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| Africa: Horn |
| Warlords offer to pull out of Mogadishu |
| 2005-03-13 |
| Warlords and lawmakers from a clan that controls the Somali capital offered to withdraw 15,000 militia fighters from Mogadishu to guarantee the security of the country's transitional government as it returns from exile in Kenya. Somalia has been without a central government since clan-based warlords overthrow the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million into clan-based anarchy. Some 61 lawmakers, including warlords-turned-Cabinet ministers, also pledged Saturday to disarm the fighters, demobilize others and surrender weapons and ammunition to an interim force planned to stabilize the anarchic nation ahead of a larger peacekeeping force. The militia will be quartered in six camps outside Mogadishu, some three months after lawmakers return to the city, Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Mohamed Aidid said. The government is based in Kenya because the Somali capital is considered unsafe. "But there is a condition that troops from neighboring countries (Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya) should not take part in the relocation plan of the government," said Aidid, a former U.S. Marine. Ethiopia actively supported Somali factions with money and weapons in the civil war that started in 1991, and its troops could seek to advance Ethiopian interests if deployed in the Horn of Africa nation, Aidid said. Somalis also remember the war they lost in 1977 over control of Ethiopia's southeastern Ogaden region, largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis. The Somali army never recovered from the defeat, a fact that eventually helped warlords to overthrow Barre. The U.S. State Department supported the stance of Somali lawmakers early this month. Somalia's transitional parliament is expected to consider two competing motions next week on a multinational force intended to help restore order, Deputy Speaker Dalha Omar said. He said at least 75 lawmakers filed a motion backing the force - minus troops from the neighboring countries. The government, however, has tabled a plan that will not bar neighbors, Omar said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 Add estrogen to their water and wait a few years.. Accelerated Darwin. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-03-13 11:57:13 PM |
| #6 We're already running special ops in the Horn, from what I've read. tw is right - it would be folly to ignore al-Q and their ilk's metastasis into these countries. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-03-13 7:34:05 PM |
| #5 We would not intervene a la Afghanistan. We should simply kill the people we want to kill, regardless of collateral damage. Make them wish Sherman had conducted a Thirty Years War there. Then Somalia should be left a cesspool to recover on its own if it can but without our help. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-03-13 7:25:21 PM |
| #4 The problem is that these failed states are where Al Quaeda, et al make themselves at home. So even in the medium run we may have to intervene just to keep that from happening, a la Afghanistan. But not until after Syria and Iran have been taken care of. Our Special Forces guys have enough on their plates at the moment, and my neighbor's eldest has to graduate from Annapolis and get trained up as a SEAL before he will be useful for such activities. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-03-13 7:16:23 PM |
| #3 I'm sure somewhere there's somebody who cares what happens in / to Somalia. Pity if the entire Horn of Africa broke off next time those zany chaps at Haliburton fired up the EarthQuake Machine(tm). |
| Posted by: SteveS 2005-03-13 7:08:02 PM |
| #2 Some places are so inherently fucked up that only raw Darwinism seems to be their salvation--their moon-god will sort them out. And yet, they can produce people like Hirsi Ali. Despite. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-03-13 6:17:26 AM |
| #1 I'm sure somewhere there's somebody who cares what happens in / to Somalia. Not here. Not me. Somalis embrace and practice the same exact "social system" of their most distance ancestors. Thus they render themselves perfectly irrelevant. Stew forever. Same to every other throwback "society". No one can save you from yourselves, except you. Don't call us, we'll call you. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-03-13 6:12:09 AM |