Home |
Site Index |
FAQs |
Contact |
RSS
|
Podcast
home > by publication type > daily analysis > Somalia’s Perpetual War
Email
| Author: |
|---|
Somali men carry food aid to shore in the town of Merka, south of Mogadishu, on December 18, 2007. (AP/Karel Prinsloo)
Pirates hijacked a record number of ships off the Somali coast this year, fighting in Mogadishu has driven hundreds of thousands from the city, and the aid workers that supply critical food and medical supplies to displaced Somalis are now targeted by Islamic insurgents (TIME). Yet perhaps the most telling indicator of Somalia’s deepening crisis is this: Not only has the country’s weak transitional government failed to protect civilians, according to a new report from Amnesty International, it routinely targets them (PDF).
Somalia’s transitional federal government has tried to legitimize its hold over the country since December 2006, when Ethiopian troops invaded to oust the Islamic Courts Union, a fundamentalist militia. Some eighteen months later, the Ethiopian troops remain, the Islamist insurgency has intensified, and moderate elements of the Islamists that split from the courts are refusing to negotiate with the transitional government. As this Backgrounder describes, the transitional government is an amalgam of warlords vying for power. The United States has backed it in the hopes of eliminating the country’s Islamic extremists, but many experts say that strategy has led to further radicalization.
The U.S. strategy toward Somalia is three-pronged: to eliminate the terrorist threat, to promote political stability, and to address the humanitarian crisis. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee in March, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said “As we encourage political dialogue, we will continue to seek to isolate those who, out of extremism, refuse that dialogue and insist on violence.” Critics of that strategy suggest that U.S. counterterrorism objectives undermine efforts at political reconciliation. The radical Islamist group al-Shabaab tells Newsweek International its recent addition to the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups will help it attract young recruits. A February 2008 report from the Government Accountability Office found U.S. stated strategy for Somalia incomplete (PDF) and said the government failed to incorporate the activities of the Defense Department.
At an April UN Security Council meeting on Somalia, the political process was little discussed. Instead, debate centered on whether to send more international forces to bolster the small contingent of AU peacekeepers that has already been deployed. Yet experts agree that unless a political agreement is reached among the transitional government, the Islamist insurgents, and the opposition, Somalia will spiral deeper into civil war. More peacekeeping forces “would end up as cannon fodder for the competing armed groups,” writes Africa expert John Prendergast in an April 2008 report. He recommends jumpstarting a peace process in tandem with an aggressive humanitarian response.
Uniting the international community around such a process looks to be a daunting task. Some analysts suggest that there are not enough incentives for the relevant players to engage in such talks. “No one is prepared to make the sacrifices necessary,” says CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Princeton Lyman. The United States continues to launch air strikes targeting terrorists in Somalia. Ethiopia may prefer a divided Somalia to one ruled by an Islamic regime. Some Somali leaders are “comfortable” perpetuating war for personal gain (Reuters), says the UN envoy to Somalia charged with launching peace talks. Meanwhile, as food prices skyrocket and drought within Somalia deepens, the number of Somalis in need of humanitarian assistance has jumped to 2.6 million, an increase of more than 40 percent since January.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.
Complete list of CFR Books.
This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
About Independent Task Forces at the Council.
After two decades of liberalization, many countries around the world are adopting new restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) that could retard continued progress. The authors make recommendations for correcting this protectionist drift by proposing guidelines for how countries can better regulate FDI yet still reap its economic benefits.
In this Council Special Report, the authors make a strong case that the Bush administration’s policy of diplomatic isolation of Syria is not serving U.S. interests, and offer informed history and thoughtful analysis of the country and its external behavior.
Complete list of Council Special Reports.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1-800-537-5487, fax +1-410-516-6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1-212-434-9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
To request permission to reuse Council materials, please email publications@cfr.org or fax +1-212-434-9859.
Please include the complete information of the requested work—author, title, sections/pages to be copied or reprinted, and number of copies to be made—along with a brief description of where and how you would like to reuse the work.
You may also request permission for Council material through Copyright Clearance Center. For more information, please click on the logo below.
Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
