Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteMurderers R Us
The AP lede (as it now seems spelled) played in The New York Times: "Gunmen opened fire on people leaving a mosque in Mogadishu on Sunday night, killing one of the country’s senior United Nations officials and wounding his son and another man, a witness and a family member said" [9].
The true target of that killing: Osman Ali Ahmed, head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) office in Mogadishu [2].
Equally dead, according to a Reuters AlertNet post: Osman Ali Ahmed's brother.
About once a week, Somalia's Islamists manage to kill their fellow Muslims in actions apparently intended to interfere with humanitarian aide and sustain and heighten the extraordinary level of suffering experienced by less involved, or perhaps simply less well armed and trained, Somalis, a million of whom have whipped themselves self-righteously into refugees in response.
The Reuters editorial team says, "Insurgents are waging a battle against the interim government, and have adopted Iraq-style tactics including bombings and assassinations of government offices, aid workers, and intellectuals."
That sounds just too good to be true because if it were true, the victims of Islamist actions would not be crawling out of Mogadishu, starving in direct relation to their violence, and seeking refuge not in Islam but off in camps in the vicinity of Kenya (or out swimming with the sharks on the way to Yemen).
From one article by Mustafa Haji Abdinur appearing in Yahoo! News:
"Thirteen civilians were killed in three southern Mogadishu districts after more than two hours of clashes punctuated by machine-gun fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
"A mortar landed in a house in K4 district, killing six family members, after fighting erupted when insurgents attacked AU peacekeepers and Somali forces camped in the area, Ahmed Ali Nur, a family member, told AFP.
"A woman and two children were killed in Bulohube district when a mortar crashed into their houses as another batch of rebels attacked an Ethiopian army base nearby.
"Four children were killed in Waberi district in artillery duels between the Ethiopians and the rebels, bringing the Mogadishu toll to 13, several residents added."
There's more to tell of the grim harvest in that piece [10], but I have just about violated fair use with the quotation of merely four paragraphs covering the manner of death for 26 civilian souls submitted to Allah courtesy of those claiming most to defend Him.
In more recent news, this from AFP, July 8, 2008: "Two soldiers were killed and seven others admitted to hospital after a mortar shell struck a tent where they were sleeping near the presidential palace," government security official Hussein Mohamed Moalim said [11].
Of course, a certain portion of Somalia's violence occurs without attribution as Somali clan rivalries and criminal enterprise seldom suffer, if ever, for lack of arms and ammunition. For yesterday's killing of a "peace activist", an intermediary between Darod and Hawiye clan militias in Galkayo, Somlia, residents "marched through the streets with placards blaming the Hawiye for the killing and demanding they stay out of the Darod part of the city" [12].
I've long maintained that Somalia would suffer if it were the Peace Capital of the World: the geophysical environment affords as much challenge as any army or guerrilla band, and it well may be more deadly through arid parsimony than any collection of Kalashnikovs, RPG's, and "technicals" scattered among armies, insurgents, and warlords. Still, Somali armed violence has a much disconnected character to it: in the name of Allah, it performs assassinations on the steps of mosques; in the name of Allah, it takes out sleeping men and children and women with impersonal ordnance; in the name of Allah, it disposses peaceful Muslims of their homes, livelihoods, and lives.
Journalism Becomes Battleground
"In the west, in the morning, you wake up . . . to look at the weather . . . in Mogadishu, you listen to the radio and say, okay, how many roads are closed, how many explosions are in the road, how many people were killed, okay, so you have to look at."
"As a journalist, you have to look at the bottom of your car, whether there are explosive devices."
Omar Faruk Osman, Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists has summed the state of affairs for free speach well in a video posted on his organization's web site. [7] As common throughout the theaters of the Islamic Small Wars, good people get pounded from both sides, an observation especially true for journalists and nowhere, not even Iraq, is that as visciously true as it is in Somalia.
"We always criticize the government," says Osman, "because they have abandoned the control and administration of Mogadishu City to the security forces, who do whatever they want."
The government in its state-of-emergency operations fundamentally filters criticism as collusion and coverage of tipped--and ruthlessly controlled (forced and intimidated witness)--terrorist actions as proof of the matter.
"When you talk to the Islamists, the other side, they say, well, you are betraying your country and religion, and we kill you because we want to please Allah--because you don't deserve to live in this world," says Osman.
Between the paranoid government, rather paternal in its fear, and the magical Shabob, rather young in its divinely self-serving conceits, the brave, good, observant, and truthful journalists of Somalia have a layer of metajournalistic work before them in making Somalia safe for political reportage and discussion within the country and without.
1. Sheikh, Abdi. "Clashes in Somalia kill 47, dozens wounded." Reuters, July 2, 2008.
2. Sheikh, Abdi."Gunmen kill senior U.N. official in Mogadishu." Reuters, July 6, 2008.
5. National Union of Somali Journalists. "Somali Journalists' Fight for Freedom." Video. February 2008.
9. Associated Press. "Gunmen Kill U.N. Official in Somalia." The New York Times, July 7, 2008.
10. Abdinur, Mustafa Haji. "39 killed in Somalia fighting: residents." Yahoo! News, July 1, 2008.
11. "Two killed in insurgent attack on Somali town." AFP News Briefs, France 24, July 8, 2008.
Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim
Ever drop a small ball of mercury on the floor?
Ever gather all the droplets back together?
;)
Posted by: James | July 12, 2008 at 12:11 AM
Not sure how much play the UIC has in these scenarios. They are the opposing political tension against the transitional government. In a sense, a "transitional government" is always problematic in its own right.
Tammy
Posted by: tammy swofford | July 11, 2008 at 11:38 PM