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Jean-Philippe R my | A War With No Front and No Rules Hammers the Devastated Somali Capital    [
Mogadishu Violence Sparks Mass Exodus    [

    Descent Into Hell
    Le Monde | Editorial

    Wednesday 14 November 2007

    The war continues in Somalia - to general indifference. For the second time in ten months, the Ethiopian Army is riposting attacks by insurgents allied to the Islamic Tribunals in Mogadishu. The fighting is characterized by heavy bombardment, destruction of homes and habitations, civilian losses and population flight. In two weeks, 173,000 people have left the Somali capital, according to the UNHRC. During a previous battle, in April, the European Union representative in Kenya wondered whether the "disproportionate use of force in densely populated areas was not a 'war crime.'"

    In recent years, the international ingredients of "jihad" conducted by al-Qaeda and of the "war against terrorism" led by the United States have been added to the civil conflict that erupted in 1991. On one side, the jihadist movements, and certain countries, with Eritrea at their head, support the insurgents. On the other side, Ethiopia has, with Washington's encouragement and without any international mandate, been conducting a military intervention designed to assist the soldiers of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is perceived by the population as a war of occupation.

    Although the Somali warlords did not wait for September 11 to ravage their country, and although al-Qaeda continues to seek new battlegrounds in order to extend its influence, the United States is also responsible for this new conflagration. Traumatized by its bloody 1993 submersion, it subcontracts the war to the Addis-Ababa army. Confusing terrorism, jihadism and Islamism, they have - under the pretext of arresting the organizers (hidden in Mogadishu) of the 1998 attacks against the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania - provoked the growing mobilization of combatants. The latter, recruited in Somalia and neighboring countries, are attacking the United States' allies, the Ethiopians and the TFG's soldiers.

    Paralyzed, the international community is at such an impasse that on November 8, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against sending a peacekeeping force. The hunting down of al-Qaeda, however justified it may be, cannot relegate the necessity of engaging a political dialogue in Somalia that includes all the clans and all the Islamic organizations to the background. Without diplomatic support, the "reconciliation conference" that met this summer could not get anywhere and the enemies of the United States and of Ethiopia and the Somali government coalesced to relaunch their offensive.

    No military resolution that does not risk a dangerous regional conflagration exists for such a conflict. However, in the absence of international mobilization in favor of political negotiations, the descent into hell in Somalia can only continue.

 

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    A War With No Front and No Rules Hammers the Devastated Somali Capital
    By Jean-Philippe R my
    Le Monde

    Wednesday 14 November 2007

    A city is not methodically destroyed in contempt of the conventions of war without the need to come up for air from time to time. Unlike the preceding days, Mogadishu did not experience any significant battles Tuesday, November 13, between insurgents holed up in the Somali capital and their enemies, the Ethiopian troops and their allies from President Abdullahi Yusuf's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

    The truce has little chance of lasting before the new phase of a war with no front and no rules resumes in Mogadishu, the second battle conducted by the insurgents who unite militias from the majority clans in the capital and fundamentalist groups from the Shabab (youth) galaxy, They've thrown themselves into a fight to the death against the Ethiopian forces that penetrated Somalia about a year ago to drive out the Islamic Tribunals that had taken power in the south of the country.

    The previous battle, in April, left several hundred dead and did not spare the city's residents. Whole sectors of Mogadishu had been ravaged by the crush of Ethiopian heavy artillery. Then the insurgents, after being flattened under a deluge of fire, withdrew from the capital. After re-infiltrating it, they have, with several hundred fighters supported by mortars and little cannons, in the course of the last few weeks, resumed frontal attacks in crescendo against the bases and positions of the Ethiopian Army and the TFG.

    In response, the Ethiopians have launched a vast search operation that affects at least a third of the city. Its principle is both simple and devastating. Everywhere the insurgents are suspected of taking shelter, whether in north or in south Mogadishu, the Ethiopian troops and their TFG allies have undertaken a complete emptying out, driving out residents to search houses door-to-door and gleefully looting anything that might be inside. Those who have the means have already fled to the Mogadishu environs or other neighborhoods in the city, now overcrowded. The most destitute, who have nowhere to go, just as prices for everything are skyrocketing, remain outside their homes: risking death.

    Suicide attacks had been introduced in April. In recent weeks, targeted and blind assassinations have charged in as the new tactics in the dirty urban warfare. Cases of decapitation have been reported. The insurgents are suspected of being responsible for them. Several sources confirm the existence of elite Ethiopian snipers who cut down anyone who passes through their sights in the neighborhoods the TFG allies want to empty, without respect to age or gender.

