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Proxy Wars |
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Our own Seminal correspondent in Senegal, Ish, graced our page not so long ago with an insightful piece on Resource Conflict, which then served as the lens through which he viewed the current crisis in Sudan. Of course few conflicts are so cut and dry that they may be reduced to a single motivation, but the spark to action always seems to come from a single source, a single interest, which is then masked or mingled with myriad others. In this fashion a movement may gain wider public support, more factions may be mobilized, and the resulting force left more potent. In Sudan, a desire for control of oil-rich land has often been presented as deliberate, genocidal ethnic and religious violence. The conflict playing out over oil rich land of Iraq has been painted, pre and post-invasion, with ideological and fear-inspiring rhetoric, thereby gaining the public support necessary for action. Another current, convincing case for resource conflict can now be seen in Somalia, where more talk of anti-terror measures has accompanied an exertion of U.S. interests in a resource rich country.
The invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops was done with the full blessing and training of the United States. This American funded entity then proceeded to scatter the Islamic Courts Union which had risen to power in Somalia, disbanding their Sharia courts in the process. The courts, based on Muslim principles of Jurisprudence, gave what many Somalis described as their first sense of order in decades. Upon their ascension to power they released statements declaring their aversion to a Taliban style of extremist government, inviting outsiders to come and see the changes they’d wrought. Abukar Arman, writing for The Global Politician, described the Courts as “a spontaneously formed uprising against the abuses and exploitations of the warlords.”
Despite these facts, the Ethiopians have invaded and reinstituted the “internationally recognized” transitional government, whose years of rule had not achieved the pacifying ends brought by the Islamic Courts. This is not the first time the U.S. has used Ethiopia as their proxy in the region. In 1996 the Clinton administration sent nearly $20m in surplus military equipment to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda so they could protect themselves against, and exert their influence over, a country now ravaged by fractious groups; Sudan.
The African-horn country of Somalia is newly-rich in oil, holds a strategic position across the Gulf of Adan from the Arabian peninsula, and yet at present it ranks with Ethiopia among the world’s poorest countries. International opinion was near unanimous in their opinion on an “intervention” by the U.S in such a troubled region.; a war, no matter the outcome, would most likely result in a destabilization of the entire region. The U.N. Security Council again kowtowed to the wishes of the U.S. and will send a “peacekeeping force” to the region to bolster the transitional government. It is ominous that peacekeepers have not been sent in the previous decade plus of lawlessness, but now that an Islamic group has brought order there is a clamor to uproot it, followed by a concerted effort to bolster those who presided over the chaos which preceded the Courts. Oft-heard claims that bodies such as the U.N. and the U.S. are clearly enacting an anti Muslim agenda become harder to refute as more actions of this kind are enacted worldwide.-*lgs
** In an interesting symmetry with the current war in Iraq, articles at the time of President Clinton’s military excursion into Somalia expressed these sentiments: “Clinton rejected calls from congress and elsewhere to ‘cut and run’” and offered this rhetoric to the American people when it was questioned why we were still there; “we face a choice, do we leave when the job gets tough or when the job is well done? Do we invite the return of mass suffering or do we leave in a way that gives the Somalis a decent chance to survive?”
