Rochester Somali’s Views of the Conflict
01/11/2007
Many of our Rochester neighbors are poeple who come from Somalia and these are people who have shared the horrors of war and starvation and want others to know it is totaly unacceptable. Omar Salad has written his opinion of the situation in Somalia and he has offered us a rare historical perspective. We are glad to share this material with our readers:-Ed.
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ETHIOPIAN DREAMS TO CONQUER SOMALIA CAME THROUGH
By Omar Salad
Over the centuries successive rulers of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) claimed and dreamed that Somalia was a part of Ethiopia. Thus, the current US-backed Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia is nothing less than those centuries old Ethiopian dreams to conquer Somalia came through. This occupation is not only an inimical, aggressive and illegal act in line those illusive expansionist dreams but it is also a dangerous precedent, after that of Iraq invasion. This illegal act further erodes the international law and security systems based on non-aggression and non-interference into the national independence and sovereignty of nations which the UN and its Charter have been pivotal since October 1945.
For the Somalis such Ethiopian invasion and occupation are absolutely unacceptable aggressive act which causes for them deep consternation, humiliation, bitterness, and fury that cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. Somali people inside and outside the country staged many demonstrations and will continue stage more in condemning the Ethiopian invasion and occupation of their country and strongly demand the immediate withdrawal of these invading forces.
Many international bodies such the UN, the AU, IGAD, EU, and Arab League called Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from Somalia. So are many states (e.g. Italy, etc.) around the world. Also many prominent influential individuals condemned this occupation as illegal and dangerous precedent calling Ethiopia to with draw its troops. Among such prominent people include US Republic Congressman Donald Payne who condemned Ethiopian invasion by saying ‘the invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian forces, despite claims of invitation by the weak Baidoa- based Transitional federal Government, only leads to more suffering and instability in the Horn of Africa region. United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 1725 clearly stated that all members states, in particular those in the region, should refrain from any action in contravention of the arms embargo and related measures,’ and also former UN Iraq spokesman Salim Lone condemned this occupation by stating that ‘The US-backed invasion of Somalia . . . is dangerous and illegal act of aggression’ in an article entitled ‘International Lawlessness.’ Eric Margolis foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada writes ‘Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia under cover of Christmas holiday was a blatant aggression that is likely to widen the arc of conflict across the dangerously turbulent Horn of Africa.’
The UN and the international community as whole must also not accept this aggressive international state gangsterism by the US neo-conservative foreign policy and that its junior ally of Ethiopia to invade and conquer Somalia without provocation and without their interests harmed. Otherwise it will be a behaviour pattern that tears apart nation-states and the international peace and security system as well. This brazen US-backed invasion and occupation of Somalia reminds one the adventurist actions of the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) in the 1930s that led to the break-up of the League of Nations and the catastrophic Second World War. Ironically Ethiopia was the first victim of the aggressive invasion and occupation of Fascist Italy from 1935 - 1941. Seeing the disastrous Iraq regime change, which increased many folds the so-called Muslim extremist forces and insecurity of the world, and the current Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia by traditional hostile neighbouring Christian state backed the world number one superpower, what will be the fate of the UN and world security system? This question is for all mankind to ponder over and answer.
HOW EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWERS AND ABYSSINIA PARTITIONED SOMALI HOMELAND
To understand the logic behind the Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia, a historical perspective is needed. At the end of the 19th century European colonial powers and Abyssinian kingdom partitioned up the Somali homeland. Britain was the most powerful Power among the partitioning powers which had to dictate and dispense the Somali spoils to the various beneficiaries. In 1884-5 Britain took the northern Somali territory (which later became known as British Somaliland Protectorate) by entering treaties of non-interference in internal affairs and protection from other foreign powers with various tribes such as different Isaq sub-tribes, Dulbahante, Warsangeli, Gadabursi and Issa tribal elders. Later in 1886 Britain signed a similar but supplementary treaty with the chief elder representative of Somali Ogadens. France which already from 1837 occupied the sea port of Obock extended its occupation up to Djibouti in 1896. To prevent France and Germany, two major competitors from having any land possessions in the Horn (except Obock which the France occupied), Britain helped Italy, a junior partner, to acquire some territories to be a favourite colonial neighbour. So with British consent Italy occupied the Eritrean ports of Assab and Mossawa in 1882 and 1885 respectively. Again in 1889 with British support Italy acquired the Somali Benadir Ports (Mogadishu, Merka, and Brava) first by renting and then later purchasing them from the Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayid Barqash, who was a vassal under Britain. For Italy the occupation of the Benadir ports was launch-pad from which it began from 1905 its military campaign of conquering the Southern, central and east Somali interior territories and Indian Ocean coastline up to the sea of Gulf of Aden. The latest territories to fall in Italian hands were the Hobyo Sultanate of Sultan Ali Yusuf and Alula Sultanate of Sultan Osman Mohamoud which Italian representative entered treaties of protection in December 1888 and April 1889 respectively. After completely occupying the rest of the country, the Italians moved against these two sultanates of Hobyo and Alula capturing them by force of arms in 1925 and 1927 respectively. The two sultans and their families were transferred to Mogadishu under the eyeful guard of the Italian authorities. Kismayo port was briefly occupied by Germany and Britain evicted them annexing it with the entire Somali Jubba land territory which it added to its East African possessions. After Italian request, in 1925, Britain transferred Jubba land including the port of Kismayo to Italy as a reward for the support that the latter gave to the former during the First World War. Britain retained another Somali populated region (later named North Frontier District –NFD and now North East region -NER) as part of its East African colonial lands.
