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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Jun 18 2010 - 14:09:52 EDT
"Horn of Africa: Current Conditions and US Policy"
Hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health,
June 17, 2010
Testimony by Ken Menkhaus Professor, Political Science Davidson College
Davidson, North Carolina
Introduction
Congressman Payne, sub-committee chairman, and Congressman Smith, ranking
member, I thank you both for the opportunity to share my assessment of the
situation in
the Horn of Africa and its implications for US policy.
I would like to focus my remarks primarily on the crisis in Somalia, which
at present is
the most worrisome of the region's many troubles. My remarks will mainly
address
challenges of state-building and the Transitional Federal Government, and
will only make
brief reference to other urgent policy issues in Somalia related to the
humanitarian crisis
and security threats. I would like to underscore at the outset that
Somalia's crisis is very
much a part of a regional conflict complex. US policies aimed at resolving
the Somali
crisis must be based on a regional strategy or they will not succeed.
This hearing is very timely, because we are standing at a crossroads on
Somalia. The
humanitarian, political, and security crises there are worsening by the day;
the
international community's policies have not worked and in fact have made
things worse;
and deep frustration has grown in the US government and in other capitals
around the
world. The moment is ripe for a policy shift. But this can only happen if a
reasonable
policy alternative can be articulated.
To its credit, the Obama administration has been engaged in a lengthy
process of policy
review on Somalia. One of the main reasons US policy on Somalia has not
shifted much
over the past year is because the country presents us with such poor
options. We have
been left supporting the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia
not because
it had great promise but because it was the best of bad options. Many of us
embraced this
logic despite the TFG's deep flaws and poor early performance, in the hopes
that the
"Djibouti process" of dialogue and inclusion since 2008 would earn the TFG
more
legitimacy and effectiveness and help Somalia end its twenty year crisis of
state collapse.
But the TFG is now clearly just a bad option, and its failures very costly
to Somalis, the
region, and the world. Unconditional support of the TFG has served as a poor
substitute
for a coherent strategy toward the broader Somali crisis, and has reinforced
and rewarded
the exceptionally bad performance of TFG leaders.
Continued external efforts to breathe life into the moribund TFG have also
had the
unintended but very real effect of prolonging political conditions within
which a radical
Islamist insurgency has thrived. Past US and UN policy of unconditional
support to the
TFG has thus actively undermined our own long-term security interests....
Continue to read: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/111/men061710.pdf
