Somalia's Crisis

WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Twisted Ethiopia's Arm to Invade Somalia
By Rob Prince - December 29, 2010
U.S. officials were lying when they claimed to have attempted to restrain Ethiopia from invading neighboring Somalia in late 2006. Newly unveiled documents show that "the Bush Administration pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia with an eye on crushing the Union of Islamic Courts," which had established relative peace in much of the country. The U.S. also tried to assemble a "coalition of the willing" to overthrow Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe.

Somalia: How Colonial Powers drove a Country into Chaos
By By Gregoire Lalieu & Michel Collon, February 10, 2010
Somalia had every reason to succeed: an advantageous geographical situation, oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory; a rare phenomenon in Africa. Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is completely different: famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this country sink? Why has there been no Somali government for approximately twenty years? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who hijack our ships? In this new chapter of our series "Understanding the Muslim World", Mohamed Hassan explains for us why and how imperialist forces have applied in Somalia a chaos theory.

United States invades Somalia
By Michael Wagner, September 14, 2009
It is official now. According to the Associated Press, witnesses have spotted U.S. troops invading the town of Barawe, Somalia, near Mogadishu. Spelled out, the war on terror has found a new home front.

Somalia: Half the population in humanitarian crisis amid an escalating civil war
By Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU), August 24, 2009
Somalia faces its worse humanitarian crisis in eighteen years amid an escalating civil war that threatens to push the country into chaos and lead to further deteriorations in the food security and nutrition status of the people.

Somalia: Conflict rages in Mogadishu
By Brian Smith, June 08, 2009
In the past few weeks, rebels from Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam have routed government forces in Mogadishu, seizing large areas of the city. The small areas that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) controls are shrinking block by block.

Somali pirates: The Whole Truth
By Rosemary Ekosso, April 18, 2009
It all sounds very straightforward. These people are unscrupulous robbers who will stop at nothing to get what they want – filthy lucre – and they even barter human lives in their greed. And the brave and well-armed Americans are going to teach them a lesson. These pirates appear to be pretty unsavoury characters, don't they? But it is not the WHOLE truth. Let's do a bit of current affairs.

US Has Won a Huge Victory
US Aircraft and Elite Navy SEALs Defeat Three Somalis in a Lifeboat
By Glen Ford, April 15, 2009
What a weekend for American foreign policy! The United States Navy, backed up by warships from 20 other nations, knocked off three Somali guys crouching with rifles in a lifeboat tied by a rope to a U.S. destroyer. To hear the U.S. corporate media tell it, the Americans had won a huge victory over the forces of evil.

Analysis: Somalia Piracy Began in Response to Illegal
Fishing and Toxic Dumping by Western Ships off Somali Coast
By democracynow.org, April 14, 2009
While the pirates story has dominated the corporate media, there has been little to no discussion of the root causes driving piracy.

Pirates of Somalia (Video)
By CBC News, April 06, 2009
Why has piracy become a major problem in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean?

The Nightmare in Somalia
By Len Wengraf, February 13, 2009
The US backed Ethiopian Army invaded Somalia in December 2006, overthrowing the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) government and installing the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Two years later, approximately 10,000 people have lost their lives, and 1.1 million Somalis were turned into refugees, the victims of Ethiopian occupiers and an ongoing civil war.

You Are Being Lied to About Pirates
By Johann Hari, February 04, 2009
In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Somali Pirates Threaten Indian Ocean Tuna Industry
January 22, 2009
Tuna catches in the southwestern Indian Ocean fell by as much as 30 percent last year as pirates blocked access to some of the world's richest tuna waters off Somalia, fisheries experts say.

The two piracies in Somalia: Why the world ignores the other?
By Mohamed Abshir Waldo, January 08, 2009
Much of the world's attention is currently focused on the Somali sea lanes. The navies of big and small powers are converging on the Somali waters in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. The recent hijacking of the Saudi oil tanker and Ukrainian MV Faina, laden with arms for Kenya, off the coast of Somalia by Somali pirates captured world media attention.

K'Naan on Somali Pirates - There is a reason why this started (Video)
By hardknocktv, December 30, 2008
hardknock.tv sat down with K'Naan to talk about what is going on in Somalia with the Somali Pirates. K'Naan explains the other side of the story which is being neglected by the mainstream media. K'Naan also stopped by our studios to perform "Somalia" which is one of the new tracks on his new album Troubadour. His also spit a freestyle and sat down for a lengthy interview. Tune in next week for more videos from K'Naan!

