open Democracy News Analysis - Somalia: a failing counter-terrorism strategy, Tom Porteous - Comments

Lazarous Msuku on "Somalia: a failing counter-terrorism strategy"

Lazarous Msuku — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:24:04 +0000

It is pathetic to see and hear of some 'big and intelligent' political leaders who would want to further their political gains at the expense of the poor people of Somalia. The poor villagers have suffered injustice, fear, torture and meaninglessness in life for more than a decade and it is high time that we realised that they are human beings who are rational and autonomous and deserve to be treated with dignity and be used as means for political mileage. Are Somalis not resoanable enough to try to solve thier own problems without the interference of the 'Big nations/SuperPowers syndrome' of working under the pretext of fighting against the algaida group? Why should innocent villagers suffer? Those who go to Somalia in the name of peace keeping or fighting terrorism have peace in their homes and this is the very same thing the people of Somalia are crying for. It is their right to have a peaceful environment. You cannot bring them peace by being violent.

jamalrun on "Somalia: a failing counter-terrorism strategy"

jamalrun — Thu, 17 May 2007 13:31:51 +0000

I congratulate you for informing the world the real situation that Somalis are in today. There are different interests for those involved in Somalia's war. I remember when I was a child, my parents used to say 'Don't go outside otherwise a lyon will take you away. Of course, it was not true but they just wanted to scare me to keep me inside the home. That is what is happening to the West. Whenever a dictator, like Meles Zenawi, wants to achieve his aim he will say I am stopping Alqaida so as to get support. For ethiopia's premier, there are two reasons why he wanted to attack Somalia. Firstly, he wants to stay in power and keep all his opponents in prison. Secondly, the UIC were ready to support their follow Somalis who inhabit the Ogaden region and Ethiopia wanted to stop that. The rest are the two groups who are fighting, the TFG and UIC, they are simply clan-based so each group wants to control the other one. Above all, innocent Somalis are suffering at the result of these group's interest and that must stop.

j_5 on "Somalia: a failing counter-terrorism strategy"

j_5 — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:34:08 +0000

"issuing a clear call to all sides in this conflict to observe and uphold the rules of war and human-rights standards". What planet are you on?

Are the various warlords and clans going to listen to this? If you going to advocate any position at all you should advocate a viable one.

And to the ultra conservative Islamic courts just because they are not western backed is the same moronic mentality of the cold war.

As in most conflicts everyside is a disaster. Before this 15 year long civil war Somalia was only held together by a brutal dictator. The country doesn't make any sense. The only solution is to hasten the Rift Valley's parition of Eastern Ethiopian and Somalia so it can split away from Africa and sink into the sea.

samjil4 on "Somalia: a failing counter-terrorism strategy"

samjil4 — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:42:52 +0000

How you read the news lately??????

The Somalia government ALREADY removed the terrorist threats. the ethiopian government already started withdrawing. the somalia tragic situation that started many decades ago can finally be tackled. the somalis didn't have a government for more than 15 years! let alone tackling the economic and governmance issues, the west wasn't even able to step a foot on somalia soil because of the civil wars. Now we can go over there and finally see the problems. just because we just STARTING being able to go visit and witness everything, it does NOT mean the problems just started YESTERDAY. it has been a hell for many years. now it can be addressed. most of all, the terrorist threat has now been removed.

it is not just a successful counter-terrorism strategy, but it has also been a successful country building strategy.

Please read the news.

i advise you to use google.com news section and check news by plugging in "somalia"

God luck

Somalia: a failing counter-terrorism strategy, Tom Porteous

Sun, 13 May 2007 23:00:00 +0000

When Ethiopian troops defeated Somalia's Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Mogadishu last December and January it looked like a cakewalk. But since then the armed opposition to Ethiopia's presence in Somalia - and to their Somali allies - has grown. In April 2007, Mogadishu was hit by the heaviest fighting in fifteen years.

Getting reliable information from Somalia is difficult and dangerous. But a clear pattern has emerged of serious violations, including indiscriminate use of heavy weapons in densely populated civilian areas and obstruction of humanitarian assistance to displaced, injured and vulnerable civilians.