THE CENTURIES OLD ETHIOPIAN TERRITORIAL CLAIMS OVER SOMALIA
For over 500 years there has been continuous struggle and enmity between Ethiopia and the Somalis about territorial claims by the former. This struggle and hostility have been mostly local and low level intensity and little was recorded. But at times such antagonistic relationship has been interlaced with episodic wars of high intensity and extensity. For example, during the 15th century there was long running and large scale wars between the Abyssinian kingdom and the Muslim Awdal state based in Zeila in which both sides alternately won and lost. At the beginning of the 15th century the Abyssinian king Yesheq invaded and dealt Awdal State with heavy blows killing its sultan Sa’adudin. After returning home with victory, king Yesheq mentioned in a poem the Somalis as one of the hostile peoples which participated in that war. For security reasons Awdal state capital was transferred from Zeila to Harar. Later on at start of the 16th century, the Awdal State in Harar that needed able leadership elected Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Ghazi (Ahmed Gurey), a young talented Somali commander of the Awdal army an as imam to lead the nation. After mobilising the people for war and organising a large army, he went war with Abyssinia with vengeance, killed the king and most of the royal family, and occupied the entire Abyssinian lands during the next 20 years. During that time Imam Ahmed Gurey fought with well armed Portuguese troops who were on the Abyssinian side. But the Portuguese forces were also defeated and their commander Christopher Vasco Da Gama (son of the famous Explorer) was among those many officers and soldiers killed. Abyssinians got more military reinforcements from Portugal and finally killed Imam Ahmed Gurey in battle in 1543 at Wayna Daga near Lake Tana (southern Oromo land) now under Ethiopia, and his army retreated to Harar. Amir Nur the successor of Imam Ahmed Gurey, also a Somali, before launching an offensive to revenge for Imam Ahmed’s death he asked Beti Dalweynbara for marriage, the widow of Imam Ahmed who was a heroine adored by the army and people of Awdal. She tied him a condition which was that if he should bring the head of the Abyssinian in front of her she would accept to marry him. He led a big offensive against the Abyssinian kingdom and scored major victories. Returning to Harar with victory he brought the head of the Abyssinian king and placed it in front of Beti Dalweynbara. Then she accepted to marry Amir Nur, the new ruler of Awdal. There was balance of power between the Awdal and Abyssinian king and a period of long stability before the European colonial powers arrived in the Horn at the end of the 19th century. Those colonial powers upset the balance of forces and tranquillity between two sides by supporting the Abyssinian side at the expense of the Harar Emirate in which at that time the Somalis were a main constituency and played religious and political leadership roles. As will be narrated below, that intervention by the European powers was strongly in favour of the Abyssinian kingdom and adverse to the Harar Emirate and the Somalis in general.
AGE-OLD ABYSSINIAN TERRITORIAL CLAIMS AND HOW EUROPEANS LET DOWN THE SOMALIS
Ever since the times of the above referred ancient wars, Abyssinia has been on constant territorial expansionist drive over the Somali homeland and other non-Habasha Horn Africa peoples (Afar, Oromo, Sidamo, etc.) To attract international Christian solidarity and support for its imperial project, the Abyssinian kings cleverly cried out various slogans such as being ‘a Christian island in a sea of pagans’ or ‘a Christian island in a sea of Muslims’ which moved many European kingdoms to respond with sympathy and support. Thus for many centuries the Abyssinian kingdom have had relations and varied forms of support from many European countries either through European Christian missionaries or states. Well before the Somali partition from 1884 as part of the overall ‘African Scramble’ plan, several European countries had diplomatic representations in Abyssinia. By 1878 the southernmost border of Abyssinia was Shoa with Fine Fine (now Addis Ababa) as its capital.
King Menelik of Shoa, on 17 December 1878, sent a letter to Queen Victoria. The British Foreign Secretary explaining the contents of the letter to the Queen noted that ‘Shoa is the southernmost of the extent: about 5,000,000 inhabitants, Christians, Mohamedans and Heathens,’ and in the same year in a bid to expand his kingdom Menelik sent another letter to the Queen in which he wrote ‘My road to the coast, to Zeila, Tadjoura and Aden is at present closed to me by the Mussulmans, to wit, the Egyptian government. They prevent my receiving into my country either provisions, arms . . . Will you kindly raise your powerful voice in order that I may have this opened for me.’1 King John of Abyssinia on 1879 sent a letter of thanks for help given to Queen Victoria which read in part ‘With God’s power, I became strong by Your Majesty’s cannons and guns.’2
To the run-up of the ‘Scramble of Africa’ the European powers enacted the General Brussels Act and Declaration of 1890 which banned the Africans to acquire modern arms so that they could not be able to resist to the colonial scramble. But these powers exempted such arms embargo from Abyssinia and allowed it to acquire modern arms in contravention of such Act. As a result of this unique favouritism, Abyssinia acquired large amounts of arms and ammunition while the Somalis and other non-Habasha peoples were denied of these arms. The Abyssinian kingdom was recognised as local Christian power and ally whose previous and present pleas for help against Muslims and territorial expansions had to be accommodated. Part of arms and ammunition sold and given to Abyssinia was recorded by French arms dealers Savoure and Labatut who disclosed that the following arms were sold to Abyssinia by various European countries in 1885 and 1886 : 64 cannons, 102,590 rifles and carbines, 3,000 muskets, 5,000 revolvers, 1,400,000 percussion caps, and 228,200 ammunition’3 in violation of the said Brussels Act. The Somalis and other non-Christian Africans in the Horn were denied to acquire these arms.
