Local TV station NTV recently ran the “Inside Somalia” series on its prime time news with journalist Frank Walusimbi embedded with the UPDF contingent in Somalia.
The story is one of tremendous success on the part of the peacekeepers, and of course we are made to believe that peace can be externally imposed on a country. Walusimbi brings us the UPDF/AMISOM story, but it would have been naturally fairer to get the other side of this story too. \
What do the majority native Somalis think of this war?
Meeting members from the UN on October 5, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni asked for a no-fly zone over Somalia; a change of mission from peacekeeping to peace enforcement; and asked for more funding to increase the size of his troops serving under AMISOM.
But the question that goes begging is whether or not peace enforcement will really solve the Somalia problem. But maybe it would be better to ask what the problem is with Somalia.
Many will tell you Somalia’s problem is war. That the Somalis are addicted to war and that we need to help them. As President Museveni told his UN visitors in his October 5 remarks, “it is the duty of the international community to help Somalia regain its sovereignty” (whatever he meant by sovereignty).
So, if it be war, then it is wrong for any external force to interfere. War is not a natural disaster. It is a product of forces at play in a given geopolitical context.
Writing in Foreign Policy magazine in 1999, Edward Luttwark observed, “An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace.
This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively.” Why not give the Al-Shabaab a chance to win this war then? It is after all, far stronger than the government that Uganda wants to keep in power.
Currently the lead exporter of piracy, Somalia has been denied a chance to grow itself, or even have its war run a complete natural course that would inevitably end in peace.
The Al-Shabaab, a group of young, radical Islam patriots, has had their history wrongly told to the world, gathering a bunch of haters in the process. They are portrayed as veritable killing machines who find pleasure in abduction and mass killings.
It is said that they are the big oppressors of the world who only want to enrich themselves by extorting ransom money from oil-carrying vessels on the Indian Ocean.
Why are we not told that the men in the Al-Shabaab ranks constituted the military wing for the outfit (Islamic Courts) of Sheikh Sharif, the current president, until Ethiopia and America flushed them out in 2006?
But just like people elsewhere with rich cultures and religions, Somalis wouldn’t want to be pushed around. Their women are well curved and simple faced—giving them all the necessary ingredients of pride.
In addition, the civilization of Islam, to which over 85% of them profess, gives a profound addition to their sense of responsibility and self worth, and would not easily give in to 21st Century colonialism.
We have been so blind to the fact that the Al-Shabaab militia has popular support from the peasants. And the media such as NTV can only get us the alleged peacekeepers’ story. Just the way Americans have been blind to the support that Osama bin Laden enjoys in Pakistan and Afghanistan!
The Al-Shabaab could be a ragtag force, but could also be extremely difficult to defeat even if the mission changed from peacekeeping to enforcement. In an insurgency, fighting groups can only win when people from within have sympathy with its cause.
It’s the people who provide food, intelligence and manpower. And as Samuel Huntington, the jurist, statesman and patriot during the American Revolution once argued, guerrillas are like fish in water (water being the people); to win a war against them, you first have to drain the water.
Is Uganda and Burundi ready to drain Somalia so as to defeat the Al-Shabaab? Many well intentioned aid or peace activists continue to treat Africa as a disaster area.
Yes, there’s war in Somalia, like there was in northern Uganda, or has been in Congo — but not a humanitarian crisis. We need a winner for this war.
The author is an editor at Fountain Publishers.
kajurasy@yahoo.com kajurasy@yahoo.com
Source: The Observer
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