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A humanitarian catastrophe now looms over
Somalia. The United Nations says more people have been
displaced in Somalia in the past three months than anywhere
else in the world. Some 350,000 have fled fighting in
Mogadishu since February, more than one-third of its
population. That makes the rate of displacement in Somalia
over the past three months worse than Iraq. Many of the
those displaced are camped on the outskirts of Mogadishu and
lack food, medicine and clean water. There is also concern
for those trapped inside the capital where more than 600
people have died from acute diarrhea and cholera.
-
John Holmes, United Nations emergency
relief coordinator: "There are stocks available in
the area. If we can sort out the access problems, if we
can step up our presence, in particular if we could
achieve a ceasefire in Mogadishu and the surrounding
area, then I think we will be able to cope with the
problem, with some difficulty. But if the fighting
continues at its present intensity, if there is no halt
in that, if there is no political progress made, then we
could indeed be facing a very serious situation indeed.
I think already this is one of the biggest movement of
population, displacement of population we've seen this
year, in terms of numbers, particularly in terms of
comparative numbers, compared to the populations of
Mogadishu or indeed of Somalia as a whole, greater in
that sense than Darfur or eastern Chad, and the problems
there are serious enough."
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi said on
Thursday his forces were now in control of Mogadishu and the
BBC reports for the first time in nine days, gunfire has
stopped. Ethiopians and government troops are patrolling the
city conducting house-to-house searches as residents collect
rotting bodies that had been abandoned in the streets.
The escalating war in Somalia has received
little attention in the U.S. media especially on broadcast
television. Using the Lexis database, Democracy Now examined
ABC, NBC and CBS's coverage of Somalia in the evening
newscasts over the past three months. The result may
surprise you: ABC and NBC has not mentioned the war at all.
CBS mentioned the war once. The network dedicated a total of
three sentences to the story.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: In Somalia, fierce
fighting has killed over 320 people over the past ten days.
This comes just three weeks after another series of battles
claimed at least a thousand lives. Agence France-Presse
described Thursday’s clashes in Mogadishu as some of the
heaviest fighting in the city’s history.
The fighting began in December when
US-backed Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia. Four months ago
today, Islamic fighters abandoned the capital, marking the
official fall of the Council of Islamic Courts, which had
controlled Mogadishu for six months last year.
A humanitarian catastrophe now looms over
Somalia. The United Nations says more people have been
displaced in Somalia in the past three months than anywhere
else in the world. Some 350,000 people have fled fighting in
Mogadishu since February, more than a third of its
population. That makes the rate of displacement in Somalia
over the past three months worse than Iraq. Many of the
those displaced are camped on the outskirts of Mogadishu and
lack food, medicine and clean water. There is also concern
for those trapped inside the capital where more than 600
people have died from acute diarrhea and cholera.
This is UN relief coordinator John Holmes.
JOHN HOLMES: There are stocks
available in the area. If we can sort out the access
problems, if we can step up our presence, in particular
if we could achieve a ceasefire in Mogadishu and the
surrounding area, then I think we will be able to cope
with the problem, with some difficulty. But if the
fighting continues at its present intensity, if there is
no halt in that, if there is no political progress made,
then we could indeed be facing a very serious situation
indeed. I think already this is one of the -- the
biggest movement of population, displacement of
population we've seen this year, in terms of numbers,
particularly in terms of comparative numbers, compared
to the populations of Mogadishu or indeed of Somalia as
a whole, greater in that sense than Darfur or eastern
Chad, and the problems there are serious enough.
AMY GOODMAN: Prime Minister Ali
Mohamed Ghedi said Thursday his forces were now in control
of Mogadishu. The BBC reports, for the first time in nine
days, gunfire has stopped. Ethiopians and government troops
are patrolling the city conducting house-to-house searches,
as residents collect rotting bodies that have been abandoned
in the streets.
The escalating war in Somalia has received
little attention in the US media especially on broadcast
television. Using the Lexis database, Democracy Now!
examined ABC, NBC and CBS's coverage of Somalia in the
evening newscasts over the past three months. The result may
surprise you: ABC and NBC has not mentioned the war at all.
