Pan-African Postcard

United States and Somalia

Bill Fletcher

2008-04-24, Issue 368

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/47648

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Bill Fletcher looks at the hypocrisy surrounding the United States' misadventures into Somalia.

Bush’s so-called war against terrorism entered a further, cynical stage with the recent classification of a Somali group as alleged ‘terrorists’. Al Shabab, the military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, was declared by the US State Department to be a terrorist organisation. The Bush administration claims that ‘some’ members of Al Shabab are affiliated with Al Qaeda.

In order to understand the cynicism of this move it is important to remember that Somalia was a basket case for over a decade after the overthrow of the dictator Siad Barre. Filled with clan-based warlords, the country had no stable government. An international attempt to forge a transitional national government resulted in no further stability or end to the violence. The rise of a right-wing Islamist group known as the Union of Islamic Courts, however, brought about a period of relative stability and internal peace. While the group was and is ultra-conservative in many of its tenets, it was successful in crushing or co-opting many of the warlords. Further, it was an indigenous group to Somalia and not an arm of another country or an external social movement.

Using the pretext of an alleged - and unproven - connection between the Union of Islamic Courts and Al Qaeda, Ethiopian troops - encouraged and backed by the Bush administration - invaded Somalia in 2006 with the stated objective of supporting the Transitional Federal Government, an institution that was on its last legs and had little support within the population. Although the Ethiopians defeated the UIC in formal battle, the situation in Somalia devolved into guerrilla war and chaos. It has been going downhill ever since.

Al Shabab, whether one supports them or not, is an armed resistance movement. It has been carrying out military actions against troops of the country that invaded Somalia. One does not have to support the UIC or the actions of Al Shabab to recognise that a people have a right to oust those who invade their land.

The Bush administration’s action in classifying Al Shabab as ‘terrorists’ further complicates an already difficult situation. Instead of recognising that Al Shabab is the military wing of a legitimate movement, classifying them as alleged terrorists makes efforts towards a political resolution of the conflict unlikely, if not nearly impossible, just as has happened in Iraq. One does not have to like Al Shabab, or agree with its objectives, as long as it can be demonstrated on the ground that it is a movement that has a real constituency and is militarily confronting an occupying army.

The Bush administration, as it has done in other parts of the world, e.g. in Turkey with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), or in the Philippines with the Communist Party of the Philippines (and their New People’s Army), selectively chooses when to classify an insurgency or resistance as terrorists, based almost solely according to whether the target of the insurgency/resistance is a friend of the Bush administration. In the case of Somalia, the Ethiopians are doing the bidding of the Bush administration as well as serving their own regional ambitions.

There is another piece to this which is worth noting. Throwing around the label of ‘terrorist’ is also aimed at suppressing dissent here at home in the USA. Whether one is a Somali émigré, Somali American, or simply someone who supports Somalia’s right to national self-determination, the label of terrorist has a chilling effect on one’s willingness to speak out. As witnessed during the Cold War with the manner in which the charge of ‘communist sympathiser’ was used to suppress dissent, the suggestion that someone is either soft on terrorism or, worse, aiding and abetting an alleged terrorist group shuts down all reasonable discussion.

So, let’s be clear: the Bush administration is not interested in reasonable discussion. We, however, should be, so we need to push back against this latest outrage.



*Bill Fletcher Jr. is executive editor of The Black Commentator where this article first appeared [www.blackcommentator.com]. He is also a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.

**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

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