Approximately
three months ago, Somalia's Transitional
Federal Government (TFG), pressured out
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.
Surprisingly, this political re-arrangement
of deckchairs generated much noisy
headlines.
Meanwhile the
real story—the great unfolding humanitarian
disaster--continued unnoticed.
For the Somali
people, the Ethiopian invasion of December
of 2006 could not have started at a worse
time. Defeating the Union of Islamic Courts
(UIC) and propping up the TFG; this was
Ethiopia's immediate rationale for violating
Somalia. The larger goal? Forging a
partnership between Washington and Addis
Ababa in order to execute "war on terror"…
A year later,
this mission has not been accomplished.
Instead, the "war on terror" has become the
terror of war being visited on the Somali
people.
Admittedly a
handful of Somalis have benefited from the
invasion, specifically the dozens of
warlords previously driven out of Mogadishu
by the UIC. These warlords, the instigators
of Somalia's current civil conflict, were
reinstalled in their fiefdoms riding on the
backs of Ethiopia's invading tanks. As a
result, the reviled check points and road
blocks used to bully cash out of unarmed
civilians were reintroduced in Southern
Somalia, particularly Mogadishu.
To keep the
invasion and Africa's worst humanitarian
catastrophe going, heavy and modern weapons,
including airplanes were used. One was a
U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship that attacked
and killed Somali villagers and countless
livestock in the hunt for three foreign men
suspected for the bombing of 1998 American
embassies in Africa, who yet remain at
large.
Among those
caught in the chaos were visiting Somalis
from the Diaspora. In the period between
June and December 2006, Somali technocrats
returned to their native country to partake
the rebuilding in the six month period of
peace and stability that was established
under the rule of the UIC. The Diaspora
arrived with the intention to give back to
the land and the people they left behind and
contribute to rebuilding their lives.
Unfortunately,
an extraordinary rendition programs were the
gratitude they received; in that, the TFG,
Kenya, Ethiopia and US all being
implicated. Young men as young as 12 years
of age were taken out of their homes in the
dead of the night, blindfolded and taken
into unknown destinations.
Fleeing
refugees of mostly women and children did
meet a similar fate. Unfortunately, these
refugees had no where to escape, as Kenya
decided to close its borders and deny them
entry. This paved the way to the current
nightmare scenario: 1 million internally
displaced persons (IDPs,) mostly children
and women, without any provision or
protection from the UN or other humanitarian
agencies or NGOs.
In order to
create a safe haven for the displaced
refugees, the international community must
demand the neighboring countries to open
their borders. It is all too often that the
casualties of war are those that are
unmentioned. The innocent men, women and
children, caught in the middle, left with no
way out.
The UN's High
Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres,
said border security measures should not
impair the ability of deserving Somali
civilians to enter Kenya to seek safety and
protection as refugees. The neighboring
Nations have humanitarian responsibility to
safeguard these refugees.
On October 30,
2007, 40 international NGOs have released a
joint statement ominously warning against a
gathering cloud of humanitarian catastrophe
in Somalia urging the international
community to respond to this man-made
calamity as the Ethiopian forces and
militias loyal to the (TFG) callously
prevent the delivery, and bluntly stating
that "there is an unfolding humanitarian
catastrophe in South Central Somalia".
Meanwhile,
Ethiopian forces continue their shelling of
Mogadishu neighborhoods and killing,
according to Elman Human Rights group, 7000
civilians mostly women, children, and
elderly between January and November of
2007.
"In
Shell-Shocked, Human Rights Watch's August
2007 report of our investigation of the
March-April hostilities, we documented many
of the most serious patterns of abuse by
Ethiopian troops, such as indiscriminate
attacks on civilians, summary executions and
repeated targeting of hospitals," wrote Tom
Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for
Human Rights Watch, in an open letter to
Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.
However, the
international media by and large remain
morally selective in what they show to the
world.
Somali
caricaturist, Amin Amir (AminArts.com,)
depicts this morally selectivity on his
December 12, 2007 cartoon. The powerful
imagery shows a representative of the
international media zooming his camera on a
severely malnourished child standing in the
middle of a killing field where many bodies
are on the ground and Ethiopian fighter jets
are flying overhead and dropping missiles.
The child retorts: I don't need your
coverage; it is these atrocities – pointing
to the dead-- that you need to be telling
the world.
The current
Somali nightmare was exacerbated by the
systematic assassination of Somali
independent media groups who are not pro TFG
and the Ethiopian occupation. And the
silence of the international community on
this matter is deeply disturbing and sadly
deafening.
This year
alone, eight Somali journalists were killed-
their crimes being to have simply dared
reporting the reality on the grounds of
Mogadishu. The TFG & Ethiopian forces are
terrorizing Somali reporters creating an
uncomfortable environment of terror and
coercion.
According to
the United Nations Children's Fund,
one-quarter of the refugees around Afgooye
are younger than age of five. Sick children
and pregnant women often are turned away at
checkpoints, and trucks carrying food and
other humanitarian aid are routinely charged
$500 each for passing through.
"Things are
now getting absolutely worse," said
Christian Balslev-Olesen, the UNICEF
representative for Somalia. "There is a
dirtiness to this war. Children are a real
target."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadia Ali Aden
is a mother, writer, and voice for justice
and equality who lives in Virginia
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