Behind 'Fighting Piracy'
By moonofalabama.org, December 11, 2008
The guy who probably knows best about piracy around Somali is Andrew Mwangura. He has been involved in many negotiations of ransom payments for captured ships.

Somalia: Another CIA-Backed Coup Blows Up
By Mike Whitney, December 02, 2008
Up until a month ago, no one in the Bush administration showed the least bit of interest in the incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia. Now that's all changed and there's talk of sending in the Navy to patrol the waters off the Horn of Africa and clean up the pirates hideouts. Why the sudden about-face? Could it have something to do with the fact that the Ethiopian army is planning to withdrawal all of its troops from Mogadishu by the end of the year, thus, ending the failed two year US-backed occupation of Somalia?

Toxic scandal in Somalia gave birth to new piracy
By Simon Assaf, November 25, 2008
When the Asian tsunami of Christmas 2005 washed ashore on the east coast of Africa, it uncovered a great scandal. Tonnes of radioactive waste and toxic chemicals drifted onto the beaches after the giant wave dislodged them from the sea bed off Somalia. Tens of thousands of Somalis fell ill after coming into contact with this cocktail. They complained to the United Nations (UN), which began an investigation.

Pirates of Somalia
By Eric Margolis, November 25, 2008
"Pirates of the Caribbean" and cute little Johnny Depp they are not. Somalia's pirates tote AK-47's and RPG rockets, chew the narcotic shrub qat, use satellite cell phones for their negotiations, and are just about the only people in strife-ravaged Somalia these days who have a regular job.

'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy
By Najad Abdullahi, October 11, 2008
Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste.

» Pirates anchor hijacked supertanker off Somalia coast 18/11/2008
» Pirates seize oil tanker with UK crew 18/11/2008
» Pirates seize another ship in Gulf of Aden 17/11/2008
» Somalia: US intervention causes humanitarian disaster 07/09/2008
» Eritrea blames US for Somali piracy 21/11/2008
» U.S.-Made Mess in Somalia 04/10/2007
» A Look Back at the U.S. Intervention in Somalia
The text of a speech given by Adam Ritscher at a recent Socialist Action forum
on the U.S. intervention in Somalia.

America Brings Hell to Somalia
By Margaret Kimberley, May 26, 2008
America's intervention gave Ethiopia license to invade Somalia and begin a horrific cycle of violence. According to Amnesty International, more than 600,000 Somalis have fled from their homes, at least 6,000 are dead and 90,000 children in refugee camps are in danger of death from starvation and lack of hygiene and medical care.

From cocaine to plutonium: mafia clan accused of trafficking nuclear waste
By Tom Kington, October 09, 2007
The 'Ndrangheta mafia, which gained notoriety in August for its blood feud killings of six men in Germany, is alleged to have made illegal shipments of radioactive waste to Somalia, as well as seeking the "clandestine production" of other nuclear material.

Bush/Neocon, Zinawi's Tigre Christian Crusade Against Somalia
By Amina Mire, July 25, 2007
Somalis living under the brutal occupation of Zinawi's Tigre army know that the mass killing, raping, looting and menacing of the people of Somalia by foreign troops has been sponsored by the Bush administration. They also know that this is a Christian colonial crusade predicated on lies and deceit for there is no shred of evidence that Somalia's Islamist have any link to terror groups such as Al Qaida. This is a Christian unholy Crusading war against the Muslim nation of Somalia.

The Ugly China in Africa
By Amina Mire, July 06, 2007
In today's Africa, and in the shadows of Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah, we have murderous thugs such as Meles Zinawi, Abdullahi Yusuf, Ali Mohamed Gedi, et al, who are murdering, maiming, looting and displacing the people of Somalia as they collect rewards for their crimes against humanity in the form of blood money and false praises as payments of service rendered on behest of foreign imperialistic forces.

The US Colonisation of Somalia and the "Power Vacuum" Fallacy
By Amina Mire, June 27, 2007
Few days ago I have published at an internet blog a paper. In it, I argue that the Ethiopia's occupation of Somalia will continue, as long this is possible, because it serves the U.S imperialist objectives in Somalia: to gain a total control over Somalia's unexplored energy and other natural resources and as a geopolitical outpost in support of other US imperial projects in Africa and the Horn and Africa in particular.

Alliance With Atrocity:
Bush's Terror War Partners in Ethiopia
By Chris Floyd, June 18, 2007
The New York Times paints a pretty picture of George W. Bush's bosom pals in Ethiopia, in an important story that once again gives the howling lie to the Bushists' pretensions of advancing freedom and democracy in their world-encircling Terror War.

