"Kenya's invasion of Somalia, hailed by the West and the UN Security
Council, was meant to deliver a knockout blow to the militant Islamist
group al-Shabaab. Instead it has pulled Somalia's regional rival Ethiopia
back into the country, stirred up the warlords and rekindled popular
support for fundamentalists whose willingness to let Somalis starve rather
than receive foreign aid had left them widely hated"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/unbacked-invasion-of-somalia-spirals-into-chaos-6276959.html
UN-backed invasion of Somalia spirals into chaos
In a rare dispatch from the badlands of Southern Somalia, Daniel Howden
sees how Kenya's war has made things worse
Thursday 15 December 2011
The famine camps with their domed shelters made of rags and sticks are now
surrounded by fields of green. The survivors sit among the clouds of flies
and mosquitoes watching the planting season pass them by, living on
handouts. The drought in southern Somalia is over but no one is going home.
People who have endured civil war, oppression under a brutal religious sect
and starvation now find themselves caught between the lines of a border
conflict that is entering a new and dangerous phase.
Kenya's invasion of Somalia, hailed by the West and the UN Security
Council, was meant to deliver a knockout blow to the militant Islamist
group al-Shabaab. Instead it has pulled Somalia's regional rival Ethiopia
back into the country, stirred up the warlords and rekindled popular
support for fundamentalists whose willingness to let Somalis starve rather
than receive foreign aid had left them widely hated.
Nuur Matan, with his camouflage cap and business suit, is part of the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that the UN and the foreign armies
are backing against al-Shabaab. With their help it has wrested back control
of the capital, Mogadishu.
An MP for Beled-Hawo, a lawless Somali town in the border triangle where
the Horn of Africa country meets Ethiopia and Kenya, he talks gamely of
defeating al-Shabaab. In reality his forces are little more than guns for
hire and he has no money.
"We're trying our best to pay our soldiers," he says, before admitting
there's been no money for four months.
The TFG "soldiers" include children as young as 14, who hire themselves out
to all comers. Those who have joined up but haven't been paid are selling
their guns and uniforms at the local market. The yellow star of the Somali
flag flies in the town centre but it is the Ethiopian army camped on the
outskirts who are the real authority in Beled-Hawo.
The Ethiopians entered Somalia for a second time in late November – a move
prompted, analysts believe, by the desire to assert their own interests in
the country after Kenya's incursion. The Ethiopians have so far resisted
marching further into Somalia; their last incursion five years ago led to a
fierce Islamic resistance movement that established al-Shabaab as a
national force.
In many of the border towns, TFG soldiers have fallen under the command of
former warlords. Before invading the country Kenya gave guns, uniforms and
rudimentary training to any ethnic Somalis willing to cross the border and
fight the militants. Now that al-Shabaab has been pushed back, these
militias are meant to fill the gap. The result, says Abdullai Abdi from the
Kenya-based Somali relief agency Northern Aid, is a rabble often more
frightening to ordinary Somalis than is al-Shabaab.
"When Shabaab was on the other side, yes they were brutal, chopping hands,
but the criminal element was not there," said Mr Abdi. "I know these
people, I know their families – they are thugs and criminals."
Al-Shabaab, which retreated from the borderlands months ago, has switched
to guerrilla tactics and melted into the population. Meanwhile in the
interior of Somalia, in places like Buluk, 100 kilometres from Beled-Hawa,
the militants have barged into schools and press-ganged entire classes into
joining them.
Kenya's first foreign war, which began triumphantly in October with
embedded reporters sending breathless reports from the front, is coming off
the rails. "The military operation is going nowhere," says Rashid Abdi, a
Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group. "I'm not sure it has
really damaged the Shabaab."
He says that the Kenyan-TFG forces have moved no more than 70km into the
country and only control the main roads. Kenya has had to admit that it
cannot afford to fight on its terms. The war is costing an estimated £140m
a month, which the country can ill afford amid soaring inflation and public
sector strikes. Last week it was forced to ask the African Union to take
over its operation in the hope that the international community would pick
up the bill, as it does for the African peacekeepers guarding Mogadishu.
The consequences of the misadventure have already blown back across the
border, where previously an uneasy peace reigned between the Islamists and
their southern neighbours. Kenyan towns are coming under increasing attack
from al-Shabaab assassination squads and roadside bombs.
The Kenyan defence forces, unprepared to fight a counter-insurgency, have
in many cases turned on their own population. In Mandera, across the border
from Beled-Hawo, another Kenyan soldier was killed by a roadside bomb last
Sunday and four more were injured. Each time a bomb has gone off the army
has gone house to house in the area doling out punishment beatings to local
Kenyan-Somalis.
Abdi, who cannot give his real name for fear of reprisals, was among those
beaten after an explosion in Mandera this year. He suffered serious head
injuries, including a fractured eye socket, when soldiers smashed their way
into his home and beat him in front of his wife. He spent two months in
hospital.
"To them, Somalis are Somalis. It doesn't matter that we're citizens," he
says. "They can beat us when they like."
An eight-year-old boy had his arms broken and a pregnant woman miscarried
in similar assaults more recently.
Abdi worries that the beatings, in a town where the population is
overwhelmingly Kenyan-Somali, will push some people into supporting
al-Shabaab. Many in Mandera don't know who to be more scared of, the Kenyan
soldiers or al-Shabaab insurgents. Death squads have carried out targeted
killings and one community elder known to be critical of the militants was
shot six times at close range as he left the mosque last month.
District Commissioner Benson Leparmorigo has taken to carrying his rifle
with him wherever he goes. He admits that some people have been "roughed
up" in the "heat of passion" after bomb attacks but complains that security
forces face an "invisible enemy" that hits and runs.
"You can't tell the difference between a Kenyan-Somali and a Somali: they
look alike," complains Erick Okumbo, the deputy police chief. He says the
attacks, which are carried out using adapted land mines set off by mobile
phones, are "psychological torture". The militants are evading the Kenyan
army, he says, and roaming up and down the borderlands looking for soft
targets: "They come along the border and we are not enough to cover the
whole border."
As the human and financial costs of the war mount it has started to fade
from Kenyan television sets. A local journalist who photographed wounded
Kenyan and TFG soldiers in the northern town of Garissa last week – after a
battle which authorities had denied happened – was arrested and had his
images deleted.
The council of elders at the Beled-Hawo famine camp remember with distaste
the rule of Somalia's last central government, under the dictator Siad
Barre. They recall the chaos and bloodshed of the warlords who took his
place, and they have chafed more recently at living under the yoke of
al-Shabaab.
Now they think Somali society's clan system is too complicated for
foreigners to fix even if they really wanted to. "We don't know what the
motives of outsiders are," says one. "Only God or the Somalis can solve
Somalia's problems."
Timeline: From famine to war
20 July The United Nations declares famine in southern Somalia, saying
millions are at risk of starvation.
1 September Aid agencies estimate population at Dadaab refugee camp in
northern Kenya reaches 450,000.
13 September British couple the Tebbutts holidaying on a Kenyan island in
the Indian Ocean attacked by Somali gunmen. David Tebbutt, pictured, is
killed and his wife Judith is kidnapped.
13 October Two Spanish aid workers with medical charity MSF abducted near
Dadaab refugee camp by Somali gunmen.
18 October Kenya invades southern Somalia in a two-pronged offensive it
claims will defeat al-Shabaab, who deny the abductions in Kenya.
18 November UN downgrades the famine in southern Somalia, says worst is
over amid heavy rains.
20 November Ethiopia invades western Somalia sending troops toward Baidoa.
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Received on Thu Dec 15 2011 - 16:24:58 EST