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The Hidden War for Oil
Carl Bloice elucidates the failure or unwillingness of the
Western media to accurately report the invasion and occupation
of Somalia by a US backed Ethiopian government. He asserts that
behind the US-Ethiopian political alliance lies a strategic move
to secure positioning in this oil region.
By Carl Bloice
05/11/07 "All
Africa" -- -- The US bombing of Somalia took
place while the World Social Forum was underway in Kenya, three
days before a large anti-war action in Washington on 27 January
2007.
Nunu Kidane, network coordinator for Priority Africa Network
(PAN), was present in Nairobi. After returning home, she asked:
how 'to explain the silence of the US peace movement on
Somalia?'
Writing in the San Francisco community newspaper Bay View,
Kidane suggested one valid reason: 'Perhaps US-based
organizations don't have the proper analytical framework to
understand the significance of the Horn of Africa region.
Perhaps it is because Somalia is largely seen as a country with
no government and in perpetual chaos; with "fundamental Islamic"
forces, not deserving of defense against the military attacks by
US in search of "terrorists".'
To that it may be added the role of the major US media in the
lead up to the invasion and the suffering now taking place in
the Horn of Africa.
'The carnage and suffering in Somalia may be the worst in more
than a decade - but you'd hardly know it from your nightly
news', wrote Andrew Cawthorne for Reuters from Nairobi last
week.
Amy Goodman's Democracy Now recently examined the coverage of
ABC, NBC and CBS on Somalia in the evening newscasts since the
invasion.
ABC and NBC had not mentioned the war at all. CBS mentioned the
war once, dedicating three whole sentences to it. Despite the
fact that there have been more casualties in this war than in
the recent fighting in Lebanon.
While the major US print media have not completely ignored the
conflict, their reporting is even more shallow than prior to the
invasion of Iraq.
As recently as last week, Reuters was still maintaining that
Ethiopian troops had invaded its neighbour with the 'tacit'
support of the United States.
At least The New York Times has taken to describing it as
'covert American support'. Both characterisations obscure the
truth.
The attack on Somalia was pre-planned. It would never have taken
place without the approval of the White House.
We now know that the Bush administration gave the Ethiopian
government the go ahead to ignore its own imposed ban on weapons
purchases from North Korea, in order to gear up for the battle
ahead. US military forces took part in the assault.
'The US political and military alliance with Ethiopia - which
openly violated international law in its aggression towards
Somalia, is destabilizing the Horn region and begins a new shift
in the way the US plans to have permanent and active military
presence in Africa', wrote Kadane.
Planning for the invasion actually began last summer when the
Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took control of the Somali
government.
The US-Ethiopian version of shock and awe was to swiftly bring
about the desired regime change, installing the Washington-favoured,
government-in-exile of President Abdullahi Yusuf.
Only a few days after their troops entered the country,
Ethiopian officials said their forces lacked the resources to
stay in Somalia, and that they would be leaving soon.
At one point, the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi declared
- Bush-like - that the invaders' mission had been successfully
accomplished and that two-thirds of his troops were returning
home.
That turned out not to be true. Three months later, the
Ethiopians are still in Somalia committing what numerous
observers are calling horrendous war crimes.
'The obviously indiscriminate use of heavy artillery in the
capital has killed and wounded hundreds of civilians, and forced
over 200,000 more to flee for their lives', Walter Lindner,
German ambassador to Somalia, wrote to the country's acting
president last week.
Displaced persons are 'at great risk of being subjected to
looting, extortion and rape - including by uniformed troops' at
a various "checkpoints". Cholera - endemic to the region during
the rainy season - is beginning to cut a swathe through the
displaced', he continued. Adding that attempts by international
groups to offer assistance to the victims are being obstructed
by militias who are stealing supplies, demanding 'taxes', and
threatening relief workers.
On 3 April, Associated Press reported that a senior European
Union security official had sent an email to the head of the EU
delegation for Somalia warning that:
'Ethiopian and Somali military forces there may have committed
war crimes...donor countries could be considered complicit if
they do nothing to stop them. I need to advise you that there
are strong grounds to believe that the Ethiopian government and
the transitional federal government of Somalia and the African
Union (peacekeeping) Force Commander, possibly also including
the African Union Head of Mission and other African Union
officials have, through commission or omission, violated the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.'
In the meantime, the Bush administration has worked hard to
raise troops from nearby cooperative states to take over the
job. Promises were made, but with one exception, remain
unfulfilled.
In a telephone conversation with Bush, Ugandan president Yoweri
Museveni promised to provide between 1,000-2,000 troops to
protect Somalia's transitional government and train its troops.