Since fighting dramatically escalated at the end of March, hundreds of civilians have been killed and at least 300,000 displaced, according to United Nations estimates. Many of those forced to flee are living in desperate circumstances without sufficient food, water, shelter or medical supplies, easy prey to extortion and abuse by the warring parties.

Tom Porteous is the London director of Human Rights Watch

Also by Tom Porteous in openDemocracy:

"Anti-terrorism: new leadership, new strategy"
(28 November 2006)

Abuses have been being perpetrated by all sides in this complex conflict: Ethiopian forces, Ethiopia's Somali allies in the transitional federal government (TFG), and those resisting the Ethiopian intervention, including militias loyal to the Hawiye clan and groups aligned to the ICU. But it is the Ethiopians with their superior weapons who are doing much of the harm in Mogadishu.

Ethiopia has also participated in a regional programme of arbitrary detentions and unlawful renditions of individuals of interest to Addis Ababa and their allies in Washington. With Kenyan cooperation, Ethiopia has rounded up scores of "terrorism suspects" who fled the initial Ethiopian intervention in Somalia in December 2006-January 2007.

These "suspects" include many women and some infants as young as seven months. Although Ethiopia recently admitted holding forty-one people, mainly foreign nationals, and released five people, there are many more individuals languishing in Ethiopian jails without access to legal counsel or independent monitors.

Ethiopia is also using the crisis as a pretext to clamp down on its own domestic insurgents, lumping together its armed opponents in Somalia and Ethiopia alike in the convenient catchall basket of terrorism.

A blind alley

So why didn't Ethiopia's allies - the European Union, Britain and the United States, who provide Ethiopia with millions of dollars' worth of development assistance each year and who are also providing substantial support to the TFG - do more to stop these violations?

The answer is as depressing as it is obvious. Ethiopia and its Somali proxies, including a large number of warlords with notorious records of abuse from earlier conflicts, are perceived by the EU and US government as key allies in the "war on terror" and are doing the west's dirty work against Somalia's Islamists. Behind the scenes the US has been helping the Ethiopian military effort and interrogating suspects in Ethiopian detention.

Also in openDemocracy on the crisis in Somalia:

Harun Hassan, "Somalia at the crossroads"
(10 January 2007)

Harun Hassan, "Somalia: the way forward"
(13 February 2007)

Harun Hassan, "Somalia: Mogadishu's ghost days"
(5 April 2007)

Edward Denison, "The Horn of Africa: a bitter anniversary"
(13 April 2007)

The "realistic" rationale of western policymakers goes like this: some of the Islamists, whose power the Ethiopians say they are seeking to destroy in Somalia, are aligned with al-Qaida; unless they are defeated the country will be "Talibanised". The apparent conclusion of such reasoning is that rights abuses and violations of the laws of war are regrettable but unavoidable.

This "realistic" approach is dangerously simplistic and shortsighted. There may well be some Al-Qaeda element active in Somalia: that needs to be dealt with. But Somalia is essentially a country of clan politics and the war that Ethiopia and its backers have now precipitated is rapidly evolving into a clan war - broadly pitting the Darod clan which dominates the TFG, against the Hawiye clan which supported the Islamic Courts Union.

There is now a lull in the conflict and Ethiopia claims that its opponents have been defeated. But the armed opposition to Ethiopia and the TFG gains greater support from Somali nationalists and Islamists alike with every day the Ethiopian troops remain on Somali soil. Branding them all as terrorists is inaccurate and misleading. Before they were dislodged by Ethiopia, the Islamists were widely seen by Somalis as having brought more peace and stability to Mogadishu than it had seen for over fifteen years.

The current western-backed Ethiopian approach to Somalia will lead to a mountain of civilian deaths and a litany of abuses. The policy risks precipitating exactly the sort of human-rights disaster in Somalia as the one the west rightly condemns in Darfur. This approach will only strengthen the hand of the extremist minority in Somalia, handing al-Qaida another potential theatre of militant action, and another opportunity to present themselves internationally as defenders of Islam against western aggression.

Washington, London and Brussels are in a blind alley in Somalia. They should rethink a policy which is encouraging serious abuses, and come up with one which prioritizes the protection of civilians. They should start by issuing a clear call to all sides in this conflict to observe and uphold the rules of war and human-rights standards.

Average rating

(2 votes)