SOMALIA & HORN OF AFRICA (please post here)

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Blackwater in Somalia?


by Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m62139&hd=&size=1&l=e

January 13, 2010

Reuters reports a spokesperson from the Islamist Al-Shabaab group in Somalia claiming that the US mercenary group Blackwater/Xe Services is in Somalia, is recruiting and is planning a series of spectacular terrorist attacks against civilians to discredit his movement in Mogadishu.

The spokesperson is Sheikh Ali Mohammed Rage of the Al-Shabaab group (The Youth), an Islamist faction fighting government forces in southern and central Somalia. In an interview with Reuters, he claimed that mercenaries from Blackwater (now called Xe Services) have started planning bomb plots in Mogadishu to discredit Al-Shabaab.

"US agencies are going to launch suicide bombings in public places in Mogadishu. They have tried it in Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan". He added that the target will be the market of Bakara. The source apparently warned a meeting of tribal elders that Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) has entered Somalia and has already started recruiting operationals to carry out its attacks.

Blackwater massacres

5 mercenaries from Blackwater were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians in a massacre in Nisour Square, Baghdad in September 2007. The decision by US Federal judge Ricardo Urbina this month to set the accused free on the grounds that their constitutional rights had been violated (a former agreement by the Bush regime with the Iraqi Government, since revoked, had exempted US security personnel from prosecution) has caused outrage in Iraq, where Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki answered the news by claiming that Baghdad "rejects the decision by the US court to absolve the firm from the crime of murdering several citizens". Labelling the decision as "unacceptable and unfair", the Iraqi Government has stated that it will aid the families of the victims to bring other actions in US courts.

The five mercenaries were accused of 17 counts of murder, 20 counts of attempted murder and one count of violation of arms carrying laws. A sixth mercenary had pleaded guilty and had agreed to cooperate with the authorities.

In Afghanistan, 2 mercenaries employed by Blackwater have been formally accused of the murder of two Afghan civilians in 2009 in Kabul. Justin Cannon (27) from Texas and Christopher Drotleff, from Virginia are accused of 13 counts, including homicide, for which they could be sentenced to death.

UN Human Rights experts demand justice

Human Rights experts from the UNO have requested that the United States of America bring the Blackwater mercenaries accused of the Baghdad massacre to justice, claiming that Baghdad and Washington should work together to solve the question.

Shaista Shameen, Chair of the independent group of experts in human rights from the UNO declared "We respect the independence of the US Justice system and its requirements for due process but we are concerned that the recent decision to reject the case against the Blackwater guards will lead to a situation in which nobody is held responsible for the serious human rights violations".

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

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Friday, February 05, 2010
20:38 Mecca time, 17:38 GMT   
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/02/201025144527254309.html
 
News Africa 
 
Naval forces 'storm' hijacked ship
 
 

Somali pirates have seized three ships this year and are holding more than 180 crew hostage [AFP]

 
Danish special naval forces have freed all 25 crew members of a Slovenian cargo ship captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, an EU naval spokesman has said.

A distress signal from the Ariella was picked up by an Indian warship on Friday that relayed it to a French aircraft which then spotted the pirates and alerted a Danish naval ship that was nearby.

The Danes approached the Ariella in dinghies and scaled the side of the ship to free the crew who had locked themselves in a secure room, Cmdr. John Harbour, the EU naval spokesman, said.

The forces then continued to search the vessel for the pirates.

Warships typically do not intervene in hijackings because of the danger that crews may be hit by crossfire.

Joined forces

Forces were able to intervene in this case because the ship had registered with naval authorities, was travelling along a recommended transit corridor and was part of a group transit, ensuring the ships had a helicopter within 30 minutes' reaction time, Harbour said.


In depth

  Somalia 'ripe for resolution'
  'Time for a new Somalia policy'
  Somali Islamists: A potential ally?
  The pirate kings of Puntland
  Special programme: Pirates' haven
  Video: Meet the pirates
  Q&A: Piracy in the Gulf of Aden

 

"There's been many instances where there's been excellent co-operation and three, four or even five nations have helped deter a pirate attack, he said.

"But this is the first where a warship has been able to send forces to stop a hijacking while it was in progress."

Denmark rarely releases information on operations carried out by its elite forces, but the storming of the ship may have been carried out by the country's elite Frogman Corps, which were part of a Nato deployment.

"There is an operation going on down there and we're involved. It is still going on right now," Pernielle Kroer, spokeswoman for the Danish navy told the Associated Press news agency.

Other forces have intervened in pirate hostage situations, but not during the hijacking itself.

Details on the nationalities of the crew on board the Arielle and its cargo were not immediately released.

Somali pirates have seized three ships this year and are holding hostage more than 180 crew members and a total of nine vessels.
 
 

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'Ransom sought for UK ship carrying arms to S Arabia' 
 
 
06/02/2010 09:48:00 AM GMT   
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/-Ransom-sought-for-UK-ship-carrying-arms-to-S-Ara.html

 
Somali pirates have demanded $15 million, the largest amount of ransom so far, from UK ship Asian Glory reportedly carrying hundreds of modern cars and weapons.

The ship, headed to Saudi Arabia, was coming from Singapore when the Somali pirates hijacked it, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The UK ship was reportedly carrying expensive cars and modern weapons for Saudi Arabia to launch additional attacks on Yemen's Houthi fighters.

The largest amount of money given so far for the release of a ship in the Gulf of Aden was $7 million, which was given to a Greek tanker last week.
Source: Press TV
 
   [ Comment on this story ]
 

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Somalia: How Colonial Powers drove a Country into Chaos

Interview of Mohamed Hassan

by Grégoire Lalieu and Michel Colon
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m63161&hd=&size=1&l=e


 

Investig'Action , February 10, 2010



Somalia had every reason to succeed: an advantageous geographical situation, oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory; a rare phenomenon in Africa.  Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is completely different: famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this country sink? Why has there been no Somali government   for approximately twenty years? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who hijack our ships? In this new chapter of our series "Understanding the Muslim World", Mohamed Hassan explains for us why and how imperialist forces have applied in Somalia a chaos theory. 

How did piracy develop in Somalia? Who are those pirates?

Since 1990, there has been no government in Somalia. The country is in the hands of warlords. European and Asiatic ships took advantage of this chaotic situation and fished along the Somali coast without a license or respect for elementary rules. They did not observe the quotas in force in their own country to protect the species and they used fishing techniques –even bombs!- that created huge damages to the wealth of the Somali seas.

That’s not all! Taking also advantage of this lack of any political authority, European companies, with the help of the mafia, dumped nuclear wastes offshore Somali coasts. Europe knew of this but turned a blind eye as that solution presented a practical and economical advantage for the nuclear waste management. Yet, the 2005 Tsunami brought a big part of these wastes into the Somali lands. Unfamiliar diseases appeared for the first time among the population. This is the context in which the piracy mainly developed. Somali fishermen, who had primitive fishing techniques, were no more able to work. So they decided to protect themselves and their seas. This is exactly what the United States did during the civilian war against the British (1756-1763): with no naval forces, President George Washington made a deal with pirates to protect the wealth of the American seas.   

No Somali state for almost twenty years! How is that possible?

This is the result of an American strategy. In 1990, the country was bruised by conflicts, famine and lootings; the state collapsed. Facing this situation, the United States, who discovered oil in Somalia a few years ago, launched Operation Restore Hope in 1992. For the first time, US marines intervened in Africa to take control of a country. It was also the first time that a military invasion was launched in the name of humanitarian interference.

The famous rice bag exhibited on a Somali beach by Bernard Kouchner?

Yes, everybody remembers those pictures carefully showcased. But the real reasons were strategic. An US State Department report recommended indeed that the United States must stay the lonely global superpower after the Soviet Bloc collapse. To reach that goal, the report advocated to occupy a hegemonic position in Africa, which enjoys a vast amount of raw materials.

However, Restore Hope will be a failure. There was even that Hollywood movie "Black Hawk Down", with those poor G.I.’s "attacked by the bad Somali rebels"…

US soldiers were indeed defeated by a Somali nationalist resistance. Since then, American policy was to keep Somalia without any real government, even to balkanize it. This is the old British strategy, already applied in many places: setting weak and divided states in order to better rule them. That is why there has been no Somali state for almost twenty years. The United States has implemented a chaos theory in order to stop any Somali reconciliation and keep the country divided.

In Sudan, due to the civilian war, Exxon has had to leave the country after having discovered oil. So isn’t letting Somalia plunge into chaos contrary to American interests, which cannot exploit the discovered oil?

Oil exploitation is not their priority. The United States know that the reserves are there but doesn’t need it immediately. Two elements are much more important in its strategy. First, prevent the competitors from negotiating with a rich and powerful Somali state. If you consider Sudan, the comparison is interesting. The oil that the American companies discovered there thirty years ago, Sudan is selling it today to China. The same thing could happen in Somalia. When he was president of the transition government, Abdullah Yusuf went to China although he was supported by the United States. US mass media had strongly criticized that visit. The fact is that United States have no guarantee on that point: if a Somali government is established tomorrow, whatever is its political color, it could probably adopt a strategy independent of United States and trade with China. Western imperialists do not want a strong and unified Somali state. The second goal pursued by this chaos theory is linked to the geographical location of Somalia, which is strategic for both European and American imperialists.

Why is it strategic?

The issue is the control of the Indian Ocean. Look at the map. As mentioned, western powers have an important share of the responsibility in the Somali piracy development. But instead of telling the truth and paying compensation for what they did, those powers criminalize the phenomena in order to justify their position in the region. Under the pretext of fighting the piracy, NATO is positioning its navy in the Indian Ocean.     



Source: Wikipeda

What is the real goal?

To control the economic development of the emerging powers, mainly India and China. Half of the world’s container traffic and 70% of the total traffic of petroleum products passes through the Indian Ocean. From that strategic point of view, Somalia is a very important place: the country has the longest coast of Africa (3.300 km) and faces the Arabian Gulf and the Straight of Hormuz, two key points of the region economy. Moreover, if a pacific response is brought to the Somali problem, relations between African in one hand, and India and China on the other hand, could develop through the Indian Ocean. Those American competitors could then have influence in that African area. Mozambique, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Zanzibar, South Africa etc. All those countries connected to the Indian Ocean could gain easy access to the Asian market and develop fruitful economic relationship. Nelson Mandela, when he was president of South Africa, had  mentioned the need of an Indian Ocean revolution, with new economic relationships. The United States and Europe do not want this project. That is why they prefer to keep Somalia unstable..

You say that the United States does not want Somali reconciliation. But what are the roots of the Somali divisions?

In order to understand this chaotic situation, we must delve into Somali history. This country had been divided by colonial powers. In 1959, Somalia gained independence through the fusion of the Italian colony in the South, and the British colony in the North. But Somalis were also living in some parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The new Somali state adopted a star on its flag, each branch representing one part of the historical Somalia. The message behind that symbol: "Two Somalias have been united, but three are still colonized".

Facing the legitimacy of those claims, the British – who controlled Kenya-, organized a referendum in the Kenyan area claimed by Somalia. 87% of the population, composed mainly of Somali ethnics, voted for the Somali unity. When the results were published, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kenyan nationalist leader, threatened the British to throw the colonists out if they gave a part of the territory up to Somalia. So Great Britain decided not to take the referendum into account, and today an important Somali community is still living in Kenya. You must understand that those colonial borders were a real disaster in the Somali case. The border issue was besides the object of an important debate among the African continent.   

What was the issue of that debate?

In the sixties, as many African countries became independent, there was a debate between what we called the Monrovia and the Casablanca groups. This later, including among others Morocco and Somalia, resolved that the borders inherited from colonialism be discussed. For them, those boundaries had no legitimacy. But most of the African countries and their borders are colonialism products. Finally, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the ancestor of the current African Union, closed the debate by decreeing that the borders were indisputable: going back over those boundaries would provoke civilian wars everywhere on the continent. Later, one of the OAU architects, the Tanzanian Julius Nyerere, confessed that this decision was the best but that he regretted the Somali outcome.

What will be the impact of the colonial divisions on Somalia?

