War without end

By; Meera Selva

There are gun battles being fought in the Bakara market, and the bodies of foreign soldiers are being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

In 1992, American troops landed in Somalia under the absurdly optimistic Operation Restore Hope, to rescue Somalia from famine and rule by warlords. It ended as one of the most botched interventions the UN and the US have ever carried out. Hundreds of Somalis were killed in the fighting and American soldiers, UN troops and western journalists were murdered by lynch mobs.

Fifteen years later, an imperfect peace deal, belligerent neighbours and American fear of Islamic rule has plunged Somalia into another vicious war and no one seems willing or able to find a solution. In 2004, a protracted set of peace talks in various Kenyan hotels led to the creation of a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) headed by Abdullahi Yusuf.

Most Somalis were wary of the TFG from the start. It was made up of various warlords who had grown powerful in war and, crucially, Yusuf did not command the loyalty of the clans that control Mogadishu, Somalia's violent, unstable capital city. In fact, he spent months outlining reasons why he should not base the seat of government there. While he dithered, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a group of Muslim scholars and fighters, gained the support of the Mogadishu residents by meting out their own justice to robbers, drug addicts and kidnappers. In the absence of any kind of police force, they were seen as the only ones who could bring a level of stability to Mogadishu.

Last year, they capitalised on this support and seized control of Mogadishu. The aftermath has destroyed any stability Somalia has enjoyed in the last two decades. After the ICU came to power, America encouraged Ethiopia to invade and reinstall the TFG and shore up Yusuf's position. Ethiopia, which has its own problems with its own Somali rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, grabbed the chance to carry out its own military manoeuvres within Somalia. When it sent troops into Mogadishu, the Ethiopian government promised its troops would be out in a few weeks. Months later they are still there, fighting gun battles with the Islamists, who have now turned to guerrilla warfare. Both sides are attacking civilians, looting private property and making no distinction between military and civilian targets when placing people under house arrest.

The humanitarian situation in Mogadishu is dire. Over half the residents have fled to camps outside the city, and the ones that do remain have no access to medicines. The few clinics that have managed to remain open are overwhelmed treating those injured in the fighting. The UN said that there are now 850,000 displaced people in Somalia - it is overtaking Darfur as the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.

The presence of foreign troops with no clear mandate, playing one clan off another is a recipe for disaster in Somalia. Ethiopian and Eritrea are using Somalia's instability to fight a proxy war against each other and Abdullahi Yusuf has no support among the people he is meant to govern. The international community is too nervous to launch a full-scale intervention but it should be forcing Ethiopia to either impose an impartial peace on Somalia or withdraw and wait for another solution to present itself.