The Ugandans arrived. But they are said to have been largely
confined to their quarters, refraining from taking part in the
effort to crush the opposition.
Meanwhile, the 'transitional government' and Ethiopian forces
have been reported shelling civilian areas in the capital from
the government compound they are supposedly guarding.
None of the reporters on the scene appear to have explored the
question of why the other African governments have failed to
send troops. But I think the answer is obvious.
They would be called 'peacekeepers' but would be called upon to
inject themselves into a civil conflict on the side of an
unpopular puppet government, something they are loath to do.
Three months ago, I wrote:
'If the unfolding events in Iraq are any indication, what
started out as a swift invasion and occupation could turn out to
be a long and widening war.'
That was an understatement. At the time of writing, about 1,300
people are reported to have perished in the fighting. Over 4,300
wounded, and nearly 400,000 have fled their homes. Refugees
trying to cross the Red Sea are reportedly drowning off the
Somali coast.
'There is a massive tragedy unfolding in Mogadishu, but from the
world's silence, you would think it's Christmas', the head of a
Mogadishu political think-tank told Cawthorne. 'Somalis, caught
up in Mogadishu's worst violence for 16 years, are painfully
aware of their place on the global agenda.'
'Nobody cares about Somalia, even if we die in our millions',
Cawthorne was told by Abdirahman Ali, a 29 year-old
father-of-two, who works as a security guard in Mogadishu.
And, just as in Iraq, US supported forces - the small army of
the enthroned and very unpopular government and the invaders -
are caught up in a civil war, set in motion by invasion and
occupation.
Additional to the forces loyal to the overthrown Islamist
government, the regime in power is opposed by the Hawiye, one of
the country's largest clans.
A spokesman for the clan recently called upon 'the Somali
people, wherever it exists, to unity in the fight against the
Ethiopians. The war is not between Ethiopia and our tribe, it is
between Ethiopia and all Somali people', he said.
'For the major [world] leaders, there is a tremendous
embarrassment over Somalia', Michael Weinstein, a US expert on
Somalia at Purdue University told Reuters.
'They have committed themselves to supporting the interim
government - a government that has no broad legitimacy, a
failing government. This is the heart of the problem. But
Western leaders can't back out now, so of course they have 100%
no interest in bringing global attention to Somalia. There is no
doubt that Somalia has been shoved aside by major media outlets
and global leaders, and the Somali Diaspora is left crying in
the wilderness.'
Last week, during what was described as a lull in the fighting,
Ethiopian soldiers were moving from house to house in the
capital Mogadishu, taking hundreds of men away by the truckload
to an uncertain fate.
Meanwhile, the traumatised residents of the rubble strewn city
were reported gathering up bodies, many of them rotting, for
burial.
'Most of the displaced civilians are encamped on Mogadishu's
outskirts, where the scenes are medieval', reported The
Economist last week.
On 26 April, Martin Fletcher wrote in The (London) Times about
five days he spent in Mogadishu, during which he canvassed many
ordinary Somalis:
'People lack water, food and shelter. Cholera has broken out.
The sick sometimes have to pay rent even to sit in the shade of
trees. Things will get worse with the rains, which have started.
Aid agencies say people will soon start dying in large numbers.
Some reckon Somalia is facing its biggest humanitarian crisis,
worse than in the early 1990s, when the state collapsed amid
famine and slaughter. Overwhelmingly, they loathed a government
they consider a puppet of the hated Ethiopians.'
Last week the Washington Post reported that interviews it
conducted in Ethiopia and testimony given to diplomats and human
rights groups 'paint a picture of a nation that jails its
citizens without reason or trial, and tortures many of them -
despite government claims to the contrary'.
The paper commented that such cases are especially troubling
because the US government, a key Ethiopian ally, has
acknowledged interrogating terrorism suspects in Ethiopian
prisons, where some detainees were sent after being arrested in
connection with Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December.
The following day the paper reported: 'More than 200 FBI and CIA
agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's
capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees --
including a US citizen picked up in Somalia and held without
charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in
this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the
interrogations are lawful.'
History will probably record the Ethiopian government's decision
to team up with the US administration for regime change in
Somalia as the height of folly. The country has enough problems
at home, brought into sharp relief on 24 April, when forces of
an ethnic-Somali separatist group, the Ogaden National
Liberation Front, raided an oil exploration facility, killing 74
people, including nine employees of a Chinese oil company.
'As much as China's - and indeed America's - ally Meles Zenawi,
the Ethiopian prime minister, might like to be on top of
security across the Horn, he is not always able to deliver. His
army is the region's most powerful conventional force. But under
his rule, Ethiopia is fraying again around the edges', said the
Financial Times editorial on 26 April.