They will create strains with neighboring countries. During those years when Somalia advocated for revising the borders, Ethiopia became a US imperialism bastion. The United States had also military bases in Kenya and Eritrea. At this moment, Somalia, a young pastoral democracy, wished to build its own army. The goal was to not appear weak in front of the armed neighbors, to support Somali movements in Ethiopia and even to regain by force, if necessary, some territories. But the western forces were opposed to the creation of a Somali army.

So Somalia had tense relations with its neighbors. Was it not reasonable to be opposed to this Somali army project? It would have provoked wars, wouldn’t it? 

The West did not care about conflicts between Africans but its own interests. The United States and Great Britain were providing and training militaries in Ethiopia, Kenya and Eritrea. Those countries were still under the yoke of very repressive feudal systems. But they were also neocolonial regimes devoted to Western interests. On the other hand, the power in place in Somalia was more democratic and independent. So the West had no interest in providing for a country that could escape its control.

As a consequence, Somalia decided to turn to the Soviet Union. This frightened the Western forces that feared Soviet influence stretching in to Africa. Those fears became more important with the 1969 putsch. 

What do you mean?

Socialist ideas were spread in the country. An important Somali community was indeed living in Aden in South Yemen. However, this is where Britain used to exile persons it considered dangerous in India: communists, nationalists and so on. They used to be arrested and sent to Aden where nationalist and revolutionary ideas quickly developed and affected later both Yemenites and Somalis. Under the influence of civilians with Marxist ideas, a coup d’état was led by officers in 1969 and Siad Barre took power in Somalia.

What were the reasons of that coup d’état?

The Somali government was corrupted. He had however the cards in hand to erect the country to the great regional power rank: a strategic position, only one language, one religion and many common cultural elements. This is fairly rare in Africa. But, by missing the economical development of the country, this government has created a context favorable to divisions among clans. Under the pretext of doing politics, Somali elites become divided. Everyone created his own political party, without any real program, and recruited voters among the existing clans. This increased the divisions and turned out to be totally useless. A democracy in a liberal type was in fact unsuitable for Somalia: there were at once 63 political parties for a three million population country! And the government was even not able to adopt an official script, which was creating serious troubles in the administration. Education was weak. Bureaucracy, police and army were, however, established. This later will play a key role in the progressive coup d’état.

"Progressive"! With the army?

The army was the only organized institution in Somalia. As a repressive apparatus, it was supposed to protect the so-called civilian government and the elite. But for many Somalis coming from different families and areas, the army was also an exchange place where there were no borders, no tribalism, no clan divisions. This is how Marxist ideas from Aden circulated among the army.  So the coup d’état was led by officers who were most of all nationalist. They did not have a good knowledge of socialism but they had sympathy for those ideas. Moreover, they knew what was happening in Vietnam, and that fed anti-imperialist feelings. The civilians, who knew Marx and Lenin’s teachings lacked a mass political party, supported the coup d’état and become the advisers of the officers who took power. 

What changes did the Somali coup d’état bring about?

One important positive aspect: the new government quickly adopted an official script. Likewise, the Soviet Union and China were helping Somalia. The students and the population mobilized themselves. Education and social conditions were enhanced. The years that followed the coup d’état were in fact the best ones that Somalia never knew. That is, until 1977.

What happened?

Somalia, which has been divided by colonial forces, attacked Ethiopia to get the territory of Ogaden back. Ogaden was mainly populated by Somalis. At this time however, Ethiopia was itself a socialist state supported by the Soviets. This country had been led for a long time by  Emperor Selassie. But in the seventies, there was an important mobilization to overthrow him. The students’ movement, in which I personally participated, made four major demands. First, to nonviolently and democratically resolve tensions with Eritrea. Secondly, to establish a land reform that would distribute the lands to the peasants.  Thirdly, to establish the principle of equality among the nationalities; Ethiopia was a multinational country led by elite who did not represent the diversity. Fourthly, to abolish the feudal system and to establish a democratic state. As in Somalia, the army was the only organized institution in Ethiopia and the civilians joined the officers to overthrow Selassie in 1974.

How did two socialist states, each supported by the Soviet Union, enter conflict?

After the Ethiopian revolution, a delegation including Soviet Union, Cuba and South Yemen organized a round table with Ethiopia and Somalia in order to resolve their contradiction. Castro went to Addis Abeba and Mogadishu. To him, Somali claims were justified. Finally, the Ethiopian delegation agreed to  seriously seriously its Somali neighbor’s demands. The two countries made an agreement stipulating that no provocation should happen as long as no decision has been taken. Things seemed to start well but Somalia did not honor the agreement…

Two days after the Ethiopian delegation returned to its country, Henry Kissinger, a former Nixon Secretary of State, turned up to Mogadishu. Kissinger was representing an unofficial organization: the Safari Club that was among others including Shah’s Iran, Mobutu’s Congo, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and French and Pakistani intelligence services. The objective of that organization was to fight against the Soviet infiltration in the Gulf and in Africa. Under the Safari Club pressures and help promises, Siad Barre committed a disastrous strategic mistake of attacking Ethiopia.   

What were the consequences of that war?

Soviets left the region. Somalia, still led by Siad Barre, integrated the neocolonial network of the imperialist forces. The country had been seriously damaged by the conflict and the World Bank and the IFM were in charge of "rebuilding" it. This has aggravated infighting among Somali bourgeoisie. Each regional elite wanted to have its own market. They made the divisions among the clans’ worst and contributed to the progressive dislocation of their country up to Siad Barre’s fall in 1990. Since that, any head of state succeeded to him. 

But, thirty years after the Ogaden war, the opposite scenario happened: Ethiopia was supported by the United States to attack Somalia…

Yes, as I said, since the Restore Hope failure, United States has preferred to keep Somalia in chaos. However, in 2006, a spontaneous movement developed under the Islamic courts to fight against the local warlords and bring unity to the country. It was a kind of Intifada. In order to stop this movement from rebuilding Somalia, United States decided suddenly to support the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) after having refused to recognize it before. In fact, they realized that their project of a Somalia without effective state was no more possible: a movement – furthermore Islamic!- was about to lead to a national reconciliation. In order to sabotage the Somali unity, United States decided to support the TFG. But this later was lacking any social basis and an army. So the Ethiopian troops, commanded by Washington, attacked Mogadishu to overthrow the Islamic courts.

Did it work?

No, the Ethiopian army was defeated and had to leave Somalia. On their side, the Islamic courts were dispersed in several movements that still control a big part of the country today. As for Abdulla Yusuf’s transitional government, he collapsed and United States replaced it by Sheik Sharif, the former Islamic Court spokesman.

So Sheik Sharif has passed to "the other camp"?

He used to be the Islamic courts spokesman because he is a good orator. But he has no political knowledge. He has no idea what imperialism or nationalism are. That is why western powers took him back. He was the Islamic court’s weak link. Today he chairs a fake government, created in Djibouti. This government has no social base or authority in Somalia. It only exists on the international level because the imperialist forces support it.

In Afghanistan, the United States said they were ready to negotiate with Taliban. Why don’t they look for discussing with the Islamic groups in Somalia?

Because those groups want to take the foreign occupier over and to allow a national reconciliation for the Somali people. As a result, the United States wants to break those groups: a reconciliation, through the Islamic movement or through the TFG, is not in the interests of the imperialist forces. They just want chaos. The problem is that today, this chaos reached Ethiopia too, which is very weak since the 2007 aggression. A nationalist resistance movement came to the light over there to fight against the pro-imperialist government of Addis Ababa. With their chaos theory, United States had in fact created troubles in the whole region. And now, they took it out on Eritrea.

Why?

This little country leads an independent national policy. Eritrea also has a vision for the whole region: the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia) do not need foreign powers’ interference; its wealth should allow it to establish new economical relationship on the basis of mutual respect. According to Eritrea, the region must get it together and its members must be able to discuss about their problems. Of course, this policy frightens United States that fears that other countries follow that example. So they accuse Eritrea of sending weapons to Somalia and instigating troubles in Ethiopia.

Isn’t Eritrea sending weapons in Somalia?

Not even a bullet! This is a pure propaganda as they did against Syria about the Iraqi resistance. Eritrea’s vision catches up with the project of Indian Ocean revolution that we spoke about before. The western powers do not want of that and wish to bring Eritrea back to the circle of the neocolonial states under control, such as Kenya, Ethiopia or Uganda.

Are there no terrorist in Somalia?

Imperialist powers have always labeled as terrorists the people who fight for their right. Irishmen were terrorists until they signed an agreement. Abbas was a terrorist. Now, he is a friend.

But we heard about Al Qaeda in Somalia?

Al Qaeda is everywhere, from Belgium to Australia! That invisible Al Qaeda is a logo designed to justify to the public opinion military operations. If United States say to their citizens and soldiers: "We are going to send our troops into the Indian Ocean in order to probably fight against China", people would be afraid of course. But if you tell them that it is just about fighting piracy and Al Qaeda, it won’t be a problem. The real goal is however different. It consists in setting forces in the Indian Ocean region that will be the theater of major conflicts in the coming years. This is what we will analyze in the next chapter…


Mohamed Hassan is a geopolitics and Arab world specialist. Born in Addis Abeba (Ethiopia), he participated in student movements on the occasion of the socialist revolution of 1974 in his country. He studied political science in Egypt before specializing in public administration in Brussels. As a diplomat for his country of origin, he worked in Washington, Beijing and Brussels. Co-writer of L’Irak sous occupation (EPO, 2003), he has also contributed to books about Arab nationalism, Islamic movements and Flemish nationalism. He is one of the best contemporary experts on the Arab and Muslim world.         

Understanding the Muslim World with Mohamed Hassan - Previous chapters:

Yemen: USA are fighting against democracy, not against Al-Qaeda


What should Ahmadinejad do to get the Nobel Price?

Afghanistan – Pakistan: the black hole of the empire

The Darfur crisis: blood, hunger and oil

"Gaza is a normal place with normal people" 

How can we explain the success of Hamas ?   


 
To examine the subject in depth, Mohamed Hassan recommends the following publications:

Mohamed Omar, The Road to Zero: Somalia's Self-Destruction, Haan Publishing,1993

Babu, Abdul, Rahman Mohamed. African Socialism or Socialist Africa? Londres, Zed Press,  1981, 190 p.

Hersi, Ali Abdirahman, The Arab factor in Somali history : the origins and the development of Arab enterprise and cultural influences in the Somali Peninsula, Thesis--University of California, Los Angeles, 1977

Michel Caraël, La ruine du pansomalisme, in Le Monde diplomatique, octobre 1982

Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror,

John K. Cooley, Unholy wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, Pluto Press, 2000

John Drysdale, Whatever Happened to Somalia?, Haan Publishing, 1994

 

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Desperate Somalis Turn to Sex For Bread

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m63199&hd=&size=1&l=e

February 11, 2010

ADEN – Leaving behind her six children, Somali refugee Saada has fled her war-torn homeland to Yemen.

Counting for months on UN handouts, she was forced to turn to sell her body to make a living and send money to her children back home.

"My life is rubbish, but what can I do?" the women in her 30s told Reuters in the southern city of Aden.

Saada fled to Yemen after she was divorced by her first husband and her second was badly wounded in fighting in Mogadishu.

She says she turned to prostitution to send money to relatives at home who are looking after her children.

"I have to work and make some money," she said.

"So now I am on my own."

Somalia has sunk into abyss since the ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre by warlords in 1991.

Deadly fighting between government troops and militants has forced more than 1.5 million Somalis to flee their country.

At least 11 civilians were killed Wednesday when African peacekeepers responded to a mortar attack by militant.

Yemen, which has traditionally had close ties with Somalia, has given prima facie refugee status to all Somalis escaping their country.

Yemen hosts 171,000 registered refugees, mostly Somalis, according to UNHCR estimates.

Mess

Alysia, another Somali refugee, was forced to prostitution to make a living.

"I have to take care of my son," said Alysia, who had paid smugglers to take her on the perilous voyage across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.

"I have to buy him milk."

Somalis desperate to flee their homeland pay smugglers up to $150 depending on the sea route, and are totally at their mercy.

Poverty and unemployment are seen as the main factors pushing Somalis to prostitution.

"The main reason for prostitution is poverty, the unemployment of refugees," said Alawiya Omar at the Italian aid organisation Intersource.

Yemen itself is mired in poverty.

With more than 40 percent of its 23 million people living on below $2 a day, it has few resources to cope with the human tide from the Horn of Africa.