'Kill Anyone Still Alive':
American Special Ops in Somalia
By Chris Floyd, June 13, 2007
Evidently it is now a capital crime, worthy of instant death by special ops or air raid or drone-fired missile, for any Muslim of any nationality to visit or take part in an Islamic regime which the U.S. government dislikes.

Menacing Somalia: Unholy Trinity of U.S Global Militarism,
Meles's Ethiopia and Thuggish Warlords
By Amina Mire, June 13, 2007
In 26 December 2006, Ethiopian tanks supported by US AC 130 helicopter gun ships[2] invaded Somalia in order to install a puppet regime of the Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) by ousting the Union of Islamic Courts (U.I.C.). Six months earlier, in June 2006, the Somali people allowed the Union of Islamic Courts to take power to help end the anarchy that resulted from a 15-year civil war in the battered country.

See No Evil: Somalia Sinks Into the Pit as the World Looks Away
By Chris Floyd, May 18, 2007
How bad is the situation in Somalia, the third target of George W. Bush's "Terror War" take-downs? It's "worse than Darfur," says the UN's humanitarian chief, John Holmes. Holmes, a former top British diplomat, told the Telegraph that "In terms of the numbers of people displaced, and our access to them, Somalia is a worse crisis than Darfur or Chad or anywhere else this year."

Ethiopia's Invasion of Somalia
By I.M. Lewis, April 16, 2007
Reports that the forces of 'transitional president' Abdillahi Yusuf and his Ethiopian allies have committed war crimes against civilians in the course of trying to subdue the citizens of Mogadishu is no surprise. Much more surprising, and morally satisfying, is the news that the European ministers and officials, who have so vociferously and uncritically supported Abdillahi in his bid to represent himself as Somali President, may also be implicated in these charges. Whatever the judicial position, the European Union is certainly morally guilty of doing its upmost to prop up the essentially otiose transitional federal government, whose only significant political action since its formation has been to get the Ethiopians to try to force their authority on Somalia. What is particularly astonishing, and in my view inexcusable, is the imperialistic behaviour of the European politicians and bureacrats in completely ignoring Somali public opinion and its overwhelming rejection of Col. Abdillahi and his followers.

African foray
By John Cherian, March 24, 2007
AS part of its efforts to prevent the precipitous decline of Empire, the administration of President George W. Bush announced in early February the decision to create a United States military command for Africa, "Africom". Bush said that Africom would be a fully functional unit by the end of 2008. He said that the Africa command "will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa". The announcement comes after the American-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December.

Getting Away With It: Rendition and Regime Change in Somalia
By Chris Floyd, March 24, 2007
It's clear that no nation on earth will be allowed to organize its own society as it wishes, or work out its own internal conflicts, if the American elite decides they have some financial or strategic interest in the matter. The only nations immune to this power-mad interventionist philosophy are those who can strike back hard enough to upset the elite's apple cart. And thus we have Bush's "war on terror" - which is, as we've often noted, simply an escalation of the long-running, bipartisan foreign policy of the "National Security State" that has ruled America for 60 years.

More Blood in the Wake of the 'War on Terror'
By Chris Floyd, March 23, 2007
Has anyone noticed that yet another "regime change" accomplished with U.S. military assistance is now collapsing into savage - and entirely predictable - internecine conflict?
The Washington Post has certainly noticed. They put this story about the growing insurgency in Somalia and the brutal reprisals against the Bush-backed, Bush-trained Ethiopian occupiers and the Somali government they installed way up near almost the very front, all the way to...page 15.

Ungovernable Somalia and the Imminent Collision of Hegemonic Interests
By Abukar Arman, March 22, 2007
Beneath the veneer of their mutual strategic interest highlighted by their recent military cooperation against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) there is an intriguing political undercurrent that is rapidly gathering momentum as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) continue their "business as usual" approach and implement a successive, haphazard set of initiatives that proven to add fuel to inter-clan deadly polarization and keep Somalia in perpetual chaos. The reckless invasion of the residence of an influential clan leader as he met with other clan elders and the former president of the Transitional National Government is but one such example.
The Ethiopian/US invasion prematurely ended a delicate peace process, six months of law and order, and threw Mogadishu back into that all too familiar vacuum of nihilism. Today, motors and artilleries are routinely fired from all directions; assassinations-- including high profile ones-- became part of the daily rituals; robbery and rape became rampant, and a full-fledged insurgency is underway.

The Somalia Quicksand
Mar 13, 2007
The much heralded arrival of Uganda soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia's disputed capital, as the lead contingent of African Union troops into that volatile country, started with bloodshed. A missile launched at armoured cars carrying Ugandan troops enroute to Global Hotel, presumably to protect government officials, missed its target and killed 10 people; while retaliatory fire by Ugandan troops apparently killed four persons. Twenty others were wounded.