King Menelik, encouraged by the European support especially these huge arms supplies, developed much more ambition and appetite for more territorial claims and expansions. To have a share of the Somali land spoils in 1885 Menelik proposed to Count Antonelli, the head of the Italian Mission in Addis Ababa ‘if the Government of Italy occupied Zeila and Berbera and gives me Harar then we shall certainly have a good channel of commerce.’ Then with British political and arms support and Italian arms and military support Menelik launched an attack on Harar Emirate in October 1886 and conquered it. Harar was Muslim Emirate (an inheritor of the Awdal State) in which the Somalis was a major constituency in terms of population and religious and government leadership. Harar was also a main religious scholarship centre for northern, western and central Somali lands. Having conquered Harar, which his predecessors have had so much coveted in so long time, Menelik stepped his diplomatic activities to acquire many more Somali lands. In May 1887 he wrote a letter to the Italian King Umberto in which he in part proposed ‘My occupation of Harar augurs well for the commercial relations between Italy and Shoa’ and he added ‘but more important is the question of Zeila, if your Majesty will see to its cession to me, the port will be open for trade.’3
King Menelik, on 18 July 1890 was informed by the Italian government of Prime Minister, Crispi, that East Africa was soon divided into spheres of influence and that he (Menelik) should set out his plans for the territories he wanted. Representing the Prime Minister, on 20 august 1890, Count Antonelli, Italian representative in Addis Ababa wrote to Menelik giving him this advice ‘The countries that Your Majesty should put in the list are specially all tribes of Adal and Somalis, those Ogadens, the countries beyond Kaffa and always insist on Gildessa, Harar and Assal.’4 Emboldened by the conquest of Harar and the Italian instigation, Menelik Continued his territorial expansion march. On 10 April 1889 Menelik wrote another letter to European states in which he, along with Oromo and Afar territories, claimed ‘formerly the boundary of Ethiopia was the sea. Having lacked sufficient strength, and having received no help from Christian powers, our frontier on the sea coast fell into the power of Mussulman. At present we do not intend to regain our sea by force, but we trust that the Christian power, guided by Our Saviours, will restore to us our sea-coast line, at any rate, certain points on the coast.’5
In 1897 the French in Obock and Djibouti entered a treaty with Menelik allowing him to occupy the Somali territories between Hawash, Dirir Dhabe, Jigjiga and the French occupied Somali Obock-Dibouti coast mainly inhabited by Somali Issa, Gadubarsi, Gurgura, Dirir, Isaq, Darod, Hawiya, and Afar, Oromo, etc. tribes. In 1897 Britain and Italy agreed by dividing between them the Somali lands. Abyssinia occupied Ogaden territory and Italy southern, central and eastern Somali territories. Encouraged by political and material support from European powers, Abyssinia advanced deep into and occupied large parts of western, southern and central Somali territory to territories adjacent the Italian occupied Somali land dividing same tribes and subjecting them to be under two colonial powers. No official boundary was ever officially demarcated by Italy and Abyssinia or later by Somalia and Ethiopia.
Emperor Haile Sellasie, in 1924 according to John Spencer (1984: 176) requested Britain to cede to him the Port city of Zeila. In 1941 his representative Aklilu Habte-Wolde claimed at the Pan African Congress conference that Somalia and Eritrea should be incorporated into Ethiopia to which they formerly belonged. Haile Sellassie in 1942, upon his return from exile following the liberation of his country by Britain from Italy, claimed ‘I have come to restore the independence of my country, including Eritrea and Benadir . . . whose people will henceforth dwell under the shade of the Ethiopia flag. In this struggle we are neither alone or without arms; we have the help of Great Britain, therefore I summon you to strive to deliver yourself from the alien slavery.’6 On another occasion he put forward a fantastic territorial claim similar to the one Menelik earlier advanced saying ‘Prior to the race of the European Powers to divide up the continent of Africa, Ethiopia included an extensive coastline along the red Sea and Indian Ocean.’7 Again in 1948 Aklilu submitted an application to the Four Powers (Britain, France, Soviet Union and USA) asking them to help cede Zeila to Ethiopia in exchange of the Haud Area ( which they claimed but still was under British hands) to be returned to British Somaliland. Again in 1959 while he visiting Kebri Daharre, a Somali town in ogaden, Haile Selassie called upon all Somalis in the Horn of Africa to refrain from seeking an independent state and join Ethiopia.
Mengistu Haile-Mariam Ethiopian Military ruler invaded and occupied the two Somali border districts of Galdogob and Ballamballe in July 1982 claiming them as part of Ethiopia until the Western countries bore pressure on him to sign peace agreement with President Mohamed Siyad Barre of Somalia and withdraw from these places in 1988. This was the first time the West stood on the Somali side in relation to the two neighbouring countries of Ethiopia and Kenya as a part of the Cold War political chess-game at the time when Ethiopia was a communist oriented country and Somalia had abandoned the communism and leaned on the West.
THE BETRAYAL OF THE SOMALIS BY BRITAIN
On 13 May 1897 Rodd Rennell, a British envoy to Abyssinia reported to his government about Menelik’s unquenchable ambitions to take over all the Somali territories around and east of Harar including the Ogadens and parts of the Somaliland Protectorate tribes, adding that he (Menelik) did not even know about the extent and map of the territories he was claiming. Disturbed of the Abyssinian limitless claims over the whole Somali Peninsula, Britain which wanted only the Somali Zeila-Berbera-Hais-Mait coastline to protect and secure enough meat supplies for its troops in the main base of Aden, needed to talk to the Abyssinian kingdom to stop their advance to that coast. Even so, Rodd Rennell was given the following instructions by his British government to negotiate with King Menelik and make concessions :‘You are authorised, if absolutely necessary, to make concessions in regard to the frontiers of the Somaliland Protectorate as defined by the Anglo-Italian Protocol of 1894 provided such concessions are not of the nature to interfere with the main object of which the protectorate was assumed, namely the securing of adequate supplies for the port of Aden.’8 Consequently, Britain signed an agreement with Abyssinia which allowed the latter to take over and occupy the Somali Ogden territory and major partitions of the Isaq, Issa, Gadabursi, Dulhabante, and Dirir territories, all of which Britain entered treaties of protection in 1884-6. Sir Alfred Pease(1896-7) lamented ‘To the consternation of all interested in Somaliland, Mr. Rodd handed over to Abyssinia a large area of Somaliland including some of the tribes with whom we had entered into solemn obligations for their protection . . . The supposed quid pro quo was that portion of the Rodd treaty by which Emperor Menelik bound himself to prevent arms from reaching the Dervishes, etc.’9.This was immoral act and absolute betrayal on the part of Britain to renege these treaties and its promise to protect the Somali people and their territories.