Like thousands of Somali refugees, Najma, 34, is aspiring for an honourable life.

"My life is a mess." She said.

"I would do anything else but what?"






 

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U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia


GLEN FORD, Black Agenda Report

March 2, 2010
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m63811&hd=&size=1&l=e

In Somalia, the United States has reverted to ancient siege tactics to starve the people into submission. The U.S. seeks to prevent food aid from getting to areas controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. However, "if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed."

 
U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people."

While nearly half the population of Somalia teeters at the edge of starvation, the U.S. is preventing the United Nations from delivering desperately needed food. According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the Americans demand that aid agencies guarantee that no fees are paid "at roadblocks, ports, warehouses, airfields or other transit points'' controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. Since the Shabab and other militias control more than half of the area in conflict, United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people.Indeed, if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed.

America’s Somali puppets are incapable of even defending themselves, much less maintaining a functioning government and infrastructure. Five thousand African Union (AU) soldiers – comprised mainly of Ugandans, the U.S.’s shock troops in Africa – keep control of the airport, the regime’s main link to the outside world. According to the United Nations, AU soldiers engage in "indiscriminate shelling" of civilians.
As the Americans’ Somali puppets’ position becomes more untenable, the U.S. squeezes the UN’s food delivery system, in effect punishing the entire Somali people. U.S. food relief to the UN’s Somali operations in 2009 was only half that of 2008. In 2007, United Nations officials declared Somalia the "worst humanitarian crisis in Africa…worse than Darfur," as a result of the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in late 2006. Thus, the United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years under the guise of the "war on terror."
The United Nations official in charge of humanitarian operations in Somalia, Mark Bowden, says Washington’s charge that Shabab militants are siphoning off UN aid are "ungrounded." A White House spokesman claimed that it’s not the U.S., but the Shabab that are denying Somalis access to food aid through their war against the Mogadishu "government." It’s a macabre variation on the excuse Americans routinely offer when they massacre civilians: that the "insurgents" use civilians as "human shields," forcing the Americans to kill them.

"The United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years."

When the UN’s Mark Bowden complained to officials in Washington about the withholding of food to Somalia, he was told, 'This is beyond our pay grade.’" Meaning, the orders come from much higher up, likely from UN Ambassador Susan Rice, the administration’s most prominent acolyte of "humanitarian military intervention" – a doctrine Rice has twisted into the ultimate obscenity in the Horn of Africa.
"Humanitarian military intervention" maintains that it is the duty of greater powers – that is, the U.S. and its allies – to intervene in the affairs of weaker countries if their governments cannot, or will not, attend to the needs of their people. Also known as "responsibility to protect" – or "R2P" – the doctrine, by definition, requires no consent from the soon-to-be subject populations. R2P can be immediately invoked against "failed states," as designated by the "protective" and "humanitarian" intervener. Indeed, once a state has been declared "failed," the great powers are obligated to intervene, according to the logic of R2P. It is all the more convenient when the U.S. has, in fact, caused the "failure" of the weak nation’s state.

Such was the case in 2006, when a fledgling state had finally emerged in south-central Somalia, organized by a movement called the Islamic Courts. When the Islamic Courts defeated U.S-backed warlords and succeeded in bringing a modicum of peace, law and order to their part of Somalia, the Americans instigated and bankrolled an Ethiopian invasion, plunging Somalia into "humanitarian crisis."
"Once a state has been declared "failed," the great powers are obligated to intervene, according to the logic of R2P."

As a Democrat on the political sidelines, Susan Rice ranted for greater U.S. military intervention in the Horn Africa, including an air and naval blockade of Sudan. Rice’s ravings, modulated for diplomatic purposes, became U.S. policy upon Barack Obama’s election. Thousands of ethnic Somalis in Kenya were recruited into the puppet Somali government’s forces across the common border (see "U.S. Sows Seeds of Wider War in East Africa," BAR November 17, 2009) – although to little apparent military effect in Somalia. However, the recruitments cannot help but undermine Kenyan national cohesion, by encouraging ethnic Somalis to identify, not with Kenya, but with the neighboring state. More ominously, the U.S. has pressured the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Eritrea for allegedly providing material support to the Somali Shabab – a charge Eritrea vehemently denies (see "Who Demonizes Eritrea and Why?" BAR February 16, 2010).

Every action the U.S. takes in the Horn of Africa seems calculated to undermine the stability of some of the region’s constituent nations or, in Somalia’s case, prevent a national state from emerging at all, unless it is handpicked by Washington. (In Sudan, the U.S. and Israel have long worked toward partition of Africa’s largest country.)

Unable to find or cultivate a Somali front man capable of defeating the Shabab, the U.S. lays siege to the Somali people, to starve them into submission. Refusing to authorize the release of grain piled high in warehouses in Mombasa, Kenya, the American regime reveals itself as somewhat less humanitarian than Genghis Khan.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.


 

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March 12, 2010

Stop NATO
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/africoms-first-war-u-s-directs-large-scale-offensive-in-somalia/

AFRICOM’s First War: U.S. Directs Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia

by Rick Rozoff

Over 43 people have been killed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in the past two days in fighting between Shabab (al-Shabaab) insurgent forces, who on March 10 advanced to within one mile of the nation’s presidential palace, and troops of the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government. The fighting has just begun.

The last ambassador of the United States to Somalia (1994-1995), Daniel H. Simpson, penned a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 10 in which which he posed the question “why, apart from the only lightly documented charge of Islamic extremism among the Shabab, is the United States reengaging in Somalia at this time?”

He answered it in stating “Part of the reason is because the United States has its only base in Africa up the coast from Mogadishu, in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland. The U.S. Africa Command was established there in 2008, and, absent the willingness of other African countries to host it, the base in Djibouti became the headquarters for U.S. troops and fighter bombers in Africa.

“Flush with money, in spite of the expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of Defense obviously feels itself in a position to undertake military action in Africa, in Somalia.” [1]

Fulfilling its appointed role, the New York Times leaked U.S. military plans for the current offensive in Somalia on March 5 in a report titled “U.S. Aiding Somalia in Its Plan to Retake Its Capital.” (Note that the Transitional Federal Government is presented as Somalia itself and Mogadishu as its capital.)

The tone of the feature was of course one of approval and endorsement of the Pentagon’s rationale for directly intervening in Somalia at a level not seen since 1993 and support for proxy actions last witnessed with the invasion by Ethiopia in 2006. The report began with a description of a military surveillance plane circling over the Somali capital and a quote from the new chief of staff of the nation’s armed forces, General Mohamed Gelle Kahiye: “It’s the Americans. They’re helping us.”

Afterward “An American official in Washington, who said he was not authorized to speak publicly” – a hallmark of the American free press – was, if not identified, quoted as maintaining that U.S. covert operations were planned if not already underway and “What you’re likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out.” [2]

The New York Times also provided background information regarding the current offensive:

“Over the past several months, American advisers have helped supervise the training of the Somali forces to be deployed in the offensive….The Americans have provided covert training to Somali intelligence officers, logistical support to the peacekeepers, fuel for the maneuvers, surveillance information about insurgent positions and money for bullets and guns.” [3]

Four days later General William (“Kip”) Ward, commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In his introductory remarks the chairman of the committee, Senator Carl Levin, reinforced recent American attempts to expand the scope of the deepening Afghanistan-Pakistan war, the deadliest and lengthiest in the world, to the west and south in stating that “al Qaeda and violent extremists who share their ideology are not just located in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region but in places like Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and Niger.” [4]

In his formal report Ward pursued a similar tact and expanded the Pentagon’s “counter-terrorism” (CT) area of responsibility yet further from South Asia: “U.S. Africa Command has focused the majority of its CT capacity building activities in East Africa on Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Uganda, which – aside from Somalia – are the countries directly threatened by terrorists.” [5]

He also spoke of the current offensive by “the transition government to reclaim parts of Mogadishu,” stating “I think it’s something that we would look to do and support.” [6]

Senator Levin and General Ward included eight African nations in the broader Afghan war category of Operation Enduring Freedom, countries from the far northeast of the continent (the Horn of Africa) to the far west (the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea). The U.S. military has already been involved in counterinsurgency operations in Mali and Niger against ethnic Tuareg rebels, who have no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda, not that one would know that from Levin’s comments.

In between South Asia and Africa lies Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. The New York Times report cited earlier reminded readers that “The United States is increasingly concerned about the link between Somalia and Yemen.” Indeed as Levin’s comments quoted above establish, Washington (along with its NATO allies) is forging an expanded war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and into Africa. [7]

That extension of the South Asia war has not gone unobserved in world capitals, and earlier this year Russian political analyst Andrei Fedyashin commented: “Adding up all four fronts – if the United States ventured an attack on Yemen and Somalia – America would have to invade a territory equal to three-fourths of Western Europe; and it is hardly strong enough for that.” [8]

Strong enough or not, that is just what the White House and the Pentagon are doing. The only other objection that can be raised to the above author’s description is that it too severely narrows the intended battlefront.

In the past six months Somali troops have been sent to Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda for combat training and “most are now back in the capital, waiting to fight.”

In addition, “There are also about 5,000 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers, with 1,700 more on their way, and they are expected to play a vital role in backing up advancing Somali forces.” [9]

Last October the U.S. led ten days of military exercises in Uganda – Natural Fire 10 – with 450 American troops and over 550 from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The U.S. soldiers were deployed from Camp Lemonier (Lemonnier) in Djibouti, home to the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force/Horn of Africa and over 2,000 U.S. forces. The de facto headquarters of AFRICOM.

At the time of the maneuvers a major Ugandan newspaper wrote that they were “geared towards the formation of the first Joint East African Military Force.” [10]

In addition to using such a multinational regional force in Somalia, the U.S. can also deploy it against Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Uganda, Congo and Sudan, and could even employ it against Eritrea, Zimbabwe and Sudan, the only nations on the African continent not to some degree enmeshed in military partnerships with Washington and NATO. (Libya has participated in NATO naval exercises and South Africa has hosted the bloc’s warships.) [11]

Earlier this month the Kenyan newspaper The East African divulged that “American legislators are pushing for a law that will see another phase of military action to apprehend Lord’s Resistance Army rebels.”

The news source added that the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Bill adopted by the U.S. Congress last year “requires the US government to develop a new multifaceted strategy” and as such the new bill under consideration “will not be the first time the US government is providing support to the Uganda army in fighting the LRA.

“The US has been backing the UPDF [Uganda People's Defence Force] with logistics and training to fight the rebel group.” [12]

Last month it was announced that the U.S. Africa Command has dispatched special forces to train 1,000 Congolese troops in the north and east of their nation, where Congo borders Uganda.

Former U.S. diplomat Daniel Simpson was quoted above as to what in part is Washington’s motive in pursuing a new war in and around Somalia: To test out AFRICOM ground and air forces in Djibouti for direct military action on the continent.

A United Press International report of March 10, placed under energy news, offered another explanation. In a feature titled “East Africa is next hot oil zone,” the news agency disclosed that “East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia.”

The region is, in the words of the Western chief executive officer of an oil prospecting firm, “the last real high-potential area in the world that hasn’t been fully explored.” [13]

The article added: “The discovery at Lake Albert, in the center of Africa between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated to contain the equivalent of several billion barrels of oil. It is likely to be the biggest onshore field found south of the Sahara Desert in two decades.”

It also spoke of “a vast 135,000-square-mile territory in landlocked Ethiopia that is believed to contain sizable reserves of oil. It is estimated to hold 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as well.”

And, more pertinent to the Horn of Africa:

“A 1993 study by Petroconsultants of Geneva concluded that Somalia has two of the most potentially interesting hydrocarbon-yielding basins in the entire region – one in the central Mudugh region, the other in the Gulf of Aden. More recent analyses indicate that Somalia could have reserves of up to 10 billion barrels.” [14]

Washington’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies are also deeply involved in the militarization of East Africa.

On March 10 NATO extended its naval operation in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, Ocean Shield, to the end of 2012, an unprecedentedly long 33-month extension. On March 12 “Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 will take over missions from Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 for the four-month assignment. The change will increase NATO’s contribution from four ships to five ships….” [15]

At the same hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee that AFRICOM commander William Ward addressed, NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, America’s Admiral James Stavridis, “noted that 100,000 NATO troops are involved in expeditionary operations on three continents, including operations in Afghanistan, off the coast of Africa, and in Bosnia.” (Evidently Kosovo was meant for Bosnia.)