CBS mentioned the war once on a Sunday night news broadcast.
The network dedicated a total of three sentences to the
story.
Salim Lone is a columnist for the Daily
Nation in Kenya and a former spokesperson for the UN
mission in Iraq. He joins us today from London. Welcome to
Democracy Now!, Salim.
SALIM LONE: Thank you for covering
Somalia, Amy. As you said, the coverage is absolutely
shameless.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, first, Salim, can
you describe who the fighting forces are and who's behind
them?
SALIM LONE: Well, I mean, the key
country there is Ethiopia. Their occupation forces have been
there, in fact, long before the actual war began. They came
in around September, October. But at the moment, those
fighting the Ethiopians and the nominal transitional central
government, which is really an absolutely puppet -- it’s
quite hapless. In fact, the Ethiopians don't even deal with
Somalis that their fighting through the transitional
government. They go directly to the elders of the clans to
try to negotiate ceasefires. But those fighting them are
obviously the Hawiye Clan fighters who dominate Mogadishu. I
mean, historically, they're the largest clan in there. But
there are also many others, not just Islamists, which is a
codeword for terrorists, but there are many Somalis. In
fact, most Somalis will not abide this occupation. I mean,
this is what is most distressing about this fighting. All
fighting is terrible, but you hope in the end something good
comes out of it. But in this particular case, it is clear
Somalis will not abide the Ethiopian occupation or the
government they put in place there. So it is not going to be
a successful war for the Somali government, for Ethiopia
and, of course, for the US, which is the orchestrator of the
whole adventure this time.
AMY GOODMAN: Salim Lone, you're now
in London. The British think tank Chatham House criticized
the US role in the war. The authors of the report write, “In
an uncomfortably familiar pattern, general multilateral
concern to support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of
Somalia has been hijacked by unilateral actors, especially
Ethiopia and the United States.”
SALIM LONE: Well, you know, this is
par for the course these days. What they also should have
mentioned -- but it’s an excellent report, by the way. I
really enjoyed reading it, and I’m so glad they were so
candid. But one of the big issues here is not merely the
unilateralism of the United States, but the inability of the
international community and particularly the United Nations
Security Council to try to play, if not an independent role,
at least a moderating role. It is quite astonishing that for
now three months, there has been terrible violence in
Somalia, and yet we have not heard anything from the
security council about how this carnage must stop. There is
no interest whatsoever.
You know the death toll. I mean, you've
given all the details. I don't want to go into it. But let
me add that women are being raped, that hospitals are being
bombed. This is clearly a huge effort to intimidate and
terrorize all those who come from clans who are fighting the
government. They want to intimidate the civilians, because
most of the death toll is of civilians. So this has been
going on, and there has been no call whatsoever for this to
stop.
You had Sir John Holmes there. He's a Brit,
who -- I don't know him personally, so I cannot speak for
him. But clearly, he has been appointed, in fact, by the
British to his crucial position as chief of humanitarian
affairs.
So we are seeing the Security Council
completely silent while these atrocities are going on. We
are seeing Western governments completely silent. Nothing
has come out of Washington. Nothing has come out of London.
We now see, for the first time on Wednesday, the ambassador
of Germany -- and Germany holds the EU presidency now -- the
ambassador released a letter, which he had sent to Abdullah
Yusuf, the president of the transitional government. It is a
very candid and a very strong letter, and that's wonderful.
However, where was Germany? Where was the EU for all this
period? Their silence has really given the green light for
the Ethiopians to do the terrible things they've been doing.
The death toll now in Somalia is greater
than it was in Lebanon. And you will recall, of course, that
even then, the big powers -- the US, UK, even initially the
UN -- did not demand a ceasefire. But the world media was
full of that story, and there were condemnations around the
world for what the Israelis were doing. But, of course,
Somalis and Africans don't count as nearly much, because
there has just been no international outcry at all. It’s not
just the media. So we really have a problem there.
