them. Hardline Islamists of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) have joined with the more moderate Islamists of the Islamic Courts Union at peace negotiations in Djibouti. The rump of the ARS, led by the former Somali army colonel, Hassan Dahir Aweys, says it will sign a ceasefire only if the Ethiopians go.
Even then, the Islamic Courts’ former military wing, known as the Shabab (meaning Youth), would fight on. Its men have been radicalised by the insurgency and have grown in confidence (or fatalism) since being classified as a terrorist group by the American administration. One of its commanders, Mukhtar Robow, wants to merge it with al-Qaeda. Together with local clan factions, the Shabab took control of the southern port of Kismayo on August 24th. A video released on jihadist websites shows Saleh Ali Nabhan, an al-Qaeda man believed to responsible for the bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and now sheltered by the Shabab, appealing for African Muslims to fight a holy war in Somalia. Foreign fighters are unlikely to sway a new battle for Mogadishu, the capital. But a flow of Somalis into al-Qaeda would be bad news for global counter-terrorists.