Stavridis, who is concurrently top military chief of U.S. European Command, said “The nature of threats in this 21st century [is] going to demand more than just sitting behind our borders.” [16]

He also said he finds “Iran alarming in any number of dimensions,” specifically mentioning alleged “state-sponsored terrorism, nuclear proliferation and political outreach into Latin America.” [17]

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently returned from Jordan and the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain where he pressured both nations to support the war in Afghanistan and Alliance naval operations.

“NATO’s top official said [on March 9] that he has asked Jordan and Bahrain to contribute to alliance naval operations fighting terrorism and piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden, as he ended a visit to the two countries. NATO is keen to improve cooperation with Arab and Muslim states, seeing them as important allies for a number of missions, including the all-important deployment in Afghanistan.” [18]

Regarding the Western military bloc’s almost nine-year Operation Active Endeavor in the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Operation Ocean Shield in the Gulf of Aden, Rasmussen said, “We would very much like to strengthen cooperation (with Bahrain and Jordan) within these operations.” [19]

While in Jordan he was strengthening military ties with NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue partnership – Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – and in Bahrain firming up the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative aimed at the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have military personnel serving under NATO in Afghanistan.

In late February a delegation of the 53-nation African Union (AU) visited NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium.

“NATO continues to support the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) through the provision of strategic sea- and air-lift for AMISOM Troop Contributing Nations on request. The last airlift support occurred in June 2008 when NATO transported a battalion of Burundian peacekeepers to Mogadishu.” [20]

On March 10 AMISON deployed tanks to prevent the capture of the Somali presidential palace by rebels.

The North Atlantic military bloc, which in recent years has conducted large-scale exercises in West Africa and inaugurated its international Response Force in Cape Verde in 2006, also supports “the operationalisation of the African Standby Force – the African Union’s vision for a continental, on-call security apparatus similar to the NATO Response Force.” [21]

In May the European Union, whose membership largely overlaps with that of NATO and which is engaged in intense integration with the military bloc on a global scale [22], will begin training 2,000 Somali troops in Uganda.

Brigadier General Thierry Caspar-Fille-Lambie, commanding officer of French armed forces in Djibouti, said “the Somali troops will be trained with the necessary military skills to help pacify and stabilize the volatile country.”

He issued that statement “at the closing ceremony of four-week French operational training of 1,700 Ugandan troops to be deployed” to Somalia in May. The French ambassador to Uganda said “The EU troops shall work in close collaboration with UPDF to train Somali troops.” [23]

The 2,000 soldiers to be trained by the EU will represent a full third of a projected 6,000-troop Somali army.

The U.S.-NATO-EU global triad plans an even larger collective military role in the new scramble for Africa. On March 4 and 5 a delegation from AFRICOM met with European Union officials in Brussels “seeking EU cooperation in Africa,” specifically in “areas where cooperation could be possible, notably with the soon-to-be-launched EU mission to train Somali troops.” [24]

Tony Holmes, AFRICOM’s deputy to the commander for civil-military activities, said “Somalia, that’s an area where we’re going to be doing a lot more, the European Union is already doing a lot and will be doing more….

“Somalia is very important for us. The European Union is involved in training Somalis in Uganda and that’s something we might be able to work closely with to support.”

The AFRICOM delegation, including Major-General Richard Sherlock, director of strategy, plans and programs, also discussed “counter-terrorism cooperation with the EU in the Sahel region, notably in Mauritania, Mali and Niger….” [25]

In late January the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, said “that the Alliance is in discussion with a Gulf state to deploy AWACS planes for a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan in support of its ISAF mission and also for anti-piracy off Somalia.” [24]

To demonstrate that NATO’s anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia has other designs than the one acknowledged, early this year a NATO spokesman announced that the bloc’s naval contingent in the Gulf of Aden “now has an additional task” to intervene against a fictional deployment of Somali fighters across the Gulf to Yemen.

The spokesman, Jacqui Sheriff, said “NATO warships will be on the lookout for anything suspicious.” [25]

As though Somali al-Shabaab fighters have nothing else to do as the U.S. is engineering an all-out assault on them in their homeland.

Five days after the New York Times feature detailed American war plans in Somalia, the Washington Times followed up on and added to that report.

U.S. operations are “likely to be the most overt demonstration of U.S. military backing since the ill-fated Operation Restore Hope of 1992….”

“Unmanned U.S. surveillance aircraft have been seen circling over Mogadishu in recent days, apparently pinpointing insurgent positions as the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] marshals its forces. U.S. Army advisers have been helping train the TFG’s forces, which have been largely equipped with millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. arms airlifted into Mogadishu over the last few weeks.”

The newspaper report further stated: “It’s not clear when the offensive will start. The word on the street is sometime in the next few weeks….”

The campaign has already begun.

“After securing Mogadishu, the offensive, supported by militias allied with the government, for now, at least, is likely to continue against al-Shebab in the countryside west and south toward the border with Kenya.” [26]

After the capital, the entire country. After Somalia, the region.

The war has just begun.

1) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 10, 2010
2) New York Times, March 5, 2010
3) Ibid
4) Senate Armed Forces Committee, March 9, 2010
5) United States Africa Command, March 9, 2010
6) Senate Armed Forces Committee, March 9, 2010
7) U.S., NATO Expand Afghan War To Horn Of Africa And Indian Ocean
Stop NATO, January 8, 2010

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/u-s-nato-expand-afghan-war-to-horn-of-africa-and-indian-ocean-2

Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Stop NATO, December 15, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsula

Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 11, 2010
9) New York Times, March 5, 2010
10) The Monitor, October 14, 2009
11) AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World
Stop NATO, October 22, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world

12) The East African, March 1, 2010
13) United Press International, March 10, 2010
14) Ibid
15) Stars and Stripes, March 11, 2010
16) United States Department of Defense, March 9, 2010
17) Ibid
18) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 9, 2010
19) Ibid
20) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
February 24, 2010
21) Ibid
22) EU, NATO, US: 21st Century Alliance For Global Domination
Stop NATO, February 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/eu-nato-us-21st-century-alliance-for-global-domination

23) Xinhua News Agency, February 13, 2010
24) Europolitics, March 5, 2010
25) Ibid
26) Kuwait News Agency, January 28, 2010
27) Canwest News Service, January 1, 2010
28) Washington Times, March 10, 2010

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U.S. Pushes for Somalia Offensive, But Settles for Starving Somali Civilians


A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

April 9, 2010
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m64965&hd=&size=1&l=e


"Washington’s Somali puppets have far too few troops to launch an offensive against anyone."

The American-backed offensive in Somalia was supposed to be underway by now, based on months of Pentagon-planted stories in the corporate press. But there is, as yet, no offensive, because the puppet regime doesn’t even have enough soldiers to hang on to its little corner of Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu. This is a big problem for the Obama administration, which is anxious to expand its imperial offensive from Yemen across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa. Unfortunately for Washington, its Somali puppets have far too few troops to launch an offensive against anyone.
Unable to make headway against the Shabab Islamic militants that control 95 percent of south and central Somalia, the Americans step up their war against the civilian population, withholding food from the millions that depend on foreign aid to keep from starving.

The subjugation of Somalia is a Euro-American affair. The European Union is paying for the training of 2,000 Somali recruits in Uganda, Washington’s always-eager mercenary best friend in Black Africa. Uganda also provides thousands of its own troops to guard the Mogadishu airport, without which the puppet Somali regime would be cut off from the outside world.

Another 2,500 new Somali recruits are in neighboring Kenya, but there’s a problem getting them into action, as well. Many of the ethnic Somali recruits are Kenyan citizens. The traditional Somali homeland includes huge chunks of Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as the French and American outpost in Djibouti. The Kenyans are afraid they will lose control of these Somali soldiers if they are turned over to the regime in Mogadishu. Kenya wants their Somalis to guard the Kenyan border against other Somalis, and has refused to turn them loose for service to the U.S. -backed puppet government.

"The Americans used one section of the United Nations to attack the UN aid mission in Somalia."

Ethiopia, which invaded Somalia in late 2006 at the instigation of the United States, is also careful which Somalis get guns and training, and where they are stationed. Ethiopia has vetoed the deployment of some Somali militias, fearful they will wind up turning on Ethiopia. But the Ethiopians have also armed other Somali militias that promise to fight the Shabab Islamists in Mogadishu.
Frustrated that unlimited American money and military resources still can't get an offensive going against the rag-tag Shabab, Washington earlier this year decided to starve out the Somali population, to force the Shabab to surrender. But United Nations and international food agencies loudly protested, forcing U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice to temporarily back off from charges that United Nations food was being diverted to the Shabab. The Americans then made an end run around the United Nations Secretariat structure, using the more compliant Security Council apparatus to issue a "report" backing up U.S. claims. Thus, the Americans used one section of the United Nations to attack the UN aid mission in Somalia. The ultimate casualties are, of course, the millions of displaced and hungry Somalis who were plunged into humanitarian crisis by the U,S. and Ethiopian invasion, more than three years ago.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



 

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Divide, undermine and conquer

by Galal Nassar

http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m65111&hd=&size=1&l=e

Recent targeting of Yemen by the US, ably assisted by its Middle East partner-in-crime, has made artful use of Eritrea, Al-Qaeda, Somali pirates and who-knows-what, putting the security of the Red Sea at risk -- and in their grasp, warns Galal Nassar

April 15, 2010

Two weeks ago, under the title "Oil has poisoned the well", Al-Ahram Weekly featured an analysis of the insurrectionist movements in Yemen. Its purpose was to examine diverse aspects of a national crisis that various outside forces are attempting to exploit with an eye to achieving broader regional aims, among which is to take control of the security situation in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa. This analysis attempts to assess the dangers of the disintegration of Yemen, not only because of the implications it could have for this Arab country but also in order to shed light on the strategy behind a deliberate attempt to dismantle the Yemeni state.

No strategic analyst of security matters in the Middle East and the Red Sea area can ignore the roles played by Israel and the US in this process, as corroborated by documented evidence and logical connections between factual dots. The disintegration that has been ravaging Yemen since 2000 is by no means random; it is the product of cumulative destructive seeds sown by capitalist forces linked with Israel and abetted by many other factors.

From the Sabaen Kingdom in the late eighth century BC to the 20th century, Yemen was a fertile and bounteous country, praised by some as the "Happy Land" and by others as "a piece of heaven on earth". It has long been known for the excellent qualities of its soil, though recently this resource was obscured by the greater attention that is now being paid to its oil.

YEMEN'S TRAIN OF DISASTER: The failure of the Yemeni state stems from various factors some of which have deep historical roots. The tribal makeup of Yemeni society has been one of the most intractable obstacles to the development of a modern civil society. Tribal disputes in Yemen have more in common with conflicts between ethnically or nationally distinct peoples than with conflicts within more ethnically and culturally homogeneous societies over matters related to the distribution of wealth and power. The latter conflicts are generally surmountable through accommodations that favour the establishment of a civic state founded upon justice, plurality and respect for human rights, such as the US, Italy and Spain, which underwent brutal civil wars and emerged as robust nation states that embraced all its citizens on a footing of equality within a framework of checks and balances between the authorities, the rotation of power, and other such guarantees against the forces of greed and the lust for power.

However, the Yemeni question has more modern roots. Prior to 1962, which is to say before national independence, the northerners regarded the south as part of their land. In the post- independent period the attitude continued to prevail, with the notion that the south had to be restored to the north. Upon assuming power in Sanaa in the 1980s, President Ali Abdallah Saleh campaigned to repair fences with the diverse factions across the political spectrum in the north, and succeeded in forging a broad-based national reconciliation beneath the umbrella of the General People's Party, the state party, at a time when political party plurality was constitutionally prohibited. Meanwhile, the regime in Aden hunted down its perceived enemies at home and abroad both outside and inside the regime, which was founded on a one-party state.

Evidently unaware of the advantages of compromise, healing old wounds and giving other national forces the right to express themselves, the leaders of the south resisted forging any form of national reconciliation in the south similar to that in the north before the declaration of unity with the north in 1990, and they continued in the same manner afterwards. They only realised their mistake relatively late when, well into the civil war, South Yemen's Socialist Party began to fracture. Soon, however, Abdallah Saleh's front began to unravel in the north where disputes between the central authorities and the tribes in the governorates of Marib and Al-Jawf sent fissures through the Sanaa regime.

