Thousands of Somalis took to the streets on May 4 in angry protest following a U.S. aerial bombing attack on May 1 that killed 12 people. The Pentagon said the target was a Somali political leader who they say is tied to Al-Queda. A number of those killed were children.
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The U.S. government has conducted high-tech assassinations from unmanned drone aircraft in several countries. Kidnappings and detentions in secret CIA prisons that dot the globe are another feature of U.S. policy.
The people of Somalia understandably have decided that it is the Bush administration that functions as the principal terrorist in their country. The Republicans are not isolated in their policy of aggression; neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama criticized the May 1 bombing of Somalia.
Bush and the Pentagon are pursuing a two-pronged military strategy in Somalia. They are using U.S. aircraft to bomb from the air in combination with proxy forces from Ethiopia’s army to carry out a ground war in Somalia. “Better to let Ethiopian soldiers do the bleeding” is the crass part of the political rationale. This will not arouse a political storm on the home front.
Washington’s goal is to create a pro-U.S. government in Somalia. Ethiopia and Somalia, located in the Horn of Africa on the southern rim of the oil-rich Middle East, are coveted prizes for Western imperialism.
Washington has effectively used the Ethiopian army to pursue its geostrategic objectives in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian 2006 invasion of Somalia and the occupation that followed have been financed by Washington as part of its efforts to overthrow the popular and potentially anti-imperialist Union of Islamic Courts.
At the time of the Ethiopian invasion, the UIC was the functioning government for most of southern Somalia. The UIC, with wide popular support, was on the verge of uniting the country. Somalia has had no central government since 1991.
Washington pulls the strings
As a result of 17 months of illegal occupation, more than 400,000 Somalis have been displaced with no access to food, clean water, shelter or medicine. Raids, bombings and extrajudicial executions have become commonplace.
U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes declared in 2007 that the humanitarian crisis caused by the displacement of Somalis was “a worse crisis than Darfur or Chad or anywhere else this year.” (Telegraph, May 17, 2007)
The Ethiopian government denied that its troops were involved in the killings during the recent mosque raid, but Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein of the U.S.-installed Somali government admitted that Ethiopian troops are playing a central role. (BBC News, 2008)
Within days of the raid, the U.S. military bombed Dusamareb, a central town of Somalia. The U.S. military claimed that it had attacked a known al-Qaeda target. (BBC News, May 1) The bombings killed at least 11 people, including the military commander of the UIC.
Ethiopia’s war against Somalia is not that of an independent regional actor, but rather that of a proxy force carefully stage managed by Washington war planners. Somalia—one of the poorest countries in the world—is of key geopolitical importance to the United States. It lies at a commercial crossroads between the Middle East and Asia. A large portion of the world’s oil tankers, particularly from Europe and China, passes along its coast.
The U.S.-backed Ethiopian government has also been waging a violent war on Ethiopia’s Somali region of Ogaden. The potentially oil-rich region has been fighting for self-determination against the Ethiopian government.
According to a survey conducted by Save the Children U.K., 21 percent of children in Ogaden and 19 percent in parts of Somalia are acutely malnourished, compared to 13 percent in Darfur. The United Nations considers 15 percent the emergency threshold.
Through its behind-the-scenes manipulation, the U.S. government is responsible for two of the worst humanitarian crises in Africa. Ethiopia’s actions in Somalia and the Ogaden region are funded and encouraged by the U.S. government. The Zenawi government is Washington’s top ally in the strategically valuable Horn of Africa. Washington funds Zenawi’s regime to the tune of $500 million a year.
Washington politicians remain silent before Zenawi’s crimes because U.S. military planners are the ones pulling the strings. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other “human rights” NGOs are quick to denounce the crimes of Zenawi and the Ethiopian army while turning a blind eye to the Washington connection. By doing so, they effectively give cover to the real criminal: U.S. imperialism.
In a display of shameless hypocrisy, U.S. politicians focus their energy on demonizing the governments of Zimbabwe and Sudan because of their resistance against imperialism. In February, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama signed a letter addressed to President Bush, calling for greater U.S. intervention in Sudan’s Darfur region to end “genocide.” As candidates who seek to occupy the top seat of the U.S. imperialist government, we can be sure that neither Clinton nor Obama will be signing similar statements about Somalia or Ogaden.
There is nothing humanitarian about imperialism. To the contrary, it is inherently murderous because it is motivated by the unfettered expansion of capital, not solidarity and cooperation. To that end, governments of oppressed nations that put up obstacles to the penetration of U.S. capital must be brought down.
The bourgeois media and politicians will fabricate humanitarian crises where there are none to facilitate the neo-colonial subjugation of the African continent, and ignore the most brutal atrocities provided they advance their interests.
The Democratic Party will not oppose Bush because they are a ruling class party that shares the objectives of dominating Africa and the Middle East. Progressive people must expose the lies disseminated by the corporate media and stand in solidarity with people all around the world who are oppressed by U.S. imperialism.