Armed separatist groups are now changing tactics. Unable to
match the army on the battlefield, the Ogaden National
Liberation Front has chosen the spectacular to draw attention to
its cause.
Only recently, a separatist group in the north tried something
similar, by kidnapping a group of British diplomats. Both
horrific events can be attributed partly to fallout from
Ethiopia's messy intervention in neighboring Somalia.
Initial battles last December were decisively in Ethiopia's
favour. But like the Americans in Iraq, the Ethiopians in
Somalia were ill prepared for the aftermath. A growing
insurgency has delayed the withdrawal of their troops, exposing
the government to attacks at home. It has also inflamed tension
among ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia. And ironically, the Chinese
workers killed near Ethiopia's border with Somalia may have been
victims more of Washington's policy in the region than of
Beijing's.
The US has actively backed Meles Zenawi's Somali adventure. In
doing so it has undermined multilateral efforts to bring about
peace. 'There are two main questions that Colonel Yusuf's and
Ethiopia's Western backers should now ask themselves', said The
(London) Guardian 26 April 26.
First, what was gained by encouraging the Ethiopian army to
topple the Islamic Courts? The US allowed Ethiopia to arm itself
with North Korean weapons and also participated in the turkey
shoot by using gunships against suspected insurgents hiding in
villages near the Kenyan border.
Second, Washington was convinced that the Islamic Courts were
sheltering foreign terror suspects: 'But how many did they get
and what price have Somalis paid?'
'America can be more heavily criticised for subordinating Somali
interests to its own desire to catch a handful of al-Qaeda men
who may (or may not)have been hiding in Mogadishu', said The
Economist.
Chatham House, a British think tank of the independent Royal
Institute of International Affairs, has concluded:
'None has been caught, many innocents have died in air strikes,
and anti-American feeling has deepened. Western, especially
European, diplomats watching Somalia from Nairobi, the capital
of Kenya to the south, have sounded the alarm. Their governments
have done little.
In an uncomfortably familiar pattern, genuine multilateral
concern to support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of
Somalia has been hijacked by unilateral actions of other
international actors - especially Ethiopia and the United States
following their own foreign policy agendas.'
Actually, there is no more reason to believe the Bush
administration promoted this war, in clear violation of
international law and the UN Charter, 'to catch a handful of
al-Qaeda men', than that the invasion of Iraq was to eliminate
weapons of mass destruction. What has unfolded over the past
three months flows from much larger strategic calculations in
Washington.
The invasion and occupation of Somalia coincided with the
Pentagon's now operational plan to build a new 'Africa Command'
to deal with what the Christian Science Monitor dubbed 'strife,
oil, and Al Qaeda'.
When I first visited this subject shortly after the invasion, I
quoted 10 per cent as the figure which is the proportion of our
country's petroleum from Africa; and noted that some experts
were saying the US would need to up that to 25 per cent by 2010.
Wrong again.
Last week came the news that the US now imports more oil from
Africa than from the Middle East; with Nigeria, Angola and
Algeria providing nearly one-fifth of it - more than from Saudi
Arabia.
The rulers in Addis Ababa claim the invasion was a pre-emptive
attack on a threatening Somalia. The Bush administration says
giving a wink and a nod to the attack was merely a chance to
capture a few terrorist holed up in Somalia. But for most of the
media and diplomatic observers outside the US, this was another
strategic move to secure positioning in a region where there is
a lot of oil.
On file are plans - put on hold amid continuing conflicts - for
nearly two-thirds of Somalia's oil fields to be allocated to the
US oil companies Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips.
It was recently reported that the US-backed prime minister of
Somalia has proposed enactment of a new oil law to encourage the
return of foreign oil companies to the country.
Salim Lone, spokesperson for the UN mission in Iraq in 2003, now
a columnist for The Daily Nation in Kenya, recently told
Democracy Now:
'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.'
I spoke with Kidane last week and she conceded that the
situation in Somalia might seem complex to many in the peace and
social justice movements.
However, she said, it is impossible to overlook the parallel
with the situation in the Iraq: 'It's aggression, that is
undeniable, and the same language is being used to justify it.'
Kidane is spot on to insist that the movements for peace and
justice in the US - and elsewhere - must take up the issue. The
unlawful US- Ethiopian invasion and occupation of that country
and the accompanying human suffering and human rights abuses
constitute a new - and still mostly hidden - war, which is in
many ways is similar to that in Iraq. And, waged for the same
reason.
Carl Bloice is a writer based in San Francisco. He is a member
of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He is on the
editorial board of Black Commentator where a version of this
article was originally published on 2 May 2007.
Copyright © 2007 Fahamu.
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