Embroiled as they were in internal crises, both regimes failed to capitalise on the oil boom in the Gulf and to effectively utilise remittances from Yemenis abroad and aid from the Gulf countries. In the north, in particular, cash surpluses were squandered filling the markets with imported consumer and luxury goods until these financial resources dwindled. The south, meanwhile, was beginning to feel the crunch from the shift in the outlook of the USSR, which under Mikhael Gorbachev, began to dismantle its network of alliances abroad and turn off the taps of financial and military assistance to such soviet satellites as the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen.

A new world was in the making as the Soviet Union collapsed and it was against this backdrop that the two Yemens issued their declaration of unity on 22 May 1990. However, the distrust and acrimony that had accumulated over recent decades kept the unity from extending any deeper than the name of the country, one flag and a single national anthem. Beyond this, there remained two regimes, two governments, two cabinets, two armies and even two currencies. Although technically there was a president's council headed by a president and vice-president, in effect there remained two presidents who refused to see eye-to-eye. It was not long, therefore, before the situation deteriorated dramatically. Yemen was plunged into civil war, followed by a series of minor civil wars between the regime and rebel tribes, such as the Houthis, and the country descended into chaos.

The chaos in Yemen elevated this country to a cornerstone in US and Israeli plans to dominate the southern portion of the Middle East, which were moved into high gear at the turn of the millennium when the first Bush administration unveiled its project for a "New Middle East". An easily accessible country, it overlooks the Bab Al-Mandeb, the strait linking the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. This strategic international water is extremely vital to Israel, which is why Israel has done all in its power since 1973 to secure control over it. Its efforts towards this end include:

- Expanding its naval presence in the southern portion of the Red Sea off the coast of Eritrea in order to intercept Iranian naval vessels and monitor the Sudanese coast.

- Stimulating Al-Qaeda activities in Yemen in order to hasten the dismantlement of the state and to be able to use the "war on terrorism" as an excuse to secure a military presence on Yemeni territory.

- Unleashing piracy along the Somali coast and in the vicinity of the Bab Al-Mandeb in order to justify a direct US-Israeli military engagement in the area.

We will discuss these activities in greater depth below.

THE RED SEA IN THE ISRAELI STRATEGIC OUTLOOK: The Red Sea occupies a prominent place in Israeli strategic and military scripture. David Ben-Gurion referred to it as "Israel's only means of contact with the East". It was this outlook that gave rise to Eilat, which was born as a cross between a port city and a military base and accorded the highest priority in Israeli development plans. Encircled by a high- security cordon, it is perhaps the only Israeli city for which Israeli citizens, until recently, needed to obtain an entry pass in advance. The condition continues to apply to Arab citizens of Israel and to Arabs in the occupied West Bank.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia had long attempted to hamper Israeli designs on the Red Sea. In 1950, Saudi Arabia handed the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Egypt so that these could be placed under the control of the Egyptian military with the purpose of restricting Israeli navigation in the area. Attempts to obstruct shipping to and from Eilat were among the reasons behind the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956.

Over a decade later, when Egypt cordoned off the Gulf of Aqaba against Israeli ships, Israel launched a comprehensive war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. By the end of the offensive it launched on 5 June 1967, Israel occupied huge tracts of Arab land, quadrupling the size of Israel. The Sinai (61,347 square kilometres), the Golan Heights (1,158 square kilometres), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (5,878 square kilometres) and Gaza (363 square kilometres) were added to the pre-June area of 21,000 square kilometres. In the process, Israel took control over all the water resources in these territories, seized the oil wells and military facilities in the Sinai, and obtained the strategic advantages of the Golan Heights and Gabal Al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon).

The Arab countries now awoke to the true threat Israel posed, especially to those countries bordering it and the Red Sea. They also realised how important the Red Sea and the Bab Al-Mandeb straits were to Israeli strategy. Between 1970 and 1973, Israeli strategy received a major boost in the form of a secret pact with Ethiopia for military and intelligence cooperation. The development compounded the danger for the Red Sea countries and especially for Yemen. The importance of the Yemeni factor in Israeli strategic thinking was underscored by a report presented by Sanaa to the Arab League detailing Zionist activities off the Eritrean coast and revealing the discovery of a Mossad ring operating in the area. The leader of this ring, Baruch Mizrahi, was arrested in Hodeida in the process of drawing a detailed sketch of this Yemeni port city from a small boat that he had rented from a poor fisherman. The espionage ring was based on Barim island in Bab Al-Mandeb and its mission was to gather intelligence on the southern Red Sea and to track and assure the safety of Israeli ships passing through the straits. The Arab League dispatched envoys and a fact-finding team to check the report. They not only proved it correct but also learned that Israel, with help from the US, had leased the islands of Abul-Tir, Haleb and Dahlak from Ethiopia. The revelation prompted the Arab countries bordering the Red Sea to hold an urgent meeting on the matter in Jeddah on 15 July 1972. A year later, on 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a joint offensive against Israel. The war occasioned the Arabs' first coordinated attempt to assert the right to exercise their sovereignty over their territorial waters in the Red Sea. On 14 October, Yemen actively joined the war effort, dispatching forces to several islands in the Bab Al-Mandeb area in order to strengthen the maritime blockade against Israel and forestall any Israeli attempt to occupy the islands.

Between 1973 and 1979 the Arabs held further conferences and meetings with an eye to protecting the Red Sea, neutralising it from inter-

national conflicts and asserting its Arab identity. They also adopted a resolution calling upon the Red Sea countries to cooperate, to utilise the Red Sea's wealth and resources for the benefit of the peoples of the region, and to obstruct Israel's attempts to strengthen its relations with African countries near the southern entrance to the Red Sea. In October 1977, North Yemen sent a secret memorandum to the Arab League confirming a growing Israeli and Ethiopian military presence along the Eritrean coast and in the vicinity of the Bab Al-Mandeb. The memorandum cautioned that Ethiopia had sold the coastal strip of Eritrea to Zionist intelligence agencies which would enable Israel to jeopardise Yemen's influence in the area. At the time, Arab influence over the area was weakening, in part because of the hostile behaviour by some Arab countries towards a number of African countries and in part because of the lack of a unified Arab policy towards the Horn of Africa, a deficiency exacerbated by acrimonious disputes between Arab countries located in the Horn of Africa, namely Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia, all of which came as a boon to Israeli strategy in the area.

However, it was with the Camp David accord signed between Egypt and Israel on 16 March 1979 that one of the foremost obstacles was removed from Israeli activities in the Red Sea. With Egypt out of the way, Israeli ships moved freely through the Gulf of Aqaba, the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal and established a presence disproportionate to the actual size of Israel in the Red Sea. The commander of the Israeli navy at the time expressed the Israeli vision for the Red Sea explicitly. "Egypt's control over the Suez Canal only gives it one key to the Red Sea. The other and more important key from the strategic perspective is the Bab Al-Mandeb. Israel must therefore strive to control that important passageway and it must develop its navy in a qualitative way." The Israeli writer Elyaho Salbetr adds, "Israeli defence specialists and planners are well aware of the Arab threat that looms in the Red Sea which underscores the importance of Israel's relations with the non-Arab countries in East Africa."

Eritrea's winning of its independence against the backdrop of the sweeping repercussions of the collapse of the Soviet Union furnished Israel with a more favourable climate to operate in that region and to strengthen its relationship with the countries of the Horn of Africa, particular. Eritrea soon became Israel's spearhead in the southern Red Sea, and Israel backed and led the Eritrean seizure of the Hanish islands on 15 December 1995. Israel supported the Eritrean independence movement, backing the faction led by Isaias Afwerki. In 1990, an Israeli delegation visited Asmara with the purpose of assessing the situation in Eritrea and the southern Red Sea. On the basis of its findings, Israeli strategists drew up an urgent plan of action for East Africa. The subject of a five-hour secret Knesset meeting on 16 March 1992, the plan set the following objectives:

- To develop closer ties with Eritrea as a stepping stone towards developing relations with other African nations, such as Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Kenya, in order to counter Arab influence in Africa.

- To strengthen the Israeli military presence in the Red Sea, along the Eritrean coast and in Ethiopia. (Already, 1,700 Israeli military experts had been sent to Eritrea in 1990 to train the Eritrean army).

- To strengthen economic relations with Eritrea.

Israel quickly consolidated its relations with the political elite of Eritrea through the construction of sumptuous palaces, the provision of 60 grants for Eritrean students to study in Israel, and numerous cultural exchanges. On 13 February 1993, a security and economic delegation paid a five-day secret visit to Asmara which resulted in the conclusion of an extensive agreement that was officially signed by presidents Rabin and Afwerki in March that year in Tel Aviv. Israel was obliged by the agreement to supply Asmara with agricultural and military experts and to construct the entire Eritrean infrastructure. In exchange, Asmara would permit full Israel military presence in Eritrea and freedom of movement to Israeli military and intelligence personnel throughout the country. In addition, Asmara would refrain from entering into cooperative arrangements with Arab countries and indefinitely postpone the idea of joining the Arab League. Soon after the agreement was signed, 3,000 Israeli soldiers were stationed on bases in the Eritrean provinces near Sudan and across from Yemen. Of particular strategic value was Sorkin mountain overlooking the Bab Al-Mandeb, on which the Israelis installed radars to monitor the some 17,000 ships that pass through the Red Sea annually, not to mention 30 per cent of the global output of oil. In mid-November 1995, Eritrean forces attempted to occupy Greater Hanish but were repelled by Yemeni forces. This was before the Israeli-assisted attack and showed that Eritrea, on its own, was not yet strong enough to take the island.

The Hanish archipelago is a group of islands located off the coast of Al-Khoja province and forms the closest Yemeni islands to the crucial sea lanes leading to and from the Bab Al-Mandeb. In the 1970s, Yemen allowed Eritrean revolutionaries to use these islands to store the arms they would use in their conflict with Ethiopia. In the early 1980s a lighthouse was constructed on the eastern part of Arabat on the island of Zuqar. Zuqar mountain affords a view of all the maritime routes in the Red Sea and the Eritrean coast, and is of great military value. Greater Hanish, with an area of 66 square kilometres is the largest of this group of islands. Lesser Hanish, located to the south of Zuqar, is an outcrop of volcanic rock around 10 square kilometres that rises 127 metres above sea level and is located about 38 kilometres from the Yemeni coast and 70 kilometres from the Eritrean coast. The Yemeni port authority built a lighthouse on it in 1981.

The Hanish islands had been under dispute between Yemen and Ethiopia prior to the official declaration of Eritrean independence in 1993. Tensions between the two countries over the islands often flared into the open, as occurred in 1974, because the islands served as bases and arms caches for Eritrean rebel forces. It is most likely for this reason that various sources and maps indicate that Eritrea had initially recognised the Yemeni claims to the islands. After the unification of Yemen in 1990, Yemen began to build and operate lighthouses on the islands. The lighthouses, constructed in cooperation with the German Siemens company, operate by solar power and were intended to assist international navigation, as all international maritime routes in that area pass through Yemeni territorial waters. But the lighthouses were also meant to serve as a tangible reminder of Yemen's historical right to and sovereignty over these Red Sea islands. During the build-up to the 1973 war with Israel, Yemen gave Egyptian forces access to these islands in accordance with a secret agreement signed between Yemen and Egypt on 12 May 1973. Neither Ethiopia nor any other country lodged an objection to this Yemeni decision.

Following the declaration of Eritrean independence on 25 May 1993, the Eritrean government made no claims whatsoever to the islands and Yemen proceeded as usual on the basis that the islands belonged to it. The Yemeni government continued to support a small garrison there, Yemeni fisherman continued to cast their nets in the vicinity, and foreign tourists would take their permits to visit the islands from the Yemen tourist authority. It therefore came as quite a surprise that the islands would be the cause of a sudden deterioration in relations with Eritrea, which began to lay claims to Greater and Lesser Hanish and Zuqar in the autumn of 1995. In early November 1995, Asmara demanded the evacuation of the Yemeni garrison on Greater Hanish. In response, Yemen sent a delegation to Asmara to negotiate over maritime borders between the two countries. On 7 December 1995, the parties agreed to defer these negotiations until the end of Ramadan in 1996.