Somalia Reverts to Political Fragmentation
By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein - February 23 2007
During the first three weeks of February, Somalia continued its slide into political fragmentation as violent attacks against occupying Ethiopian forces and militias loyal to the Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) persisted on a nearly daily basis, inter-clan fighting continued to break out and the level of crime increased.

Hotbed for Terrorists: Ethiopia or Somalia?
By Sophia Tesfamariam - February 20, 2007
Africans, especially Somalis, stood by stunned by the manner with which international law was violated, trampled on and discarded by the US-backed Ethiopian war of aggression and invasion against Somalia. Why was the international community as deafeningly silent as innocent Somalis were bombed by US and Ethiopian bombers? Why was there no public outrage as innocent men, women and children were massacred in cold blood by the invading Ethiopian forces and labeled "extremists", "Islamists" etc. etc.? Have we reached the point where human lives no longer merit our concern and that by simply labeling populations as "extremists", "Islamists", "jihadists", etc. etc. that we can look the other way as thousands are massacred in front of our eyes and not care. Do we believe that we are somehow absolved of any responsibility in the carnage perpetuated under the auspices of the "global war on terrorism"? It is high time that we claimed humanity back!

The U.S. Hand on the Horn of Africa:
Behind the Invasion of Somalia
By Prasad Venugopal and Joel Wendland, January 23, 2007
The truth about the December Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the January 7-8 U.S. air strikes on the Somalian towns of Afmadow and Ras Kamboni is obscure to most Americans. This makes it easy for the Bush administration to hide its actual intentions behind its ill-defined, illegal, and failing policy known as "the global war on terror." As usual, the bulk of the U.S. media have followed along, focusing their attention on the U.S. air strikes which failed to kill the targeted individuals (who may or may not have ties to Al-Qaeda and who may or may not have even been there), while callously downplaying or ignoring the deaths of as many as 70 non-combatants in the air strikes.

Protesters Denounce Illegal Occupation of Somalia
By Isabel Macdonald, January 21, 2007
On January 20, several hundred people protested in front of the US consulate in Toronto to demand the immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia. "Somalia should not be a theatre of proxy wars and the hidden agenda of Ethiopia and its American allies", stated Shukria Dini, an organizer with the Coalition of Concerned Somali Canadians (CCSC), the group that organized the demonstration. The CCSC emphasizes the illegality of the occupation, which violates the principle of state sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter, as well as UN Resolution 1725, which forbids neighbouring states from deploying troops to Somalia. The occupation is also a violation of the African Union Charter. Dini emphasizes the gendered impact of the occupation, citing reports of Ethiopian soldiers raping women in Somali towns and villages.

Somalia and Ethiopia: a new front in the 'long war'
By Ken Olende and Charlie Kimber, January 17, 2007
To understand the current crisis in the Horn of Africa you have to look at the role of the US and its "war on terror" -- or the "long war" as US rulers are coming to call it. This war is no more about terrorism than previous "humanitarian" interventions were about helping local populations. There are three important things about Africa for the US. Firstly there are natural resources, notably oil.

Oromo Refugees No Longer Safe in Somalia
By Oromo Relief Association (ORA), January 16, 2007
January 13, 2007 -- Over the last four decades thousands of Oromos who fled from successive repressive regimes in Ethiopia have sought refugee in Somalia. Some of them have settled successfully among the Somali population and many others continue to live in refugee camps. After the collapse of the central Somali state and the subsequent withdrawal of the diplomatic community and UN agencies, the security and wellbeing of these refugees as well as the Somali people have been in grave danger.

Crusade Number Four
By Eric Margolis, January 16, 2007
It is an open secret in Washington that the Somalia operation is to be the Bush/Cheney Administration's new model for war against recalcitrant Muslims. The White House failed to convince India or Pakistan to rent their troops for occupation duty in Iraq, but it has succeeded in using Ethiopia's army in Somalia. Ethiopia's repressive regime was only too happy to invade Somalia and received large infusions of aid from Washington. The Administration is duplicating the British Empire's wide scale use of native troops ("sepoys" in India; "askaris" in East Africa) in colonial wars.

Sins of ommission
By Gamal Nkrumah, January 13, 2007
The true story behind the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, the US bombardment of the country and the instalment of the pro-Western and secular transitional government has yet to be told...

