Somalia Collapsing, Regional Conflict May Result

Thanks to the debacle in Iraq, the US and EU are distracted from the events in Africa. Neglect has now evolved into funding proxy battles, fueling sectarian conflict all over the Horn of Africa. Where have we heard that before? The Bush Administration may succeed in destabilizing a second highly populated region where Islamic fundamentalism is pandemic and Al Qaeda has representatives and simpathizers everywhere.
One can't win an insurgency without the support of the people. TGF, the western recognized government of Somalia has no support or military capability. Ethiopia has it's own problems that are threatening to get worse.
PINR

Having made taking effective control over Mogadishu the test of its ability to exert authority over Somalia, the T.F.G. was constrained by the pressure of Western donor powers to make good on its project and to secure the city in advance of a planned National Reconciliation Conference (N.R.C.) aimed at reaching a political resolution to the country's conflicts.


[..]The Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive, which included artillery shelling of and tank incursions into the districts in the north and south of Mogadishu where the insurgency was concentrated, broke the tense stasis between the opposing sides that PINR had noted in its April 12 report on Somalia.


[..]The operations to crush the insurgency, which began on April 18 and concluded on April 26, appear to have succeeded, at least temporarily, with a cessation of violence and T.F.G. forces in the streets securing key roads and positions. On May 2, AMISOM peacekeepers were patrolling the city for the first time since their arrival. The insurgents, however, have not surrendered, but have drawn back and are reported to be regrouping, promising suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, kidnappings and attacks on hotels housing T.F.G. officials.


According to the calculations of the United Nations, local human rights groups and the Hawiye clan, the offensive resulted in at least 1,000 deaths and drove the total of internally displaced persons from Mogadishu to 400,000. Journalists reported extensive destruction of buildings in the city, hospitals were stretched beyond their limits to care for the wounded, bodies rotted in the streets, aid deliveries to refugees were blocked by the T.F.G. and people fell victim to cholera-like diseases.


[..]As the T.F.G. and Ethiopia concentrated their attention on Mogadishu, instability surfaced elsewhere in Somalia. The T.F.G. lost control of the key southern port city of Kismayo in a struggle between two sub-clans of the Darod clan family, armed conflict broke out in the north between forces of the sub-states of Puntland and Somaliland, a crime wave continued in the unpoliced Lower and Middle Shabelle regions, and there was unrest in the transitional capital Baidoa in the south-central Bay region, leading to the imposition of a curfew. The conflict spread to Ethiopia on April 24, when the Ogaden National Liberation Front (O.N.L.F.) attacked a Chinese oil exploration site in the country's Somali Regional State, leaving nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopian workers and guards dead.


Although the T.F.G. and Ethiopia have expressed confidence that they have broken the insurgency and are on the way to stabilizing Somalia, the situation on the ground presents a less promising picture. It is far from clear that the insurgency has been neutralized, instability is increasing outside Mogadishu, and low-level conflicts beyond southern and central Somalia are intensifying. There is a genuine possibility that a regional conflict will erupt.


[..]The Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive in Mogadishu has broken the stasis, but has not stabilized Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Divisions and tensions are surfacing and deepening within and between actors at all levels, making further conflict and fragmentation likely. The actors do not appear to have the political will to surmount their differences.


International and regional paralysis is partly due to the support of the T.F.G. by external actors and partly to the fact that Somalia is lower on the agenda of the Western powers than other issues. By leaving Somalia to collapse, however, Western powers are inviting its instability to spread beyond its borders. Washington, in particular, has staked its wager on Addis Ababa, which might turn out to be a "bad choice of allies."


With splits running from the intra-clan to the inter-state levels, the conjuncture of powers and interests enveloping Somalia is out of any single actor's or group of actors' control. The sense of crisis is not delusory.