ISRAELI-ERITREAN COOPERATION: Eritrea's assault against Greater Hanish was the fruit of the above-mentioned military and economic cooperation agreement it signed with Israel. The first time Eritrean forces attempted to seize the islands, on 15 October 1995, they were repelled by a Yemeni garrison that was only 300 men strong. Following this setback, president Afwerki flew to Israel to meet with Rabin and plead for help. That was immediately forthcoming in the form of an arms deal consisting of six Blackhawk and Dolphin military helicopters, an Arabah naval reconnaissance plane, a naval radar system, a collection of sea- sea Gabriel missiles, and six Rashif and Saar missile craft, all of which were deployed in a second assault on the Yemeni islands on 15 December. The pact also included a unit of Israeli officers and soldiers who took part in the offensive. Operating under the command of Air Force Lieutenant Michael Dumas, they operated the Israeli arms and equipment.

Subsequent Israeli reports claimed that Eritrean control over Greater Hanish was part of a pre- emptive regional strategy Israel was implementing to defend international maritime traffic in the Red Sea against potential threats from Sudan, Yemen and Iran and to forestall any attempts to close off access to Eilat by means of a blockade of the Bab Al-Mandeb as Yemen had done in 1973. Three Yemeni soldiers from the garrison on Hanish died during the attack which ended with the Eritrean-Israeli occupation of the island. Sanaa did not attempt to retaliate by force. Instead, it contacted the Eritrean government and expressed its desire to preserve good relations with Eritrea and to resolve the situation through peaceful negotiations in accordance with the principles of international law. The two parties thus entered direct negotiations, heeding the Arab League's call to self-control and peaceful dialogue, and the crisis was eventually diffused through international arbitration. On 26 August 1996 the Security Council called upon the two parties to accept the agreement on principles and refrain from the use of force. On 9 October, the International Court of Justice issued its final verdict, ruling that all 43 islands of the Hanish Archipelago, inclusive of Greater Hanish and Zuqar, belonged to Yemen. On 1 November 1998, Eritrea formally handed control of Hanish back to Yemeni forces.

Although Yemen won its case, the arbitration process had other practical outcomes. Firstly, during the process the US asked Eritrean forces to round up members of the Eritrean Islamic Hamas Front and expel them from the island in the interest of safeguarding the Eritrean regime. Second, as a reward for siding with Israel and rivalling Yemen over the control over the Bab Al-Mandeb, Eritrea was cast as a new and major player in the region. Third, the drive to officially establish the Arab character of the Red Sea was frustrated by Eritrea's refusal to declare its Arab identity and join the Arab League.

THE RISE OF AL-QAEDA: Before examining this aspect of the Yemeni question, I must first register my belief that the so-called Al-Qaeda organisation was born as and remains a kind of CIA unit. Most alleged Al-Qaeda leaders had close links with the CIA as did the other Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The same applies to the next generation of Al-Qaeda leaders, such as Ayman El-Zawahri, Omar Al-Masri and Anwar Al-Ulaqi who, moreover, was educated in the US. In addition to the suspicion surrounding the true affiliation of the leaders, it should also be borne in mind that Al-Qaeda is essentially a loose network of separate groups which are not bound by an organisational link. This makes the organisation easy to infiltrate and to use as a cover for any number of actions committed in its name. Finally, it is no coincidence that all the operations of this organisation are associated with Arab and Islamic countries that the US has earmarked to engineer the changes it needs to redraw the map of the region and produce the "New Middle East". When the US and its allies point to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemeni, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iraq and, subsequently, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria as countries that breed and export terrorism they are effectively attempting to justify various forms of foreign intervention. Al-Qaeda is the cat that is set on fire and let loose in the fields. Every one of the countries just mentioned is a candidate for bursting into flame because of the Al-Qaeda cat, which the American firemen have vowed to hunt down with their guns regardless of sovereign boundaries. After accomplishing their mission, the firemen might just decide to make these countries home for several years, helping themselves to whatever wealth and resources are to be had.

A decade after it was founded, Al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York, setting off a chain of events that struck the Arab and Islamic worlds harder than anywhere else. The military pursuit of Al-Qaeda beat a path of destruction through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and, most recently, Yemen. These were the names that topped the list of countries designated for the project of the New Middle East, the map for which was captioned by its architects, "Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look". It was precisely in this spirit that former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice remarked, "This project will not succeed without great sacrifices such as a torrent of blood." It takes no more than a quick glance at the course of events in the Middle East since 9/11 to ascertain that it is, indeed, paying this price.

AL-QAEDA AND THE FAILURE OF THE YEMENI STATE: The name of Al-Qaeda was first linked to Yemen following the bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden in October 2000. That date marked two important starting points: the beginning of the rise of Al-Qaeda and the beginning of the gradual collapse of authority in Yemen. The latter process would, naturally, be aided by the former. The central government in Sanaa has been losing its grip on the country because it is engaged in many battles at once. In the north it is fighting the insurrectionist Houthi movement. In the south it faces mounting civil discontent and a possible secessionist movement. In these areas and elsewhere it is hunting down Al-Qaeda members and fighting poverty, unemployment, tribal unrest, declining oil revenues and dwindling water supplies.

Such conditions form the perfect refuge for Al-Qaeda whose operatives infiltrated into Yemen with the aid of US satellite technology. In addition, the country's rugged terrain, combined with the government's inability to police it adequately, make an excellent setting for Al-Qaeda to use Yemen as a base for recruitment and training and for launching operations with far-reaching consequences. After all, Yemen is located in a region rich with oil and it sits astride one of the world's most crucial maritime routes. Former Yemeni prime minister Abdel-Karim Al-Aryani believes that Yemen should have foreseen the threat Al-Qaeda posed to the country's national security and territorial integrity much earlier on. "We should have seen the attack on the USS Cole as a major warning to us from Al-Qaeda. But no one at the time gave it much attention. As a result, Al-Qaeda has become much harder to fight now than it would have been in 2000," he said.

Indeed, the longer the problem was left unaddressed the more it spun out of control, and the more malicious aims became confused with noble aims, tribal law with civil law, and Al-Qaeda members with tribal members. Moreover, the bombing of the American warship became a pretext for Washington to gradually diminish its support for the Sanaa regime preparatory to pronouncing Yemen a failed state. Washington was dissatisfied with the Yemeni authorities' handling of the persons suspected of involvement in the bombing, some of whom were released and others of whom managed to escape from prison. Further aggravating tensions between Sanaa and Washington was the former's refusal to hand over two of the suspects to the US, one of whom was thought to be the mastermind behind the bombing. A major reason why Yemen slackened in its pursuit of Al-Qaeda operatives following an initial spurt of successful antiterrorism activities in the wake of 9/11 was its fear of losing the support of certain clans and religious figures. However, since January 2010 Sanaa has intensified its offensive against Al-Qaeda militias, having received a new injection of US military aid for the purpose and now convinced that the militias pose a direct threat to the regime.

But the regime still faces some life-and-death choices. It needs the support of the clans now more than ever in its fight against the Houthis, for without their support it risks losing the next round against these insurgents in the north. A Houthi win, in turn, could precipitate further divisions and fuel insurrectionist impulses among other tribes. On the other hand, if the regime refuses to yield to American demands to uproot Al-Qaeda, Yemen will become vulnerable to direct foreign military intervention which will begin with the bombardment of the tribal areas where Al-Qaeda operatives are presumed to be based. In other words, the pursuit of Al-Qaeda in Yemen could prove counterproductive. It could lead to a situation similar to that in Pakistan where American bombardment of tribal areas along the borders with Afghanistan has worked to increase the popularity of Al-Qaeda among the tribes in those areas and to expand the scope and intensity of the confrontation as Al-Qaeda feels its own strength. To compound the predicament there is the problem of the government of a Muslim country being perceived as spilling Muslim blood and presenting the country as a gift to non-Muslim powers.

The upshot of the Yemeni efforts to combat Al-Qaeda is that Yemen was placed on the list of the world's most dangerous countries and branded an exporter of global terrorism. As Bruce Riedel of the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy wrote, "The attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day underscores the growing ambition of Al-Qaeda's Yemen franchise, which has grown from a largely Yemeni agenda to become a player in the global Islamic jihad in the last year."

Putting it more bluntly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the increased Al-Qaeda activity in Yemen poses a threat that goes beyond that country and the Middle East at large. She made the remark following a meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem in Washington and added, "We see the global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by Al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region." In early January, the US, Germany, Britain, Spain and Japan closed their embassies in Sanaa for several days as a means to magnify the Al-Qaeda threat and compel Yemeni authorities to comply with Western demands to take military action against Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Significantly, Riedel observes, "Since merging with the Al-Qaeda franchise in Saudi Arabia last January and renaming itself Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), it has stepped up operations in Yemen itself, struck inside Saudi Arabia, and now operates on the global stage. The weak Yemeni government of President Ali Abdallah Saleh, which has never fully controlled the country and now faces a host of growing problems, will need significant American support to defeat AQAP."

He continues: "Al-Qaeda has long been active in Yemen, the original homeland of Osama bin Laden's family, and one of its first major terror attacks was conducted in Aden in 2000, when an Al-Qaeda cell nearly sank the USS Cole. A year ago, the Al-Qaeda franchises in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged after the Saudi branch had been effectively repressed by the Saudi authorities under the leadership of Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohamed bin Nayif. The new AQAP showed its claws last August, when it almost assassinated the prince with a suicide bomber who had passed through at least two airports on the way to his attempt on Nayif." It is now believed that the same bomb-makers who produced that device also made the bomb that Omar Al-Farouq Abdel-Mutallab attempted to use on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight. When claiming credit for the Detroit attack, AQAP boasted of having built a bomb that "all the advanced, new machines and technologies and the security barriers of the world's airports" were unable to detect. The organisation praised the "mujahideen brothers in the manufacturing section" for constructing such a "highly advanced device" and vowed that more attacks would follow. Riedel observes that Yemen's sporadic attempts to repress Al-Qaeda met with little success because the Abdallah Saleh government has a host of other pressing problems to deal with. He concludes that if Yemen is to overcome the Al-Qaeda problem it will need considerable encouragement and help from abroad.

REGULATING PIRACY: Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, currently commander of US naval forces in Europe and Africa, and NATO commander in Naples, has stated, "Somali pirates get a lot of logistic support, equipment and intelligence on the locations of ships from people in Yemen." The admiral's remark echoed throughout the Western press, with one newspaper reporter Jean Novak contributing the additional claim, "Somali pirates are hiding their main boats in Yemen's territorial waters".

One cannot escape the impression that the US is seeking justifications to build up its military presence in the Horn of Africa and Yemen. Reports from Washington further claim that terrorist elements are leaving Somalia for Yemen and that Yemen is Al-Qaeda's transfer point to Somalia. The same newspaper quotes the UN commission for monitoring the arms ban on Somalia as saying that Yemen is the chief source of illicit arms and ammunition and that Sanaa's inability to halt widespread arms smuggling is a major obstacle to the restoration of peace and security in Somalia.

Note the tiresome repetition of the names of the countries identified for the "New Middle East" project, appearing in the lists of countries that support terrorists or branded as "rogue" states, or classified as "failed" states that need to be rehabilitated by successful states. All of these countries, whether located in Eurasia, the Middle East or the Horn of Africa, also happened to sit atop vast oil and gas resources. The implication is that not only are they incapable of managing their own resources but also that when such precious energy resources lie in the hands of states like these they constitute a danger to international peace and security and, hence, must be relieved of control over them. It is little wonder, therefore, that the architects of US national security strategy after 9/11 combined the dependent variable "terrorism" with the independent variable "oil". Together they furnish ever ready pretexts for military intervention, which strengthens the belief that the race for control over energy resources is the primary drive behind the post-9/11 security strategy with the aim of promoting US national interests and those of its allies, in that order.

But there are other curious aspects to the Somali pirate phenomenon. One is especially struck by the fact that certain major powers seem to be controlling it and regulating its pace. The prime candidates for this role are those with a strategic vision for this region, namely the US, and Israel above all. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden near the Bab Al-Mandeb has the charm of appealing to international intervention in the area on the grounds that it threatens the security of one of the most important maritime routes in the world.