On top of that betrayal, after so heavily armed and helped to occupy Somali lands by the European powers, the Abyssinians began a reign of terror and raids on Somalis and other peoples as reported at the time by close observers and witnesses. British officials and explorers who observed and were touched by the unfair and inhuman treatment of the empowered Abyssinians meted out to the Somalis and others in the Horn of Africa reported many such atrocities. Sir Alfred Pease (1896-7) who then visited Somali lands, commented ‘We (British) have prevented them (Somalis) from acquiring arms and ammunition and having deprived them all means of self-defence . . . have left them at the mercy of raiding Abyssinians who have no other employment than that making raids on Gallas and Somalis,’ and in this connection Dr. Smith (1896-7)indignant about inhuman treatment by Abyssinians of the unarmed people said ‘We earnestly wish they (the Abyssinians) as savages bearing arms against other defenceless Africans, should have such drubbing that they could not forget it and try to extend their sway further.’10 Fox Bourne (1904)11 complained how Britain betrayed the Somalis by writing ‘the scandalous betrayal of the Somalis who, having accepted British protection, were left to the mercilessly dealt with by their Abyssinian enemies.’ Margery Perham (1889) also reported the ongoing atrocities on the Somalis and their properties by saying ‘Ethiopian expedition penetrated far to the south of Harar and stripped the country bare of stocks and horses and Swayne bothers (1891)returning from reconnaissance in Somali territories reported that the raids were continuing and people felt ‘great anxiety’ as far as Hargeisa.12
In 1946, when most of the Somaliland homeland (British Somali protectorate, Italian Somaliland, Somali territory under Ethiopia, and Somali territory under British East African colonies) were under British control, Mr. Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary, proposed to the Four Powers (Britain, France, Soviet Union and USA) and later to the British House of Commons that it was a good idea to ‘lump together’ the dismembered Somali territories into one under British rule as they could not live feasibly if they were let divided. This idea was never implemented because neither the Four Powers nor the British House of Commons approved it. Also the nationalist and pro-unity Somali Youth League rejected the proposal fearing that Britain would grant independence to the Somalis and opted for Four Powers trusteeship which did not happen either. At the end of December 2006 to go along with the US to obstruct a UN resolution proposal calling Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from Somalia was another Fresh unfair British treatment to the Somalis in favour of Ethiopia.
For lack of space, I cannot narrate all travesties of justice and gross inhuman treatments that have happened to the Somalis over the last one hundred or more as a result of the fore-said partition. It is suffice to mention that since from those early times to this day, the troops and administrators of Abyssinia and contemporary Ethiopia have never abated their gross human rights violations of raids of killing, robbing, looting, raping and displacing the Somali people it conquered and dominated. These Somalis under Ethiopia are treated as enemies within and a second, if not, third class citizens. No real self-rule, education, or economic development allowed to them. That is why they have always been in a state of unrest and seek freedom.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE AND OFFICIAL EXPANISIONIST ESTABLISHMENT
My point of recounting above the Somali partition at the end of the 19th century and the part Abyssinia played is neither to renew an irredentist sentiment or claim over the Somali territory that Abyssinia annexed at the time nor is it that I have an issue with the Ethiopian people. I lived ten years in Ethiopia (1981-1991) and I have always been ardent advocate for eliminating the age old enmity between the two neighbouring and brotherly peoples. Before, during and after that period I made my humble contribution to change the old mentality of enmity and prejudices between the two peoples and create understanding, peaceful co-existence and mutually beneficial co-operation between them. During my stay in Ethiopia, I observed and realised that the Ethiopians are good natured, peaceful and brotherly people imbued with good humane values. But unfortunately they have been oppressed and exploited ruthlessly for many centuries by these imperialistic minded rulers. Still tens of million of Ethiopians live in a state of serfdom and abject poverty while their current ruler still oppresses them and spends the largest slice of the country’s budget on maintaining the biggest military machine in east and central Africa to suppress the impoverished people and invade the neighbours. Meles Zenawi’s current invasion and occupation of Somalia is part of this imperialistic mentality and squandering such badly needed limited resources. Aklilu Demissie, an Ethiopian national, referring to his country’s occupation of Somalia, warned the Somalis ‘If Somalis knew the serfdom in Ethiopia’ would not be so naïve.
I also became to know that the Ethiopian official establishment policy and mentality are petrified in the feudal imperialistic culture handed down from the earliest kings to Meles Zenawi in which every ruler of Ethiopia has to follow in order to justify that he is typical Ethiopian ruler. Such rulers need to keep together the amalgamated 70 or so ethnic nationalities of which many (including the Somalis, Oromos, Afars, etc.) have contiguity with same ethnic brethren beyond the borders and yearn to mingle or get united with them. Many such nationalities feel distrusted, neglected, oppressed and treated as second or class citizens. Therefore, any ruler of Ethiopia is obliged to maintain such old official imperialistic mentality, hostility, and territorial expansion towards the neighbouring (Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan and to some extent Kenya)to keep together these disparate nationalities while eliminating, containing or distracting the continuously boiling internal ethnic irredentism, unrest and rebellion. That is why the collapse of the Somali central government in 1991 presented a golden opportunity to Meles Zenawi to meddle into and manipulate Somali affairs ever since.
MELES ZENAWI PREPATORY PLANS TO CONQUER SOMALIA
Meles Zenawi, at the time of the collapse of the Somali government, began to show sympathy and lip-service by paying back the gratuity he owes to the Somalis by supporting and enabling his Tigrayan rebel front to fight and overthrow the regime of Mengistu Haile-Mariam. From 1991 he collected various rival Somali factions on opposite sides of the civil war and invited them to Addis Ababa in never ending and fruitless so called ‘Somali National Reconciliation Conferences –SNRCs) with an hidden agenda of keeping the civil war alive and even widening the differences and divisions among the Somalis. Fourteen major such of SNRCs were held let alone hundreds of small informal or secret ones participated by some groups or individuals so as to multiple the number of rival groups and their divisions. Nine of such major SNRCs were held in Ethiopia and nothing materialised from them except further disputes and divisions; two were held in Djibouti, one in Egypt and two in Kenya. Meles Zenawi principally and practically opposed all the SNRCs held outside Ethiopia. Two held in Djibouti in 1991 and 2000 were the most well-organised as they were participated by most civilian politicians, intellectuals, and traditional leaders with less or no warlords. These Djibouti conferences produced two governments (the Ali Mahadi’s Government and Abdulqasim Salad government of Arta respectively). Meles Zenawi bitterly opposed these two governments and spearheaded the external and internal forces that brought these two governments to their knees. In the SNRCs political participation process he excluded the Somali civilian politicians, intellectuals and traditional leaders – the real pro-peace and stability stakeholders. Instead, he recognised and anointed any one with handful of armed unruly militias who committed the most heinous crimes of mass killings and other brutal acts violating human rights of the Somali people. These red-handed warlords attended the SNRCs in order to disagree and disperse to continue their brutalities. After over tens years of barren SNRCS, more warlords and spiralling civil war, the Somalis began to ask themselves these questions : ‘if Meles Zenawi is sincere and true of his pronouncements that he is helping the Somalis, why all these SNRCS held by him have failed? Why is he creating more warlords and supplying arms to them, and set them one against another? Why is favouring the warlords of certain clans over others? Why is he so loathe Somali civil society - the civilian politicians, intellectuals, social organisations, etc. and excludes them from the political process?’ Why is he escalating and keeping the civil war alive?’ Why has he multiplied the number of warlords from 4 to 12?’ After the expiry of the time of the Arta government of President Abdulqasim Salad, against which Zenaw fought vehemently, the Somali people and the good-willed international community, thought twice about Meles Zenawi’s handling of the Somali affairs. Then a change happened to the international and Somali opinion that the SNRC’s venue be changed from Ethiopia to Kenya. Kenya itself – a country which also has vested interest in Somalia and had its share of the warlords lobbied for this idea. Hence began the marathon SNRC which was first held at El-Edoret and then transferred to Imbagathi in Kenya lasting two years.