Instead of 'al-Qaeda,' U.S. Kills Nomads in Somalia
By Kurt Nimmo, January 13, 2007
Instead of killing Fazul Abdullah Moham-med, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani, supposedly "al-Qaeda" operatives responsible for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the Pentagon killed "herdsmen ... gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes" in Somalia, according to the Independent.

Somalia a victim of the war on terror
U.S. policy ensures it stays a failed state
By Thomas Walkom, January 13, 2007
American-backed, foreign Christian troops intervene in a Muslim civil war to unseat the winning Islamist side; a U.S. warplane searching for alleged terrorists in that same country blasts the wrong people; both the European Union and the United Nations express their dismay; Canada, home to tens of thousands of immigrants from this war-torn, African nation, says nothing. Does any of this sound familiar?

More Blood for Oil
By Carl Bloice, January 11, 2007
Forget about all that stuff about Ethiopia having a "tacit" o.k. from Washington to invade Somalia. The decision was made at the White House and the attack had military support from the Pentagon. The governments are too much in sync and the Ethiopians too dependent on the U.S. to think otherwise.

Another US Military Intervention
By Stephen Gowans, January 11, 2007
Given that the United States lies nowhere near Africa, the idea that it has interests on the continent is a curious idea from the standpoint of geography and democracy. It is, however, perfectly understandable from the standpoint of imperialism.

Somalia : another war "Made in USA"
By Mohamed Hassan, January 11, 2007
This is not a war between Ethiopia and Somalia. This is a war of the USA against all the peoples of the Horn of Africa.

Somalia and Iraq Share Similar Fates
By Malcom Lagauche, January 11, 2007
You may ask, "What does Somalia have to do with Iraq?" The answer is, "Plenty." In 1993, the United States, under the guise of a "humanitarian" mission, invaded and occupied Somalia. As with Iraq, the world's leading military superpower used its weapons to kill innocent people in their own country. Also, the United States demonized Somalia leader Mohamed Aidid much in the same way in which it discredited Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Aidid and the forces which were allied to him fought the U.S. presence, eventually leading to the U.S. decision to leave Somalia.

U.S. Air strikes on Somalia:
A new stage in Washington's illegal "terror" war
by Chris Marsden, January 10, 2007
US air strikes against targets in the south of Somalia have claimed a substantial number of civilian lives. The bombing campaign, begun Sunday night and continued on Monday, mark a major escalation in the Bush administration's lawless use of violence to achieve Washington's strategic aims under the auspices of its "global war on terrorism."

The Somalian Labyrinth
By R. T. Naylor, January 9, 2007
It did not take long after 9/11/2001 for certain American institutions with small minds containing bitter memories to see the chance to use the post 9/11 atmosphere to even some outstanding scores.

Neocons Attack 'al-Qaeda' in Somalia
by Kurt Nimmo, January 09, 2007
It is simply amazing how many times the transparently bogus "al-Qaeda" has been used as an excuse to unleash violence against largely innocent Muslims and yet so few people here in America catch on, preferring to believe the corporate media fed illusion, now hammered firmly into place and accepted as political reality.

A New War in Africa
By Gwynne Dyer, January 5, 2007
The misconception was the US government's belief that the Islamic Courts, local religious authorities backed by merchants in Mogadishu who wanted someone to curb the warlords, punish thieves, and enforce contracts, were just a cover for al-Qaeda. So the US instead backed the warlords who were making Somalis' lives a misery.

America's new puppet
By Cameron Duodu, January 5, 2007
By its ill-judged invasion of Somalia, Ethiopia has become an accomplice in Bush's war on terror...

Ethiopia joins Bush's imperialist crusade
by Charlie Kimber, January 04, 2007
The recent Ethiopian invasion of Somalia is a direct product of the US-British "war on terror". It threatens to further destabilise a region which has repeatedly been torn apart by war and famine. Ethiopia's rulers ordered the war on behalf of George Bush in order to prosecute their own regional interests, to deflect Western criticism of their own repressive regime, and to collect the pay off from being a top US ally in a strategically crucial area.

Death and Destruction for Somalis: Return of the Warlords
by Amina Mire, January 03, 2007

Blundering Into Somalia Yet Again
By Eric Margolis, January 1, 2007

America's interests in Somalia
By Mark Fineman, January 18, 1993

US Fomenting War in Somalia
By Stephen Gowans, December 15, 2006

Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
By Nicola Nasser, January 03, 2007

The U.S. 'War of Territory'
By Henk Ruyssenaars, January 03, 2007

In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war
By Salim Lone, December 26, 2006

The Conoco - Somalia Declassification Project
By Keith Yearman, October 11, 2006

Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
by Mickey Z, March 26, 2004

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