AMY GOODMAN: Salim Lone, we're going
to break and come back to this discussion. We'll also play a
comment or interaction in the State Department on what is
happening right now in Somalia. Salim Lone, columnist for
the Daily Nation in Kenya, joining us from Britain.
Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Salim
Lone. He is the former spokesperson for the UN mission in
Iraq. He’s a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya
and is joining us right now from London. Salim, I wanted to
talk to you about the US role in all of this. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice met with the Ethiopian foreign
minister on April 23. At a news conference the next day,
State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said the two
had discussed the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia.
McCormack said the troops had “no desire to stay there any
longer than they are needed,” but that they didn't want to
withdraw to, quote, open up a -- “vacuum open up in
Somalia.” A reporter questioned him about his comments. This
is an excerpt.
REPORTER: Does it concern you at
all that your little -- your opening readout, your
opening statements, with the exception of some of the
proper names, could have applied exactly to the
situation in Iraq right now? Does that bother -- does
that concern you at all?
SEAN McCORMACK: I'm not sure I
see your point, Matt.
REPORTER: That the Ethiopians say
that they don't want to stay there any longer than
they're needed, but they don't want to leave a vacuum.
It just sounds --
SEAN McCORMACK: Right.
REPORTER: -- an awful lot like
they're taking a page from the administration's thoughts
on what to do in Iraq.
SEAN McCORMACK: No. I mean,
they're --
REPORTER: But I guess -- so my
question is, are you concerned that they might be seeing
the beginning or the -- in fact, the middle of an
Iraq-style insurgency going on, obviously not directed
at US soldiers --
SEAN McCORMACK: Right. Right,
right, right.
REPORTER: -- but the same kind of
thing. Are you concerned about that?
SEAN McCORMACK: The situations
are completely separate. They are -- you know, each are
sui generis, but you are in each case concerned
about leaving the field to a group of violent extremists
who do not have an interest in building up the
institutions of a democratic state, so in that sense, in
that sense, there are similarities. I think certainly
the specifics of each situation are quite different, and
the histories are quite different. And I think the level
of intensity of fighting in Iraq is quite different than
you're seeing in Somalia, and the scale of it is a lot
smaller.
AMY GOODMAN: State Department
spokesperson Sean McCormack. The reporter went on to ask him
whether the United States is calling for a ceasefire.
REPORTER: Are you calling for a
ceasefire in Somalia, or are you urging the Ethiopians
to go for these insurgents with as much intensity as
they could?
SEAN McCORMACK: You don't want to
see any more violence in Somalia. Everybody would like
that to be the case, but there are clearly people there,
individuals who are intent upon using violence in order
to further a so-called political cause. And we have seen
that in other areas around the world. And what can't be
allowed to happen is for those forces to gain a foothold
to develop a safe haven, from which they could possibly
launch attacks against other states in the region and
further.
REPORTER: So you're not calling
for a ceasefire?
SEAN McCORMACK: We want to see an
end to the violence. But the real way to get an end to
the violence is (a) stabilize the security situation,
and (b) find a political situation that is workable for
the major political factions in Somali life that have an
interest in actually building a different kind of
Somalia, as opposed to the one we've seen for the past
few decades.
AMY GOODMAN: State Department
spokesperson Sean McCormack. Salim Lone, columnist for the
Daily Nation in Kenya, your response?
SALIM LONE: Well, I mean, I’m very
interested in the Iraq analogy, and it is really multiple,
apart from what was already said there. The contrasts are
striking, as well. But let me add to the analogy, actually,
that May 1 is approaching. That was the day when on the --
right after the war, President Bush said that his mission
had been accomplished. We have the same statement coming out
of the prime minister of Somalia yesterday, that the mission
has been accomplished and the insurgents have been wiped
out.
But let's look at the other contrasts, which
are very fascinating. In Iraq, the world body, the Security
Council, for the first time in many years since the Soviet
Union collapsed, stood up to the United States and refused,
despite enormous pressure, to authorize a UN war in Iraq. In
Somalia's case, it is precisely the opposite.