Seeing that the venue of the SNRC changed to Kenya and his sole manipulation of the Somali political affairs might go out of his hands, Zenawi rallied all his resources and influences to really take control and manage the Imbagathi conference by dictating the list of delegates by ensuring that only warlords and their selected aides should participate in the SNRC while excluding the large community of Somali civil society (civilian politicians, intellectuals, NGO leaders, and women groups, and traditional leaders) who came from inside Somalia and around the world. Even Somali expert and experienced lawyers were refused to participate in the draft of the Somali National Charter. So a poor and confusing Charter was produced. Ethiopian officials and agents also controlled the accommodation and rations by providing these facilities only to favoured warlords and their trusted aides while anyone not chosen by Ethiopian officials or critical to their policy was struck from the list of delegates and accommodation provisions. Although the SNRC was going in its country, a Kenyan official played the role of a nominal chair while the real control and business were completely were carried out by Ethiopians single-handedly. Even the security matters of the conference were unduly interfered into by Ethiopian agents. Those Somalis who expressed unfavourable opinions about how things were run were bullied and expelled from the SNRC. Five delegates who were critical about such handling of the SNRC were either shot dead or died in mysterious circumstances without investigation or convincing explanation.
Finally, the outcome of the SNRC was as planned by Meles Zenawi – a 273 parliament members and government dominated by warlords and their aides who have been tried and anointed by him over the years. Mr. Abdullahi Yusuf, the most tried, trusted, loyal and biggest warlord became President. Just after his election as president, Mr. Abdullahi was summoned to Addis Ababa to be told who to be his prime minister. Zenawi introduced him to Mr. Ali Mohamed Gedi, a veterinary Doctor with no government experience and who was in Ethiopia whom President Abdullahi has never before seen or heard of, and who was not a parliament member. According to the Charter of the Transitional Government only a member of parliament can hold a cabinet post. To pave the way for Gedi to become prime minister, a relative of Gedi vacated his parliament seat for Gedi to be qualified for cabinet post. Then President Abdullahi nominated him as prime minister. While he was still in Addis Ababa President Abdullahi Yusuf was told also by Zenawi to ask for 20,000 Ethiopian troops to help him to capture Somalia which proposal the president accepted and announced. Next Zenawi gave two more tasks to the President and Prime Minister, namely, to get approval for the deployment of Ethiopian troops into Somalia and not to relocate the TFG to Mogadishu but either to Jowhar or Baidoa cities. These two proposals were very controversial for their origins and the motives behind them. In its first session the Transitional Parliament rejected these proposals.
At the time the entire population of Mogadishu was very enthusiastically ready to welcome the government including the President. But Zenawi did not want that to happen without Ethiopian troops to manipulate the situation and outcome. Over these highly controversial issues, the TFG became divided into two factions. One faction led by the President and the Prime Minister relocated to Jowhar as instructed while the other faction made up of the Speaker of the Parliament and several warlord ministers chose to go to Mogadishu. So, falling apart the TFG became paralysed for a year. Then President Ali Abdalla Saleh intervened in by inviting the President and the Speaker to Aden and brokered a reconciliatory deal between them. At this point, Mohamed Dheere, the governor of Jowhar clashed with the President and asked him and his personal security force to leave Jowhar. The President moved to Baidoa, the number two reserve town chosen by Meles Zenawi to be a future launch-pad for the invasion of Mogadishu and the whole country. Thanks to the Aden Agreement and pressure by the international community, the President, PM, Speaker and most of the parliament converged to Baidoa and worked for some months while the Mogadishu warlord ministers still remained in capital(doing thing but holing in their fiefdoms in the city). They refused to go to Baidoa or Jowhar because they knew well that Meles Zenawi was hatching and preparing a sinister plan to invade Mogadishu. With all the brutalities they did in the past unlike the President and PM - two Ethiopian clients, these warlords had personal pride of being free Somali and did not want Ethiopia to occupy, subjugate and humiliate themselves and the Somalis.
THE RISE OF THE UNION of ISLAMIC COURTS
Already for a long time having been taking advantage of the vacuum of power left by the disintegration of the central government, and chaos of the protracted civil war and feeling that Ethiopia had plans to invade Somalia for various purposes as well as benefiting the dispute and division between the TFG institutions, the Union Islamic Courts (UIC) speeded their organisational, political and military plans to be an alternative force.
Alarmed by such prospect, the US government which wages global ‘war on terror’ and was closely watching the
activities of the UIC, moved in early April-May 2006 to back financially the Mogadishu warlords to fight against the UIC movement to deter their rise. After three months of fighting the UIC won the fray driving the warlords out of the capital. By capturing the capital from the warlords, the UIC got massive support from the people of Mogadishu who were fed up of 16 years of chaos, destruction and gross inhuman violations presided by the warlords. After that the fortunes of the UIC rapidly rose by expanding their control of most of the southern and central regions. At the beginning of December 2006, the UIC controlled besides Mogadishu the following regions and districts: Middle Shabelle Region, Lower Shabelle Region, Hiiran Region, Galgaduud Region, Middle Jubba Region, Lower Jubba Region, Buhakaba district, Diinsor District and Gansahdera district of Bay Region and parts of Galmudug state (Southern Mudug).
