By Abdirahman Aynte
Minnesota Monitor
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Minneapolis, MN (HOL)- The unusual April cold front didn’t stop hundreds of Somalis from around Minnesota on Saturday to express their anger against what they called the “Mogadishu massacre,”—a recent upheaval of violence in the troubled capital of Somalia.
The protest, on Peavey Park, attracted more than a thousand Somalis who blamed neighboring Ethiopia for killings hundreds of civilians over the last two weeks.
One of those killed was the 11-year-old niece of Salaado Osman, a Minneapolis mother of two. “What did my [niece] do to deserve this barbaric killing?” she asked. “Was she a terrorist?”
Though the violence in Somalia seems perpetual, the most recent conflict was unforeseen, according to the ICRC. Thousands of Ethiopian troops, who pushed their way into Somalia in December, have since been battling clan militia in the worst urban warfare in the city. More than 500 civilians are believed to be dead in the last two weeks, mostly from the massive shelling of Ethiopians.
The European Union, which is the chief financier of the embattled Transitional Federal Government, has announced this week that it’s investigating possible human rights and war rules violations by Ethiopians and the TFG. Should that yield traceable evidence, the EU has threatened to bring war crimes against those responsible.
For protesters, the evidence was already there, as they chanted: “No more genocide in Somalia,” and held placards that read “USA: stop the genocide.”
The U.S. was crucial to Ethiopia’s swift military success in Somalia as it supplied aerial intelligence to Ethiopian troops during the December fighting. And just today, the New York Times reported that the U.S. allowed Ethiopia to secretly buy arms from North Korea, even as the latter was under a U.S. pushed U.N. sanctions.
Protestors say the U.S. could equally become crucial in peace-building, only if it becomes an honest broker. “It’s time for the U.S. to promote peace and nation-building in Somalia,” said Ilyas Dahir, a 21-year-old college student from Rochester, whose elderly parents fled Mogadishu for the first time in 16 years. “Unfortunately, the U.S. is supporting the TFG, which is not only complicit in the Mogadishu massacre, but instigated the recent killings.”
As speakers took turns in the microphone, patriotic songs interspersed, piercing the otherwise quiet Easter weekend. Several women sang “Buraanbur,” a traditional female lyric used during special tragedies or triumphs. Being clearly in a tragic mode, one woman’s “buraanbur” was particularly emotive that dozens in the audience erupted in sobbing.
It’s the second time in three months that Somali protestors rally in the Chicago and Franklin Ave. park. The Minneapolis-based Somali Institute for Peace and Justice, which organized the protest, said they will organize similar protests until the “Ethiopian occupation ends.”
Abdirahman Aynte can be reached at [email protected]
