By A/Rasaq H. Nuurre
Sunday, March 07, 2010
A New York Times report today disclosed that Somali government forces, with the help of the US drones, is planning a major offensive to take back the capital from the Islamist insurgences. This campaign could be another step backward to displace many more civilians and to destabilize the relatively calm regions in the south rather than empowering the already powerless and corrupt Somali government.
This report by Jeffrey Gettleman, who is the East Africa bureau chief of the New York Times, discovered that the war clouds are gathering again on the horizon in the capital and eventually in the southern and the central regions. For this, Somalia will be again in greater danger, and its future will be in a deep vast abyss once more.
This time, not only Somali factions and regional power players such as Ethiopia are directly involved a conflict that engulfed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people but foreign powers are adamant, for the sake of their interest in the region, to be part of another direct mass displacement of already many internally displaced people.
Somalia conflict had never been without foreign interferences in more than 20 years of dreadful carnage. Sometimes those interventions took a form of intelligence sharing and financial involvements, other times military forces were employed to bring the balance of power back in to the conflict if, for instance, one faction proves strength and power over the other factions so the cycle of bloodshed continues with no stop. Moreover, all Somalis, including those of us living in Diaspora and the millions back in home living with fear and famine paid already the price and far-reaching repercussions.
When the "Islamic Courts Union" became the ultimate power in the capital, Mogadishu, in 2006, Ethiopian forces rushed to empower the corrupt TFG. They had also to dispel and to dismantle the newly emerged authority of the corporate autocrats and hardliners that at the end disintegrated in to the smaller warring factions such as Hisbul Islam, Al-Shabab, and Sheikh Sharif's group of Djibouti.
Soon after the Ethiopian occupation in Mogadishu and most parts of the southern regions of the country, the TFG was humiliated and dispersed. Neither it controlled the capital and the other "liberated" areas nor did its rule even exist out side the rusty presidential palace in Mogadishu. Militarily, the country was in the hands of General Gabra [the Ethiopian General leading the occupation], while politically Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin was the Trojan horse.
Its crystal clear however that this incoming offensive is again another foreign agenda. In addition, whenever one of these factions, in this case Al shabab, became the dominant force at least in the south, another war project is on the table. Neither it will empower the Unity Government, nor will it eliminate the Al-Shabab hardliners. It is just a war of interest.
The worst part for this offensive, however, is that the warring factions will use tanks against each other, as New York Times' report indicates. "The government's neat rows behind Villa Somalia, the president’s hilltop villa in the center of Mogadishu, [were] newly painted military trucks, tanks, armored personnel carriers and dozens of “technicals,” pickup trucks with their windshields sawed off and a cannon riveted on the back of each one."
The battleground, as can be expected, will be the residential neighborhoods of Mogadishu and the other southern towns. These cities will be subject to brutal and merciless bombardments. Again All-out war cycles will continue. The UN will report thousands of people dead and millions of new IDPs.
The Unity government will be as useless as it is now, and as usual will fall into deeper and deeper internal differences. It will collapse and crumble in to pieces. The "Islamic Insurgence" will retreat in to the black ocean (Badda Madow). They will restart guerrilla warfare, and again the bloodshed will continue.
The International Community will announce another peace process summit somewhere in the region maybe in Adisababa. The cycle of another political confusion will lead to the installation of another poor leadership who will be incapable to understand why Somalia is in this limbo for so long; and so on and on until Somalia decays into either Ethiopia or Kenya as planed perfectly.
Somalia cannot afford economically, politically, and militarily to be a battle ground for Al-Qaida and the International Community, mainly the west. Somali people had suffered enough and need for peace, reconciliation, and prosperity. It is again unfortunate, after twenty years of hardship and ongoing wars, that Somalia again spots new cycle of bloodshed.
It is clear for every one that this war is inevitable, but we may differ who are the beneficiaries and who are the losers. Indeed our historic enemy will be beneficiary again and Somalis are as usual losers from this conflict.
Somalis [we] will lose repeatedly until we realize that it is us who can change the situation in the country. We can make peace or wars for success or failure. Let us unite and save the country. Let us not wait others to do our job the way they plan.
A/Rasaq H. Nuurre
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