Then Meles Zenawi who for the last ten years or so has been blaming the behaviour and actions of Ethiopian extremists and opposition in his country on Somali Islamic fundamentalists and often alleged that Alqaeda operatives were in Somalia echoing US concerns about this issue. When the UIC rose to power in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia he came up with a campaign of accusing the UIC that they pose a threat to the security of his country. All the time, since he cut his teeth of invading the Somali Gedo region districts of Dolo, Luuq and Belet Hawo in 1997-1988 with reported American backing. Since that time Zenawi was putting forward his country to wage for a proxy for US government alongside his ulterior motives – to conquer whole or parts of Somalia. With increasing American concern about the upsurge and rapidly growing influence of the UIC, Zenawi seized this golden opportunity to convince the US that he would ‘crush the UIC’. A couple of years ago, General Tommy Frank commander of US central command in the Middle East visited Addis Ababa and when asked whether the US will use Ethiopia to fight allegedly terrorist in Somalia, he said ‘that option is not ruled out.’ In October 2006 American US-Assistant secretary for Defence visited Addis Ababa discussing and agreeing with the Ethiopian Prime Minister ‘military co-operation and regional anti-terrorism activities in the Horn of Africa (meaning Somalia). This was followed by other US senior military officers to Ethiopia. Obviously such intensive US diplomatic activities granted Meles Zenawi’s long time wish for a permission and/or contract to invade Somalia and the resources for waging the war. Two to three months prior the invasion, Zenawi began to mass his troops in Somali soil – Bay, Bakool regions and parts of Gedo, Hiiraan, Galgaduud, and Mudug regions on the pretext that he was defending the TFG (his two trusted clients – the President and the PM) based in Baidoa. Then he began his war rhetoric and preparations. After securing American authorisation and funds he finally declared war on Somalia obtaining approval from his rubberstamp parliament.
WHAT ARE MELES ZENAWI’S MOTIVES FOR INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF SOMALIA?
The real motives of Meles Zenawi’s invasion and occupation of Somalia are two fall under two main objectives.
1. Zenawi’s first main objective is to occupy Somalia (an enemy country) so as to annex it as a whole or take part of it and carve rest into many feuding vassal regions under his rule or his successor. At least part of this objective is to seize first and annex a Somali sea port, most probably Zeila port which is the nearest port to Ethiopia proper for which successive Abyssinian kings coveted, invaded and demanded to take over the centuries. As the invasion was in full swing, Zenawi declared in a publicised statement that ‘the results of this operation will be mutually shared by the two peoples of Ethiopia and Somalia’ which can be interpreted as amalgamation of the two or seizing of parts of Somalia. Disclosing and confirming such annexation project Hussein M. Farah Aideed, Deputy PM and Minister of Interior of the TFG, on 3/1/2006 in a meeting with elders in Mogadishu by stating that ‘Somalia and Ethiopian will be one country with one flag and one passport.’ Also linked to this strategic objective is a vain hope that occupation of Somalia will have discouraging effect on the internal growing dissension and rebellions of the many oppressed Ethiopian nationalities and that this may earn him a temporary respite. This invasion is also a message to neighbouring countries to be next or bow to Ethiopia. Zenawi summoned Mr. Hussein Kahin Riyale, President of the breakaway Somaliland, and instructed him to announce publicly that the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia was a necessary and good action which he did.
2. Zenawi’s second main objective is to have full American political and economic support that consolidate his waning power and enable to increase his authoritarian power grip in the rest of his life.
WHAT MOTIVATED USA TO CONTRACT ETHIOPIAN REGIME TO INVADE AND OCCUPY SOMALIA?
What motivated USA to take such an brazen decision as to contract and unleash the Ethiopian Meles Zenawi’s regime to invade and occupy Somalia which amounts to a gross violation of Somali independence, freedom and sovereignty and the international law especially the UN Charter? There might be hidden agenda, but generally known and imaginable US concerns and strategic interests in Somalia including the following:-
1. The first, immediate and urgent US objective is to deal with often expressed concern about the increase and influence of the Somali Islamic fundamentalist movement, that allegedly harboured US three US wanted terrorists, and which from early and up to the end of 2006 rose to power in Mogadishu and most of the southern and central regions. US Ethiopian proxy war of invading and occupying Somalia from 20 December 2006 crushed and routed much of the institutional, leadership and fighting power of the Islamic Courts Union (UIC). But whether Somalia will be another Iraq where there was no presence of Islamic militants prior to the 2003 invasion and today described as the ‘epicentre of Islamic extremists and terrorists’, or not, is any one’s guess.
2. The second, generally known main dual US strategic objective in Somalia are: a) oil interests which many US oil prospecting companies such Sinclair, Rogers, Mobile, Connoco, etc. surveyed from 1954 to 1991 with documented evidence that there are huge oil deposits in Somalia, and b) geopolitical reason which the position of the Somali Peninsula attracts.
But could not America secure achieve these strategic interests in Somalia by helping its people to overcome the civil war and lack of central government, and then enter co-operation with them for the mutual benefit? Yes, that could be possible. But the problem seems that the American neo-conservatives who think that USA only has enough power and resources to shape a ‘New World Order’ in a forceful way even if it takes to deconstruct existing independent states like Iraq. According to this type of ideological thinking which now leads America, it is condescending for the American Administration to negotiate non-complying weaker nations. And that is precisely why Iraq was invaded and Ethiopian troops unleashed to invade and occupy Somalia with US blessing and financial, arms and political Support. But will such policy of disdain and dictation secure the above listed US interests in Somalia? I think no. Unless such policy is replaced with more positive and palatable one which respects Somali people and nation and their fundamental values and interests, it will not be only hard for US to achieve these interests but Somali people will be in more and more turmoil.
While US and Ethiopia achieved their objectives, what about the Somalis? The Somalis gained occupation, humiliation, consternation, fury, death and destruction, and uncertain future.
