Who cares about Somalia ?

In the last weeks, Somalia came back to the headlines. 85 people were killed in fightings in Mogadishu in a couple of days. Unrest have driven 750,000 others out of their home in the capital city during the last 15 months.

But who cares ?

The media concentrated their attention to two European ships that were taken by pirates off the shores of Somalia.

France and the US presented to the UN security council two resolutions drafts to fight piracy inside the Somali sea borders.

For Daniela Kroslak and Andrew Stroehlein, International crisis group experts, it’s like ‘watching flames engulf your neighbor’s house and calling in the fire brigade to help you wash your car.’

Moreover, the US counterterrorism policy prevent the Somali interim governement to engage the islamists in a real national conciliation talk, by considering them ‘terrorists’.

By the way, during their short reign in Mogadishu, these ‘terrorists’ succeeded eradicating piracy off Somali coasts. But no one will give them credit for that.

I post here the original column, published in the International Herald Tribune.

“Oh My Gosh, Pirates!”,
Daniela Kroslak and Andrew Stroehlein in the International Herald Tribune
29 April 2008

Strange how an African country can be moving from prolonged chaos to violent collapse and no one in the world notices until a couple of European boats get seized by armed gunmen.
War-ravaged Somalia is in the worst shape it has been in for years - which, for this devastated country that has not had a proper government for nearly a generation, is really saying something.
Yet, neither of the two resolutions currently in preparation at the UN Security Council mention the 85 dead in Mogadishu last weekend, or the exodus of newly displaced persons from that city, or Ethiopian shelling of civilian areas or the dwindling international humanitarian response.
Instead, one of the resolutions proposed by France, the United States and Britain is a reaction to the hijacking of a French yacht and a Spanish fishing vessel, and would authorize countries to fight piracy off Somalia’s coast.
It is like watching flames engulf your neighbor’s house and calling in the fire brigade to help you wash your car.
The death and displacement in Somalia is caused by the violent confrontation between the evaporating transitional government troops and its Ethiopian allies on the one hand, and insurgents on the other.
Officials in African and western capitals shrug their shoulders when confronted with the dire situation in Somalia. A lack of political will, investment and imagination has made Somalia a hopeless case in their eyes.
Realizing no one in power cares in the slightest, most international media have also been ignoring Somalia, barely mentioning the recent heavy fighting in Mogadishu for example.
Ethiopian troops have been accused of having targeted mosques and killing religious leaders and civilians in the north of the capital. Whole areas of Mogadishu were sealed off, leaving outsiders only to guess the gravity of the plight in those sectors. Did anyone hear about any of this?
But pirates taking a French luxury yacht? That story was hard to miss.
According to the United Nations, 2.5 million people are in urgent need of assistance in Somalia. 750,000 alone were displaced from Mogadishu over the last 15 months. Critical water shortages and a severe drought have befallen central and northern Somalia further aggravating the hardship for the civilian population.
The verdict seems to be clear: combined Ethiopian, African Union troops and transitional government forces have failed to establish security in the capital Mogadishu, or any other part of the country.
Islamist al-Shabaab militants in southern and central Somalia are combining their military operations with political outreach. Ultimately, the rise and consolidation of an Islamist movement pursuing a regional and international agenda will create a growing threat to the rest of the Horn of Africa.
A narrow window of opportunity has emerged in the form of Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein’s recent offer to negotiate with both the internal and external opposition, including al-Shabaab, many members of which belong to the clan controlling Mogadishu, the Hawiye. This bold political initiative led by a widely respected figure, if seized upon, could potentially usher in an inclusive Somali national political dialogue.
But it now faces a steep hurdle, if not a fatal blow, from the U.S. designation of al-Shabaab as a terrorist organization. Whether well founded or otherwise, the U.S. move - preceded by the latest American air strikes on Dobley in southern Somalia - could undercut the prime minister’s initiative, widen the rift between the president and the prime minister and undermine local and international efforts to facilitate a political resolution to the Somali crisis.
The lack of strategic engagement by the international community is a significant obstacle to progress. The efforts of the UN special representative, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, to build greater cohesion among members of the international community should be encouraged, and he should be supported to build a strategy for a meaningful peace process.
This new political process should work to achieve an end to the current insurgency. The first point on the agenda for negotiation should be a cease-fire. Involved parties need to be given security guarantees in order to agree to it and truly engage in political dialogue. For the opposition this might involve a clear plan and timeline for phased Ethiopian withdrawal supported and monitored by the international community. The Ethiopians would be given guarantees about greater Somalia claims and other security concerns.
The negotiations should include an agreement on the borders of the federal state, its internal divisions and the devolution of powers between states and central government. Also, a national reconciliation process should put an end to the cycle of revenge that has ruined the country for over two decades. The incentive for the parties to discuss this issue would be accountability mechanisms that would apply to perpetrators of crimes committed by all sides of the conflict. Finally, there must be an agreement on an electoral process leading to a democratic election of political leaders.
All this may seem quite a reach for a collapsed state like Somalia. But if world leaders and the international media gave this the kind of priority they have given the pirates, then progress would be far easier.

