Somalis have no interest in Ethiopian intervention
By Ahmed Yusuf Ahmed
August 28, 2006 — Located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is adjacent to the Arabian Peninsula. Somalia is a land of thousands of years of history. The ancient Egyptians spoke of it as “God’s Land” (the Land of Punt). That was then but today Somalia is realized as one of the most strategically located countries on earth.
Somalis are also one of the most homogeneous peoples in Africa. This homogeneity has been envied by both friends and foes since colonial years. Defying all reasonable logic, however, Somali unity has been thwarted by clan-based rivalries. Civil war followed a 21-year dictatorship that ended in 1991, and Somalia has been without a functioning national government since that time.
During this civil war, many groups and warlords claimed control of one part of the country or another. The U.S should deal with these various political factions in Somalia with painstaking neutrality. It should not favor one political group over another at the detriment of the Somali people and certainly should not unfairly favor Ethiopia over Somalia.
The U.S. should make a fundamental distinction between Somali and Ethiopian governments and the predicament faced by the Somali people. It seems that the U.S. still operates on the naive assumption that Ethiopia stands as the guardian of its strategic interests in the region. Knowing this, Meles Zenawi tries to do everything that can possibly be done to manipulate U.S. foreign policy regarding Somalia. It seems that Ethiopia succeeded in convincing the U.S. to use her to stir up trouble in the region and to fight its proxy wars.
But should the U.S. partner itself with Ethiopia against Somalia? I think not, because it is known that the Ethiopian government is not only illegitimate but woefully out of touch with reality and their own people. Therefore, the U.S. should listen more to the freedom and democracy loving peoples of Ethiopia and Somalia and not to their illegitimate governments in Addis Ababa and Baidoa.
Also, without freely and fairly elected governments in Ethiopia and Somalia it would be hard to make it possible for democracy to flourish in the horn of Africa. I think developing and supporting democratic institutions is more important than supporting these governments. Peoples of both states should be able to choose their leaders, express themselves freely, and go about their economic activities freely.
No doubt the people of Somalia are suffering in part because of the U.S. and the West’s support for Ethiopia to be in charge of Somali affairs. Ethiopia only needs to sound the alarm bells of the overrated “Terrorist” term to receive an unconditional attention of its Western allies. Over the last decade Ethiopia received about $500 million dollars in aid to handle certain Somali affairs. If any foreign government wants to help Somalia, why would they let aid intended for Somalia to go through the corrupted government of Meles Zenawi?
The repressive regime of Ethiopia continues to this date to be one of the main root causes of Somalia’s long standing civil wars because of its unwavering support for all the different warring factions in Somalia. Meles strategy is to convince each group/warlord of the various ethnic groups in Somalia as being the ONLY deserving ally and the only one that should gain political dominance.
By dividing Somali people along clan lines and exacerbating any possibility of the re-emergency of central authority in Somalia, Meles Zenawi succeeded in achieving two long sought after goals: (1) Divide Somalia into segments that can never challenge Ethiopia’s subjugation and dominance. (2) Create a puppet government that takes orders from Ethiopia.
Furthermore, Meles Zenawi supports the secessionist aspirations of Northern Somalia from the rest of the country despite Somali and international objection and violation to this effort. To this date Meles Zenawi sabotages all efforts to bring an end to the plight that prevailed over the last 15 years.
The ungrateful Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi has often swanked about the generosity of the Somali government and people during his armed rebellion against Mingtu Haile Mariam’s regime. Somalia provided him with a base to operate from as well as financial, political and military support. After the collapse of Mingistu’s regime in the hope that a lasting resolution would be found for the long-standing conflict and disputes between the two countries. Somalis were expecting Meles Zenawi to return the favors so that a united Somalia will once again re-emerge. In stead the new Sherriff, Mr. Zenawi engaged in cunning, manipulative, and divide and rule tactic, while still posing as an honest mediator of warring factions.
Achieving its main goal of installing a puppet government in Somali, Ethiopian military is now freely operating from inside Somalia to protect the TFG government from the “very” Somali people that they were supposed to represent. This led to the UIC decision not to partake Arab league sponsored negotiations in Khartoum, Sudan. After all no one can negotiate in good faith under the barrel of the gun.
Ethiopia’s direct military intervention and violation of Somalia’s sovereign rights has now indefinitely stalled any possibility of ever achieving a complete reconciliation among different factions. All the while, the so-called “world of the free” is amusingly watching, at times encouraging or collaborating with Meles Zenawi. Despite all these difficulties, however, Somalis must remain united and never let Ethiopia ruin the prospect of peace and reconciliation in Somalia.
Somalis must realize the un-abating efforts of Meles Zenawi to undermine any efforts to reconciliation efforts and his persistent opposition to the re-emergency of a united, strong, and independent Somalia. This is what Somalia got back for all the support it provided for Meles Zenawi’s struggle against former dictator Mingistu Haile Mariam.
The peoples of Somalia and Ethiopia must understand that the tyrants will come and go but the people will be here long after these tyrants have perished. Therefore, we must try our best to dispel the ever-present suspicion of one another. We need to engage each other positively and constructively. This was the case for me during college years when I had an Ethiopian roommate. As he told later on he was very suspicious of me and always mentioned the 1977 war. After a while though, he realized that I did not have enmity towards Ethiopians and that although I supported (still support) the self-determination of the people of the Somali regions in Ethiopia, the war was unfortunate. We respectfully disagreed on issues but never quarreled over them.
Finally, it is in the best interest of Ethiopia to refrain from interfering with Somali internal affairs because if homogenous Somalia was easy to break up then it would be even much easier to disintegrate the diverse 70 ethnic groups of Ethiopia. I think that we must avoid that at all cost for that to happen. Again, peace and stability is not in the interest of Somalia ONLY, it is also one that would be hard to regain in Ethiopia once it is disrupted. Once again let us all work hard and in cooperation to get rid of authoritarian rules in both nations, and let us resolve our disputes in peaceful ways.
* Ahmed Yusuf Ahmed is based in the USA. He can be reached at
[email protected]