Hana, an engineer, said: "Our people are poor, they do not sense the danger. Will Hamas now be able to stop crime? Will it be able to feed them? What if Abu Mazen (Abbas) stops sending money to Gaza? I am really sad. It looks like Somalia to me." [1]
For this page, journalist Nidal al-Mughrabi's quote from the Hamas-occupied Gaza strip struck the perfect note.
Depending on the day and the sort of crime and military activity involved, a Somali might well say of conditions in his own back yard, "It looks like Gaza to me."
In fact, the Somali may have the upper hand on such comparisons. Today's English language headers from Shabelle.Net pertaining to the continuing effort to install government following the past year's war with the Islamic Courts: [2]
- "UN Council plans to send peacekeepers to Somalia";
- "Burundi troops ready for Somalia deployment";
- "Somalia: US government to fund Somalia reconciliation conference";
- "US to provide 4 million dollars development aid to Somalia";
- "Somalia says military operations will continue in the capital".
It's nice to see those call-outs on top of the assassinations, kidnappings, murders, and accounts of piracy in Somalia. One admits: all is not good but most seems to be improving.
I slipped into monitoring Shabelle's presentation of Somali news following the installation of the transitional government, so there's much I've missed, but catching up on this place known by most Americans, probably, through "Black Hawk Down" and the related political history or reality of that era, has turned up a couple of surprises.
Somaliland
First and foremost: Somaliland, which occupies the northern tip of the country close to the choke of the Arabian Sea by the Arabian Penninsula and the country of Yemen: "The Republic of Somaliland consists of six administrative regions with a governor as the highest ranking leader of each region," says the Wikipedia entry. [3] [4]
Indeed, with patronage from the "Somaliland Diaspora" in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere plus, of course, the enthusiasm of its people, Somaliland produced a "free and fair election" of its politicians in April 2003. Not insignficantly, the tally of votes cast came to about 500,000 and the margin just 273 for the winning president. [5]
War did not break out.
Instead, the government, with its six administrative regions headed by elected governors ( also an upper parliamentary house occupied by tribal elders) moved forward and today functions as a de facto independent state producing port services for Ethiopia and itself in trade with or through Yemen while it works on fundamental economic development, education, health, and security issues in peace.
Somaliland, which suffered mightily as a potential breakaway state under ousted Somalia President Mohamed Siad Barre, who attempting to beat it into submission churned out 50,000 dead and razed its cities with air raids, looks nothing today like Gaza.
Puntland
In English at least, the "Land of Punt" has a history befitting its pun. Adjacent to Somaliland, this now autonomous entity--according to Wikipedia, more inclined to function as a state within a federation than as a nationality of its own--has been by turns the darling of the Soviets (who ditched it for Ethiopia) and the United States, which picked it up as a chip and in bannana republic fashion propped up its dictatorial president Barre, who it dropped with the demise of the Soviet Union. [6]
(May we see no more of those "Grand Game" politics from my United States)
Although Puntland scuffles with Somaliland over disputed territory--there are minerals to sell, and there are clan issues to resolve as well--both have resisted incursion by the Islamic Courts while maintaining productive relationships with Ethiopia.
Puntland, I suspect, hosts the pirates who have been detaining traffic to the tune of better than a dozen attacks annually; however, its local fisherman also suffer along with foreign, unsupervised--no navy, no law--fishing, which they claim have depleted stocks. Whether Puntland's administration countenances the piracy or not, one hopes it will reduce that behavior to petty theivery--with "mother ships" and machine-gun equipped speedboats, it's pirates are nothing like down-on-their-luck joes: they comprise a money-making industry--and transition the powerful and ruthless privateers into business and real estate, where they will probably do quite well.
A bit tongue and cheek there, but for both Puntland and Somaliland in the "failed state" of Somalia, I would think masked men with AK-47's more likely to be interested in robbery than juiced on imposing their version of Allah's will across the land.
# # #
1. al-Mughrabi, Nidal. "Hamas fighters and looters control Gaza" (page 2). Reuters, June 15, 2007, 5:18 a.m.: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSFLE45503220070615?pageNumber=2.
2. Headlines. Shabelle.Net, June 15, 2007, 8:30 a.m.: http://www.shabelle.net/news/english.htm.
3. Arabian Sea Map, GNU licensed, via Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Arabian_Sea_map.png.
4. "Somaliland". Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaliland.
5. Herbst, Jeffrey. "In Africa, What Does It Take To Be a Country?" Redistributed from the Washingtonpost.com, January 2004 via Somaliland.Org: http://www.somaliland.org/arcns.asp?ID=04010201.
6. "Puntland". Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puntland.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim