Opinion
Is Somalia now Zenawi’s Iraq?
By
Sep 14, 2007 - 8:48:40 AM

In November 2006, General John Abizaid, the then head of U.S. Central Command, met the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa. At the time, Zenawi was getting ready to invade Somalia. During their conversation, General Abizaid was reported to have warned Zenawi the quagmire that he might find himself in and told him: “Somalia would become your Iraq.” Although this version is contrary to a widespread view that the invasion was orchestrated by the US. Zenawi confirmed America’s uneasiness with the invasion in an interview with the Financial Times Newspaper on February 6, 2007. Whichever version is true, Zenawi invaded Somalia and the US administration showed full support for the Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia. So, is Somalia now Zenawi’s Iraq?

Iraq and Somalia are currently undergoing similar experiences and the comparison between the two is inevitable. Somalia's interim prime minister has reflected recently the likeness of the two circumstances when he said that his government wants “to create a Baghdad-style safe "Green Zone" in Mogadishu to protect senior officials and foreign visitors from insurgent attacks.” It is not only the politicians that associate Somalia with Iraq. On September 6, 2007, the Newsweek magazine ran an article entitled ‘What the World Should Do in Somalia.’ The first paragraph of the article read: “It sounds like just another week in Baghdad. Two journalists are killed, a local peacemaker is assassinated in cold blood, a dignitary escapes a roadside attack by land mine, mortars hit a hospital as leaders discuss the advantages of establishing a “Green Zone” in the capital. Armed groups attack each other as well as foreign troops who entered the country to eliminate the Islamists accused of harboring Al Qaeda. But this isn’t Baghdad—it’s Mogadishu.”
   
Zenawi finds himself trapped in Somalia. On December 27, 2006, only three days after his government officially admitted for the first time that it has troops in Somalia. Zenawi made a self-congratulatory statement and claimed that the mission was accomplished and his troops would leave Somalia within a matter of weeks. Nine months after the invasion, Somalis, Ethiopian troops, and others are dying violently in Somalia. African countries that had promised to send troops to Somalia now seem reluctant to participate in pacifying the turbulent country. It seems that they have adopted “you break it, you own it” policy.

The presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia is a hotly debated issue. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer and others argue if Ethiopia withdraws before the presence of strong AU troops that will lead to a security vacuum. While others argue that the presence of Ethiopian troops is both provocative and unhelpful and is blocking a meaningful political dialogue. Whatever the argument, in reality, Ethiopian troops are going to remain in Somalia to protect what they call ‘their national security’ whether other forces come or not come.
 
The political front is hardly making any progress and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is finding too dangerous to operate in the capital. A 6-week National Reconciliation Conference (NRC) convened in Mogadishu ended without any positive settlements. A national reconciliation is an essential precursor to stemming the violence in Somalia, unfortunately, the conference started and ended as violence continues. On August 20, 2007, a report published by PINR, an organisation which provides conflict analysis, concluded: “In sum, nothing concrete came out of the "first phase" of the N.R.C.” Salim Lone, a newspaper columnist and political commentator, elaborated the reason of the failure: “Reconciliation is the most urgent priority for Somalia but the TFG defined it in deliberately narrow terms, related to clans only. The conference achieved very little since none of the key issues essential to restoring security, as well as a broader peace, was discussed.”

Mogadishu is now spinning out of control. Residents are fleeing from the capital and facing one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world. On September 6, 2007, Leslie Lefkow, a co-author of the Human Rights Watch report on Somalia, said at a meeting at the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington: “I think what we have seen in Mogadishu over the last six to eight months, there is really little comparison when you look around the world in terms of the gravity of the crimes and the scale of displacement."
 
Where does Zenawi go from here? To prognosticate where Zenawi might go, one needs to take a microscopic view of his regime. Zenawi did not invade Somalia to support the TFG but to save his own regime. Ethiopia held general elections on May 15, 2005 and Zenawi won the election although he was accused of voting irregularities. Opposition groups tried to protest when the results were announced but the regime started political killings and unlawful arrests to silence the supporters of the opposition parties. 200 people were killed and more than 60,000 arrests were made. On January 13, 2006, the Human Rights Watch noted this: “Since the May 15 parliamentary elections in which opposition parties made massive gains in their share of seats, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has used repression, intimidation and violence to punish real or perceived opposition supporters and eliminate dissent in both urban centres and rural areas.”  
 
As a result, Zenawi became a hate figure inside his country and his image as a role model for African leaders has been tarnished. To address this, Zenawi has invaded Ethiopia’s age-old enemy – Somalia - to reach out Ethiopian nationalists and portray himself as a leader who accomplished what other leaders before him had failed to do. And on the international level, Zenawi jumped on the bandwagon of America’s War on Terror to remain a beloved one of the West. Peter Biles of the BBC observed this: “As a darling of the West, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been able to get away with brutally putting down internal dissent in his own country, and now moving thousands of troops into Somalia.” Somalia has satisfied Zenawi’s immediate needs – a hero at home and a dear friend of the West. The talk about human rights abuses or the flawed election has conveniently been dropped.

Nonetheless, Zenawi is unable to mould Somalis as and how he wishes. Somalis are unable to eject Zenawi and become a viable nation again. Zenawi and Somalia are likely to remain in an unhappy relationship – stuck.

Mohamed Mukhtar
London, UK
Mohamed323@hotmail.com

Source: WardheerNews.com