According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 258 non-combatants died in Somalia in January, the bloodiest month since August 2009. February threatens to be no better as fighting continues between government troops and their supporters and fundamentalist Islamic militias.
Fighting has raged since 2006, when the United States supported the overthrow of the first stable government in Somalia since 1991. This government, known as the Islamic Courts Union, was a coalition of various Islamic-oriented groupings. The United States supported an invasion and occupation by Ethiopia to displace the ICU. The occupation ended in defeat, and the Ethiopian forces withdrew in January 2009.
The United States and the West in general choose to support plunging the people of Somalia into even further devastation to prevent the emergence of a government independent of imperialism in a vital geo-strategic region. The ICU was not a homogenous organization, with some elements having affinity with other Islamic militants around the world. For the United States, this meant the ICU could not be a reliable ally in the region, and could even become a vehicle for organized resistance to the imperialist status quo.
This was spurious logic for a number of reasons, not the least being that the ICU had received support from close U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the United States brooks no challenge and acted to deepen the suffering of the Somali people.
Since 2006, imperialists of the West have supported a “government” known as the Transitional Federal Government, made up of warlords, former ICU leaders and a few technocrats for good measure. The TFG controls only a few blocks inside the capital, Mogadishu, and only with the support of African Union “peacekeepers,” made up mostly of troops from Uganda and Burundi.
Fierce fighting has raged all over south and southwest Somalia between the TFG and two Islamic militias, Al-Shahab and Hizbul Al-Islam, which together effectively control much of the country. Throughout 2009, despite adopting Sharia law and co-opting former ICU leaders, the TFG has not been able to establish legitimacy in the country.
The West, however, has continued to prop up the TFG. In August 2009, the United States revealed, what was already an open secret, that they were shipping multiple tons of weaponry to the TFG. Since then, attempts to buttress the TFG have continued.
In late January, the European Union agreed to send military trainers to Uganda to train 2,000 Somali troops. This was in addition to 500 Somali troops that had been training with French troops. AMISOM, the African Union mission in Somalia, is the primary force directly propping up the TFG. (BBC News, Jan. 25)
While the mandate for the AMISOM force is 8,000 troops, the current total is just over 5,000. Many contributing countries have been pushing to bring the total force up to the mandated level. (Agence France Press, Jan. 28) Djibouti and Burundi, for example, have announced that they will be sending several hundred more troops, and more may be coming from Uganda (Reuters, Jan. 28)
Ambitions of regional rulers dovetail with imperialist aims
While AMISOM masquerades as a peacekeeping force, the countries that contribute and support the force want to displace Al-Shabab and Hizbul Al-Islam. The motivations of AMISOM’s most vocal supporters, such as the governments of Uganda and Kenya, range from fear of oppositional movements in their own countries to a desire for larger regional and continental roles. The variegated reasoning for each country’s involvement has placed the AU cheek-to-jowl with imperialism in Somalia, and an increase in AMISOM forces dovetails with a rumored offensive by the TFG that could potentially be launched this month.
An estimated 21,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 2007, with 1.5 million displaced from their homes, all to protect great power hegemony and the ambitions of regional ruling elites. (Reuters, Jan. 28) The United States, European Union and AMISOM have displayed utter disregard for the lives of the Somali people, attempting to impose what is essentially a puppet government on the country.
This callous policy, besides flouting any pretense of recognizing Somalia’s right to genuine independence, has forced the Somali people to endure years of hellish fighting on top of the total devastation of clan warfare, clashing warlords, the collapse of all social services and the absence of an effective central government.
For revolutionary-minded people in the United States, it is critical that we raise the alarm over the actions of the U.S. government and others allied with it and expose the vicious great-power game being played with the people of Somalia. Somalia has the right to form whatever sort of government its people desire without having to fear Western-backed interventions and war. We say U.S. hands off Somalia! EU hands off Somalia! Self-determination for the Somali people!