To begin with, the lawlessness of this
particular war is astounding. I mean, this is the most
lawless war of our generation. You know, all aggressive wars
are illegal. But in this particular one, there have been
violations of the Charter and gross violations of
international human rights, but these are commonplace. But,
in addition, there have been very concrete violations by the
United States, to begin with, of two Security Council
resolutions. The first one was the arms embargo imposed on
Somalia, which the United States has been routinely
flaunting for many years now. But then the US decided that
that resolution was no longer useful, and they pushed
through an appalling resolution in December, which basically
gave the green light to Ethiopia to invade. They pushed
through a resolution which said that the situation in
Somalia was a threat to international peace and security, at
a time when every independent report indicated, and Chatham
House’s report on Wednesday also indicated, that the Islamic
Courts Union had brought a high level of peace and stability
that Somalia had not enjoyed in sixteen years.
So here was the UN Security Council going
along with the American demand to pass a blatantly falsified
UN resolution. And that resolution actually was a violation.
It contravened the UN Charter. You know, the UN Charter is
like the American Constitution. Legislators pass laws, but
they have to be in conformity with the Constitution. In this
particular case, the Charter is the UN’s constitution, and
the Security Council cannot -- it's not allowed to really
pass laws or rules that violate the Charter. And yet, who is
going to correct them? So this --
AMY GOODMAN: Salim Lone, on April 8,
the New York Times reported that the Bush
administration recently allowed Ethiopia to complete a
secret arms purchase from North Korea, in violation of
international sanctions. The US allowed the arms delivery to
go through in January, shortly after Ethiopia invaded
Somalia, from North Korea. Salim?
SALIM LONE: Well, I mean, this just,
you know, shows the lawlessness, the complete lack of
pretense, even, to try to honor these resolutions. The big
powers decide what resolutions are passed. But now what we
see is the big powers then decide, are we actually going to
honor the resolution that we just passed?
I mean, I want to give you an incredible
example of how the Security Council has become a plaything
almost. There was a time when Security Council resolutions
had gravitas. For example, everybody knew Resolution 242,
asking Israel to vacate the Occupied Territories in exchange
for peace. But now, it’s a plaything.
And I want to give the example of the
bombings in Spain in the year 2004. Just before the Spanish
election, there was this terrible atrocity, as you know.
About 200 people, Spaniards, were killed in the terrorist
attacks on the trains. Because it was on the eve of the
election, the Aznar government, afraid that if it was known
that this attack was by terrorists, might lose the election,
got the US to support a Security Council resolution which
condemned the Basque separatists for the attack. And the
Security Council went along with that. I mean, a day later,
it became clear that it was a total lie. So the Security
Council resolutions really have no meaning now, because they
can be passed and violated at will, especially by the United
States.
AMY GOODMAN: Salim Lone, the Dow
Jones newswire has recently reported that the US-backed
Somali prime minister wants to pass a new oil law to
encourage foreign oil companies to return to Somalia. Royal
Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corporation once had
exploration contracts in Somalia, but the companies left the
country in 1991. How significant is this in the US
involvement in Somalia today?
SALIM LONE: Well, you know, as you’ve
discussed before, Somalia itself and the region, the Horn of
Africa, is newly oil-rich. Kenya has some oil. Oil is the
key to domination for the United States -- global
domination, I mean. But it is going about, you know, the
wrong way to get that oil. The US is also worried that its
welcome in the Middle East is diminishing, and they need to
make sure -- both they want to encircle the Middle East with
the oil field, and they want to make sure they have Somalia
and other countries handy for the oil.
But this -- you know, the prime minister’s
attempt to lure Western oil companies is on a par with his
crying wolf about al-Qaeda at every turn. Every time you
interview a Somalia official, the first thing you hear is
al-Qaeda and terrorists. They’re using that. No one believes
it. No one believes it at all, because all independent
reports say the contrary. But they are using that to try to
develop support.
And, you know, this is why it is so
important. Europe has now been coming into the forefront
with its concern. It had this report about major human
rights violations had occurred a month ago in Mogadishu. And
the Europeans are afraid that they might be complicit in
those, because they were supporting the warring -- the
groups that were committing those atrocities. Germany, as I
said, released that letter on Wednesday. Even the American
ambassador has written to Abdullah Yusuf, the president. I
mean, they are really writing letters to the Somali
president. They will not raise this issue in the Security
Council. They will not raise this issue in Washington or
London. They want to keep this as a small African issue.
