Ethiopian Meddling in Somalia Contributes to “Terrorism”
By Yohannes Woldemariam*
June 7, 2006 — Is Ethiopia under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a worthy ally against extremism in the Horn? Roughly 800 U.S. troops are stationed in Djibouti and working closely with troops from the Ethiopian government. U.S. Special Forces have been providing training to the Ethiopian military. US troops have trained with Ethiopian troops that patrol the border with Somalia. The US is also giving military and financial support to corrupt Somali War Lords who are despised by the people and are seen as Ethiopian puppets. This is supposedly collaboration against “terrorists” in Somalia. The irony is that by doing so, the U.S. seems to be creating the very thing it fears: Islamic terrorism in Somalia and the Horn. Islamism has never really been strong in the Horn. Yet Meles’s meddling in Somalia appears to have given the Islamists their real opening in the region. Meles’s contention that he is besieged by Muslim extremists may become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Meles’s Ethiopia is far from being an anchor for the Horn of Africa; it’s more like a prison of nations, which without the life support system of foreign aid is in danger of imploding. The Bush affection for dictators like Meles who promote “America’s short-term political interests” is dangerous and sends the wrong message to those who struggle for democracy and human rights around the world. In fact, this strategy will make the world significantly less free. It encourages dictators like Meles to represent themselves as deserving of U.S. support on the grounds that the alternative would be worse. If not me, the dictators say, the Islamists would take over. Ready U.S. acceptance of such arguments gives dictators every reason to ensure that their regime is always threatened by phantom Islamist violence. The need for allies on the War on Terror has pushed the U.S. toward unsavory “friends” like Meles.
One would have hoped that the important lesson learnt from the attacks of September 11 2001 is where repression and despair rule, extremism and violence breed. Ethiopian meddling in Somalia, instead of preventing terrorism, provides the fodder for the birth of al Qaeda-linked Jihadists. Somalia’s 10 million populations are historically hostile to the hegemonic regional influence of their large neighbor Ethiopia. U.S policy is misguided in using Ethiopia to fight “terrorism” in Somalia. It does not take much insight into the regions politics to recognize that it will have an opposite effect.
* Yohannes Woldemariam is based in the U.S. and writes commentaries on events in the Horn of Africa.