The International Maritime Bureau has recorded 51 Somali pirate attacks since the beginning of this year alone. The pirates now hold more than 50 ships, one of which has 40 tanks on board. There are an estimated 1,100 pirates operating in four bands. Most are former coast guards and use high speed boats launched from a mother ship. They are equipped with machine guns, hand grenades, portable missile launchers and other light weaponry, and with GPS technology. The ransoms they demand range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions, depending on the type of ship they capture and the identity of those on board. According to the latest estimates, the pirates have raked in between $25-30 million up to now. Regardless of how they began their operations, they are no longer petty opportunists driven to maritime crime by the civil war and destitution that have ravaged their country; they are big business. It is not surprising that certain powers would seize upon the opportunity to turn the phenomenon to their advantage. Chaos on the high seas serves the schemes of the US administration and Israel to assert their control over strategically sensitive areas. The US-Israeli cordon around the Bab Al-Mandeb is now complete. The two countries control Eritrea, they have neutralised Djibouti and the US has installed intelligence bases there. Now they are patrolling the coastal waters in the area on the pretext of hunting down pirates. In addition, they are poised to intervene in Yemen. The confessions of the terrorist cell captured in Sanaa in mid-2009 furnish incontrovertible proof of the extent of the danger Israel poses in the region. They revealed that they had been in close and direct contact with the office of the Israeli prime minister and disclosed various details of the plans that Israel harbours for Yemen.

US-ISRAELI COMMON AIMS: The US and Israel are intent, above all, to remove Arab control from the Bab Al-Mandeb and the Red Sea in general. Towards this end they have worked to intensify their military presence in the area and to obtain Security Council resolutions aimed at internationalising the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandeb, the Gulf of Aden, the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, in the hope of legitimising their presence in these waters and the Red Sea islands on a permanent basis. When one notes the rapid flare-up in Somali pirate activity off the Somali coasts and in the Gulf of Aden, one cannot help but to remark on the mysterious silence from Israel on the subject and on the fact that in spite of the thousands of ships that have been hijacked or obstructed over the past two years, not one carried an Israeli flag or was bound to or from Eilat.

As for the US, we read in the International Crisis Group report 95 (11 June 2009): "The US has a military base in Djibouti -- the only one of its kind in Africa -- to serve as a regional coordination centre in the fight against terrorism. With an annual budget of $100 million, its focus area is Somalia. It has created and funded several Somali networks and organisations to fight terrorism and is assisting a military base in Puntland in the tasks of collecting intelligence on and capturing suspected terrorists. Its other missions include monitoring seaports and airports and protecting foreigners. In other words, the US enjoys broad powers in Puntland, whose coasts are used as a springboard for pirate operations, which the US could stop if it wanted." Interestingly, in this regard, whenever world media sounds the alarm on piracy in the Gulf of Aden, US intelligence officials hasten to downplay the phenomenon and suggest that little can be done to stop it. They further caution against a response that could endanger security of sailors, vessels and freight in the vicinity and insist that there is no relationship between the pirates and Al-Qaeda, terrorism or militant Islamism.

FAILED STATES: Governments that are incapable of exercising their sovereign duties within their borders are commonly termed "failed states". They are states that no longer hold the monopoly on power inside the country due to the rise in the power and influence of political militias, warlords, drug barons and the like who have come to rival the central government in military power and, often, claims to legitimacy. The Crisis Research Centre at the London School of Economic Studies defines the failed state as "a condition of partial or total collapse resulting in the government's inability to perform its essential developmental functions, to safeguard national security, to ensure the safety of individual citizens, and to impose its control over the territory within its borders." The US- based Foreign Policy periodical produces an annual assessment of failed states which are so ranked on the basis of 12 criteria. Two of these criteria are the existence of a state within the state and the rise of political or military elites that permit intervention of other countries and their direct impact on the policies and decisions of the state. A large body of political and scholastic lore has accumulated in the West on the "failed state", its potential threat to international peace and security, and its relationship to global terrorism. Quite often studies, political commentaries and official rhetoric in this vein are a precursor to a country's entrance onto the list of "failed states", which, in turn, is preliminary to systematic attempts to meddle in its domestic affairs. These can range from teams of "advisors" to the imposition of an international mandate backed by international forces and military experts to train loyal local forces, to outright military occupation.

To conclude, the international conflict over the Bab Al-Mandeb area will claim Yemen as a victim with the Arab world in tow. Given that Eritrea has handed over a part of its coast to the Israelis, that chaos and destruction have devoured Somalia and that Israel may be behind the pirates, the US, Israel and their allies will be the first to benefit, regardless of whether the chaos continues or is brought under control and channelled to their advantage. In addition, Israel also has a presence on Yemeni land within the framework of the role accorded to it through the agreement to fight terrorism and maritime arms smuggling signed by the US and Israeli foreign ministers in January 2009.

"Internationalisation" has become the capitalist world's recipe for penetrating and recolonising Third World countries in the 21st century. It is certainly Israel's recipe for securing an active part in the crises flaring up in the region and guaranteeing the complete freedom of its warships and submarines in the waters stretching from Eilat to the Gulf of Aden and perhaps beyond. Israel has succeeded in establishing itself as a regional power in the post-Cold War period and part of this drive has entailed supplanting Arab control over the strategic landmarks and maritime routes in the Bab Al-Mandeb region.





 

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Uganda bombings: Obama mustn't meddle in Somalia

The Uganda bombings are a sad reminder of the ways that Washington’s intervention has exacerbated problems in Somalia.


By Jeremy Sapienza
posted July 13, 2010 at 1:47 pm EDT
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0713/Uganda-bombings-Obama-mustn-t-meddle-in-Somalia

Brooklyn, N.Y. — The 20-year conflict in Somalia has finally bled past its borders: Two bombings hit the Ugandan capital Sunday as locals watched the World Cup. Al Shabab, an armed Islamic group in Somalia, has claimed credit for the attacks. Just last week, a Shabab threat to attack Uganda and Burundi was dismissed by authorities.

Western officials and media have predictably spun this as an anti-soccer attack, which will fit neatly into the “they hate us for our freedoms” zeitgeist – Osama bin Laden and other Islamic disgruntleds are simply at war with modernity itself, you see.

Worse, we may be facing calls to intervene further in a renewed Somali civil war – after all, it now has international consequences. But the West, and especially the US, should stay out of it. Despite frequent claims that Shabab “has ties” to Al Qaeda, the connection is limited to rhetorical support. And for all the warnings about the dangers of a “failed state” in the Horn of Africa, Somalia’s bearing on American security is marginal at most.

A long history of intervention

The US has a long history of intervention in Somalia. Dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was courted by both the US and the Soviet Union throughout his post-colonial rule. In 1991 opposing militias overthrew Barre’s regime and made Mogadishu a battleground in which up to 20,000 people were killed. The militias were hijacking UN food aid and trading it for weapons, which prompted a US-led intervention to safeguard distribution to a starving population.

In 1993, the infamous defeat of US troops by the ragtag forces of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, an event known to Americans as “Black Hawk Down,” caused President Clinton to order US withdrawal.

War gave way in the late 1990s to the businesslike Somalis embracing commerce over conflict. The early 2000s were a comparative golden age of living standards for a population which had rarely seen the likes of running water, electricity, phone, and Internet service, trash pickup, schooling, and health care – all now provided in a market unhampered by taxation or regulation. In less than a decade, Somalis went from starving to prosperous, by African standards.

Incredibly, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Washington began contracting Aidid’s son (a former US Marine) and other warlords to “fight Al Qaeda,” which Bush officials feared could operate freely in the “power vacuum” of stateless Somalia. But millions in cash and weapons simply unleashed a renewed contest for power as the favored militias ignored Al Qaeda and attacked their rivals.

The Islamist rise in Somalia

The situation worsened until Islamic Courts Union (ICU) militias joined forces to rid the country of these American-financed warlords. The latter fled to Kenya, and together with former apparatchiks of the Barre regime, formed the “Transitional Federal Government,” (TFG) with the backing of the international community, the 14th such attempt to foist a central government upon the Somalis.

The West considered the ICU a terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda, though it was run by some rather moderate elements who simply looked to impose order; strict as they may have been, Somalis considered them better than the warlords. In response, the Bush administration asked Ethiopia to invade its traditional enemy neighbor and install the TFG to power.

As the ICU melted away to become an insurgency – just as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan – the militant splinter Islamist group Al Shabab flourished in the environment of all-out war.

The corrupt TFG now controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu, after Al Shabab last year took even the government’s erstwhile base of support in a remote city. Clan-based militias and Islamists of various shades control other swathes of the country. The economy is destroyed after years of war.

Blowback

This gave rise to another recent boogeyman: fishermen dabbling in piracy to feed their again-impoverished communities.

And international intervention has provoked outrage among the Somali diaspora, leading some of the more impressionable elements into holy war against the occupation – and into the ranks of Al Shabab.

The African Union, an organization made up of various kleptocratic regimes from around the continent, agree with the UN and US that Somalia must have a traditional European-style central state. Member countries Uganda and Burundi have troops stationed in Mogadishu; Uganda’s contingent of 5,000 makes up the bulk of this force. Al Shabab has often threatened to punish these countries for their involvement. It seems they have now succeeded, and scores of Ugandans are dead.

The coming spin will make every attempt to ignore the years of Al Shabab’s warnings, having nothing to do with sports and everything to do with occupation. Ugandan troops kill Shabab fighters in their own land. This is the plainest example of blowback the modern world can offer our pundits.

Washington’s intervention has only exacerbated problems in the region. It’s time once and for all for Somalis to be free of international meddling. It hasn’t helped them, and as the Ugandans can now attest, it hasn’t helped us.

Jeremy Sapienza is senior editor of Antiwar.com. He lives in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

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Related:

Kenya on high alert after Uganda bombings
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2010/0713/Kenya-on-high-alert-after-Uganda-bombings

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Obama Says U.S. Will ‘Redouble’ Efforts Against Somali Islamist Group

by Jim Lobe, July 15, 2010
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2010/07/14/obama-says-u-s-will-redouble-efforts-against-somali-islamist-group/
 

U.S. President Barack Obama has said Washington will "redouble" its efforts against the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab (The Youth), whose deadly bombings in Kampala, Uganda on Sunday are likely to result in stepped-up U.S. military and other assistance to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu.

In an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation Tuesday, Obama suggested that the group represents a growing threat to the region.

"[W]hat we know is that if al-Shabaab takes more and more control within Somalia, that it is going to be exporting violence the way it just did in Uganda," he said.

"And so we’ve got to have a multinational effort. This is not something that the United States should do alone, that Uganda or others should do alone, but rather the African Union (AU), in its mission in Somalia, working the (TFG) to try to stabilize the situation and start putting that country on a pathway that provides opportunity for people, as opposed to creating a breeding ground for terrorism," Obama said.

Sunday’s twin bombings at a popular Ethiopian restaurant and, across the city, at a rugby field where hundreds of spectators were watching the World Cup final in Johannesburg, killed a total of 76 people.

The Shabaab, which government officials here describe as increasingly tied to al Qaeda’s global agenda, took responsibility for the bombings, saying that Uganda was targeted due to its contribution of troops to the AU’s 6,000-man peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

"We are sending a message to every country who is willing to send troops to Somalia that they will face attacks on their territory," said Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamoud Rage Monday. He added that Burundi, the second-largest troop contributor to AMISOM after Uganda, "will face similar attacks, if they don’t withdraw."

Aside from brief cross-border raids into Kenya, Sunday’s bombings marked the first time the Shabaab has carried out a major attack outside Somalia. U.S. officials noted that the simultaneity of the bombings suggested that the attacks were inspired, if not organized, by al Qaeda operatives.

Washington, the single biggest supplier of military equipment and training for both the AMISOM and the TFG, sent three Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to Kampala to help Ugandan authorities investigate the bombings. The U.S. ambassador to Uganda, Jerry Lanier, said Wednesday more agents were expected in the coming days.

"We believe the Uganda mission is more important than ever now," he said, adding that the administration intended to "increase assistance to Uganda. "In fact, the entire AMISOM mission … is more important because al-Shabaab has shown a willingness to kill civilians outside of Somalia," he added.

