"I am under pressure from Somalis in the Diaspora and within the country, the victims, to explain why no mention is made of ending impunity," Ould-Abdallah told Reuters in an interview. [1]
Daniel Wallis's interview with the United Nations Special Representative for Somalia articulates across the Internet's public what most have known in private: there are many, and this much to the misfortune of millions, who mean to maintain a Somalia in infinite agony and turmoil, possibly to forestall the appearance, sooner or later, of courts and trials, not to mention the horrors presented by marching armies of historians, lawyers, and journalists possessing sufficient integrity and security to tell "who done what, when, where, how" and most importantly (say all the college professors), "why" with a confidence borne of an impunity--or immunity to violently expressed criticism, shall one say--all their own.
Unfortunately, whether or not that day is coming, that day is not yet.
I don't know names, but if I knew them, I wouldn't want to name them.
This issue has come up here with light coverage of Transitional Federal Government raids on Shabelle Media operations and turf. The overture that government jackboots were out to destroy the possibility of free speech in Somalia was met by one reader's response to look back of the sources of complain, not something I could or particularly wanted to do.
Nonetheless, the litany of death that comes out of Mogadishu, ascribed to "Islamists" often enough or reported as murder mysteries without follow-up or investigation, well indicate the some, and not the government, in Mogadishu have access to a bottomless well of weapons--and they do use them with impunity.
No government --> no law --> no justice / no justice --> less aid --> less or less reliable investment, if any.
If I were handed, say, the Sool, which has been batted around as if by large cats, lol--okay, armed missions out of Somaliland and Puntland--I'd order 30 percent of taxed revenues on mineral or other development to allocated to Somaliland, Puntland, and the Federal Government respectively and with 10 percent reserved for the Islamic community, its mosques, and its humanitarian services. I don't know whether what I would have in mind would be called, "distributive economics and politics," but it would beat the pants off retributive strategies, all requiring violence, every way around.
"We mention the need to protect, but we do not say from whom, or for how long this has taken place," Ould-Abdallah said.
"I think one of the reasons is that people are not paying attention to Somalia, there is no political will ... the focus is so much on reconciliation, reconciliation. Not on this."
Mr. Ould-Abdallah: we pay attention, but we do not as a public get sufficient "depth of story" behind Somali killing Somali to form or promote policies or strategies via public networks.
Related: last year, 2007, saw the assassination of seven Somali journalists. This year--who knows?
Intimidation works--or it has worked.
As regards the presence of the Transitional Federal Government, the U.S. State Department, the Somali Diaspora, no party, so far as I am aware, has launched something so "on the radar" as an FBI-like poster campaign: who is wanted? for what? says who? based on what? and what does "who" have to say about it?
A communications engineer might interpret Somalia's agony as stemming from broken, interrupted, or powerless signals: not only does the public miss "the story", but one suspects security forces, TFG and Ethiopian, have a devil of a time forming a coherent image of it as well.
The violence foisted by armed personalities in Mogadishu on an otherwise disinterested and mightily struggling people beggers explanation.
While the Daniel Wallis interview with Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah mentions the failed 1993 U.S. intervention, it does not mention what those U.S. soldiers did to Somalis in combat / hot zone operations, defensive or not, as has Canadian journalist Paul Watson in his memoir, Where War Lives (Watson was the photographer who took the Pulitze Prize winning photograph that needs no further introduction).
When young boys--U.S., Ethiopian, Iraqi, Turkish, Canadian, Afghani, any country, any place on earth--with automatic weapons take a hit, expect them to shoot back with everything they've got (at least until they calm down).
IMHO From reading, I fully admit, the very threat of an army, any army, ostensibly coming to save you is a good reason to get gone while the safety's are on. Hot zones, all of them, historic and contemporary, rain misery on civilians.
The relative disappearance of conventional warfare--armies that baldly confront other armies--has perhaps encouraged the refinement of criminal and guerrilla trades into more thoroughly cloaked enterprises, leaving those who may well be investigating so many heinous actions and unsolved murders able to gather information at the price, for now, of not being able to talk about it.
So one hopes.
2. Watson, Paul. Where War Lives. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., 2007.
Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim
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