| | The United States sponsored Security Council resolution, 1725,1 to lift UN arms sanctions on Somalia and allow the military forces of the Intergovernmental Agency on Development (IGAD) member states to intervene in that country, ratified on 6 December 2006, became a prelude to Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.
America's pretext for pushing this resolution through the Security Council was that the 'internationally legitimate' government of Somalia needed international military support since it was in danger of being overtaken by radical Muslims. The Islamic leaders, supported by the population, who drove out the warlords and restored peace to the capital and surrounding areas, were branded as friends of terrorists, or terrorists. Much like earlier US claims about 'weapons of mass destruction' in Iraq, US accusations that Muslim leaders in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have links with terrorists seems imagined as no evidence has been produced thus far to substantiate the assertion. It seems that the United States has confounded the possible presence in Somalia of three individuals accused of terror with the Islamic movement. The US and its Ethiopian proxy's rhetoric of 'saving Somalia from terror' was a new clarion call since neither of these governments came to the rescue of the Somali people when the warlords imposed a decade-long rein of terror on the population. Instead, they tap-danced with warlords and continue to do so. Within two weeks after the resolution was passed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose forces already occupied much of the regions of Bay and Bakool, pre-empted the intent of the resolution by invading Somalia with an estimated force of, according to ICG (International Crisis Group, 2007), between 8 and 12,000 well-equipped troops.2 The African Union shamefully supported the Ethiopian invasion only to recant it later. Meanwhile, the US and its allies blocked two attempts at the UN Security Council that called for immediate Ethiopian withdrawal. A day later, the African Union, the Arab League, and IGAD also demanded prompt Ethiopia withdrawal from Somalia which Ethiopia ignored.
This essay narrates the pathway to the creation of the Transitional National Government (TFG), the Ethiopian role in its establishment, US-supported warlords, the rise of the Islamic Courts and the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. It also assesses the implications of the Ethiopian illegal occupation for the future of Somalia. |