    Ever since the crowd dragged the bodies of several of their own through the streets of Mogadishu, the Addis-Ababa troops have dispensed with all restraint. Ethiopian soldiers fire on passersby and have opened tank fire on residential neighborhoods and the Bakara market. That quarter, the economic lung of a dynamic that inundated all East Africa with products from South-east Asia just a year ago, is deserted and its storehouses looted, according to the scant news that filters in from there. Whoever approaches the area risks finding himself in the sights of a sniper, as happened just this Tuesday.

    In the Hamar Weyne neighborhood, less exposed to destruction - it was largely demolished during the great battles between the clans fifteen years ago - the alleys teem with people. In one of the houses where families are piled on top of one another, spiritual leader Sheikh Abba interrupts one of his traditional medicine consultations to implore "the international community to stop the massacre."

    While the city suffocates, hospitals overflow with the wounded. In Medina, the bodies tell the tale of a war that spares no civilian. One family exhibits a bullet removed from the body of Abdinur Uluso. The projectile's point had been chewed by the shooter, a technique that makes the wounds even more horrible. Not far away, a teenager stares at the ceiling, dazed by sedatives. A rocket launcher has taken away his right arm. "The Ethiopians come into our houses and shoot at us, treating us like terrorists," the women in the hallway scream. One man, wounded in the head, still finds the strength to curse the TFG troops.

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

 

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    Mogadishu Violence Sparks Mass Exodus
    Independent Online ZA

    Wednesday 14 November 2007

    Mogadishu - More than 170,000 people have fled fighting in Somalia's capital in the past two weeks, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday, worsening a humanitarian crisis already facing the country.

    With near-daily clashes between Ethiopia-Somali forces and Islamist rebels, the UNHCR said it was doling out its last stocks from Mogadishu to the displaced, but warned of tough conditions as host areas struggle with the influx.

    Almost 90,000 people have fled to Afgooye, 30km west of Mogadishu, which has already taken in 150,000 displaced people since the beginning of the year.

    In the Afgooye area, "people can no longer find space for shelter around the town itself," UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva.

    "Many families are simply living under trees. Although several NGOs are trucking water to the sites, it's not enough to meet demand," he added.

    Traders stayed away from the volatile Bakara market, where forces have been searching for weapons. Government troops patrolled strategic positions in the city, but insurgents stayed out of sight, an AFP reporter said.

    Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed urged Mogadishu residents to join the fight against rebels or risk getting caught in the ensuing crossfire.

    "People in neighbourhoods must also fight the Shabab and chase them away. Otherwise they are the ones who suffer in crackdowns," he said, referring to the radical armed wing of the main Somali Islamist movement.

    Dozens of people, mainly civilians, have been killed and at least 170 000 displaced in some of the worst fighting since April, when Ethiopian troops swept aside the Islamists who had briefly governed much of the country, including Mogadishu.

    Witnesses said Ethiopian forces indiscriminately shot civilians in a bid to clamp down on insurgents.

    "When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers," Yusuf told reporters, but the UN special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said such impunity was "unacceptable".

    Ould-Abdallah raised the prospect of retribution for alleged war crimes that have long been ignored.

    "People perpetuating crimes and violence are not being challenged before the International Criminal Court," he said.

    "I think the time has come to see what international justice can do to help Somalis," he told a press conference in Nairobi, where he became the first top UN envoy to make such a call for trials before the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.

    The recent clashes have worsened the humanitarian crisis that has dogged the nation for 16 years, with areas just outside the city struggling to cope with the latest influx of displaced people.

    The Shabelle region - Somalia's breadbasket - has suffered its worst crop in 13 years, putting nearly a million people on the edge of starvation.

    Aid workers have also said that the few who remained in the worst-affected areas of Mogadishu are beyond the reach of the relief net and face dire conditions.

    Dampening peace prospects, Yusuf said future peace talks, if any, would exclude Islamists, some of whose elements have been accused of terrorism.

    "I will hold dialogue and consultations and reach peace deals with any group that will denounce violence."

    In Mogadishu, government forces yanked two more radio stations off the air, a day after shutting Radio Shabelle, one of the largest broadcasters in the capital.

    The government said stations that "exaggerate the (security) situation" will be shut.

    Ould-Abdallah condemned the closure, saying: "This is the kind of thing that should be avoided."

    The International Federation of Journalists said the move was "appalling" and demanded the channels be reopened "immediately and unconditionally."

    Bloody clan bickering and power struggles that intensified after the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre have scuppered many bids to stabilise Somalia.