And it is so important for all of us to put
pressure on the governments in Europe, in particular, and on
Africa, too. I mean, Africa is weak. It cannot really take
strong stands. In my own country, Kenya, we have played a
terrible role in these extraordinary renditions and
Guantanamo Bay that are going on. But, of course, one
leading opposition, the candidate in Kenya, said that the US
has promised to support the government in the elections at
the end of this year in exchange for the terrible things it
has been doing. So Africa is weak --
AMY GOODMAN: Salim Lone, I want to
ask you quickly, as you talk about Guantanamo, this secret
prison in Ethiopia -- not clear how many people are being
held there, if this is one of the black sites, one of the
prisons that are not very well known about in the world that
the US is involved with. But we do know that Amir Mohamed
Meshal is there. He is a New Jersey young man from Tinton
Falls. Jonathan Landay of the McClatchy Newspapers reported
April 24th, Ethiopia has changed its mind and decided for
the time being not to free the American Muslim who was
captured trying to flee war-torn Somalia and was held
without charge in Kenya and Ethiopia for more than four
months. Can you talk about this secret prison?
SALIM LONE: Well, you know, there are
-- did you say “secret prison”?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
SALIM LONE: Yes, yes, yes. You know,
I mean, this whole enterprise -- the kidnappings on Kenyan
streets, the grabbing refugees coming across the border --
has a “Made in America” stamp on it, because you’ve seen it
all happen before. And these secret prisons, the US denies
any responsibility in this whole operation. And yet, we know
that CIA and FBI officials are in those prisons interviewing
the inmates.
We also know, by the way, that many of the
people who have disappeared are not in those secret prisons.
Where are those people? Have they be killed? Are they being
tortured somewhere else? This is, you know, utter
lawlessness.
And we must try to get the Europeans, in
particular -- I keep appealing to the Europeans, because I
know -- I speak to many European ambassadors in Kenya -- I
know that they're privately very concerned about what is
going on. And we must get them to do more. It is fine to
indicate there are war crimes to be committed. It's fine to
say this must stop, and hospitals shouldn’t be bombed, and
you can’t keep relief away from suffering people. But they
must go beyond that. They must take an initiative, or talk
privately to the United States and say, “Look, this is a
lost cause. We are only creating suffering, and we're
creating problems for ourselves, because there will be
blowback on this. There will be animosities and angers,
which will affect Europe, America, Africa, everywhere.” So
they must [inaudible].
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Ban Ki-moon,
the UN Secretary-General’s call for a coalition of the
willing to go into Somalia? You’re a former UN official.
SALIM LONE: You know, it is so
disgraceful. For him to try to get the Security Council --
that's what he proposes, the Security Council, in case there
is no peace in Somalia in the meeting in June, in mid-June,
to discuss it in the Security Council -- for him to propose
that the UN should now go in to do what the US and Ethiopia
have been unable to do, which is basically to impose a
client regime on Somalia, it's just absolutely disgraceful.
I mean, I read that report to the Security Council, and it
is hard to believe that Mr. Ban Ki-moon is the
Secretary-General of the United Nations. It is so blatantly
and comprehensively one-sided. There is not a word about the
fact that the Ethiopians are there without any international
legitimacy. They're occupiers. They violated the UN Charter.
They were not in any danger of being attacked, and they
invaded. So this notion must also -- this notion that a
coalition of the willing must be formed -- as you know, that
was how the first Gulf War was fought. And if this coalition
comes into place, which I hope will not, it will merely
internationalize the crisis and make things even worse. But
I hope the Europeans, in particular, and the Africans who
are on the Security Council will not allow that to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank
you very much for joining us, Salim Lone, columnist for the
Daily Nation in Kenya, former spokesperson for the UN
mission in Iraq when it was bombed there, attacked there,
several years ago, now living in Kenya, speaking to us,
though, from London.
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