THE WORRYING SITUATION IN SOMALIA AFTER EHIOPIAN INVASION AND OCCUPATION
The situation ensuing the invasion and occupation of Somalia by Ethiopian troops is not only one that subjects the Somali people to an incalculable bitterness, consternation, desperation, and humiliation especially in the capital Mogadishu where such troops are concentrated to guard the client Somali President and Prime Minister, from their own people, who have no national security forces except clannish private body-guards. These two leaders who are most trusted by Zenawi, invited these occupation troops although their invitation, which has just a symbolic formality, contravenes the UN Security Council Resolution no. 1725 of 6th December 2006 which called countries in the region to withdraw their forces from Somalia, the decision of the Somali Transitional Parliament, the will and opinion of the Somali people, and the international law. After this invasion and occupation, virtually there is no a Transitional Federal Government but a name. Most of the ministers and MPs are either made irrelevant by the President, the PM and their Ethiopian backers, resigned, deserted, arrested (MPs in Kismayo), or being hunted by police in Kenya after they spoke out condemning the invasion.
While the huge threatening and humiliating Ethiopian troops are boiling the blood of the people in the capital and elsewhere in the country, the President and Prime Minister are taking personal and provocative measures either in negotiating or reaching important decisions of national and international issues which need collective discussions and decisions of the Cabinet or participation and approval of the MPs and as well as extensive consultation and inclusion of the various stake-holding social groups.
The President allowed Ethiopian troops to capture the country and left behind in Baidoa. Then he went to participate in a security meeting in Mombasa (Kenya) 2-3/1/2007 with Kenyan President Mbai Kibaki and other undisclosed parties to discuss the security of Somalia without taking even one member of his government. What he was negotiating and what he signed up is unknown to his cabinet and his people. Thereafter he, as usual, he went to Addis Ababa to take more orders from Zenawi. On 5/1/2006 five Somali MPs have been arrested and questioned by Kenyan Police while other 20 are looked for by the same police for criticising the Ethiopian invasion and occupation of their country. Understandably the Somali President or Ethiopian embassy officials in Nairobi were the ones behind such arrests and harassments. The President who was said would stay behind in Baidoa for three months after invasion unexpectedly entered Mogadishu under heavy Ethiopian guards perhaps by their advice.
The Prime Minister arrived Mogadishu immediately after the Ethiopian troops’ occupation on board on Ethiopian armoured car under the guard of the Ethiopian troops. He did not call for a meeting for his cabinet but he single-handedly made appointments clannish basis and issued orders about such important issues as the disarming the militia and the general public without formulating the plan and modalities of disarmament and the time-table, relevant public security arrangement and assurances for all stakeholders - clan communities, militias, social groups and the general public to make them convinced in the disarmament. For example, on 1/1/2006 he gave oral order that the people in the capital should hand in the arms in three days (from 2-4/1/2006) at two designated places where a Ethiopian troops would receive the arms with witnessing Somali elements. Is that not unwise, irresponsible and provocative to order people orally through the media to hand their arms over to Ethiopians without any official Somali plan and guarantees? Nobody handed any arms on the ultimatum day, i.e. 4/1/2006. Instead the arms price in the market rose up and people are demanding for an official system of disarmament with its guarantees and what stakes they would have in that. After it failed, the PM put aside that unplanned and hasty disarmament idea obviously waiting from Ethiopian authorities what to do next. There was no presidential guidance or order, cabinet meeting to discuss such disarmament programme either. It was a personal idea of the PM, or an Ethiopian idea put through him. People wherever they are, inside and outside the country, are wondering about this messy and dangerous situation which can explode at any time. More worrying and dangerous than that is information from reliable source close to the PM that he called a secret meeting for the elders and notables of his clan where he told them ‘I tell why I brought with me the Ethiopian troops. You know that clan (Habargidr) denied our clan to be government and I brought the Ethiopian troops to establish our own government and reduce those people in our way to nothing. I want to you to help me this plan.’ The source inform that some of the people in the meeting welcomed the idea and some of them warned him to abandon this mistaken and dangerous idea because it will not work and the government is for the all the Somali people and not only for one person and clan. Do such behaviour and deeds on the part of the PM represent a responsible, fair and serious national leadership?
Because of such repulsive behaviour and deeds by the two top leaders singly empowered by the Ethiopian military occupation, Somali people everywhere especially in the capital are in a state of deep desperation, consternation, bitterness and humiliation. If not salvaged by the international community, primarily USA, EU and UN, the situation could be one similar to that of Iraq - more strife, killings, destruction, clan cleansing, human rights violations, and famine.
First occupation Casualties
Although there is a blanket of secrecy, unaccountability non-transparency, and impunity shrouding killings and destruction, etc by the 60 -100,000 strong Ethiopian occupation troops which occupy all Somali towns, main facilities, bridges, roadblocks, garrisons which stile the Somali people and still wage war in the deep south, the first causalities and brutalities are coming drips. On 9/12/2006 two women one with pregnancy were gang raped by Ethiopian soldiers at Dagaari village – 30 kms. west of Galkayo. On 3/1/2007 three nomadic men were killed and on 6/1/2007 five elders arrested at Dawgaab a water-well deep into the interior of Southern Mudug - the territory of Galmudug State as a result of the middling and fanning hostility by the Ethiopian occupation troops between the clans in the area which was peaceful before. At the end of December 2006 Ethiopian troops killed two ordinary civilian men and wounded several others in Jilib. On 1-3/1/2007 six civilian men were killed at Beer Haani west of Kismayo as a result of instigation by Ethiopian troops and their agents in the area and more clan clashes are feared. On 6/1/2007 in an Anti-Ethiopian occupation demonstration in Mogadishu a fifteen year-old boy was reportedly shot dead by Ethiopian troops. On 7/1/2007 a similar demonstration took place in Beletweyne (where 26 year-old man was killed by Ethiopian troops) and next day similar demonstrations occurred in Bulo-berde, and Jalalaqsi cities against Ethiopian occupation troops for abducting Col. Mukhtar Hussein Afrah, commander of the security forces of Hiiraan region, and a moderate sheikh who was a former UIC chairman of the same region. The faith of the two men is not known. Hiiraan Forum for Human Rights also called for immediate release of the colonel. In Mogadishu on 7/1/2007 in another anti-Ethiopian occupation demonstration a thirteen year-old girl was shot dead by Ethiopian troops and a dozen people were wounded. There City is highly lawless and volatile as there are virtually no Somali government security forces to keep the peace and law and order except the occupation troops which the people do not to obey and surrender to.
