Horn of Africa historical (pre-2011): catch all thread

[Jedburgh]

Chatham House, Jun 08:

Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel

This report is a study of three peace processes in the Horn of Africa, a region of Africa distinguished by the prevalence and persistence of armed conflict. It deals with the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process concluded in October 2004 and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005.

It examines in turn the background and historical context of the conflicts that these peace agreements were intended to resolve. It charts the developments since the agreements were signed, seeking to assess how far they have achieved successful outcomes for peace and stability. The results are very mixed.....

[franksforum]

This paper is from the UK House of Commons. Similar to the Congressional Research Service.

This paper looks at recent developments in the Horn of Africa, where there are a number of protracted and interlocking crises at work, and briefly discusses some of the main factors that have been described as ‘root causes’ of conflict in the region. The insurgency against the Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopian forces in Somalia is rapidly gathering momentum as efforts continue to form a more inclusive and viable government. There is a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions, with about 40 per cent of the population needing assistance. Almost unnoticed, there are ongoing tensions between neighbouring Somaliland and Puntland over disputed border areas. Meanwhile, the possibility remains of a resumption of hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea over their long-running border dispute. In the Ogaden, which is part of Ethiopia’s Somali regional state, there has also been a humanitarian crisis as a consequence of ongoing fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents. Finally, earlier this year Eritrea launched an incursion into Djibouti and is yet to withdraw its forces.

Piracy is not covered in this paper. For a discussion of piracy issues, including with regard to Somalia, see House of Commons Library Standard Note SN/BT/3794, Shipping: piracy .

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib...8/rp08-086.pdf

[Jedburgh]

HRW, 12 Jun 08: Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region

.....Tens of thousands of ethnic Somali civilians living in eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State are experiencing serious abuses and a looming humanitarian crisis in the context of a little-known conflict between the Ethiopian government and an Ethiopian Somali rebel movement. The situation is critical. Since mid-2007, thousands of people have fled, seeking refuge in neighboring Somalia and Kenya from widespread Ethiopian military attacks on civilians and villages that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity....

.....Although the conflict has been simmering for years with intermittent allegations of abuses, it took on dramatic new momentum after the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil installation in Somali Region in April 2007, killing more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian civilians. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, responded by launching a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in the five zones of Somali Region primarily affected by the conflict: Fiiq, Korahe, Gode, Wardheer, and Dhagahbur. In these zones the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) have deliberately and repeatedly attacked civilian populations in an effort to root out the insurgency.....

[Beelzebubalicious]

Bush missed Ethiopia during his Africa road trip (nice dancing, though...), but I hope his policy advisors are awake and taking note. Or perhaps, awareness isn't the problem. It's a mindset and blindness to bigger issues. What I'm saying is that it's time to take Ethiopia behind the woodshed. Enough is enough.

See Ethiopia's war on its own by Ronald Farrow in LA Times, february 25, 2008

[Tom Odom]

I saw this one today on the Ebird and wanted to post it here. Mr, Salopek's article in this gets a thumbs up. Rendition is controversial. I personally question its effectiveness when balanced on the classic scale of risk versus gain. Large scale proxy rendition, especially when the proxy has a dubious human rights record, is asking for the scale to plop solidly on the risk side with little hope for gain. This is very much a case of creating more enemies than you catch.

Tom

Renditions fuel anger against U.S.
By Paul Salopek | Tribune correspondent
December 4, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya—Clement Ibrahim Muhibitabo is one of the forgotten ones.

So is Ines Chine. So is Abdul Hamid Moosa.

Rwandan, Tunisian and South African citizens respectively, the three Africans are among the victims of one of the largest if most obscure rendition programs in the global war on terror: the mass arrest, deportation and secret imprisonment of some 100 people who fled an invasion of Somalia last year—a roundup that even included women and small children.

The snatch-and-jail operation was carried out by U.S. allies Kenya and Ethiopia but involved CIA and FBI interrogators, say European diplomats, human-rights groups and the program's many detainees.

[William F. Owen]

Rendition is controversial. I personally question its effectiveness when balanced on the classic scale of risk versus gain. Large scale proxy rendition, especially when the proxy has a dubious human rights record, is asking for the scale to plop solidly on the risk side with little hope for gain. This is very much a case of creating more enemies than you catch.

...and what of a "proxy" with a good human rights record? Other than that, I concur. Rendition is not good, but I have a very strong suspicion that the popular version of events may lack some critical detail.

[Tom Odom]

...and what of a "proxy" with a good human rights record? Other than that, I concur. Rendition is not good, but I have a very strong suspicion that the popular version of events may lack some critical detail.

No disagreement on the wider defintion of proxy; just in this case, a more limited one applied

And no doubt the devil is in the details. But in the world of IO (I knew you would love that Wilf), the popular version wins and I believe that is what Mr. Salopek was reporting.

Tom

[SWJED]

28 January Virginia Pilot - The Quiet War in the Horn of Africa by Kate Wiltrout.

A curious crowd of women and men in billowing skirts streamed toward the landing zone as two U.S. Marine helicopters touched down on rocky African desert.

The Marines had pistols strapped to their legs, but the choppers from New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina were doves, not hawks.

Inside were an Air Force doctor and a team of Army civil affairs specialists on a mission to bring help – and hope – to 12,000 Somali refugees.

The forbidding landscape is a 20-minute flight – but seems a world apart – from Djibouti’s capital city, where the U.S. military has established a base, Camp Lemonier.

U.S. air strikes on suspected terrorists in Somalia this month called the world’s attention to the region.

However, the U.S. military has been quietly engaged in the Horn of Africa since 2002, using about 1,500 troops to build schools and medical clinics, dig wells, treat sick people and inoculate livestock. Dozens of Navy sailors and officers from Hampton Roads are part of the force, and more are preparing to head to Djibouti in early February.