That was echoed by a senior administration official who gave a background briefing to reporters late Tuesday. "(We) also… need … to look at the situation in Somalia and to determine if this is now a trend that al-Shabaab is going to be on, and to take all appropriate measures."

While the administration has not indicated precisely what it will do, most analysts believe it will step up assistance to both AMISOM, which is supposed to add 2,000 more troops in the coming months, and to the TFG’s security forces which, despite launching a long-planned joint offensive with AMISOM against the Shabaab two weeks ago, have been unable to expand the government’s control beyond a small area of Mogadishu.

Washington has provided tens of millions of dollars in equipment and training – much of it conducted by member states of the European Union (EU) in Uganda – to the TFG’s security forces and AMISOM, particularly since the election by the Somali Parliament of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as president in January 2009.

It was hoped that Sharif’s election and his government’s adoption of Sharia law, combined with the withdrawal in late 2008 of all Ethiopian troops from Somalia, would deprive both the Shabaab and Hizbul Islam of their religious and nationalist appeal and persuade a sufficient number of key insurgent leaders to lay down their weapons and effectively end their rebellion.

But those hopes have gone largely unfulfilled, due in part to a combination of protracted infighting within the TFG, insufficient funding to attract and maintain recruits, and corruption.

"There have been problems in paying recruits regularly; some of that is due to not enough money, or the money is going into the wrong pockets," according to David Shinn, a former ambassador to Ethiopia and an expert on the Horn of Africa. "More importantly, the TFG has yet to offer a vision of a future for Somalis. That’s the big challenge, and, until that happens, I can’t be very optimistic. At some point, people are going to stop writing checks."

Disillusionment with the TFG’s performance has prompted a number of analysts to call for reconsidering Washington’s opposition to any dealings with al-Shabaab, which was created in 2006 as an offshoot of a coalition of Islamist groups then led by Sharif. The group, which has attracted recruits from the Somali diaspora in the United States, as well as Europe and other parts of Africa, was placed on the State Department’s terrorism list two years later.

The International Crisis Group called in May for the TFG to "reach out" to elements of the Shabaab that are "disenchanted with the influence of foreign jihadis in the group and the al-Qaeda sympathies among its leadership" and to the Hizbul Islam, arguing that there were growing splits divisions within the Islamist movement.

In one widely noted study, Bronwyn Bruton, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, also argued that, left to itself, the Shabaab would likely split into different factions.

Calling for a policy of "constructive disengagement," she urged Washington to signal "a willingness to coexist with any Islamist group or government that emerges, as long as it refrains from acts of regional aggression, rejects global jihadi ambitions, and agrees to tolerate the efforts of Western humanitarian relief agencies in Somalia."

But while conceding there are differences between more nationalist and more al Qaeda-oriented elements in the Shabaab, Shinn argued that the leadership is united on basic issues. "Al-Shabaab wants total control; they’re not going to want to share power," he said. "I see no willingness to compromise."

The administration official who also briefed reporters appeared to dismiss Bruton’s suggestions as well. "I think that what we’ve seen in Kampala is a good example of why that’s not a viable way forward," he said.

In the last years of the Bush administration, Washington carried out a series of drone attacks against al-Shabaab leaders suspected of being closely tied to al Qaeda. Those attacks, in which civilians were also killed, are now seen as having been largely counterproductive.

Obama appears to have suspended such attacks, although, in mid-September last year, helicopter-borne U.S. Special Forces ambushed a convoy carrying Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the leader of an al Qaeda cell in Kenya who, according to U.S. officials, played key roles in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and a 2002 bombing of an Israeli hotel in Mombasa.

Nabhan was one of what many analysts believe are about 300 "foreign fighters" in the Shabaab with links to al Qaeda.

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Report: 2010 was worst year yet for piracy on high seas

A Somali pirate gazes from the shore toward a captured ship on the horizon.

January 18th, 2011
09:43 AM ET
 
 Last year was the worst on record for piracy at sea, according to a report issued Monday.

Pirates captured 1,181 sailors aboard 53 ships in 2010, according to the report from the International Chamber of Commerce's International Maritime Bureau. Eight of the captives were killed, the report says.

Ships reported 445 pirate attacks in 2010, a 10% increase from 2009.

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http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/18/report-2010-was-worst-year-yet-for-piracy-on-high-seas/

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Blackwater Founder Trains Somali ‘anti-Pirate’ Militia

UN Probing if Project Violates Arms Embargo

by Jason Ditz, January 20, 2011

Reports have emerged that the project to create “anti-piracy” militias in Somalia with significant international funding involve former Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince. Prince’s spokesman said the effort would eventually “overcome the scourge of piracy.”

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http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/20/blackwater-founder-trains-somali-anti-pirate-militia/

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'Prince of Mercenaries' who wreaked havoc in Iraq turns up in Somalia

Blackwater founder sets up new force to tackle piracy

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles

Blackwater employee on patrol in Baghdad

January 22, 2011

Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to establish a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia.

The project, which emerged yesterday when an intelligence report was leaked to media in the United States, requires Mr Prince to help train a private army of 2,000 Somali troops that will be loyal to the country's United Nations-backed government. Several neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, will pay the bills.

Mr Prince is working in Somalia alongside Saracen International, a murky South African firm which is run by a former officer from the Civil Co-operation Bureau, an apartheid-era force notorious for killing opponents of the white minority government.

News of his latest project has alarmed, though hardly surprised, critics of Blackwater. The firm made hundreds of millions of dollars from the "war on terror", but was severely tarnished by a string of incidents in post-invasion Iraq, in which its employees were accused of committing dozens of unlawful killings.

Mr Prince, a 41-year-old former US Navy Seal with links to the Bush administration, subsequently rebranded the company "Xe Services" and sold his stake in it. But he remains entangled in a string of lawsuits pertaining to the alleged recklessness of the firm.

For most of the past year, he has been living in Abu Dhabi, where he has close relations with the government and feels better positioned to dodge lawsuits. In an interview with a men's magazine, he recently declared that the UAE's opaque legal system will make it "harder for the jackals to get my money".

The exact nature of his sudden presence in Somalia remains unclear. The Associated Press said yesterday that the army Mr Prince is training will focus on fighting pirates and Islamic rebels.

The leaked intelligence report which prompted the news agency's story was compiled by the African Union, an organisation of African nations. It claimed that Mr Prince's money had enabled Saracen International to gain the contract to train and run the private militia. But that element of the report was flatly contradicted by a spokesman for the Blackwater founder, who claimed that Mr Prince had "no financial role of any kind in this matter".

In a written statement, the spokesman, Mark Corallo, added: "it is well known that he has long been interested in helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy. To that end, he has at times provided advice to many different anti-piracy efforts." He declined to answer any further questions.

Whatever the exact details of Mr Prince's role, his presence in Somalia will inevitably lead to renewed soul-searching about the growing privatisation of warfare. Critics of mercenary organisations, which are often prepared to operate where traditional armies fear to tread, claim they are often trigger-happy and lack proper accountability. In Iraq, Blackwater employees shot dead dozens of civilians; 17 people were killed in one incident alone in Nisour Square, Baghdad.

MORE

http://uruknet.info/?p=m74185&hd=&size=1&l=e

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January 23, 2011

Somalia Is Likely to Cut Ties to Mercenaries, Official Says


By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN


MOGADISHU, Somalia — The minister of information for the transitional federal government here said Sunday that Somalia was likely to end its relationship with Saracen International, a private security company in which South African mercenaries and the founder of Blackwater Worldwide are said to be involved.

Saracen has offered to train the beleaguered government troops and battle pirates and Islamist insurgents in Somalia, which has been steeped in civil war for two decades. But after the recent disclosure of an African Union report that said Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder, provided seed money for the Saracen contract and was “at the top of the management chain,” many of Somalia’s biggest financial supporters, including the United States, have questioned the wisdom of the deal. Somali officials, in turn, have cooled to the idea of working with Saracen.

“At this point, our collective thinking is that this is not a good thing,” said the minister of information, Abdulkareem Jama.

“We don’t want to have anything to do with Blackwater,” he said, mentioning accusations that Blackwater employees had killed civilians in Iraq. “We need help, but we don’t want mercenaries.”

Mr. Jama’s word will not be the last concerning Saracen, whose clandestine operations have incited controversy in Somalia’s Parliament. Several representatives have accused the government of striking secret deals that could open Somalia to private security companies and worsen the nation’s instability. Other Somali officials were said to be debating, on Sunday night, how to handle Saracen.

Mr. Jama is considered one of the government’s most powerful ministers — he was the president’s chief of staff until recently — and he sits on the four-member committee that is entrusted with reviewing the Saracen contract. He said a final report would be given to Parliament this week. “Our recommendation is not to go forward with this,” he said. “This all has a bad taste.”

Somalia’s defense minister, Abdulhakim Mohamoud Haji Faqi, agreed: “We will not accept any mercenaries.”

MORE

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/world/africa/24somalia.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

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Institute for Security Studies (Tshwane/Pretoria)

SOMALIA :  Pirates - Villains or Victims?

Analysis

Piracy off the East coast of Africa has, increasingly, posed enormous challenges to international shipping and maritime services. It has damaged the littoral economies, undermined humanitarian aid and compelled an increase in shipping insurance premiums along one of the world`s most travelled routes.

Defined by the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea as `any illegal acts of violence, detention or depredation committed outside territorial waters for private ends by crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft against another ship, persons or crew,` piracy off the coast of Somalia has, in the recent past, increased in occurence and in the range of attacks.

According to ECOTERRA International, a non-governmental organisation that also monitors the marine and maritime situation along the East African coast as well as the Gulf of Aden, at least 48 foreign vessels plus two barges with at least 808 hostages were being held by Somali pirates as of 08 February 2011.

The international community has responded to this scourge through increased naval escorts and patrols. Piracy attacks have, however, continued to rise in the last four years. The question then is, how do pirates with small skiffs and cargo boats manage to attack big ships often thousands of kilometers away? At a very basic level, what are the factors that underline piracy and is the military response the best option?

From a historical perspective, piracy off the coast of Somalia has its roots in, among other factors, state failure, encroachment on Somali waters and the poor living conditions of the Somali population.

The collapse of Somalia’s central state in 1991 created instability and security problems that undermined legitimate forms of production, including the fishing industry. Foreign trawlers reportedly using prohibited fishing equipment such as small mesh nets and sophisticated underwater lighting systems then started encroaching on the waters of Somalia, due to their high concentrations particularly of tuna fish. With time, Somalia`s unpatrolled waters also became a cost-free dumping ground for industrial toxic waste.

Former fishermen, in an attempt to protect the country`s waters and resources from flotillas of external gunboats, or at least wage a campaign to `tax` them, started patrolling the Somali waters and engaging in sporadic attacks on foreign vessels. Over time, and with no alternative sources of livelihood, efforts to protect Somali waters were replaced by armed gangs that resorted to hijacking foreign trawlers for ransom.

This criminal activity has since evolved not only in terms of magnitude but also in sophistication. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry, with gunmen demanding huge ransoms for the ships they seize. Pirates have progressively increased their capacity by abandoning their little boats for full-fledged cargo boats, and by using AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades instead of small weapons. They also now use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and satellite phones, and it is suggested that they are plugged into an international network that feeds them with information from ports in the Gulf, Europe and Asia.

If the failure of the Somali state provides the perfect environment for piracy, it is the payment of ransoms, running into millions of dollars, that provides the motivation. While payment of ransoms has probably exacerbated the situation, there appears to be little alternative as long as any intervention threatens the loss of ship equipment and the lives on board.

Faced with the possibility of a vital artery of the global economy being clotted by this criminal activity, the affected countries reacted with increasing military resolve. Currently, shipping sources estimate that about 20 naval escort ships from some 14 different nations are mostly concentrated in the Gulf of Aden, the gateway to the Suez Canal.

The military response has, however, not been effective in eliminating piracy.  The problem is that naval operations face a number of challenges, including covering a large area of operation (from the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aden to the Seychelles). The area is too large for a few dozen naval vessels with diverse interests to cover effectively. Moreover, pre-emptive action is significantly complicated by difficulties in distinguishing between pirates and fishing vessels. The military strategy also faces the challenge of enormous costs in maintaining fleets in the Indian Ocean. With these constraints, eliminating piracy seems a formidable task.

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http://allafrica.com/stories/201102110540.html