Last Friday a police officer came to our house. He was conducting a last minute census of the neighborhood, an area filled with Somali families who escaped pre-Islamic Court Mogadishu and are waiting to get their refugee visas to Western countries. Most have been here for years and want nothing else than to get as far away from Somalia (and Ethiopia) as possible. "I'll be in Norway in a month," one young man hopefully told me. The owner of the Somali café fifty meters up the road just let it be known he'll be in the US in a month (after eight years here). If true, hello Khat withdrawal.
But these Somalis were the hustle and bustle of my dusty street, but since the Police officer came through they've retreated behind their gates. At night I keep on listening out for some sort of round-up, not really sure what I'm listening for. The fear, captured by the silence in the streets and the sudden lack of Somalis in the satellite-TV cafes, is palpable.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Courts continue to surprise with their pragmatism. To the frustration and consternation of the US and the Ethiopian armed services, the Jihad declared against Ethiopia maintains a tenacious lucidity. Today, the Courts were positively UN-esque by offering a seven day ultimatum for the Ethiopians to leave Somali territory. In the past few weeks, they consistently sound like the sane ones in this debacle. When they brush against the Ethiopian border they calmly state that they are cutting off Ethiopian supply lines, i.e. how can you accuse us being here when the highlanders are already there! Don't bullshit a bullshitter.
A PINR report that came out yesterday calls the Ethiopians the most likely to spark an all out war. The Islamic Courts, you see, are doing quite fine as is thank you. The report dubs the US backed UN resolution, thankfully watered down to insignificance, an "act of desperation".
The propagandist PR campaign has definitely been kicked up a notch here in Ethiopia. An Ethiopian friend says that her peers are beginning to turn around to the idea of going to war with the Courts. Folks constantly ask me what I hear on the Western media concerning the ramping up to war as they don't trust ETV or the radio. Not much, I have to say.
This might help. The US administration is formulating a new foriegn policy for the Horn of Africa.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/12216/ethiopiaeritrea_proxy_war_in_somalia_risks_broader_regional_conflict_warns_new_council_report.html
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Ethiopia_EritreaCSR21.pdf
Posted by: | December 15, 2006 at 08:12 AM
A growing number of Democrats in Congress are urging the Bush administration to change course and deal with the Islamists for what they are: the power on the ground.
“The Islamists aren’t going away, so the sooner we talk to them, the better,” said Representative Donald M. Payne, the New Jersey Democrat who is expected to become the chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa when his party takes control of Congress in January.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/world/africa/14somalia.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin
Posted by: | December 15, 2006 at 06:53 PM