With its mission to win hearts and minds through goodwill, this unorthodox military operation looks more like the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps. But the effort is primarily to deter al-Qaida and Muslim extremists from spreading throughout a region rife with poverty and despair...

[JJackson]

Eritrea army 'entered Djibouti'

Djibouti has accused Eritrea of violating its border by sending troops into its territory.

"The two armies are facing each other. The situation is explosive," said Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh.

Eritrea has denied accusations that its soldiers had dug trenches on the Djibouti side of the border.

As geographic locations go I think Djibouti has a strong case for holding the shortest straw. Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia with Yemen across the gulf - rather them than me.

[Beelzebubalicious]

I don't get this. Djibouti president says two armies are facing each other. Is he implying that Eritrea is digging in and preparing to fight Djibouti? We know they've been preparing for Ethiopia, but why would they want to pick a fight with Djibouti?

[JJackson]

The news article talks about an old boarder dispute. The US and France have military bases but otherwise I would assume their interest may have more todo with the fact Ethiopia is landlocked and Djibouti was - and I assume still is - their main port. There is a railway from Addis and Djibouti was heavily dependent on this as source of income. With the US position currently favouring Ethiopia over Eritrea I am not sure why they are pushing here.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Ethiopia definitely wants port/sea access (free and open) and that's what the 99 border war was largely about. They made a big play for Asseb and failed. Afterwards, I thought Ethiopia made a deal with Djibouti to use their port. I still see no reason for Eritrea to attack Djibouti. I imagine they were digging in against perceived future Ethiopian attacks and perhaps made a mistake in terms of the geography. Hard to imagine, but possible I suppose.

[Beelzebubalicious]

News on this topic has been posted in other threads, but it probably deserves its own thread. I don't think anybody really knows what's going on here. Only explanation I can come up with is that Eritrea is just agitating. It needs action and attention on border and other issues. this will certainly get some attention.

See today's NY Times article titled, In Horn of Africa, Djibouti and Eritrea in Face-Off Over Border

[Beelzebubalicious]

Hmmm, this isn't good. Anyone out there listening?

http://www.reuters.com/article/lates.../idUSHUL069633

[Steve Blair]

Watching with interest. Also been bogged down with the Mugabi whackjob circus...

[Brian Scott]

.
hey.
I hope to get some discussion going on our next "war," the one in Somalia.

I consider our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan to be military successes, but overall failures. Reason: we divorced politics from the martial, and lost sight of Mission, Vision, Values. Our Prussian patron would disapprove.

I've collaborated with two sanctioned authors, TX and Janine, before she became Madam Deputy Assistant Secretary, on the Global Strategic Assessment 2009 published by INSS, NDU.
Infantryman. SF. Constitutionalist. Perhaps best known for suing the Army in Federal Court to stop the employment of Mercenaries.
Loser.

I don't like the term "long war;" these aren't really wars in the historical sense. But our next one, whatever we call it, will be in the Lower Shabelle, and Garacaad.
Maybe instead of focusing exclusively on explaining why, despite the evidence, we haven't lost the first two, we can shape strategy so that #3 is actually winnable.
.

[Ken White]

Hammes or losing a suit. I won't even argue that we will not go to Somalia.. I will state that we should not simply because there is no important US interest at stake that cannot be better sorted in other ways.

We 'lost' the first two in one sense because we decided to stay; as to whether we really lost -- way too early to tell. Check back in 2030 or so. Even that may be too soon...

So rather than going directly to shaping the "... strategy so that #3 is actually winnable" why not tell us why we should commit forces there and should have a strategy element that says that's necessary, much less a good idea?

[Rex Brynen]

I won't even argue that we will not go to Somalia.. I will state that we should not simply because there is no important US interest at stake that cannot be better sorted in other ways.

Agreed. In fact, it is rather hard to think of a US interest that wouldn't be undermined by any substantial, extended deployment to Somalia in the present context.

[Colin Robinson]

Well, the European Union Training Mission is training 2,000 Somalis in northern Uganda, and experts drawn from the EU are deploying to Somalia to assess SFA related conditions.

But is clan engagement the best way to do this? One Tribe At A Time? Light footprint tribal militias instead of badly executed clones of Western armies?

Just my thoughts.

[Brian Scott]

why not tell us why we should commit forces there and should have a strategy element that says that's necessary, much less a good idea?

I guess I left that wide open.
I do not think we should commit forces there. Absolutely not. I just anticipate that invading Somalia will be the next knee-jerk reaction war that we start in order to help a sitting President get reelected.

C'mon, we are spending about $60 Million per month on patrolling the waters off Somalia with a Nuclear Carrier Task Force, using $30 Million aircraft to look for barefoot teenagers in skiffs high on khat. Meanwhile, piracy is on the rise.

Our CIA is spending about $40 Million per month (WAG) buying the loyalties of a dozen militias, some of whom are then using that money to fight each other.

Folks expect it to be a "cakewalk," and for the locals to shower our troops with ... do they have chocolates or flowers there ?

The only solution to the high seas piracy is taking action ashore, and we don't trust any locals with that responsibility. A year ago, President Farole of Puntland (who we do not even officially recognize) said he could stamp out piracy with $8 Million in aid, and I believe him. We declined to give it to him, even after he groveled in a Congressional hearing.

But what I find most persuasive are the accusations coming out of State and DOD that AQAP has relocated there. The militias that the CIA is paying are having no impact: Islamic radical groups continue to consolidate power.

It will start as a training mission, with advisors only. Remember Southeast Asia ?
I am pretty sure that there are indigenous leaders in Somaliland and Puntland who could fight both of these fights more effectively than we ever could, but our foreign policy is not so flexible as to be able to accord respect to any Somali leaders.
.