Daniela Kroslak is the deputy director of the Africa Program, and Andrew Stroehlein is media and information director, of the International Crisis Group.

Should French troops stay in Afghanistan?

Nicolas Sarkozy should announce in the coming days in Bucharest an increase by 1,000 troops of the French military force in Afghanistan.

The idea is bad. The timing is bad.

The war in Afghanistan can no longer be won considering the basis on which it started. Every single aspect of it was communautarized. And the hunt for Al-Qaeda quickly became a hunt for Pashtuns. Targetting a community, as we have seen in Iraq, can only damage the relation between the army and the population. To some extend, the Taliban movement has legitimacy from the people. Rather than making the confusion between Talibans and Al-Qaeda, one should rather adress the reasons for this popular support.

Among those who doubt of the efficiency of the military operations, many US observers and officials (read my previous post on Afghanistan) as well as the Afghan president Hamid Karzai himslef (CBS’ 60 Minutes produced a great story on the subject).

Increasing the military presence in the country is not only dangerous for the troops. It is also costly, at a time the French governement requires a budget diet. And it is a show of support to a Bush administration that even a large majority of the American public no longer supports. It weakens also the European position, while countries like Germany are facing pressures to increase their troop level.

Pledging that ‘the solution is not only military’ is a fake excuse.

Not only cannot the solution be military. But it must be merely Afghan as well. And as free as possible of foreign influence.

Did Kouchner lie about Chadian opponents ?

Where are the Chadian opponents arrested in the aftermath of the attempted coup initiated by the rebels in early February ? The cases of Ngarlejy Yorongar and Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh are especially worrying.

Last Friday, Chadian foreign and justice ministers assured in a press conference in Paris that Yorongar reappeared “in his neighbourhood in N’Djamena’. The two officials accused him of disappearing voluntarily and playing ‘hide and seek’ with the authorities.

Monday 25th Feb., French Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was interviewed on the parliamentary station LCP-Sénat, and declared that Yorongar was actually hiding. ‘Mr. Yorongar (…) was found. He is still hiding, but quite reliable witnesses have seen him and he is alive,’ he said.

The problem is that these ‘quite reliable witnesses’ quoted by the French FM must be Chadian governemental officials. This assertion contradicts independent sources.
Meanwhile, Chadian human rights activists and the US-based Human Right Watch denied these statements, saying that the opponents were last seen in army custody.

“The government says it doesn’t know how Yorongar and Ibni disappeared,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Our inquiry leaves little doubt that it was the government which took them, and we hold the government fully responsible for their well-being and safe return”, the organization writes in its statement.

The question is : did Bernard Kouchner know about the opponents’ whereabouts when he said they were hiding ?

It would be a major blow for the French African diplomacy if it eventually happens that these opposition leaders do not reappear alive. But the French diplomacy is too busy working for the release of Ingrid Betancourt to do something for Déby’s opponents…

French military in the Emirates. A mistake ?

President Sarkozy’s visit to the Gulf ended with the announcement that France will set up a new base in the UAE (a couple of other agreements were signed, including cooperation for a water plant and a civilian nuclear cooperation program).

This is a breaking news.

First, it makes France become the only other foreign country with the US to have a permanent military facility in the Gulf region. And this happens as France has not extended its military bases network abroad recently - the trend is rather to downsize it, due to budget considerations. In Abu Dhabi, four to five hundreds French soldiers will be deployed on a long run.
Second, France did its best to avoid ambiguity. It claimed that this base is not aimed at Iran. And it claimed that the Emirates asked for it –France could’nt frankly say anything else.

This decision may be a major strategic mistake.

The French national interests are in a stable Middle-East. Deploying more troops can only bring more tensions. And the image of France in the region could be serioulsy damaged by such a decision. The recent trend shows that the ‘autonomists’ (ranking first among them are the islamists) are pledging for less Western influence in the region

What if, latter, this military presence is perceived as an occupation ? How would the French soldiers react if they get attacked ? A retreat would be seen as a defeat. A retaliation would trigger a dangerous cycle.

There are certainly many possible solutions to face terrorism. Deploying more Western troops on a muslim soil can definitely not be one of them.