A pained look crossed the face of Savannah State University African History Professor Mohamed Mukhtar when he began to discuss the deteriorating conditions in famine-ravaged and war-torn Somalia.
Somalia is more than just an academic topic for his classes, it’s his native home. The growing famine, piracy and warring factions in the failed state may make for more intriguing lectures, but those issues also threaten the safety of his family.
“I was trying and trying to get through to my 110-year-old father on the phone,” Mukhtar said. “When I finally got him he said they are OK, but his region is having all kinds of horrible things.”
Triangle of Death
Since the Somali government collapsed in the early 1990s, warlords and their militias have torn the lawless country apart as they battle for resources and control. There are no government agencies to restore order. There are no schools producing an educated, skilled citizenry. There aren’t even landline communication systems that have not been dismantled or destroyed, according to the U.S. State Department. Mukhtar contacts his father by cell phone.
His father, Malak Mukhtar Malak Hassan, puts his age at 110 and is the chief of chiefs of the Digil and Mirifle clans. The Inter-Riverine Region where he and his people reside was once thriving and fertile. But for 20 years there have been bloody battles for territory and power. The people were unable to carry on traditions for food and well water reserves during times of drought. Buildings are bullet-riddled. Towns are abandoned. Crops, animals and now large numbers of people are dying. The area is commonly called the Triangle of Death.
“There has always been drought but the people were able to cope in traditional ways,” Mukhtar said. “But when Somalis started relying on support from governments, the people forgot their traditions, and now there is no government to help them.”
This month United Nations declared that a total of five regions in Somalia had reached the famine threshold. More than 3.7 million Somali people are believed to be in immediate need of food and water; 1.25 million of them are children. According to U.N estimates, 29,000 children have already died and 1.5 million people have abandoned their homes in search of food. Each day, about 1,500 Somalis reportedly slip across the border into refugee camps in Kenya.
State of collapse
Somalia is a country on Africa’s northeastern coast, called the Horn of Africa. It is about the size of Texas with a 1,700-mile coastline. Somalia was able to gain independence from western colonials by 1960. But the military dictator who took over, Mohamed Siad Barre, allowed the Soviet Union and the U.S. to use Somalia to widen their African influence throughout the Cold War in exchange for military and financial aid. Warring U.S.- and Soviet-backed factions sprung up throughout Somalia.
In 1986, while working on post-doctoral research as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Mohamed Mukhtar was blacklisted by Barre’s military regime because of his scholarly criticisms. He could not return to Somalia and his former wife and children were not allowed to leave. Then, in 1991, Barre’s regime collapsed. Mohamed Mukhtar’s 11-year-old son, Soleyman Mukhtar, was killed. Mohamed Mukhtar’s wife and remaining children were allowed to join him. But things have only gotten worse for those they left behind.
Complex crisis
“Somalia represents one of the most complex and protracted political crises in the world today,” said Peter Little, an Emory University anthropology professor and expert on the Horn of Africa.
With Barre out of the way, the Cold War over and no more superpower support, well-trained and heavily armed warlords and their militias started vying for control. Somalia was in complete chaos. Thousands of people were killed in the fighting, and even more starved to death when drought hit in 1992 because the battles prevented the production and distribution of food. The warring clans even attacked international relief workers. In 1993, 18 U.S. military servicemen were killed during the U.S.-led Operation Restore Hope mission. The incident was detailed in the book, “Black Hawk Down.” United Nations forces soon left Somalia, but they were never able to help establish a central government.
Mohamed Mukhtar said that’s when militant Islamist factions, illegal drug and arms dealers, and terrorists moved in and made Somalia their hub for worldwide distribution.
In 1999, Mohamed Mukhtar brought his father, Malak Mukhtar, to the U.S. to lecture on the desperate need for order in Somalia. He spoke to educators and community groups at Savannah State and in Atlanta, Virginia, Maryland, Utah and Washington, D.C.
But after two decades of lawlessness and instability, corruption is rampant. A generation of Somalis who have spent a lifetime without education or law and order have been hijacking hundreds of vessels and holding the crews for ransom, Mohamed Mukhtar said. A militant Islamist group called Al-Shabaab took control of most of the southern region. Al-Shabaab is fighting the transitional government and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid from the west.
“They’re Africa’s pseudo-Taliban. They are monsters,” Mohamed Mukhtar said. “God makes drought, but man made this famine.”
Fighting famine
When drought hit again this summer, beleaguered Somalis could withstand no more. The United Nations declared famine in central and southern Somalia. More than 300,000 refugees fled to Kenya.
“Food situation is desperate in southern Somalia, and especially, children have been dying,” Little said.
Mohamed Mukhtar said he, a brother in Australia and a sister in Michigan are pooling their resources to help support their father and siblings in Somalia, but he wants to do more for his homeland.
“Imagine the millions of Somalis who have no one in the world outside Somalia to help them,” he said. “The best thing we can do for them is help restore peace. Unless there is peace, there can be no development.”
Mohamed Mukhtar has organized a Savannah-based nonprofit organization to generate research and awareness of the Somali situation and lobby for policy changes that will foster lasting peace. His Center for Peace-Building Initiative seeks to generate international support for an international tribunal for crimes against humanity in Somalia, withdrawal of international citizenships and visas to Somali warlords and a seizure of warlord assets in international banks.
“My idea is to shut the source of the terror down,” Mukhtar said. “Locally, we can raise these issues in our places of worship, among our government representatives and in our colleges and universities.”
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