Americans planes bomb in the South of Somalia. Reports are coming in that US strategic bomber AC130 planes and helicopter gunships are bombing indiscriminately areas north and west of Kismayo during last and this week while Ethiopian three troops are conducting war on the ground killing people also indiscriminately as they do not know who is the Islamic militants they are pursuing and who is not. On 9/1/2007 a Somali elder in the area who withheld his name told BBC Somali Service that people in the area suffer from a barrage of bombardments from the air and Ethiopian combing war on the land which spares nothing. He said ‘pastoralists, their settlements, and livestock are being bombarded. Those bombarded included a newly-wed family. I saw a man with his hand cut by bomb. There no Somali forces, only Ethiopian troops are fighting in this area and loot and ransack everything. They took even household chores like kettles. I don’t know the extent of all the damages. Ethiopians abducted ten civilian men from our village to show them the way as guides. We don’t know what happened to these abducted men.’
Also on 10/1/2007 BBC Somali Service reporter who managed to enter that area from Kenya reported that while he reached Dobley a Somali town on the border he was told that in Afmadow area 70 civilian people were killed and 190 injured by these bombardments while 1,000 heads of animal were also killed.’ But he has not yet penetrated deep into the vast country where the operations are going on. That is very worrying situation which the Americans should use restraint, proper reconnaissance or also restrain the gunwoo the Ethiopian troops on the ground or suspend this indiscriminate destruction and killing to allow less costly ways of dealing any problem in the area.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE TO SALVAGE THE SITUATION?
Resistance against Ethiopian Troops Occupation
Somali people of all walks, communities and regions whether they live inside the country or abroad must actively resist against the categorically unacceptable, humiliating and degrading occupation of the Ethiopian troops. This resistance can be in many different forms and degrees:-
1- to reject and oppose this occupation in principle;
2- to speak out against the occupation;
3- to oppose the occupation with disobedience and non-co-operation;
4- to put their viewpoints of condemnation, complaint and calls for immediate and total withdrawal of the Ethiopian occupation troops across the media;
5- to stage continuous peaceful demonstrations against this ugly and repugnant occupation;
6- to take active and constant diplomatic activities to convince the international community to help the Somali people to get liberated from this ugly and degrading occupation as soon as possible;
7-to fight against the occupation troops if they infringe on the human and personal rights of the people such as taking life, property, interfering into homes and family life, religion and social values, individual liberties, raping and abusing Somali women, etc., and, if the Prime Meles Zenawi fails to withdraw his forces soon to fight them regardless if they commit crime or not to drive them out of our country.
Nil Advice to the President and Prime Minister
I am not giving any advice or suggestions to the President and Prime Minister as they are under strict control of Ethiopian leader and unable to respect, listen to or take advice from the rest of the TFG colleagues or the Somali people. They have neither have policy for Somalia nor speak for their own people but they are just spokesman for the interests and actions of Ethiopia and other countries. We will see and wait what these two men can do and will do.
Suggestions and Appeal to the International Community
I therefore, voluntarily expressing and representing the feelings, wishes, views and needs of the Somali people, like to make the following suggestions to the international community primarily to the US Government, the EU member states and UN to urgently intervene in to salvage the dangerous situation of Somalia first to defuse the running high passions and tension mainly in the capital and to help organise broad participatory consensus with all stakeholders about immediate issues of security, peacekeeping and disarmament, future formation of Somali security forces, humanitarian relief aid, and national reconciliation conference. Specially, I suggest the following points to the above-named able international community.
1- to send high ranking committee made up the UN, USA and EU supplemented with delegates from IGAD, AU and Arab League to meet the different sides: TFG members, factional and traditional leaders, religious leaders, civil society members (civilian politicians, NGOs leaders, professionals, business people, women, youths) to hear their views and advise them what ought to be done together by them and international community;
2- to concurrently speed up the sending in of peacekeeping troops from neutral countries especially from Muslim countries not confining to only Africans and excluding the frontlines states. These peacekeeping forces must be put under UN command and leadership, and not under the TFG (which is failed and very partial body), or IGAD, or AU, or contributing members states. Because, these latter bodies can not be neutral and fair, and any peacekeeping force under them will be a recipe for absolute disaster. Moreover, the very important principles of the accountability, transparency and rule of law will be absent while such troops are put under the TFG, their governments, IGAD or AU.
3- to bear strong pressure on the Ethiopian Prime Minister to withdraw his troops completely without any further delay, giving him strict time-table while he should also be advised that his troops must not interfere into the very internal affairs of the Somalis such as taking sides, disarming the Somali militias or ordinary people, and meddling in the cities to keep law and order but stay out in their barracks until their departure which must be soon. Otherwise there will never be Somali security forces which can replace the Ethiopians and country will be manipulated in volatility by the Ethiopian regime.
4-To allow funds to the TFG to quicken training for its police and security forces which should be drawn from all the communities in a balanced way, and to be overseen by the funding international community bodies (UN, USA, and EU, etc.) that this happens as planned. In this connection, the international community must know that the TFG national has no security forces except clannish private body-guards of the president and Prime Minister which are less than 1,000 if put together. There are no Somali government forces to keep law and order in cities, police stations, main public facilities, and streets in the whole country except the Ethiopian troops which must not do and cannot do these tasks.
7- to pay attention to the current humanitarian deep crisis where according to some estimates about 3 millions Somalis are in famine situation or on the verge of it due to the aftermath of the prolong civil war, recent droughts and the alluvial floods which dispossessed, displaced and stranded over 400,000 people. Hundreds are dying daily for lack of care by the international community and the local people because of the current invasion which virtually blocks humanitarian relief from both the ground and air. Epidemic diseases are braking out (e.g. Jubba land area) and perhaps other places but Somali doctors and international doctors have no the resources and freedom to move to fight and contain these diseases.
Except a mercy from God, the hope of liberating the Somali people from the current Ethiopian occupation and return to normalcy rest on the Somalis themselves but also on the goodwill, sense of justice and support of the able international community primarily US, EU, UN and who else that can give a positive contribution.
Omar Salad 12/1/2007 E-mail
REFERENCES:
1. Louis FitzGibbon, 1982, The Betrayal of the Somalis,
2. Idem, pp. 12-3
3. “ p. 22
4. “ p.27
5. “ p.25
6. “ p.41
7. “ p.46
8. “ p.29
9. “ p.31
10. “ p.24
11. “ p.31
12. “ p.24